Archive for Obvious Conspiracy

  If Vin Scully asked you to do something, would you refuse?  Of course you wouldn’t.  Not unless you were a God-damned Communist.  You would do whatever the golden-voiced Vincent asked of you and you would not ask questions.  It should be apparent by now that Vin Scully is our nation’s greatest treasure, and that to refuse him is to refuse America.  “Why do you hate America?” I would ask if Vin Scully asked you to run out and murder a hobo and you refused.  “Vin Scully has done so much for us, and you won’t do this one little thing for him?”  Then I’d put your name on my list and I’d drop it off at my nearest police precinct as one of literally dozens of Stalinist-sympathizers who are still, even today, in our midst.  I miss Joe McCarthy is what I’m saying.  (Note: Joe McCarthy the Senator, not the Manager.  Double Note: Of the US Senators, not the Washington Senators.  Though the US Senators also play in Washington.  You are smart people; you know who I mean.)

Anywho, Vince tests our devotion today in yet another early commercial for Gillette razors, in which you can see his magical powers of teleportation and miraculous ability to avoid commenting on Wally Moon’s eyebrow: Read the rest of this entry »

Brayan Pena expresses the gratitude of millions.

I don’t know what the coverage of baseball was like last night for those of you in the U.S. of A., but up here in the Great White North sports coverage needs a bit of help with priorities. They were talking about games in Florida, Maryland, and other sordid little burgs, but hardly mentioned the story they should have led with: Bruce Chen’s eight innings of shutout ball (somehow matched by Carl Pavano’s nine) in Minnesota on an emotional night that might have been Chen’s last game in a Royals uniform.

We are all reeling from the emotional night at Target Field, but those who may have happened upon one of my FanGraphs chats know that this is particularly difficult for me. While I celebrate the greatness that is Chen, it is time to bid the meme him farewell.

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Believe it.

By now you’ve heard that legendary Marlins’ closer Leo Nunez (28) is actually Juan Carlos Oviedo (29). Eric Augenbraun has nicely filled in the details. It is a sad situation, and one hopes that Oviedo (who probably just didn’t want people back home in the Dominican to know he was playing for the Pirates and Royals) manages to resolve things and gets back to playing in the majors again soon.

However, the truth has to come out, and our crack Investigative Reporting Investigation Team has unearthed many other major leaguers players and even executives are working under assumed names. Read on for The Truth, and don’t say you weren’t warned. Your world may never be the same.

Assumed Name: Real Name

Alex Gordon: Jim Halpert

Jason Bay: Alexei Ramirez

Scott Baker: Joe Randa

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You happen across American Bad Seed Pete Rose in a Cooperstown diner. You follow him to his car and ask him for an autograph. He declines. What you do next will, in some ways, define you and how you handle the daisy chain of adversities found in this, our miserable existence.

Do you merely acknowledge that celebrities have no obligation to indulge our bizarre whims and return to your chili-cheese fries? Or you do heave the unsigned ball across the road — at traffic level — and into the woods where James Fenimore Cooper once played army, heel-turn, stomp off into the distance, and squeeze out a few shitty-baby tears? If you’re the guy captured below on live-action video, then it’s an easy choice …

At this late hour, I thought all of us knew that Mr. Rose would walk through hell in a gasoline suit before he’d sign something for free.

(Autograph request: Off the Bench)

Today I have something in common with the idle rich. I am manifestly not rich, but I am now quite, quite idle. That’s because yesterday, after nine years of service — service that gave off every appearance of being loyal — FOXSports.com let me go. It was a budgetary decision, which allows me to fall on the less displeasing end of the somewhat blurry laid off/fired continuum. So that’s something. Right?

Anyhow, I’m not going to sit here and meow on and on about my grim circumstances. Plenty of people are much worse off, and I have cabinets full of canned goods, SSRIs and mind-altering spirits. I’ll be fine. Rather, I’d like to reflect upon some positives that have arisen from my new, blighted condition. To be sure, I have some regrets right now — no longer working with some terrific editors over at FOX is chief among them — but some things sustain me …

Above all, I carry with me no hard feelings, and I still, in my own estimation, number among the lucky bastards of this world. And as with all things in life, an Internet meme provides guiding wisdom …

Thank you for listening.

Given what we have long known about Mose Schrute of “The Office” and his baseball-ing double life, can the following striking resemblance come as any surprise?

First, Mose Schrute …

And now here’s major-league closer turned fearless opinion-shaper, Mitch Williams …

Not many beards these days say, “I was named for an Old Testament character, and I occasionally entertain the darkest of thoughts while churning butter,” but these two beards say exactly that. Can it possibly be a coincidence?

The following has already been linked to over at Mission Control, but IIATMS’s viciously sublime takedown of the McCourts is more than worth your while. Even in this day and age, when news of corporate malfeasance is mere background music, this raises one’s hackles. For damn instance:

How did the Dodgers manage to fund the McCourt lifestyle? Let’s start with salaries: Jamie McCourt received up to $2 million annually for her services as Dodgers’ CEO. Frank McCourt received up to $5 million annually from one or more businesses affiliated with the Dodgers. The Dodgers also paid up to $600,000 in annual salary to two of the McCourt children, one of whom was attending Stanford University and the other of whom had a full-time job at Goldman Sachs.

But $7.6 million a year was not nearly enough money to meet the needs (estimated at over $2 million a month) of the McCourt family. The McCourts spent money at a rate that turned heads, even in Los Angeles. Best known is the McCourt appetite for real estate. After buying the team, the McCourts proceeded to buy four homes in Los Angeles – two in Malibu, two near the Playboy Mansion – at a combined cost of around $89 million. This figure includes the estimated cost of McCourt “improvements” to these homes, including a roughly $14 million bill for tearing out tennis courts at one property and replacing them with a swimming pool. Then there were the other expenses: the vacation properties, the private jet, the private drivers, the hairdresser who worked exclusively for the McCourts five days a week … the list goes on and on. Here’s an expense that’s one of my personal favorites: over one 18-month period, Jamie McCourt paid over $100,000 to various florists, and charged the Dodgers for the expense.

There’s more. So, so, so, so much more. These people are beasts. I don’t wish death upon anyone, so instead I’ll hope that these two, upon being forced to live in the woods by the bankruptcy court, get permanent chicken pox.

Names, as I read once somewhere, are powerful things.  Without them, it’d be impossible to google yourself.

Ego-surfing is a basic American right, up there with drive-thrus and Words With Friends.  We deserve to know, at any moment, where each of us stands in the social order.  And yet many men, even among the celebrities who hit balls with sticks and throw balls past people with sticks, have had their identities stripped from them.  The men listed below are exceptional.  They beat the odds and became professional baseball players, only to become afterthoughts, exceeded not only in fame but in the very vocation they spent a lifetime training for.  It’s a tragedy when stories have been silenced by other, better stories.  Please take a few moments to mourn these forgotten semi-heroes through the power of hastily-wrought prose:

Randy Johnson, 3B

Search for “Randy Johnson Braves” on Google and the first site you’ll see is not poor Randall Glenn Johnson of Escondido, California, but an article about how the Braves let the other Randy Johnson get away, failing to sign him in 1982 as a fourth-round pick out of high school.  How unwanted can you make a man feel?  Randall was actually a pretty solid part-timer for the Braves in the early 80s, earning 2.3 WAR in three seasons before heading off to Japan.  Even his mustache is a strong, yet ultimately inferior, performance.

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As you may be aware, the Nationals, because of a searing antipathy for all things Bull-Moose, have conspired never to allow Teddy Roosevelt to win the Presidents’ Race. I can think of plenty of injustices in the world, but few measure up to this one.

Well, recently the enterprising Mr. Roosevelt, taking his cues from Great Men of History like Gob Bluth and Jim Bowden, showed the plucky boldness that has allowed this fine republic of his to vanquish anything, save for morbid obesity and a bunch of other stuff …

As you can see, the fix was in. As for Screech the Eagle, who is clearly an asshole, a few words of grave warning … First, I know the Great Ejector, and you, sir, are no Great Ejector. Second, are you aware what Prez Roos does to lower-evolved varmints who get between him and what’s his? Let us remind you:

Your move, cuckoo bird.

Patriot’s gratitude to Dave Brown and the barrel o’ monkeys that is his Twitter feed.

Ozzie Guillen was ejected from last night’s game and promptly tweeted the above tweet. Unsurprisingly, MLB has come back strong today and hit him with a two-game suspension. Of course, it’s hard to imagine a worse offense than tweeting during a game, so it’s understandable that MLB cracked down so hard. Just for comparison’s sake, let’s take a look at some other two-game suspensions from recent MLB history.

Nationals manager Jim Riggleman, for participation in the Nyjer Morgan/Chris Volstad brawl last season.

Dusty Baker and Tony La Russa, for participation in the massive Cardinals/Reds brawl last season.

Fernando Rodney, for throwing a ball into the stands after recording a save in 2009.

Jonny Gomes, for his “violent actions” which incited a Rays/Yankees fight in spring training of 2008.

Joba Chamberlain, for throwing two pitches over the head of Kevin Youkilis in a game in 2007.

Dioner Navarro, for bumping the home plate umpire in a game last season.

Dave Trembley, for a “running argument” with the home plate umpire in 2009.

Milton Bradley, for arguing balls and strikes in 2009.

Kyle Farnsworth, for tackling Paul Wilson of the Reds in 2003.

And, my personal favorite, Francisco Rodriguez, for punching his father-in-law in the Mets’ clubhouse.

Take that for what you will. To me, it seems like the MLB is taking tweeting quite seriously.