The Tim Kurkjian Impression Contest has been, hands down, the best part of spring training. Next up, Milwaukee’s Tim Dillard:

Kurkjian’s reaction when Dillard showed up was just priceless. As for Dillard, that was good. Very good. Excellent use of ridiculously obscure stats; Dillard did his homework. I appreciate that. And the Nyjer Morgan impression as Kurkjian put it over the top. Needless to say, I was very impressed.

So, who ya got: Dillard or J.P. Arencibia? This one’s too close to call.

By definition, advertising is designed to produce within the consumer irrational and positive feelings for the goods or services being advertised. It’s largely because of advertising, for example — and brand creation, generally — that my wife has recently informed me her next computer will be a Mac, despite the fact that (a) she’s incapable of articulating the actual technical differences between Macs and PCs and (b) we definitely cannot afford one of those things. She “prefers” Macs, is what she tells me. I, for my part, prefer large-bosomed American socialites. We can’t, in this life, have everything we want.

And yet, the advertising community is also populated by a number of talented people — including, specifically, members of American advertising firm Copacino+Fujikado, who have been responsible for the Seattle Mariners’ TV commercials since 1996.

The firm recently (it seems) released five new ads for the 2012 season. They appear below, sans comment.

Read the rest of this entry »

(Player) Turning Heads in (location of MLB team Spring Training facility)

By (National Baseball Writer)

(PLACE IN FLORIDA OR ARIZONA) — While most of the attention in (team’s) camp has been focused on (more valuable, better paid player who is returning from an injury), (less known, bad player — possibly a non-roster invitee) has quietly been catching the eyes of (team’s) officials.

Aware that he is likely down to his last life in professional baseball, (Player) surprised the (team) when he arrived for Spring Training “in the best shape of his life.” Through his first (less than 5) games, (player) has made it clear that he intends to make the most of this opportunity.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tommy Lasorda, brief and awful Major League pitcher, legendary former manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers, godfather to Mike Piazza’s younger brother and to Alex Avila, recipient of all sorts of honorary positions, current “Goodwill Ambassador” (read: Walmart Greeter) for Major League Baseball (despite a history of amazing, amazing profane tirades), and still a perennial presence at Dodgers’ spring camp, is going to turn 85(!) this year.

In his twilight, he has embraced Twitter. Surprisingly, his tweets are cogent and even integrate a full range of hashtags, @’s, links, and pics. He interacts with fans and young players alike, and he’s not at all curmudgeonly or haughty about his success (though he doesn’t hesitate to post office-poster-worthy phrases of disgusting optimism that all seem to vary only slightly from “If you think you are a winner then you will be a winner”). I’m not sure if someone is ghost-tweeting or maintaining his MLBlog for him, but given that both media are updated pretty often and that many of his tweets are about food, I’m willing to give Tommy himself full credit.

I’d like, also, to give Tommy full credit for living with great vigor, eating until his arms are tired and tucking in his jersey to his uniform pants like it’s a good idea. He denies the grip of death so audaciously that he is able to assume that a man fifteen years younger than him is dead:

It has come to my attention that Jimmy Wynn is not dead. Sorry for the error. Hey, not even Babe Ruth batted 1.000.

— Tommy Lasorda (@TommyLasorda) March 12, 2012

Read the rest of this entry »

Sonny Gray, Oakland A’s prospect.

Man i got jalapenoed at lunch.. Still suffering from the aftermath..

— Sonny Gray(@SonnyGray2) February 25, 2012

Oh my.. My little sister @KatieGray24 just farted and is trying to wave it in my face.

— Sonny Gray(@SonnyGray2) February 7, 2012

I don’t always drink beer but when i do.. Sometimes i drink root beer

— Sonny Gray(@SonnyGray2) February 27, 2012

Oscar Meyer weiners

— Sonny Gray(@SonnyGray2) February 27, 2012

Fell asleep on the couch last night at 11 and woke up in my bed. Hope my sleep walking is not coming back

— Sonny Gray(@SonnyGray2) February 4, 2012

Eating mystery meat for breakfast

— Sonny Gray(@SonnyGray2) January 31, 2012

My waitress has the worst name.. Inita.. Inita my drink Inita

— Sonny Gray(@SonnyGray2) February 25, 2012

My mouth is so numb numb numb numb

— Sonny Gray(@SonnyGray2) February 2, 2012

There is a blind man at the movie theatre..

— Sonny Gray(@SonnyGray2) January 30, 2012

Why are farts so dang funny

— Sonny Gray(@SonnyGray2) February 28, 2012

I hate croutons

— Sonny Gray(@SonnyGray2) January 14, 2012

Tampa Bay Rays prized left-handed prospect Matt Moore makes his first appearance of the spring (at 1:05pm ET, available on Gameday Audio) after dealing with an abdominal strain.

For those unfamiliar with the entirety of Moore’s professional career to date, here are some selections from his entry in the 2012 Tampa Bay Rays Media Guide:

• Was Gatorade’s 2007 New Mexico Player of the Year at Moriarty High School, which finished as state runners-up… also played basketball and golf… played first base and outfield when he wasn’t pitching… agreed to attend University of New Mexico before signing with the Rays.

• Led all minor league pitchers in 2008 with a 12.75 SO/9 IP ratio and .154 opp avg… named Pitcher of the Year for Rookie-level Princeton, where he spent a second straight season… led the Rays org. in ERA and ranked 6th among all minor league pitchers… topped the Appalachian League in strikeouts.

• Matt’s favorite pitcher growing up was his own future self.

Read the rest of this entry »

In which images of the base-balling Reuschel brothers, Rick and Paul, are paired with befitting movie titles …

It is one of the eternal injustices of the world that greatness on the upper lip so rarely coincides with greatness on the ballfield. A man — and here I expressly exclude such god-spawn as Eddie Clarence Murray — only has so much energy to give. Who among us has not wished to lift a timeless mouthbrow from its prosaic confines? To grant a thing of beauty the immortality toward which it forlornly strives? Why, we ask, must a masterwork like Ross Grimsley’s be stuck straining Ross Grimsley’s soup?

There is a way. Before you lies an Olympus of great mustaches, and the mortal, frail, broken faces from which they arose. Also before you lie some ballplayers of repute, who kept themselves hairless through inexplicable choice or sheer frailty. All you will need to set the universe aright is a pair of scissors, some tape*, and a crippling sense of cosmic responsibility. (Click to very bigly embiggen)

* Scissors and tape can be found at many general-purpose retail establishments.

Who’s ready for a big season? I plugged “big season” 2012 into Google News, and here’s who appears to be ready for an amazing 2012:

Read the rest of this entry »

Like most of us, I knew him only as the almost spectral presence who delivered sex-drenched commands and remorseless taunts from on high. He paid us in corsair’s doubloons. He claimed to have invented new smells and colors. He lifted not barbells but paid whores left pliant from hours of driving coitus. He carried a razor in his sock. His voice was so gravelly that actual gravel spewed from his maw. If a man is something dimensionless and awful to behold, then he was man. He was David Appelman.

This past weekend, in the deserts of America, I met him. By way of introduction, he beat me with a cactus and then kissed my fresh wounds. Such is his power. Such is his malaise. Like someone from a Garcia Marquez novel, Appelman is followed everywhere by a pack of menacing tarantulas. “My spider-sons,” he calls them. His appetite for illegal drugs and sex as locus of control is both boundless and without bound. As he ravishes you on whim, the only consoling knowledge is that whatever he’s doing to you at that moment is but a taste of the horrors ahead. You can always buy another bodice, he tells you. I saw him brawl with Christ. David Appelman is an animated urge.

We are not equipped to remember our births, which is a necessary survival device. We are also not equipped to remember the precise things that David Appelman does to, at and on us. We cannot, lest we combust from vice and rot. Every so often, though, the gossamer parts, if only for a moment, and you remember something about him. He is hairy beyond plausibility. His member is untold and prehensile. It turns out there is an eighth deadly sin.

I am in need of physicians.