When is a foul ball something more than a foul ball? When it’s off the thunderstick of “America Brawn” Mike Laga, and it is propelled, with certainty but not vengeance, out of Busch Stadium and into the undeserving firmament.
The Mike Laga Foul Ball from JoeSportsFan.com on Vimeo.
When this happens, you stand, applaud, weep, tremble, genuflect, sign over your first born, and hope that King Laga I shows mercy upon you.
(Laga Love: Joe Sports Fan)
With an excellent performance in his second rehab start Friday night — one that gives him nine strikeouts and zero walks in 4.2 innings in his return from Tommy John surgery — Stephen Strasburg has re-entered the public baseballing consciousness.
Because his brilliant debut occurred before NotGraphs was even a thing — and because MLB video has become embeddable in the meantime — it’s fully within all of our rights to re-live his 14 strikeout, no walk performance together in these electronic pages.
Below, I’ve made note of some extraordinary moments from the first two minutes or so of the above video. The bespectacled reader is invited, however, to add his own commentary where relevant.
0:11 — Records first major-league strikeout against Lastings Milledge on a pitch that was spotted later that night at an area club drinking vodka tonics with no fewer than seven Naomi Campbells.
0:34 — Delwyn Young strikes out on a curveball that removes whatever was left of his (i.e. Young’s) virginity.
0:41 — A 91 mph changeup. The phrase “God is dead” is subsequently removed from all English versions of Nietzsche’s Die fröhliche Wissenschaft.
1:24 — Jeff Karstens strikes out looking on 101 mph fastball, calls therapist on way back to dugout.
1:40 — Announcer Bob Carpenter incorrectly, but also sorta correctly, identifies Strasburg’s changeup as a fastball.
1:49 — The entire television audience goes through a second puberty. Prepubescent children experience consecutive puberties.
Because Stubby Clapp’s name is Stubby Clapp, anything having anything to do with Stubby Clapp is at least somewhat noteworthy. This time, however, Mr. Clapp makes these pages not because of his perfect name, but rather because he recently got himself ejected like a super champion. He’s presently skipper of the minor-league Tri-City ValleyCats, and, unlike the ninja, he does not flip and kill people. Stubby Clapp does, however, flip out …
Somewhere in America, Earl Weaver’s vast evening toddy tastes a bit better to him tonight.
(Hosannas: Todd and his Twitter)
As I noted in these pages recently, one of the great pleasures of baseball is the amount of data it produces. Some of that is the sort of data that produces metrics like WAR; other of it, though, might be more appropriately apprehended by the softer sciences.
By way of explanation, allow me to introduce the reader to a work of art known as the Terry Francona Press Conference. While perhaps only an average baseballing tactician, Francona has distinguished himself as a sort of savant of personality management. Winning a lot, certainly, has helped subdue any would-be discontent among his ranks, but Francona has a way of making any issue seem manageable and human-sized — and nowhere is this more clearly on display than in his post-game press conferences.
Let’s watch the above-ly embedded one (from July 26th’s victory over the Royals) together and see what we see.
Somewhere, David Eckstein was doing something: eating a sandwich, perhaps, or polishing the wood surfaces of his home with lemon-scented chemicals. It’s impossible to say exactly. What we do know, or can at least safely assume, is that he paused for a moment, a gust of cool air sweeping over him from an unknown source, a shudder of momentary weakness in the arms and stiffness in the fingers. Something felt off. He scanned his surroundings, trying to make out the difference, to sort out the nature of this new universe. And then the truth of it all revealed itself unto him: some of his grit had been expropriated.
Marvel at the precision of the ground ball, hit smartly enough for the ball to speed into the hole but gently enough for that hole to close in on it. Watch how the hit pulls the throw up the line, giving Brendan Ryan the opportunity to coast into first with his head up. Notice how the Oakland infielders scatter in the face of this strident display of pluck and determination, leading each of them to individually pause and reflect on how they have wasted their superior athletic skills. As they spit and curse the earth that bore them, Ryan is already nearly at second. Then Ryan slides superfluously not once, but twice, dirtying each leg in the process. Finally, he pops up to his feet immediately, already prepared to roundhouse kick any would-be ninjas in the vicinity. What you’re seeing is textbook fundamentals.
Justin Smoak is so joyful he uncurls both halves of his lips as far as they can muster. Third base coach Jeff Datz, ordinarily focusedon the myriad of instructions he is bound by his occupation to convey, can only wander over and pat Ryan on the back. Not pictured in the clip is the moment when Eric Sogard’s fabulous eyeglasses are cast forcibly from his face by the heart and spirit of Ryan’s second slide, delaying the game by several minutes as he hunts for them in the outfield grass. Nor is the rare honorary walk delivered by a stunned and reverent home umpire Mike Winters.
A true, unquestionable double-hustle play. I tried to mark the event in my calendar, dear readers, but I found my hands, like Eckstein’s, trembling.
What follows is not especially new, but neither am I.
You’ve often heard loose talk of the “Drums of War,” no? What follows features the less famous though equally rousing and deadly, “Guitar and Lead Singer’s Voice of War.”
If the voice strikes you as “Wagnerian” — and it surely does — then that’s because it’s actually Wagner singing.
I don’t have unassailable proof that Alexander’s muscled, glistening, loiny troops listened to this heart-pumping anthem before vanquishing Darius III, but, after allowing this song to course through me over and over on my Sony Walkman with auto reverse, I’m willing to test that theory in the streets. With my war-fists.
(Hot, knowing glance: BBTF)
In the top of the fifth inning of last night’s Giants-Phillies game, Giant broadcasters Duane Kuiper and Mike Krukow noticed a San Francisco fan (pictured, wearing orange Fear the Beard t-shirt) amidst a crowd of Philadelphians.
Later in that inning, they noticed that same fan noticing a second, more female, fan — which observation prompted Krukow to utter the words that have inspired (a) this post and (b) millions worldwide.
Some assorted observations:
• Mike Krukow has a Baseball Man voice. I’m not sure what the precise signifiers of the Baseball Man voice are, but one of them is probably “a marked aversion for the final -g- in the present participle.” Other purveyors of the Baseball Man voice include Mark Grace, (Padre TV analyst) Mark Grant, and Rick Sutcliffe.
• Were one so inclined to write a three- or five-page paper called something like “Masculine Identity in Baseballing Telecasts” using only this 17-second clip as source material, it could probably be done with some ease.
• Dawg or dogg: how would Mike Krukow spell it? how would you?
Anybody who is still up at this hour is definitely familiar with the play that ended the Pirates-Braves game that began on July 26th. Just in case you’ve forgotten, here’s a video.
Pretty wild stuff. As the Pirates announcer said, “The throw beat him by a mile!!” But wait, Mike McKenry actually had to tag Julio Lugo. The consensus seems to be it was an obvious call. Obviously, says everyone, or most everyone at least, McKenry tagged him!
Just watch the video again, and try to find the tag on the replays.
“The throw beat him by a mile!” “And he’s saying that he wasn’t tagged?!”
Here is the picture most generally accepted (by myself included) to be proof of the tag, originally posted by @TravHaney.
Maybe I’m just insane. Maybe I’m just looking for something that isn’t there (or maybe I’m trying not to find something that is there). But that is, at best, a tangent-point tag. Can we definitively say, even from that picture, where glove ends and where shadow begins? It’s not like blowing the picture up really helps any, does it? Maybe I need my eyes checked.
Julio Lugo was probably out at home, but because the ball beat him by so much, we seem convinced that the tag was there. Is this fair? Actually, possibly it is. It doesn’t matter by the rules, but I’m damn sure, despite the fact that McKenry’s tag would be just as questionable if Lugo was called out, there wouldn’t be this kind of investigation going on and I would be asleep.
This is just a bunch of rambling, but the point is that watching it in real time, from multiple angles, and even in slow motion, it’s very, very, very difficult for me to point out where the tag actually occurred. This isn’t the Joyce-Galarraga play, where the video and pictorial evidence was so obvious. This is a case where, in my opinion, the confirmation bias of seeing baseball beat runner by so much — “The throw beat him by a mile!!” — manifested itself in a similar reaction.
I’m just not so sure it’s as obvious as everybody says it is.
You happen across American Bad Seed Pete Rose in a Cooperstown diner. You follow him to his car and ask him for an autograph. He declines. What you do next will, in some ways, define you and how you handle the daisy chain of adversities found in this, our miserable existence.
Do you merely acknowledge that celebrities have no obligation to indulge our bizarre whims and return to your chili-cheese fries? Or you do heave the unsigned ball across the road — at traffic level — and into the woods where James Fenimore Cooper once played army, heel-turn, stomp off into the distance, and squeeze out a few shitty-baby tears? If you’re the guy captured below on live-action video, then it’s an easy choice …
At this late hour, I thought all of us knew that Mr. Rose would walk through hell in a gasoline suit before he’d sign something for free.
(Autograph request: Off the Bench)
It hasn’t been the best of days around here at NotGraphs World HQ, but maybe things are looking up? How’s that? Well, perhaps you’ll recall my affection and longing for the rare confluence of absurdities that is the inside-the-park grand slam (note: you will not recall this, but still). Turns out such a miracle recently came to pass, thanks to Jeremy Moore of the Salt Lake Bees, three of his teammates and the burning fire-god in the sky.
By all means, please dig!
A thing related to my occupation for which I have yearned has come to pass! Let us now praise professional fulfillment in all its forms!
