Archive for A GIF and a Tune

As you undoubtedly already know, Jose Molina is something of a scratch base runner. On his career, he has 20 steals in 27 attempts, and 10 of those steals have come over the last four seasons. David G. Temple took some time to rightfully marvel over Molina’s 3-for-3 this season, which allows me to make a post I’ve been wanting to for awhile, except could not because of Laziness.

Here is Molina’s steal from 7/12/2014:

Here is that steal, Temple’s second GIF, repurposed with slower motion for to affect your feals. And here find also appropriately inspirational tunes:

Look, the merging of these two categories was bound to happen at some point. Is this the best possible vehicle for it? I can’t say. What I can say is that the impending doom of this very Internet site is leaving me with a bit of a inclination to make sure this happened at some point. Now it has. Will it make the eventual “50 NotGraphs Posts That Will Remind You How Great David G. Temple Was” retrospective at BuzzFeed? I can’t say, though I’d like to let the editors of BuzzFeed know I am available for consultation on the matter.

Nevertheless, here’s an Anthony Rizzo highlight in reverse:

Here is some music for which to accompany it:

yakety

This hot footage was captured not on America’s actual birthday, but Mike Trout doesn’t need the excuse of an anniversary to show that he does, indeed, love America. As if you didn’t know that already.

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america

Some might possibly consider what happened to umpire Joe West during Tuesday’s OAK-NYM game a “scary moment”.

But lest we forget that Joe West is not only aided by a thick layer of padding (and also his umping gear HEY-YO!), but he is fortified by good-old American grit (and American grits HEY-YO!).

Joe West can be seen as a (perhaps weak) metaphor for America herself. Sure, sometimes we take a screaming liner off the chest. Wars? Down economy? Measles coming back? Gridlocked Congress? Another season of Grey’s Anatomy? We can take anything, God damn it! And if we can’t take it, we’re going to stand here and pretend like we can so we don’t look like pussies. In the case of this (perhaps weak) metaphor, Joe West is a Real American.

Joe West American

This (walk-off) slide to the plate was, in a word, super.

Watch:

Listen (majestic movie version):

Listen (hip-hop version):

I believe it was Winston Churchill — or Oprah — that said “Some dreams live on in time forever. Those dreams, you want with all your heart.”

It is true — a tale as old as the game itself, really — that young boys and girls have shared dreams of growing big and tomahawking pitchouts four feet outside the zone in order to distract the catcher into horking the throw to second base. Texas Rangers shortstop Elvis Andrus had such dreams as a child. And for this dream, Andrus will reach. Some days are meant to be remembered, indeed.

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(h/t to Grant Brisbee)

Feelin’/lookin’ fine.

In the summertime — and when it’s baseball season, it’s summertime — Dale prefers to keep a good sweat-lather about him at all times. Keeps ‘im fresh. That’s where Dale’s moustache comes in. Well, Dale’s moustache comes into play a lot of places, if you catch Dale’s drift, which, it’s probably impossible not to.

Well, too, you can’t really call Dale’s moustache a moustache; it’s more’n that. Gatekeeper of Dale’s Face, call it. Sigourney effin’ Weaver in Ghostbusters, call it. Keeper of every secret you ever wanted to know; every phone number, too. Alyssa Milano? If you reached far enough inside Dale’s ‘stache, there’s a direct line to Alyssa Milano’s bedside phone. But that’s fer Dale’s use only.

Anyways, that’s not the only thing Dale’s got stashed up in the ol’ Gatekeeper. Got about a dozen tiny Icers in there, chillin’ in a tiny ice bed. If you see Dale sniff real hard on the mound? That’s Dale snortin’ a much needed Icer, from down in the chops, up through the lip-tickler, an’ straight to his brain. Whoo-boy, Dale! Got it goin’!

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There is a common saying bandied about when a particular thing is easy to make fun of ; “The Joke Writes Itself.”

As a writer of comedy jokes, these moments are always welcome. This is one such moment.

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2013 was a bad year for you, Astros fans, and if we’re being honest — and why wouldn’t we — 2014 isn’t going to be a whole lot better.

And when the doggiest days of summer are upon you, when hope is but a degrading granule of sugar in the boiling bathtub of water that is Houston fandom, remember this; Jose Altuve will tumble for you.

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(INTERNET) — Holy crapballs.

Finally something to watch in the offseason. Need an accompanying tune? Give this a go. It’s New Years Day. You should be home. So don’t complain about NSFW lyrics.

Thanks to DRaysBay writer D. Russ for sharing this.