BALTIMORE — Dr. Harold Bundy’s frustrating surgical season has ended before it even started.

The orthopedic surgeon at St. Elbow’s Hospital will have season-ending surgery on Thursday, ending a frustrating year in which the right-handed surgeon didn’t perform any surgeries.

“Hopefully, next year this time we’ll be putting a date on when he’s going to be cutting into people’s bodies again,” Chief of Surgery John Buck Showalter said on Wednesday.

Selected fourth overall in the 2011 surgical fellowship draft, Bundy made it to the operating room to debut his technique last season, and was expected to contribute again this year, depending on the number of patients who broke some part of themselves. But he developed arm soreness while writing notes on a patient, and it was all downhill from there.

Read the rest of this entry »

Twins minor leaguer Jordan Parraz hasn’t been a Twins minor leaguer for very long. Until the beginning of May he was a Braves minor leaguer. In 2011, he was a Yankees minor leaguer. Before that he was also, at different points, both a Royals and also an Astros minor leaguer. In sum, Jordan Parraz — originally a third-round pick out of high school by Houston in 2004 — has amassed over 3,500 minor-league plate appearances and precisely zero major-league ones. In addition to some things, Jordan Parraz has likely seen some persons and places, as well. Jordan Parraz is well acquainted with nouns, is the point.

Perhaps related or not, is the footage below of Jordan Parraz from Wednesday’s Double-A Eastern League game between Twins affiliate New Britain and Pirates affiliate Altoona. Ought what Parraz is doing here be referred to as a bat flip proper? Perhaps not. To suggest, however, that bat antics are afoot is an exercise in obvious suggestions.

Like this first one, from the fifth inning, after earning a walk from Altoona pitcher Nathan Baker:

Read the rest of this entry »

Remember when you were a little kid and a hundred dollars was the biggest amount of money you could think of? Imagine if — for your birthday, say — your grandpa or weird uncle offered you a check for $100 with your name on it, or a Joe Crede bobblehead. Which do you choose? Actually, you don’t need to imagine you’re a kid, because the answer is always the same. As Biggie once said, “Fuck bitches, get money.” I’m not calling Joe Crede a bitch, if that’s what you’re insinuating.

Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve never been much of an American League fan. That’s why I chose my NL All-Stars first. Yep, the National League was doing just fine until the American League came along, just like I was doing just fine the first couple of years of my existence, until other people came along and I realized life is just one big competition and if you don’t fight for every scrap, you’ll be left on the fringes of the sandbox, bloody and crying.

That’s why I like the All-Star Game. Because of all the games ballplayers play all year, the results of this one basically don’t count, no one boos you if you lose, and, really, it’s all just one big joke. I sometimes wish the whole season was like that. That wins and losses didn’t matter, no one kept score, and the big trophy went to the team with the nicest smiles and most pleasant disposition. I think that’s the Indians, right? Any team with Nick Swisher has to be the winners in this category, don’t they? And Justin Masterson seems like a pleasant dude. Saw an interview with Lou Marson once where he seemed pretty friendly. Is he still on the team, or did Yan Gomes steal his roster spot? Poor Lou Marson.

Onto the ballot…

Read the rest of this entry »

In celebration of today’s landmark decisions on the right of all adult Americans to marry the people they love, regardless of race, creed, or gender, here is a list of baseball people I would marry, if I wasn’t already hitched to a woman who would skin me alive for even mentioning the possibility of ending our blissful union and taking up with someone else: Read the rest of this entry »

And you can tell as much by the silences as by the words he uses.

HawkUpset2

For reference.

Burger King,

We used to be cool. We had a nice arrangement. I would give you a small amount of money in exchange for delicious meals prepared my way, so long as my way involved a preset number of vegetables and microwaved meat paste. You have that mascot that technically isn’t but totally is wearing a Guy Fawkes mask. You supplied joy and sustenance to people, and you only screwed up my orders like 14% of the time.

Read the rest of this entry »

In which, as before, the author scours the online auctions for baseball-themed collectibles that should never, ever, under any circumstances be allowed into your home.

10″ atlanta braves mlb baseball #10 chipper jones doll star sacks 3rd baseman

Brian Roberts Baltimore Orioles ERROR Dark Pigmentation Baseball Bobblehead Doll

Read the rest of this entry »

The present author has noted previously in these pages both that (a) he’s married to a real human woman with nearly all of her limbs/senses and also that (b) the woman in question has a number of Special Skills, one of which is goddamn art photography.

Below are some recent baseball-related efforts by that same wife, a result of trips to Class-A Kane County in Geneva, IL, and also to a Madison Mallards game of the collegiate wood-bat Northwoods League.

All images are both (a) embiggenable via clicking and (b) stolen directly from the aforementioned wife’s lightly maintained website.

Read the rest of this entry »