Archive for Audio and/or Visual

We love Vin Scully for many things — one of which is his general grandpaness. But did you know Vin Scully used to be a young person? THE DEVIL I SAY! It’s true, at least according the below clip of some sort of TV show in which a young Scully acts. Is it acting if a baseball announcer plays a baseball announcer? If it is, Scully has acted quite a bit, according to his IMDB page — the go-to source for all your Vin Scully acting credit needs. The clip is from a show called Alcoa Premiere, which played scripted TV dramas that dealt with some heavy stuff. Famous movie composer John Williams also scored the show, for what it’s worth. Enjoy seeing a dark-haired Scully from a simpler time when we didn’t have to deal with all this technology and inter-racial marriages.

(h/t to the Scully-fan Twitter account @vinscullytweet)

In my corner of America’s Middle-West, the leaves are falling with great frequency. There is also snow on the ground. If anyone needed a reminder of the demise of Summer, one need not look farther than my sprawling plot of God’s country. Certainly, the absence of Major League Baseball serves as another chilling reminder that — as I read in a book once — Winter is Coming. According to the Gregorian calendar, it is already here.

The popular Internet website “YouTube”, a video hosting and streaming service, is powered by a vast and powerful network of silicon and electricity. While it is possible for these machines to know a certain date numerically, the feel of a date is unknowable to these robots. How does one explain a gentle snowfall in bleeps and bloops? One cannot. Because of this fact, however, popular Internet website YouTube doesn’t know it isn’t baseball season. Therefore, it offers the embedded video without prejudice. And for that, we can be thankful. Hang tight, fair NotGraphs readers. We’ll get through this together. Unless I — or one of you — die. Then we most likely have bigger problems.

(h/t to ESPN’s Mark Simmon for the link.)

Brandon H. told Jonah K. who told all the Internet which told the author of this post that Major League Baseball appears recently to have uploaded a number of archival-type videos to their YouTube channel — including (and, for the purposes of this post, limited to) one particularly hot and sexy and hot video featuring right-hander Pedro Martinez in the bloom of goddamn youth.

“¡Ay, caramba!” announces the reader who has watched this video and also came of age, probably, during the earliest seasons of The Simpsons. “Ai, caramba!” announces a different reader after watching this video, but mostly because he’s a native Portuguese speaker. Whether one is from Brazil or Mozambique or Portugal itself, however, doesn’t matter: this video provide full-body pleasure sensation every time.

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So far as rousing public addresses are concerned, David Ortiz’s Game Four one of those lacks the gravitas, probably, of Henry V’s St Crispin’s Day Speech. On the other hand, one finds that Henry V’s career WAR production was much less impressive.

Just a friendly reminder that everything ends, and that you and everyone you’ve ever loved or will love will, someday, be gone. Baseball is no exception. But do not fret, fair NotGraphs readers. Take this time to do all the things you neglected whilst adhered to your couch. Hug your family. Volunteer. Start that patchwork quilt you bought all the stuff for. Watch football, for all I care. Just do something. Do not mourn the season. Cherish the times you had with it, but do not be melancholy. It will be back. You may not be, but it will be. Find solace in that. The winter is yours for the taking. So take it. Carpe Off Season.

Few people who saw it (probably) have forgotten right-arm bowler Imran Khan’s fantastic yorker to Greg Chappell during Pakistan’s tour of Australia in 1981. What people have likely forgotten is precisely how many sweater vests were being worn that day and how hushed were the tones of the match’s broadcast team.

Let’s do this math:

David Eckstein + Parks and Rec + Bob Loblaw = gritty; it always equals gritty

Well that’s what happened:

Because Parks and Rec had this law firm create Ron Swanson’s will.

Because Bob Loblaw is watching out for our best interests:

A secret ceremonial hat tipping, complete with unicorn costumes and blood snifters, for Tyler Hissey.

The reader has likely consumed, at some point during Mariano Rivera’s farewell season, audio and/or visual of that very esteemed relief pitcher discussing his storied career. An experience to which the reader has likely not been treated, however, is Mariano Rivera discussing his storied career in the hushed and sincere tones native to American public broadcasting.

Conversation with Rivera begins at approximately the 14-minute mark.

Sometimes one finds himself drinking at a stranger’s apartment in Paris, France, and then talking to a different stranger who happened to play football at Summit (New Jersey) High School with former Royals outfielder Willie Wilson in 1973 or whatever and then watching grainy footage, while drinking even more, of giant and fast Willie Wilson scoring all different kinds of touchdowns against other, smaller high-school-aged New Jerseyans in 1973.

It’s just something that happens, is what the author is attempting to say and what the reader needs to believe.