Archive for Audio and/or Visual

Brian Wilson is on the disabled list. His beard is not.

Fear the beard, my friends. I do.

Ryan Braun will be buried in an Ed Hardy t-shirt, reports suggest.

There’s a conversation to be had regarding the role of the beat reporter in the Electronic Age. There’s also a conversation to be had as to whether Electronic Age really ought to be capitalized like that.

Before we have either of those conversations, though, let’s how about praise MLB.com’s Brewer beat reporter Jordan Schelling for getting to the Heart of the Matter this afternoon and dispersing the above image to The People.

The photo, one will note immediately, captures the scene of Ryan Braun’s grisly death yesternight — and appears to be the handiwork of Brewer right-handers Yovani Gallardo and Shaun Marcum, plus bullpen catcher Marcus Hanel.

I believe the reader will join me in being entirely not surprised that a bullpen catcher was involved in this endeavor.

Because I’m in a public area and forgot my headphones, I have no idea what sort of audio commentary accompanies the videos below. But because they’re all weird and all happened in the span of a single game — specifically, Wednesday night’s game between the Cardinals and Brewers of America’s Middle West — I’ve made an executive decision and embedded the hell out of them anyway.

Furthermore, strictly for the purposes of esses and gees, I’ve attempted to intuit what the likely audio commentary is for each of the videos below. I’m confident that my guesses are equal parts accurate and libelous.

Commentary: The ghost of Reggie Miller, who everyone knows died in 2003, is haunting Ryan Braun/got pretty decent seats for a ghost.

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The video that follows, which is action-video footage of the greatest Lincoln-Douglass/Webster-Hayne blah-blah ever to grace the diamond, will not be safe for work unless your place of employment is a dirty-word factory, in which case I shall now search for you on LinkedIn.

This video has also been viewed more than a half-million times, so it’s quite possible you number among those lucky, teeming thousands. Still, some things, like the Uffizi or the liquor store, are worth visiting again and again. And so we shall …

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kl-4FSRYagc

The melodic progression of the debate peaks at the 2:04 mark, when the two gentlemanly combatants make love to the listener-viewer by discussing whether Earl Weaver will go to the Hall of Fame for winning games or for “f*cking up World Series.”

There is a small, good, round miracle to be found in the moving video images that follow. The miracle is not that Derek Lowe has finally hit his first major-league home run. No, the miracle is that the ball that Mr. Lowe smote for his first major-league home run, through a series of adventures and fortuities, managed to beat Mr. Lowe back to the dugout.

Once more, for the deserved emphasis: Derek Lowe hit a ball for a home run, and the ball made it back to the dugout before he did. While I am very much a liar, in this instance I do not lie:

I care not to plumb the relevant databases, but I attest that this has never happened before. On this, I would bet the lives of millions of strangers.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5EUTEPFq5iQ&

Alec Baldwin: Living the dream. That’s not to say I’m on Baldwin’s side in his fight to the finish with card-carrying Red Sox Nation member John Krasinski. Not at all. As a Blue Jays supporter, I’m mostly just bitter.

Fine, not “mostly.” Just plain bitter. Laughter helps. Booze, too.

And: Let it be said that as the gulf between rich and poor, have and have-not, in our society only grows wider, I might actually believe that 912 is 911 for rich people.

Addendum: I called 912. Nothing happened. But that’s not surprising; “they” know I’m not rich. Trust nobody.

H/T: The Hall of Very Good. Follow him. Yes, right now.

Back in 1976, when men were men and the drugs were just, just great, Philadelphians succumbed to what can best be described as one of the grooviest blood-borne soul-borne pathogens ever to roll across the plains, hills, dance floors, and sex parlors of America …

Some might question the verisimilitude of some parts of this audio recording. However, I have it on good authority that when Garry Maddox and Dave Cash have a conversation over Citizens’ Band Radio, it’s absolutely on the subject of the hottest thing in town.

Notice some fresh, oozing papules on the epidermis? You’ve got Phillies Fever, my friend.

While I have only the most tenuous grasp over cricket and its rules/strategies, I’ve been compelled of late to acquaint myself with the game more closely owing to how P.G. Wodehouse’s excellent Psmith books require some knowledge of it.

The game, I will concede, is still mostly mysterious. Still, I think we can all agree, bespectacled readership: any sport that is routinely played in a sweater vest and calls for a tea break — well, there’s something in that.

Furthermore, some cursory internetting has revealed the Daniel Bard of cricket bowlers — namely, former Australia international Shane Warne. Despite his regrettable “face” and “whole being,” Warne’s deliveries are irrefutably pleasing.

I present here three readily available YouTube videos of Shane Warne’s consummate leg-spin bowling. I don’t present here what you might call “context” of any sort — because, again, I don’t know what’s going on.

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Please enjoy as a certain Padres fan announces his presence …

Consider these facts:

– Playable ball!
– Potentially meaningful game!
– Embroidered cap as vehicle for taunting!
– Road game, where a certain deference is expected!
– Humiliated lady-friend!

Does this display make the nobleman in question the worst fan ever or the greatest fan ever?

Management thanks you for your time.

(Loving embrace — loving to the point of awkwardness — for handsome, handsomer, handsomest reader Tony.)

It’s no secret that base-ballists everywhere are quite fond of the refreshing taste of 7UP. In the case of Mike Schmidt, the fire in the belly for 7UP became so strong — so fiery — that he installed beneath home plate a subterranean robot tasked with delivering ambrosial, restorative 7UP during the middle of a plate appearance. Bear mute witness:

You may have also noticed that Bruce Sutter knows, when it comes to highly acidic, carbonated beverages, there is a time for sipping and a time for painful guzzling. You may have also noticed that Dave Parker, quite understandably, prefers the taste of ambrosial, restorative 7UP to recording outs on foul pop-ups.

In short, nothing screws up a game of baseball quite like 7UP.