Courtesy of your attractive friends at Wieden+Kennedy, it’s the newest This Is SportsCenter spot, featuring Jason Heyward, Steve Levy, Scott Van Pelt, and a costume tree.
Secret NotGraphs handshakes for Ted Walker and gondee of Talking Chop.
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.”
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!
In case you missed it, Miguel Olivo hit what will surely be in the running for Funniest Homer of 2011 in yesterday’s Mariners/Tigers game. You can check the video here.
Of course, when it comes to home runs, there’s no better resource than the fantastic HitTracker Online, which charts and stores every home run dating back to 2005. Their entry* for this home run is interesting, to say the least:
(Click to embiggen)
*Slightly edited by yours truly**
**Not to scale***
***Or well done
David Price has benefited greatly from play therapy.
There’s clearly a lot to enjoy about this photo — the fact that a talented major leaguer is wearing a hand puppet, the expression (which seems to say, “I don’t necessarily like you, but I respect the hell out of you”) on said major leaguer’s face, etc.
In this case, I’d like to draw attention to the angle in which Price’s cap is resting on his head — an exact replica, as it turns out, of the manner in which Dickens’ Artful Dodger wore his hat.
Image stolen directly from TampaBay.com. Brought to the author’s attention via the scrappy, always hustling Erik Hahnmann.
If you will, please part the ever-thickening mists of time and think back to when we first met those blessed purveyors of miracles, Team Ghost Riders. If you were as moved as I was by what you witnessed — and indubitably you were — then you no doubt have been roused from sleep each night by a gnawing curiosity: Who is the patriot behind Team Ghost Riders, who have brought so much righteous joy to minor-league ballparks across this, the world’s only country?
Wonder no more, page viewers. Wonder no more …
I’m not sure if the quote is an original or something lifted from the Magna Carta, but it is surely among the greatest of all human utterances: “And in 1962 a little boy was born, and his dream and his goal was to own a monkey.”
Absorb it. Know it. Fathom it. Now repeat it: “And in 1962 a little boy was born, and his dream and his goal was to own a monkey.”
(Click to embiggen)
I was watching the top-80 plays of the week (or whatever arbitrary number they choose) last night on MLB Network, and this catch by Jason Kubel was #11.
MLB Network tells me it’s a great play, and they and ESPN and all the other “they”s have been telling me that similar catches have been telling me that similar catches are “great plays” ever since my first cable TV subscription. But really, is it great? How many other right fielders make that catch? Is it only a great play because Jason Kubel is so bad at outfielding that it take the utmost of his defensive effort in order to make a play that could be stressful but not entirely difficult for the average fielder?
Of course, maybe that is precisely what makes it a great play: it took anything and everything in Kubel’s defensive arsenal to make that play, and for that reason, we should be impressed. Perhaps I’m thinking too much like a UZR calculator, thinking that it’s not impressive if the average fielder makes that play 69.2735329% of the time.
Maybe. I’m not sure. Although what I am sure is that this precise dilemma is why we as a community have such a tremendously difficult time evaluating defensive players, even those that we watch every day with our own eyes.
But I digress. What do you guys think? Is it a great play?
If you’ve ever seen Kyle Blanks — in person, on TV, in a dream you had this one time but’d prefer not to talk about — then the above image (captured from the official site of Minor League Baseball) will give you a brief chuckle before you turn back to considerably more important things.
If you haven’t ever seen Blanks, then picture a bear in a Padres cap. Except the bear can talk and eats normal food. And it has to pay taxes like everyone else and also it has human parents. And it went to college for a little bit. And some other things.
Nominally, this is a WGN sports report from July of 1991. In reality, it’s a case study in what can happen when man is stripped of his civilizing influences.
Annotations follow, with time-elapsed marks.
0:00 — Video begins with frightening ghost-person* looking directly into soul of viewer. (*Direct translation from German.)
0:08 — Anchorman uses words “rock and roll” in manner befitting of his era.
0:10 — Festive collared t-shirt!
0:22 — Soccer player, for some reason, jogs behind correspondent at Wrigley Field.
0:44 — “Oop, that’s the wrong tape.”
0:56 — Joe West assumes the position.
1:04 — Joe West resumes the position.
1:11 — Andre Dawson experiments with look he calls the “I Just Killed Your Family.”
1:16 — Bat-tossing!
1:23 — Bat-tossing!
1:30 — Joe West experiments with look he calls “The Horrible Child.”
1:34 — Bat-tossing!
1:40 — Commence cheerful littering.
1:56 — Rob Dibble does legitimately strange thing.
2:01 — Unusually incisive commentary regarding Rob Dibble’s mental health.
2:31 — Andre Dawson gives brief tutorial on how to properly groom and wear a mustache.
2:47 — Andre Dawson distinguishes himself among ballplayers for using adverb.
3:28 — Andre Dawson articulates something particular about Joe West.
4:20 — Phrase “mighty Toronto Blue Jays” uttered without irony.
4:27 — Hawk Harrelson’s voice happens.
Deep, prostrating bow to reader/ubermensch glassSheets.
Buck Showalter doesn’t understand today’s kids, what with their Pokemon cards and their cans of Four Loko and their breakdancing and their Jordache jeans. What he really doesn’t understand, though, is why someone can’t just sing the damn National Anthem the way the composers — John Wayne, Patrick Henry and Superman — intended …
If it makes you feel any better, Buck, know that it gets worse. So, so much worse …
(Gratitude in song: Parker Hageman)
