As both William Randolph Hearst and, more recently, Rupert Murdoch have demonstrated unequivocally, there are absolutely no moral consequences — neither on a personal nor more public scale — to appealing constantly to the desires of the masses.

That being the case — and as a response to interest in the left-hander by Houston supporters this offseason (whose club possesses the first-overall pick in the 2014 draft) — the author has embedded here what appears to be the most recent extant footage of NC State pitcher Carlos Rodon. Rodon, in this case, appears to be protecting both (a) American freedom and also (b) a first-inning tie this past July against the Cuban national team — striking out (on a slider that’s been documented previously in these pages here and here and also here) an unidentified opponent en route to 6.2 scoreless innings.

The facial massage technique designed by Japanese beauty expert Yukuko Tanaka is a really good kind of facial massage technique, according to the promotional materials concerning it that are available online. If the author’s understanding of the present site’s demographic is even nearly accurate, however, it’s akin to fact that the reader has not seen a video demonstration — in GIF form, specifically — of said massage technique in action.

Entirely remedied, is how one might accurately regard this aching deficit.

(INTERNET) — Holy crapballs.

Finally something to watch in the offseason. Need an accompanying tune? Give this a go. It’s New Years Day. You should be home. So don’t complain about NSFW lyrics.

Thanks to DRaysBay writer D. Russ for sharing this.

C’mon Doug. I mean, what are you doing? How can you not see a man doing a remote right in front of you? I mean, you walked by him like ten times. Do you know who Ken Rosenthal is? He’s a big deal. And I’m sure he’s on like two hours of sleep, so it’s in your best interest to get out of his damn way. Ugh. Just … try and pay more attention OK?

Look, I know you’re still rattled from when Walt Jocketty yelled at you today. But that was hours ago, and you need to put it behind you. Remember, I’m only doing this as a favor because you’re married to my sister. I know you’re having trouble finding work, and I’m trying to help you out here. Getting another media pass to the Winter Meetings wasn’t easy. But you need to stay out of the way, like we talked about. If you do a good job, I can try and recommend you to my boss when something opens up, but now your face is on TV looking like a dope. You just better hope that some dumb blogger doesn’t find it and make some shitty jokes about you.

OK, OK. Calm down. It’s fine. Let’s go grab a drink at the bar. I need to find Jon Heyman anyway. If we see him, though, remember — let me do the talking. Gammons already thinks you have some sort of brain damage or something.

This, as it happens, is apropos of everything.

Mike Pelfrey walks into a bar.
The bartender says:
“Why the long face?”

This has been Inserting Mike Pelfrey’s Name into Old Jokes.

(h/t to CJ Fogler)

The author needn’t really mention that left-handed Tampa Bay prospect Grayson Garvin was born and raised in Georgia. Indeed, history dictates that there are only two sorts of people in this world who could reasonably have that name: those who were either (a) born in Georgia or (b) born in Georgia but then subsequently killed while serving in the European Theatre of World War II. That left-handed Tampa Bay prospect Grayson Garvin is alive and not dead reveals which sort of Grayson Garvin he is.

Indeed, it isn’t Grayson’s biography which the author cares to address here, at all. Rather, why we’ve all gathered at this internet post is for the purposes of inspecting Garvin’s breaking ball — in this case, as it appeared during the young Georgian’s Arizona Fall League start of November 9th.

Here’s the first example of it — in this case, to Kansas City outfield prospect Lane Adams:

Read the rest of this entry »

The dispassionate fulfillment of one’s personal duties is probably one of the top-10 or -15 virtues there is, so far as virtues are concerned. It isn’t so important as unyielding insouciance, of course, nor a certain proficiency in the construction and maintenance of the four classic tie knots. That said, it’s almost certainly more desirable than knowing how to ride a unicycle — a practice which, if the author’s sources are correct, is actually punishable by law in Singapore.

Sometimes a man must attend to his business, is what one acknowledges. Of late, it has become clear that the author’s business is to report, in a timely fashion, such instances as when a hitter in the Korean Series (Game Seven of which takes place in a few short hours) releases his bat with a flourish after making contact.

According to priceless internet citizen Dan of My KBO, two such instances occurred last night — video of both being present below. Note that, once again, the author has deliberately inverted the Korean names which appear here, for reasons even he barely understands.

Jun-Seok Choi’s name was invoked not 24 hours ago in these pages under very similar circumstances. Here he is flipping his bat following a fifth-inning home run in Game Six.

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Now THAT’S what I call obstruction!

This has been Baseball Players Twerking.

Prepare your eye units for the majesty machine.

It’s hard to focus on this card without tears blurring eyes in grateful joy and supplication, but the NotGraphs GIF Inspection Team did manage to establish the following data points:

• 5 mustaches
• 0 glasses
• ~80% Topps, ~18% Donruss, ~2% other
• 0 Mariners and 0 Devil Rays — presumably because both sets of pitchers spend/spent equal time turning and watching as pitching
• 0 Rays and 0 Nationals — as we might expect from a piece of classical Art
• 0 Red Sox and 0 Cardinals — presumably because they are preparing for the worst World Series ever (for Rays-Cubs fans, such as your humble reporter)

Many blessings on Matt Pfeffer for distributing this unsourced GIF to us!