Archive for Audio and/or Visual

This video footage of Phil Rizzuto maniacally sawing a live woman in half represents only one of roughly 800 video spots the late Yankee shortstop and broadcaster did for consumer financiers The Money Store in the late 1980s and early ’90s — i.e. at precisely the same time giants of rap N.W.A. very-not-coincidentally released their single “Gangsta Gangsta”.

Next week, we’ll look at Rizzuto’s spokeswork for noted clothier American Apparel.

As you may have noticed, there is no baseball here. There is, however, baseball’s older, slightly more distinguished and certainly more long-winded cousin. So please go here and watch a video of a rather amazing cricket catch that defies both belief and efforts to embed. Is it a “catch,” or do they have some rather very cricketty word for it like “capture” or “glom” or “Bonnie Prince Ensnarement”?

In any event, if this cricket video sustains even a single base-and-ball fan through this pointless respite, then the entire breadth of British colonialism will have been worth it.

There is no baseball here, but there are things somewhat like baseball somewhere.

You’re going to want to embiggen. Actually, click here.

While there are plenty of brilliant outcomes to choose from, my favorite one is: “Why?”

I feel you, Orioles fans. I do. But, as the flowchart accurately points out, at least you’ve got a fabulous ballpark.

A tip of the cap — a brand new Orioles one — to the Tumblr account of Billy, 22, from Virginia, which he’s named, “You Will Always Be A Loser.” Billy’s a true Orioles fan, no doubt.

The NotGraphs Investigative Reporting Investigation team has confirmed, through highly placed sources, that the following is a Thing That Actually Happened. At this time, we know little else about this thing, but it happened and elicited in onlookers emotions ranging from “happy-lucky” to “no more of this; leave me the hell be.” Again, we know it happened:

True, there is no baseball here. But there once was. And there shall be again.

“This was a childhood favorite of mine. Now it just really fu*king pisses me off.

If you enjoy hopelessly outdated video simulations, liberal and spirited use of the F word, pretend baseball, and a gamer’s discontent, then the following is for you:

This was once a good thing, but it is now a bad thing. Every day is better than the next.

I regret to be the one to inform you, but baseball as we know it was murdered in 2008. What you’ve been watching in the ensuing three years has been simply the death throes of a game we all love, gasping for air and seizing as it goes into shock…or something (I’m not a doctor; that’s a thing, right?)

“What felled mighty baseball?” you ask, in expectation that in the next paragraph I will tell you. “Surely no one human person is capable of destroying something so fine and beautiful.”

You would be correct. While some might argue that Ryan Braun is killing the game we love so much, baseball was not murdered at the hands of man. No. Baseball was ruined, as most things eventually are, by vampires. Observe:

Read the rest of this entry »

“Ed” is movie about a monkey who can play baseball and the shitty pitcher who befriends him. There is a mechanical chimp in this movie. Worse, there is a Matt LeBlanc in this movie. Here is a trailer, which, you will surely find, is mortifying in its breadth:

“Ed” has a Tomatometer rating of 0%. IMDB proclaims, in Augustine of Hippo fashion, that the following is a memorable quote from “Ed“:

Jack “Duece” Cooper: I am going to spank that monkey!

He’s not talking about masturbating. He’s talking about beating a chimp with an open hand in order to impart some kind of lesson or set in motion the oft-taught cinematic lesson of regeneration through violence.

“Ed” is memorable. That one time you got hobo spit in your eyes was memorable in the same manner. And that’s apparently how the movie chooses to spell the word better known as “Deuce,” which, in the full light of its atrocities, is fine, I suppose.

It would seem that $6.288 million worth of human beings paid to suffer the afflictions of “Ed,” a movie, let us remember, about a baseball player and a chimp and the poo jokes that bind them.

Distinction withers. No one is named “Woodrow” anymore. People make movies like “Ed.” The world spins on its axis in a numbing dance. Fools like us mistake the ending for endlessness.

Danny Knobler of CBS Sports is reporting that the Detroit Tigers are close to signing veteran right-handed reliever Octavio Dotel. If and when the deal is made official, the Tigers will become Dotel’s 13th team in 14 seasons.

That’s not technically everywhere, but it’s a-bunch-of-where.

To wit:

Reno, Chicago, Fargo, Minnesota,
Buffalo, Toronto, Winslow, Sarasota,
Wichita, Tulsa, Ottawa, Oklahoma,
Tampa, Panama, Mattawa, La Paloma,
Bangor, Baltimore, Salvador, Amarillo,
Tocapillo, Baranquilla, and Perdilla.

Boston, Charleston, Dayton, Louisiana,
Washington, Houston, Kingston, Texarkana,
Monterey, Faraday, Santa Fe, Tallapoosa,
Glen Rock, Black Rock, Little Rock, Oskaloosa,
Tennessee to Tennesse Chicopee, Spirit Lake,
Grand Lake, Devils Lake, Crater Lake.

Louisville, Nashville, Knoxville, Ombabika,
Schefferville, Jacksonville, Waterville, Costa Rica,
Pittsfield, Springfield, Bakersfield, Shreveport,
Hackensack, Cadillac, Fond du Lac, Davenport,
Idaho, Jellico, Argentina, Diamantina,
Pasadena, Catalina.

Pittsburgh, Parkersburg, Gravelbourg, Colorado,
Ellensburg, Rexburg, Vicksburg, Eldorado,
Larimore, Admore, Haverstraw, Chatanika,
Chaska, Nebraska, Alaska, Opelika,
Baraboo, Waterloo, Kalamazoo, Kansas City,
Sioux City, Cedar City, Dodge City.

Credit to Baseball Reference for minor-league information.

Here’s how life works, basically:

1. Get born.

2. Meet a woman.

3. Have kids.

4. Google “yakov smirnoff” baseball.

5. Die.

You will often hear those given to bemoaning bemoan the notion that Kids Today don’t play pickup baseball with the frequency or vigor that they did back in the days of the bemoaner. But, lo, there is good news! Thanks to an enterprising Japanese astronaut, we now know that any young stripling can hone his baseball chops with nothing more than a bat, a ball and a readily available zero-gravity environment. No need for friends or neighborhood confreres! Witness, my love:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xsNFqMtNZvI&feature=player_embedded

He balked.

(HT: The Internet)