Archive for Bat Flips

Belated Yasiel Puig Bat-Flip Coverage Alert

Promising Dodgers outfield prospect Yasiel Puig made an impression on the Teeming Masses this spring with his bat-flipping exploits — a practice he appears to have begun (as the previous hyperlink reveals) as a member of the Cuban National Team, if not earlier.

Puig brought his enthusiasm for the craft with him to Double-A Chattanooga, for whom he homered during that club’s second game of the season — and, in the wake of which home run, he proceeded to toss his bat much closer to third base than is generally the custom. NotGraphs, as a journalistic organ with its finger on the throbbing pulse of Beauty, provided due coverage of this episode, as well.

With May having arrived, the reader might find him-/herself asking — especially if he/she has precisely the same lexicon and speaking cadence and general life concerns as the author — “With regard to Yasiel Puig, I wonder if he’s been flipping his bat at all of late?”

The answer to which question is available here in the form of words: “Yes, he has.”

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Yasiel Puig Bat-Flip Coverage Alert

Puig 2

Not long ago, in these hallowed fucking pages, the author documented for the benefit of the readership the bat-flipping exploits of Dodgers outfield prospect Yasiel Puig.

As the footage embedded here suggests — from a YouTube video of Puig’s first home run with the Double-A Chattanooga Lookouts — Puig has altered his bat-flipping practices by approximately zero percent since the publication of that aforementioned post.

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Bat Flips from History: Willie Aikens, 1980 World Series

Aikens Flip

There are a number of mysteries in this life. Like what scabies are, for one. And if they’re just a combination of scabs and rabies, for another one.

Something that was never a mystery — to Kansas City first baseman Willie Aikens, at least — was whether his fly ball against Philadelphia’s Dickie Noles in Game Five of the 1980 World Series would be a home run.

“This prophecy Merlin shall make, for I live before his time,” Aikens seems to say while laying down his bat — if not necessarily in those same words or meter or even language.