Astros hurler Brett Myers (Throws: Right; Bats: Right; Breathes: Mouth) has a bobblehead. The discerning observer who discerns will notice that Myers and his totem-self share the innermost wrath that makes the larger, more ambulatory Myers at once an intimidating hurler and smoldering menace. Absorb:
As renderings go, it’s impressive. Also impressive is this sneak preview of the forthcoming Ryan Theriot Bobblehead:
Bobble of head: Alyson Footer
Continuing this site’s very obvious Middle West bias, it’s with no little pleasure that I submit to the NotGraphs readership A Thing I Just Found on the Internet.
Specifically, the thing is an announcement — an announcement, dating from April 25h, by State Senator Tim Carpenter (D–Milwaukee) that each January 26th will now officially be Bob Uecker Day in the State of Wisconsin.
Regard, plagiarism:
“I was deeply honored this Saturday to deliver the official resolution to Bob Uecker at his radio booth at Miller Park. Bob’s famous ‘Get up, Get up, Get Out of Here, Gone’ signature call has marked thousands of Milwaukee Brewer home runs to every fan’s delight,” said Carpenter.
“Bob Uecker has been calling play-by-play radio broadcasts for the Milwaukee Brewers for 40 years. I grew up listening to Bob Uecker’s broadcasts with my parents and his great enthusiasm helped spark my love of baseball. He is a beloved figure in Wisconsin baseball,” said Carpenter.
There’s no mention as to whether state employees will receive the day off from work, although Carpenter did go on to implore everyone to enjoy a Usinger’s sausage “with some crisp kraut.”
Executive Summary: The KC Star’s Royals blogger, Lee Judge, recently criticized Wilson Betemit for not taking an 81-mph slider in the ribs with the bases loaded. In order to lend the heft of authority to his criticism, Mr. Judge then decided to see what an 81-mph slider to the ribs felt like. This is Mr. Judge’s superlative video tale of journalistic integrity and a large, red welt.
(Frog-punch in the arm: BBTF)
In this space we are duty-bound to pass along great manager tirades. What follows, however, comes to us from the ivory towers of academia, where they call managers “head coaches” but still make them wear uniforms. Texas head coach Auggie Garrido has lots of success at the major-college level, and I’d like to think that’s because he has a mouth that’s dirtier than Pig Pen’s bedpan. (You have probably surmised that the following walking tour of the undesirable neighborhoods of the King’s English is not safe for work, unless your place of employment is just really great.) Behold, respectfully:
At this point we are, necessarily and in abundant awe, left to wonder: which of the following is the most rousing, most soaring, most eagle-winged speech, delivered to the college man in need of a guiding paternal hand, in the annals of time? Your candidates …
A. “Win one for the Gipper!”
B. “If it was a boxing match and each individual took the beating that we took here today, I wouldn’t have to be doing this. I’d just come and visit your ass in the hospital and say, ‘When you get the fu*king wires off of your mouth from the broken jaw, and you can see again because your eyes are swollen now, and you can walk again because the guy just punched you in the gut 55 fu*king times,’ all I’d have to say is, ‘With all that, when you get better, we’ll have a little chat about how this guy just fu*king destroyed you.’ Okay?”
C. “Totally fu*king stupid!”
D. Both B and C.
As someone who derives unusual joy from baseball statistics, I feel sanctioned in observing that this is a positive development for me and some of my fellow travelers:
The device looks like an ordinary box attached to a computer with a rotating straw. A closer look reveals otherwise. Students at Japan’s Kajimoto Laboratory at the University of Electro-Communications have created a small device that uses motor rotations with the aim to simulate the feeling of a kiss over the Internet.
…
Upon closer inspection, we learn that the kissing device responds directly to a person’s tongue. On one end, a person rotates the “straw” in one direction and the “straw” on the other end will rotate in the same direction. The result is a powerful tactile response that feels like you’re giving or receiving a kiss.
And best of all!
With the ability to record kissing patterns, the device could be a one-solution-cure to loneliness.
Some observations, bullet-pointed for today’s business traveler …
Smooch!
It’s been a rough week for Osama Bin Laden. First, he was killed. Then the Times refused to call him “Mr.” (The Gray Lady withholds the honorific from only the world’s most wretched scoundrels.) Then he crossed over to the dimensionless horrors that awaited him. And now Bin Laden’s (no “Mr.” for you, you dead, rotting jerkwad!) pleasing demise has united those previously immune to unity: the Mets and the Phillies. Witness spontaneous chants of nation-state:
“I don’t like to give Philly fans too much credit,” David Wright said of the binding powers of Bin Laden and his sucking chest wounds, “but they got this one right.”
This is a trucker hat. With a Montreal Expos Larry Walker baseball card printed on the front. From the eBay listing description:
We acquired this rare cap and many others from a direct family relative of LARRY WALKER in Maple Ridge, B.C. – his home town! 🙂
Personally, I’m not the biggest fan of the trucker hat style but I do think this is a brilliant idea as far as cap logos go. I just don’t think I’d drop 22 bucks on it (plus shipping and handling!).
Hat tip to Matt Clapp of Sharapova’s Thigh and his readers, 89% of whom would rock this style as of this writing.
Weary of those ancient ballpark urinals found in haunts like Wrigley, Fenway and Dodger, the ones taken from Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello estate? Know that the future brings hope …
“Thermochromic coating on steel panel” or urination sorcery? The latter, obviously.
If nothing else, team owners now have the tidy rationale they need for the next round of taxpayer-funded stadium refurbishments. Bodily Functions 2.0!
Did you miss the explosive and exploding inaugural NotGraphs chat? If so, then please enjoy one of the highlights …
NotGraphs reader/chatterer/philosopher-king stevedore SubtleStatement passed this along, and let’s just say our gratitude is incalculable. Not even Dave Cameron could calculate our gratitude — that’s how incalculable it is.
Anyhow, Garvey later impregnated that ninja! Untrue fact!
So loyal NotGraphs commenter Card Archives (more on that name in a moment), who is also a broad-shouldered captain of industry, has done a thing and that thing is amazing.
I can’t begin to fathom the Mennonite’s toil that went into cataloguing every Topps baseball card ever, but I stand agape. And then I fall down, still agape.
So lose yourselves within his pages, stick-and-ball enthusiasts, and know that here at NotGraphs a hero walks among us.
