Archive for Audio and/or Visual

The whens and wheres and whys are unclear, but NotGraphs is able to report with certainty that what you’re seeing in this photo right here (courtesy of the team’s Twitter feed) is Twins manager Ron Gardenhire and new Twins middle infielder Tsuyoshi Nishioka both modeling a garment known as the Sluggie.

The Sluggie, as you’re hopefully unaware, is a Justin Morneau-inspired and perhaps -designed variant of the Snuggie — i.e. the sleeved blanket that has also doubled as pop-culture phenomenon. The entirety of its (i.e. the Sluggie’s) existence has been chronicled by the Star Tribune’s Michael Rand.

As for the people in the back there, while their identities remain unknown, we’ve confirmed that they’re the only ones in this photo enjoying the benefits of basic human dignity.

H/T: My friend Dan

But now, thanks to Kevin Burkhardt of SNY, you can!

Burkhardt joined R.A. Dickey in the latter’s Nashville home to ask the Met pitcher about his successful 2010 campaign, the art of knuckleballing, and three or seven other things.

The home viewer will do well to note, additionally, that Dickey has an unnaturally gentle speaking voice. Like, really gentle. Like, I want him to come over my house and read a bedtime story, is what I mean.

H/T: Mets Blog

Here’s the early trailer for MLB 11: The Show (which game was treated in these pages yesterday, too).

I don’t know if we learn much about the game here. On the other hand, it’s nice to know that Carl Orff is still composing music some 30 years after his death.

H/T: 7 Train to Shea

Before I post the video, some observations …

At this point, what can I do but roll tape?

This is either (a) a special appearance by the Nationals’ Racing Presidents at the Washington Ballet, or (b) an excerpt from a film that Spike Jonze is making in the future.

You decide, America!

H/T: Let Teddy Win

The New England Sports Network (NESN) — i.e. the primary broadcaster of Boston Red Sox games — has just posted to its site a video of NESN on-field reporter Heidi Watney touring the Willis (née Sears) Tower during a late-season trip to Chicago.

It may or may not be necessary for me to point out that Ms. Watney is what one might call “classically beautiful” — a fact not lost upon, for example, most of the internet.

Beyond serving merely as an opportunity to gaze upon Ms. Watney’s shining visage, however, the video also affords the viewer some of the Skydeck experience without having to pay the $16 admission fee.

Furthermore, it teaches us that most useful of lessons — namely, that smooth jazz is the appropriate soundtrack to most anything.

Yes, it’s baseball news only insofar as the Twins recently called it home, but I’m not so sure we really need much of an excuse to watch a building fall apart.

In any case, if you somehow missed it, the roof of Minneapolis’s Hubert Humphrey Metrodome ripped early Sunday morning, thus rendering the stadium unfit for the Vikings-Giants game and probably creating exactly 100,000 other problems.

On the plus side, FOX left their cameras running overnight, allowing anyone and everyone to watch a building fall apart.

One piece of advice on that note: if it all possible, do watch this video on some sort of surround sound-type thing — preferably with, like, seven subwoofers attached — on account of how the audio is simultaneously terrifying and awesome.

…aaand a Blackberry in front of a fake treeee.

At the Orlando Winter Meetings, the lobby is a phenomenon. There’s a slightly uncomfortable air to the space which houses virtually no planned or formal events, and is yet a hubub of activity all week long. Major league ball players looking for jobs bump into recent college graduates looking for jobs while media men scan the room for executives to harangue. It’s excellent and squirm-inducing all at the same time.

To pass the time while waiting for a story to break so that we could all run to the media room and post our opinions, some of us started a little word association game to break down the different categories of lobby rats. One thing: this bit of snark is all in good fun. We made friends in every group listed and enjoyed talking to everybody that gave us time. And many of these looks were extremely classic.

But still, there was a bit of a dress code.

Ill-fitting suit: Job-seeker.
Mustard-stained dockers: Journalist.
Golf shirt with team logo: Scout.
Cowboy boots: Manager.
Untied laces: Dave Cameron.
Sweatshirt and sweatpants: Tito Francona.
Sweater vest: Front office, but not GM – unless you are Jack Zduriencik.
Expensive suit: GM.
Expensive suit with wires hanging out the back of the jacket: TV.
Expensive suit with white sneakers: Peter Gammons.
Entourage: Gary Sheffield.

Photo H/T: SNY / Metsblog

Washington University in St. Louis recently hosted “The Future of Sports,” a panel discussion featuring Bob Costas, Bill James, Joe Posnanski, Gerald Early, and Michael MacCambridge.

The first three of the names will very obviously be familiar to you. The latter two are professors at host Washington University. Early’s resume, in particular, is impressive, including a number of consultantships to Ken Burns on his various documentaries.

H/T: Tom to the Tango

Earlier today, in these electronic pages, rising NotGraphs star Dayn Perry commemorated America’s most important holiday — Repeal Day — by naming the All-Time All-Drinkers Team.

Curious about some of the names on the list, I took to the internet and, after the most grueling 83 seconds of research you could imagine, have this video footage of the 1926 World Series — featuring the Yankees and Cardinals — to show for it.

This particular series features two all-time drinkers: Grover Cleveland (or “Pete”) Alexander and Babe Ruth, both of whom feature prominently in the video. Below are some notable moments.

0:25. That’s the very famous commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis there — who, if you believe noted historian Jonathan Coulton, “was seventeen feet tall [and] had a hundred and fifty wives.” The attentive viewer will note that Landis has an actual iron fist. Impressive!

0:49. Not baseball related, but interesting. Note that the narrator uses the word natch — as in, short for naturally. EtymOnline suggests that the truncated version was first recorded in 1945.

1:20. Slow-motion video captures Ruth hitting “the longest home run ever hit in St. Louis” on what appears — to this viewer, at least — like an opposite-field check swing.

1:34. Footage of Alexander pitching. Question: if the Inverted W is a way to describe one kind of arm action, how might we describe the one utilized by Alexander? The Askance K? The Truculent Y?

2:26. Well, that’s one definition of “money muscles.”