This is very likely not the best defensive play Braves shortstop prospect Andrelton Simmons has ever made — or, indeed, will make in the future. However, it’s the best defensive play that Simmons has ever made and which has also been captured from the internet, edited, exported into a GIF file, and then embedded in a NotGraphs post, from the fourth inning of a March 14th spring-training game with Mark Teahen batting.
This, sorta in the words of Montell Jordan, is how you do it — where “do it” is synonymous with “get into Jonathan Broxton’s pants.”
Tim Collins and me…in Jonathan Broxton’s pants! twitter.com/teaparty61/sta…
— Everett Teaford (@teaparty61) March 15, 2012
The highest of fives to Mike Axisa.
While, as Mike Axisa noted yesterday in these pages, most of Team FanGraphs has returned from its annual pilgrimage to the American Desert, such is not the case for our masculine and dangerous founder, David Appelman. Instead, Appelman has — in the tradition of some Native American tribes and also ASU freshmen — has embarked upon a vision quest in the lands surrounding Phoenix.
For obvious reasons, it’s impossible to remain in contact with Appelman as he traverses the parched landscape, naked but for blue jeans and a developing taste for coyote meat. However, evidence of his hallucinogenic walkabout arrived by mail yesterday and has been embedded in this post for the reader’s consideration.
Baseballing great Ralph Kiner, as he does sometimes, joined the Mets television broadcast team yesterday for the club’s spring-training game against St. Louis.
During the bottom of third inning, the conversation turned to the 1961 1962 expansion Mets, for which Kiner was an announcer. Kiner shared a couple of anecdotes regarding that team’s manager, Casey Stengel — and, in particular, Stengel’s opinions on when a baseballer should and shouldn’t do his drinking.
Enjoy said wisdom in its rough, uncut version via the the audio player above.
By definition, advertising is designed to produce within the consumer irrational and positive feelings for the goods or services being advertised. It’s largely because of advertising, for example — and brand creation, generally — that my wife has recently informed me her next computer will be a Mac, despite the fact that (a) she’s incapable of articulating the actual technical differences between Macs and PCs and (b) we definitely cannot afford one of those things. She “prefers” Macs, is what she tells me. I, for my part, prefer large-bosomed American socialites. We can’t, in this life, have everything we want.
And yet, the advertising community is also populated by a number of talented people — including, specifically, members of American advertising firm Copacino+Fujikado, who have been responsible for the Seattle Mariners’ TV commercials since 1996.
The firm recently (it seems) released five new ads for the 2012 season. They appear below, sans comment.
Tampa Bay Rays prized left-handed prospect Matt Moore makes his first appearance of the spring (at 1:05pm ET, available on Gameday Audio) after dealing with an abdominal strain.
For those unfamiliar with the entirety of Moore’s professional career to date, here are some selections from his entry in the 2012 Tampa Bay Rays Media Guide:
• Was Gatorade’s 2007 New Mexico Player of the Year at Moriarty High School, which finished as state runners-up… also played basketball and golf… played first base and outfield when he wasn’t pitching… agreed to attend University of New Mexico before signing with the Rays.
• Led all minor league pitchers in 2008 with a 12.75 SO/9 IP ratio and .154 opp avg… named Pitcher of the Year for Rookie-level Princeton, where he spent a second straight season… led the Rays org. in ERA and ranked 6th among all minor league pitchers… topped the Appalachian League in strikeouts.
• Matt’s favorite pitcher growing up was his own future self.
To point is one thing; to laugh, another. Sometimes, however, there are occasions that call for the combination of the two, such that one finds oneself both pointing and laughing.
While I, an avid drinker of the milk of human kindness, hardly condone such behavior, a number of respondents to our call for GIF-worthy footage are not so reserved in their capacity for finding joy in the weakness of others.
Said respondents pointed the author to the above footage, of a gentleman — a gentleman “tanked” to the “gills” — falling out of the stands while attempting to retrieve a foul ball at the Red Sox’ jetBlue Park in Fort Myers, Florida during a Sunday afternoon game.
Making the sequence more amusing — for Red Sox fans, a least — is likely the fact that said tanked gentleman is, like many devotees of late Dear Leader Kim Jong-il, a Yankees fan.
There are six spring-training games available on MLB.TV today, which equates to roughly 18 hours of baseball, which suggests that probably at least one marvelous thing will happen today.
Because we at NotGraphs are dedicated to documenting the marvelous — and because the present author is the sort of person who has “downloaded” the necessary “software” — it follows that we should render footage of said marvelous thing into GIF form, fit for public consumption.
Having said that, it should be noted that the author is unable — owing to his many Important Duties — the author is unable to watch all 18 of those hours of baseball. So it falls to the bespectacled readership to serve as the eyes, ears, and (for some, unrelated reason) glistening biceps of said author.
In the event that he/she isn’t too busy, the attentive reader would do well to report in the comments section any instances of the following, with a view towards that manufacture of a GIF:
• Decidedly breathtaking pitches
• Particularly amusing incidents
• Probably anything Melky Cabrera does
Providing the inning and batter and count and whatever-all-else would be helpful, as well.
Allez, NotGraphs, allez.
Please note, for your records, that Mississippi Matt Smith is the newest contributor to NotGraphs and submitted his first, uh, submission to our electronic pages earlier today.
Note, additionally, that he has asked me repeatedly and with vigor not to refer to him publicly as Mississippi Matt Smith.
Note, thirdly, that I have not only ignored his protests, but have, in fact, furtively changed his display name to Mississippi Matt Smith.
In conclusion, here’s a frightening Eudora Welty-shaped mask:
In his important work on the nature of play, Man, Play, and Games, late French sociologist Roger Caillois argues that, in those societies where simulation and disguise are utilized, they are often done so as a means to ecstasy of some sort.
This footage of left-handed reliever and newish New York Met Tim Byrdak dressed as wrestler Hulk Hogan does little to dispel that notion — on account of all the ecstasy present in it, I mean.
Video courtesy Matthew Cerrone of MetsBlog. Brought to the author’s attention by noted Hulkamaniac Mike Axisa.
