Last week was one of the hardest-fought battles of the tourney so far. The smooth stylings of Keith Hernandez went up against the brash bravado of Wally Backman and it looks like we have our second upset in a row. Wally Backman moves on. Keith Hernandez and his mustache power were defeated by young Wally in his utterness. Another #7 moves on! Are the number two seeds cursed?

This week, it’s time for another team-themed battle. The Brew Crew puts forward two young men in their primes for the third #2/#7 pairing. Once again, there’s a favorite. What will happen this week on Baseball Card Tourney?

#2 1980 Topps Gorman Thomas
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Depending on the punctuation, this title could set us in all sorts of directions. Google, Baseball, Shenanigans might be the story of an impromptu stickball game in the Google dining hall. Meh. Google Baseball: Shenanigans sounds more like some hot foot on the Google softball team. A little better. Google! Baseball! Shenanigans! is either a more exciting version of all of the above, or some sort of strange tribute to Tora! Tora! Tora!.

Thankfully perhaps, we’re leaving the punctuation open. But if cornered, we’d pick Google: Baseball Shenanigans, because that most correctly represents the research that went into this piece. Maybe you scoff at the methods, but the results took us on a strange trip through the meanings of the words themselves.

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We have our first upset. Dave Winfield obviously wasn’t taking the whole thing very serious and Warren Brusstar glared his way to victory. Maybe Winfield was ranked too highly, or maybe he was just bored, or maybe it was October in his world, but Brusstar’s constipated fire beat the sated mmplops look. Maybe that says something about our bathroom preferences.

Anyway. It’s time to move on. This week we have two classic Mets figures going head to head. Could we have another fire and ice pairing? Looks like it.

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To be fair, Brian Wilson is a professional athlete. He has the body for this sort of thing. But showing up to the an award show and rocking this Mr. Peanut outfit on the red carpet takes big old monkey balls.

And, we can see them.

As always, Wilson walked the line between douchey and dastardly. Notice the ninja socks. He had this to say about them, which is possibly as endearing as the outfit was daring (or annoying).

“It’s a onesie, so it has built-in gloves that are a little dirty because I’ve been getting a little awkward here on the carpet. And I’ve got my cougar cane — my ‘plus one’ tonight. And the socks came in the fan mail from a San Francisco Giants fan. You know who you are, thank you. It said: ‘Enjoy.’ That was the letter. And I’m currently enjoying them. Ninja socks.”

Let’s break down the perfect game-watching experience. A checklist!

Beverages, preferably of the adult variety.

A lack of pants, whether complete or partial, in order to keep the nether regions comfortable throughout.

So, I submit to you, perhaps the perfect-est seat for a baseball game:

Thanks to James Kannengeiser for pointing me to this Mocksession GIF.

We’re not going to break new tournament ground here. No number one seeds went down, and though Steve Bedrosian was huggable, the Mad Hungarian won out.

So now we’re on to the two seeds. And now an upset becomes more likely. Especially when the high seed looks like he’s sitting on the toilet.

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…

Brilliant.

Don’t want Derek Jeter in your life? Gone. Thanks to Jeter Filter, you can erase any mention of the Yankees shortstop from your internet world.

It does occur to me that, in the wrong hands, this might go south quickly.

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Thanks to Can’t Stop the Bleeding and my wife.

As if God smiled upon the diamond that day.

Lighting is an integral yet understated part of baseball. Sandlot ball depends on daylight, and the major leagues are bathed in fluorescence. The journey from one to the other is graded in a way that might just be unique to the sport. Basketball is forever indoor, and even a rec league can play on a well-lit court. Hockey requires an indoor space most of the time, and even my high school’s three-walled court was all up in the lights. Friday Night Lights might suggest that football has some things in common with baseball, but most football games are still day games.

Looking at this picture, it seems that the graded transition that the professional baseball player undergoes throughout his journey mimics the same transition that the sport made as a whole. Ted Williams played in the first decade after the first night game on May 24, 1935, when the Cincinnati Reds beat the Philadelphia Phillies 2-1 at Crosley Field. His time produced these dusty and dark images dripping with nostalgia. The angles and the shadows recall the chiaroscuro of black and white films. Call it the Noire period, about a decade early.

Fast forward to our time and our iconic, stark and well-lit images. Just a couple weeks ago, a game between the Giants and the Cardinals was delayed 14 minutes when merely one of the many banks of lights at Busch Stadium went out. Though the field looked well-lit to any sandlot player, the players had to wait, confused, as the stadium tried to rectify the issue. The play-by-play men joked that everyone could see fine and was ready to put this extra-inning game to bed. Conspiracy theories of icing the closer were bandied about. Most any whiffle ball player would have shrugged and thrown the next pitch.

We’ve come a long way, baby. Right?

Thanks to Brendan Bilko and his tumblr that pointed to 90 Feet of Perfection

Jobu’s power-ade.

Eliezer Alfonzo was 32 and had 545 major league plate appearances stretched across six seasons. So far he’d been the perennial third catcher for the Giants, Padres and Mariners. Then last year he put up a ‘solid’ 1.166 OPS in 71 Triple-A games and everything was going right for once. He might just have had a performance-enhacing liquid to thank for his most recent call-up.

Snake juice.

All those years in all those parks, and Alfonzo has developed quite the pre-game ritual. Once he settles down just a little from his usual loud and jovial self, Alfonzo begins his preparation for action. Pull on the uniform, one step at a time. Pull on the cleats. Check the catching gear. Once the sliding shorts are up to the armpits, there’s one last thing before he heads out of the locker room.

That’s when Alfonso pulls out his glass bottle with semi-clear liquid. Floating near the bottom is a large dead snake. Not a garter snake. Not a worm. An impressively large, very dead snake.

“Snake Juice time!” he declares to the room whether or not they care. This time, a staffer nearly vomits. Justin Smoak spits “that’s f*ing gross” into his glove. No-one moves closer. No-one wants a taste. A few people hold their noses, literally.

But Eliezer Alfonso is not fazed, and his smile does not fade. A few strong swigs of the potion and one more proclamation — “Ahhhh, Snake Juice gives me power!” Then the journeyman heads out the door.

Ready to be ready to catch.

Thanks to Ryan Divish for providing the insight and clubhouse access for this report.

And you’re too late – Eduardo Nunez is on the way.

Okay, enough with the Bon Jovi crap. It’s really the wrong music for this GIFtasm from River Avenue Blues. More likely, you have circus music going through your head as you appreciate the beauty that is the infield-single-man-down. Though circus music doesn’t quite provide the correct background for the violence that was done to Ramiro Pena. Maybe something booming and a little whimsical. Maybe dancehall?

Also, whatever the soundtrack, this seems like a uniquely baseballish event. Maybe it’s just getting caught up in the glory, but doesn’t baseball seem like the best place to find iconic moments like this? I’m thinking of that baseball bouncing out of Ryan Raburn’s glove, or the time Jose Canseco brained the ball over the wall, or maybe even that bird Randy Johnson killed.

Baseball: where ridiculous happens more often than any other sport.

H/T: Jonah Keri