Archive for Audio and/or Visual

BayBank! It was a thing!

Last night, Ryan Braun hit three home runs at Petco Park, the second (and probably most impressive) of which reached the top floor of the Western Metal Supply Co. building in left field (video).

The sequence led Bob Uecker, the famous and wise radio voice of the Milwaukee Brewers, to provide — for the benefit of both the home audience and broadcast partner Joe Block — a totally true and in-no-way-fictional history of the Western Metal Supply Co. itself.

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First and foremost: Mental health is no joke. Jose Canseco needs help, man. But this is pretty good:

Detail from Francesco Traini’s Triumph of Death, an inspiration for Totentanz.

While there are surely a number of factors to consider when assessing the degree to which a musical work might serve as an effective closer entrance song, the most important of these (i.e. these factors) is surely the degree to which the music in question gives an opposing team’s batters the sense that some manner of gross physical discomfort is about to be visited upon their respective persons.

It has recently come to the attention of this author that the opening minute-plus of composer Franz Liszt’s Totentanz — or, in English, Dance of the Dead — ably fulfills this most important of criteria.*

Note: the author is aware that Liszt’s piece is not technically a “song.” I’m merely using the term colloquially.

Liszt, who himself was known to visit hospitals and asylums as a recreational activity, never formally described the piece as “the soundtrack to an impromptu and forcible colorectal exam performed by the Devil himself” — although one assumes, while listening to the work, that this was his intention.

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Here’s something you may not know: these unused Topps master slides from 1978-1983 inspired many of our finest authors and works of literature. Proof? Proof:

Richie Zisk

“He allowed himself to be swayed by his conviction that human beings are not born once and for all on the day their mothers give birth to them, but that life obliges them over and over again to give birth to themselves.” -Gabriel Garcí­a Márquez

George Hendrick

“I took a deep breath and listened to the old brag of my heart. I am, I am, I am.” -Sylvia Plath
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I fancy myself a baseball “artist” but I am a tiny speck on a giant, awesome tradition of depicting the game in all kinds of ways. Baseball art has evolved from cigarette cards to so much more, but the best baseball artists have retained a pure love-of-the-game and it shines through their work. These ladies and dudes intimidate and inspire me every day!

Texan-turned-Brooklynite Paul Windle does illustrations for all kinds of publications, including Grantland and The Classical, but my favorite project of his is obviously his Mid-70s Baseball Dudes. These guys are off the hook.

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This video, by Toronto celebrity Kathy Anderson, speaks to me, man. You haven’t lived until you’ve walked drunk up the many, many ramps to the Rogers Centre’s Skydome’s 500 level.

I’m ready, too. So ready. All I want is some meaningful baseball. I’m not asking for much.

(If you’re going to comment about the shot of the wave at the end of the clip, don’t do it. I get it: everyone hates the bloody wave.)

Few could forget the sensational YouTube video that launched the career of Yoenis Cespedes. The Oakland Athletics outfielder has since gone on to become the greatest outfielder in the MLB, leading the league in homers through the first 4 games of the season. Because most MLB scouts get their news first from YouTube, it will come as little surprise that the next Yoenis Cespedes is making a similar entrànce.

The following video features FanGraphs (RotoGraphs) writer David Wiers, approximately an impress seven hands tall, at first whiffing on 50 mph high, sizzling heat, and then utilizing some classic Oakland Athletics plate patience (i.e. asking his friend to aim the pitching machine lower) to get the pitcher exactly where he wanted him. Wiers then summons the totem spirit: elephant via his Daric Barton shirsey, and he starts cracking some scalding weak dribblers — presumably through the drawn-in infield for some triples and hustle-doubles.

Situational hitting!:

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The Pittsburgh Pirates, who featured probably the worst center-field camera angle in all of baseball last season, appear to have changed that for the 2012 campaign. It’s almost definitely a top-five camera, at this point.

On Monday, I took your brains on a magical ride to a place where the sand flows like wine and the sun shines like the moon — Phoenix. Today, I bring the thrilling quasi-conclusion of that epic weekend.

For those who are having difficulty following the carefully crafted plot, check out the first video. It has already been submitted to Cannes with, quote, “High expectations.”