The idea is that some day in the distant, unknowable, far-flung future I’ll get around to thinking about the idea of pondering the vague possibility of the notion of perhaps considering doing one of these for each team. For starters, though, we have the proud history of the New York Yankees told in pictures and accompanied by the throbbing beats of Rock and/or Roll music …
There are ballplayers some fans admire to the point of wanting their autographs, and then there are ballplayers some fans admire to the point of wanting to wear them as pelts. Giants catcher Buster Posey, we must assume, has skin like fine Corinthian leather …
Awesome? On some level. Shuddersome? On every level.
(Curtsy: Big League Stew)
Proceed to the nearest mountaintop and bellow: “Joe West will stop ejecting the world when the world stops doing things that merit ejection.”
Like any good blogger, Murray Chass is often angry about things — angry enough to bang Internet spoon on bloggy highchair. His latest bete noir, of which there are multitudes, is the imagined whippersnapper who’s responsible for the mollycoddling of today’s stick-and-ball bowlers. Grrr:
Pitchers have never had so many friends – in baseball itself and on the periphery of baseball. People keep coming up with excuses for pitchers and more crutches for them than for a legion of Tiny Tims.
Along with excuses, people keep lowering the standards for pitchers. People in my once proud profession are probably mostly to blame because the younger generation of baseball writers have led the rush to the dark side, believing their new view of statistics is more significant than the view of the older writers that has prevailed for as long as baseball has been played.
This, of course, is a common refrain. I’m not particularly interested in pitch-count arguments, but I am interested in bizarre physical extremes. So to make Mr. Chass and his band of renown feel a bit better, let’s think back to a time when pitchers truly were men among sniveling, rat-faced cowards like me. Consider this 1942 tale of brawn, flinty resolve and limestone testicles:
At Korakuen Stadium in Tokyo‚ one of the most memorable games in Japanese League history takes place‚ a 28-inning marathon (4-4 tie) between Nagoya and Taiyo. It takes three hours and 47 minutes and both starters‚ Michio Nishizawa of Nagoya and Jiro Noguchi of Taiyo‚ go all the way: Nishizawa 311 pitches; Noguchi 344. Games are not allowed to end in a tie because the league has to show off their fighting spirit‚ according to historian Yoichi Nagata. Because this is the last day of the spring schedule in the three-part season (spring‚ summer and fall)‚ closing ceremonies and awards are scheduled‚ so officials order the umpire to end the game. Nagoya uses only 9 players‚ and Taiyo‚ 10. Despite the war‚ the game is noted in TSN.
You know what real men do besides brawl in churches and use Valvoline to deep-fry falcon meat? They throw 344 mothertrucking pitches in a game.
Once, in a Diamond Mind league, I stretched out Scott Erickson to 260 pitches in order to allow my crippled bullpen to fight another day. And even though it was fake and on a computer and all that stuff (but we totally had girlfriends, so shut up), the notion of ritually abusing a fake computer pitcher to such an extent still struck my competitors as crazy. But 344 pitches in a single game of real-life, board-certified baseball? That’s crazy — as crazy as a gorilla with rabies, which, I am confident, is a thing that would be quite crazy.
My point in all of this? Murray Chass is a blogger.
Remember this grim scene from last season?
Yes, that’s the Astros fan who positioned himself to catch a foul ball, got the jimmy-shakes at the last instant, recoiled, and allowed the cowhide to smack his unsuspecting ingenue. The lesson for vacant-eyed ladies like the one in this story is that a guy who wears his hat like that and rocks the douche-lord beard is probably not someone you want escorting you into the foxhole that is the third-base line.
Anyhow, the crackers of jokes at Tosh.0 have caught up with the blighted couple and provided a video update on their gripping tale. Said video is not safe for work if your place of work frowns upon profanity, thinly-veiled innuendo, depressing portrayals of Gen Y, and loin-hugging “American Gladiators” uniforms.
(Curtsy: Deadspin)
Fretful that zombie ants and their killer fungus overlords will soon make a delicious hash of us all? Distract yourselves with the latest in computer news! Here is said news in miniature …
Indeed, Prodigy users, Crash Bandicoot enthusiasts and other computer people will be pleased to know that the flinty innovators at Interpretation By Design, who have always been there for those with nowhere left to turn, have concocted a flow chart that tells you which MLB squad most deserves your rooting interests.
I answered the questions with so much integrity and uprightness that I feel like I should go out and buy a magistrate’s wig. My reward? I’m told I should be a Padres fan. There’s nothing wrong with the Padres, of course, but I am, by righteous birth and earned-in-the-streets inclination, a Cardinals partisan. At this point, I must assume that someone — that hellhound Dave Cameron, perhaps — has altered my factory settings.
And what of you, page viewers? What does the flowchart tell you? And if it differs from your innermost baseball longings, what will you tell the zombie ants when they order you to declare final loyalties before disemboweling you and feasting on your still-steaming viscera?
(Curtsy: NotGraphs reader Paul, who, reputation has it, is as good at push-ups as he is algebra and romance.)
Do you have a voice as sweet as honey-baked ham sans ham, which I imagine would be quite sweet? (Food metaphor! … Actually, food simile, but rules of usage, much like parents, just don’t understand.) If that describes you and your pipes, then the Chicago Cubs are leveling their Uncle Sam-like pointer finger in your direction. That means they quite possibly want you!
Yes, the Cubs have teamed with CareerBuilder.com, which is a computer Web site that helps you build your career, to find a a new public-address announcer. Some qualifications:
If I were Rick Reilly, at this point I would include yuks like … “Preference given to those who are also left-handed relievers. Ha!” Or: “Don’t worry about the whole ‘play-off games’ part. Ha!” Or: “His doctor told him to play 36 holes a day, so he went out and bought a harmonica. Ha!”
Instead, I’ll focus on the grim “periods of extreme weather” throwaway line and warn you that in Chicago we sometimes have … THUNDERSNOW!!!1!1!!!ONE!!1!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJt4nV6hM1Y
ARGH!
But seriously, the Cubs are looking for a new P.A. announcer, and by using the Careerbuilder.com interface you can —
Shit: THUNDERSNOW!!!1!1!!!ONE!!1!
While the actual baseball race in the American League Central should be compelling enough, there’s another pitched battle (baseball pun, free of charge) developing in Flyover Nation. This battle, naturally enough, is over proposed civic statues that will never actually happen.
In Detroit, home of the Tigers and Miguel Cabrera’s basest urges, there’s a movement afoot to construct a giant totem to the greatest half-man/half-machine to take back the streets since Nathan Hale. I speak, of course, of Robocop.
In Kansas City, home of the Royals and their discontents, the people want, automatically and for them, a statue of relentless tickler of funny bones Vicky Lawrence dressed up as everyone’s favorite rolling pin-wielding materfamilias, Mama from “Mama’s Family.”
Remember the Tom Selleck baseball vehicle stunningly titled Mr. Baseball? In said tale, a boorish American ballplayer goes to ply his trade in Japan and eventually gets a massage in a tub. As Hollywood and the Bill of Rights teach us, every Japanese person is quiet, workaday, self-serious, and hopelessly yoked to tradition. So you can imagine the clash of cultures that ensues. I don’t exaggerate when I use words and phrases like “madcap” and “hazardous to the funny bones.”
Anyhow, Giants skipper Bruce Bochy consulted on the film, and he recently recalled a thing or two about a thing or two related to said film …
That’s a picture of Teddy Roosevelt putting some lead in Bigfoot.
And right now it’s the only thing that helps.
Why my long face? As you have no doubt heard, my team’s ace, the lovely and talented Adam Wainwright, is probably out for the season and facing Tommy John surgery. Needless to say, this likely dry-gulches our chances in the balanced (if unspectacular) NL Central. Given the subsequent pitching shortage and the lateness of this hour, I fully expect that an NRI will soon be extended to Charlie Brown or Scott Stapp or, worse, Jaime Navarro.
And here I am, left with nothing but beery regrets.
