Early reporting on the Geovany Soto and Reed Johnson deals came from eyewitness reports of… hugging. The players hugged each other as they said their goodbyes, and a meme was born:
In the great Win a Watch with Time Lincecum’s Face on It GIF Contest 2012, we have some finalists. You’ll have to jump to see em. Your vote counts (in that it’ll be one of a certain number of votes).
First, the scene-setting Tweet:
And now the urgent query …
Hot Internet call-to-action poll served up hot.
The following tweet is entirely and in-no-way altered from the original (click to embiggen):
To the Very Talented and Enigmatic Max Scherzer, Detroit Pitcher:
With regard to your start tonight against Boston — with regard to all your future starts, really — allow me to note, Mr. Scherzer, that you needn’t cross the Pennine or Graian hills, or traverse the Candavian waste, or face the Syrtes, or Scylla, or Charybdis in order to fully realize your innate excellence; the journey for which Nature has equipped you is safe and pleasant. She has given you such gifts that you may, if you do not prove false to them, rise level with God.
With All Due Reverence,
Carson Cistulli
From time to time here in these pages, this being the first time, we like to pause to celebrate the lesser baseball players and their small moments of heroism that might otherwise be forgotten. Today we honor Chad Griffin Durbin, at this moment forgettably engaged in the bullpen of the Atlanta Braves. Mr. Durbin’s career has been forgettable by virtually any measure. Among active pitchers with 700+ IP, he ranks last with 1.7 WAR, or, less than half as valuable as Guillermo Mota. Mr. Durbin has spent 13 seasons in the major leagues. His Wikipedia article states that he “is not related to Dick Durbin, the senator from Illinois, former MLB pitcher J.D. Durbin or 1930’s Seattle Time’s syndicated columnist Derby Durbin.” I detect a mournful tone here. We cannot even depend upon linkage to a marginally less forgettable relative, it seems, to salvage Chad Durbin from the dungheap of memory.
But for one sweltering Kansas City afternoon in the summer of 2001, Chad Durbin was the Durbin; Chad Durbin was a hero. Facing the mighty Seattle Mariners — who had just hosted an All-Star game with four of their own players in the starting lineup, and would go on to compile the most wins in the history of the sport — Durbin hurled eight shutout innings, giving up a scant three doubles and a single, and striking out six. As it turned out, Jamie Moyer also hurled eight shutout innings, and the Royals went on to lose in 10. But for those two glorious hours, the downtrodden souls of Royals Nation held their collective breath as their unlikely champion brought a murderers’ row to its knees.
Since that day, Chad Durbin has traveled from one coast to the other, toiling in replacement-level obscurity. But nothing can erase July 18, 2001 from the annals of history. Chad Durbin, you will not be forgotten.
Here I go again, doting on some things from the weekend:
1. GIF-Morph: Travis Blackley & Wei-Yin Chen
2. Ryan Braun Gives Up
3. Ángel Pagán Makes Great Catch on Ball Thrown Back by Fan?
Yesterday, the Orioles’ Wei-Yin Chen and the Athletics’ Travis Blackley — both southpaws — squared off in Baltimore. PitchFx suggests (see links above) that they are very different pitchers in terms of repertoire, pitch movement, and even release point. The GIF below, however, provides an at least anecdotal kinship.
Since his most recent emancipation from the minor leagues, Travis Snider has been freely roaming left field, making — as you can see, above — highlight reel, and remarkably GIFable, defensive plays. I’ll be honest: I didn’t think he was going to get to that ball. I shouted a celebratory obscenity when he did.
More importantly, the reader will note, Snider, still only 24, is hitting home runs against left-handed pitchers. He’s hit three of them, actually, in nine games, since being recalled. In Snider’s previous four stints with the Blue Jays, the journey having begun all the way back in 2008, long before the patch of grey in my beard appeared, in 232 games, he’d hit — you guessed it — three home runs against left-handed pitchers.
Snider’s obviously figured it all out. And that’s a good thing, because I don’t remember ever being as emotionally invested in a prospect as I am in Snider. I need this to work. I need Snider to become a star. With nobody but the Blue Jays. Or I might never trust another prospect again.
GIF credit: My favorite website, Blue Jays gifs.
Q: Why should I be patient with Justin Upton in a keeper league?
A: Because he may need all the compassion you can offer. Often times, you don’t know what medical problems may be lurking beneath the surface, undiagnosed, causing significant drops in production without logical explanation. By the time they think to perform the right tests, it could be far too late, and Upton could be well on his way to an early grave. And you wouldn’t want to be the owner who dropped him three weeks before the flesh-eating bacteria consumed him whole. (Unless you’re just that competitive, in which case the stress is likely to bring you down as well.)
