The SEO Wizard strikes again.

The term "pimping a homerun" does not do Dan Vogelbach justice here http://t.co/VmD7wg3XkL (courtesy of a @minorleagueball commenter)

— Andrew Gill (@AndrewDGill) July 21, 2013

Watch that GIF, and listen to this:

Or, if you find Vogelbach’s saunter somewhat edged, his bat flip somewhat angry, if you thinks there’s a zephyr of suffering that carries the ball to left field, play this adaptation instead:

Is he Daniel Vogelbach? Is he Vogelbux? Is he Vogelbored? Vogelbroken? Vogelballin?

Today, maybe we decide.

They’ve all told you the same thing — those who raised you, siblings, lovers, the god you worship, the earthly squires of the god you worship, teachers, physicians, strangers on public transit, neighbors, pets. It’s the stinking, larded pageant of those you have known, and they agree on nothing save for this: that your best is not good enough.

It is not often that you call upon the best you’ve got in the service of completing a task or making what struck you in the conception stages as a pleasant gesture, but even in those scarce moments when you do offer up the best you’ve got, it’s not enough.

Mariano Rivera knows this. He’s aware of all that you’ve befouled. Consider it a mission of conscience for him, this letting you know that he knows you’re diminished by the effort …

You see that he, for a fugitive instant, looks askance while he hails your miserable attempt. He’s aware that this is alms-giving of somewhat embarrassing extremes. To be sure, there is condescension lost in his practiced applause, which strikes you as not unlike the hand-claps of a dutiful grandmother who beats the Gold Medal flour from her hands as she makes the weary lemon cake by rote. The apron hides a will and a cancer …

Mariano Rivera’s prosopon mask of exuberance is to obvious excess, to glut. What you’re doing at this moment warrants so, so much less. But Mariano Rivera feigns joy so as to train you to keep at this toil. He knows you’ll never get there, but have another go at it just the same, would you, you hesitating buckaroo? For he knows hope is not so much an expectation as it is a way of whittling at the days like a sassafras branch until they come to embalm you. Mariano Rivera knows this, but he’s too gentlemanly to say as much.

Your best will never be good enough, but it’s better than it ever has been, so long as Mariano Rivera is watching.

Embedded here is footage of right-handed Colorado prospect Eddie Butler striking out Boston shortstop prospect Xander Bogaerts prospect by means of an excellent 90-mph changeup during Sunday afternoon’s Futures Game in New York.

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There are certain things a man must do in this life. Like fight a mountain lion with only his hands, for example. And look up the precise definition of fiduciary at some point, for other example.

A third thing a man must do in this life is both capture via a screencasting application and then render into animated GIF form footage of very Cuban émigré Yoenis Cespedes performing what is known in that island nation as a Bat Flip 140% Especial, Good Job.

Fortunately for the present author, Yoenis Cespedes executed that precise manuever on Monday night at the conclusion of this year’s home-run derby. This post is designed to serve as evidence of same.

Credit to concerned internet citizen Eli Nellis for bringing the author’s attention to this especial event.

Framing is an alright talent, says Jose Molina, but if you want a real unique skill, try to match this:

Your move, Jonathan Lucroy.

In the absence of video evidence like that above, the reader might find some difficulty in articulating to another party the experience of young Cleveland right-hander Danny Salazar’s excellent changeup.

What follows are eight similes that might at least begin to approximate the experience of same.

1. It’s like a Bowflex that works your sense of majesty.

2. It’s like getting a shark bite on your nice pants.

3. It’s like freaking up against a sasquatch on purpose.

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No, no, go not to Boston, nor lose that twist
glove waggling, spinning, confusing the swine;
Nor allow thy stats to suffer away from Wrigley mist,
By dollar signs, and contract time;
Make not your bed of 75% cotton, 25% linen, all green,
Nor let the batter assuage his fears.
Your fancy whimsy Waggle, and split finger change,
Are all a function of some forgotten dream;
For age comes to all pitchers, and not too drowsily —
To drown the wakeful anguish of the soul.

The author, whose name roughly translated means something like Paragon of Fun, passed the greater part of his Sunday lakeside about an hour northwest of Madison, Wisconsin, and then a lesser — but still entirely satisfying — part of his Sunday bothering his wife as she made a dinner consisting largely of salmon and wine and kale and wine.

What the author hadn’t planned on, but has been compelled to do, anyway, was capturing and then embedding an animated GIF of Yasiel Puig flipping his bat. But what’s happened is, is the author has captured and now embedded here an animated GIF of Yasiel Puig flipping his bat — in the ninth inning, it turns out, of the Dodgers’ 4-1 victory over the San Franciscans (box)

Despite the fact that we all, each of us, invariably spend our days and nights in pursuit of money and then whores and then more money, rumors abound that, on all of our respective deathbeds, neither money nor whores will be of any great concern. This information might come as a surprise to the reader, who is almost certainly reading this post whilst atop a pile of money and beside a comely whore. However, it’s true: in the throes of death, one is more likely to ask questions like, “Did I exhibit courage?” and “Did I treat my friends and family well?”

As the present author is shuffling off this mortal coil and making an examination of both his works and days, he will undoubtedly have many regrets — like that one time he vomited on his shirt in an Armenian taxi, for example, and also that other time he vomited on his shirt in an Armenian taxi. Anyone who suggests, however, that he didn’t make an effort to record every last one of Yasiel Puig’s televised bat flips, is a goddamn liar.

By way of proof, here’s footage from the seventh inning of Tuesday’s game between the Los Angeles Nationals and Colorado (box):

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