Archive for Audio and/or Visual

Former Cincinnati and Seattle outfielder Wladimir Balentien is currently very much on pace to break the single-season home-run record of 55 set originally by Sadaharu Oh in 1964 and then tied by Tuffy Rhodes and Alex Cabrera in 2001 and 2002, respectively.

As of 10 days ago, Balentien had a month essentially to hit three home runs and tie the record. Presently, he’s hit two of those three — including one on Tuesday itself.

Here’s actual game footage of Balentien’s 54th homer:

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Shortly after finishing his (likely flawed) translation apropos Wladimir Balentien’s pursuit of Japan’s single-season home-run record, the present author pointed his internet browser to YouTube, intent on consuming footage of that same gigantic Dutchman hitting at least one of his 52 home runs this season.

With a view both to (a) giving the reader a head start in his/her own pursuit and also (b) producing content out of almost nothing at all, the author has embedded here above-average video of Balentin’s eighth home run this season, from back at the end of April.

Regard:

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Here is a 55-year-old Sadaharu Oh hitting a ~370 ft. home run to right field during a retiree game at Koshien Stadium (thereabouts of 1995):

I once hit a ball about 320 ft. But that was in a video game. Apparently Oh’s final comment in the video is, “Baseball is good, isn’t it?”

You know what, Mr. Sadaharu? It is good. And so are you.

It is a sad day for baseball fans, dear NotGraphs readers. Let us all light our little candles in our little paper cups, crack a forty, and pour one out for our fallen compatriot. I have little words to offer at this point, so this hastily-compiled montage will have to do for now. Hug someone you love tonight.

Regard:

The Rays 2013 pregame clubhouse entertainment now includes at least:

• A DJ.
• A magician.
• A meringue band.
• A flock of penguins.
• A cockatoo.
• Bushels of plantains hanging from the lockers.
• A 20-foot python.

I may be forgetting one or two.

Now is a good time to be a fair reader of these electronic pages, fair reader. You see, FanGraphs is gaining traction as they say, becoming relevant in the larger world. Harold Reynolds invoked the name of Dave Cameron without either party’s head exploding. Vin Scully, baseball’s granddad, uttered the actual Uniform Resource Locator of the site in such a manner that he only kind of sounded like he didn’t know what he was talking about, but no more so than usual.

Dare I say, is it finally cool to read FanGraphs? Would this be something you admit to your friends or slip into your Match.com dating profile? If you feel it is, the below audio is for you. Take the FanGraphs ringtone and blare it loud in concert halls, doctor’s offices, city busses, etc. to show that you are a proud reader.  Have your mom call you on the hour, every hour, until everyone in your immediate surroundings know EXACTLY where you go to get in-depth baseball analysis.

(Please feel free to download liberally for putting in your phone/blasting from your whip.)

Also, for reference:

(h/t to reader The Return of Rambo Diaz for the inspiration)

Popular Irish legend maintains that one can find — at the end of a rainbow — one can find a pot of gold guarded by a leprechaun.

Bulgarian legend, meanwhile, proposes that anyone walking under a rainbow will experience a change in gender. Common sense, really.

Meanwhile, during the second inning of Tuesday night’s FSN broadcast of the Mets-Dodgers game (box), potentially real, but probably mythical, broadcaster Vin Scully cited FanGraphs.

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Managing editor Dave Cameron’s forthcoming appearance on FanGraphs Audio this week features — as many of Dave Cameron’s recent appearances have featured — features an enthusiastic guest appearance by that same managing editor’s very young dog.

It’s not unreasonable — is perhaps the most reasonable thing in the world — to suggest that, in the weeks since the canine’s arrival chez Cameron, the devoted (if few) listeners of FanGraphs Audio have become like uncles and aunts (although mostly uncles, probably) to the newest member of the Cameron family. The author has it on good authority, in fact, that listeners of that podcast like nothing better than when the baseballing content of this or that episode is forestalled by five or ten minutes by some idle chatter concerning the puppy’s sleeping habits or culinary preferences.

But what aunts and uncles require of their nephews and nieces isn’t a mere weekly audio dispatch, but rather real-live photographic proof — and moving images, if at all possible. It’s with that in mind that the author has acquired the poor-quality video embedded above of Cameron’s dog Liberty first jumping around a small plastic pool, and then falling over kinda, and then performing some other sorts of enthusiastic maneuvers, and then running in no particular direction, and then lying down without anything like warning.

Unlike elusive proto-vigilante and 1930s radio star The Shadow, who took some pride, it seems, in acquainting himself with the sort of evils that lurk in the hearts of men, the present author takes pains expressly to avoid such intimate knowledge of the public and its constituent members. As such, that same author has no idea — doesn’t want to know — to what sordid ends the reader might use the audio below of former major-leaguer and current MLB Network personality Harold Reynolds saying aloud the name of FanGraphs managing editor Dave Cameron.

That said, the tenets of a free and open society necessarily dictate that this sort of information be made available, lest tyrants tyrannize the people tyrannically — which is what would happen were those same people not afforded access to the following audio of former major-leaguer and current MLB Network personality Harold Reynolds saying aloud the name of FanGraphs managing editor Dave Cameron.

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RotoGraphs editor and co-proprietor of BeerGraphs Eno Sarris has organized an event for later today (Thursday, July 18) at Chicagoland bar Fizz — which event will feature baseball writers of some consequence and also Dayn Perry.

During a recording of FanGraphs Audio this morning, that same Dayn Perry inquired about the timing of the event, and, after being informed that it was scheduled to begin at 4pm CT, launched into a frothy-mouthed tirade about the early-ish hour — suggesting both that it (a) wasn’t becoming of civilized man and also (b) might force him to rearrange his schedule a little bit.

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