2013 was a bad year for you, Astros fans, and if we’re being honest — and why wouldn’t we — 2014 isn’t going to be a whole lot better.
And when the doggiest days of summer are upon you, when hope is but a degrading granule of sugar in the boiling bathtub of water that is Houston fandom, remember this; Jose Altuve will tumble for you.
Watch:
Listen:
UPDATE: Yeah, too soon.
Aroldis Chapman is not super-seriously hurt and will likely return to the field this season–perhaps as soon as May. This is great! Baseball and all human people are better off with him being not seriously hurt. This news also allows guilt-free enjoyment of the following low-quality GIF: Noted deadpan master Steven Wright striking Chapman in the face with a one-liner.
My spreadsheet has many columns.
My spreadsheet has many rows.
My spreadsheet smells like jasmine.
My spreadsheet says the sweetest things to me as I drift off to sleep at night.
My spreadsheet is made of gold.
My spreadsheet has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Footage like this of Peterson tripling off tough lefty Javier Lopez is part of the problem.
JUPITER, FL – An internet baseball weblogger who is definitely not the same one responsible for this post acknowledged early on Tuesday morning that first making and then intently watching GIFs of a San Diego shortstop prospect — regardless of actual motive — was probably inappropriate in some way.
On the occasion of the latter’s fifth birthday, the author’s wife spoke with our niece this past weekend. Among the topics of conversation: that same niece’s capacities as a wiffleball player. Whether she has a future at the highest level of the sport remains unclear. If scouting reports courtesy of her own self are accurate, however, the bat will almost certainly play, regardless of position.
As a relative newcomer to the FanGraphs Family Of SuperBlogs & MarketPlace Grille, I am often asked by everyone everywhere if the FanGraphs Family of SuperBloggers is – or should that be are? – as dashing and magnificent as they seem. Now that I am fractionally recovered from my first Spring Break, or, rather, Spring Training with the aforementioned supergroup, I can say without pause or equivocation that, in fact, they are even more dashing and magnificent than they might seem to anyone who has not had the pleasure of sitting in a hotel bar with them until such time that the manager announces that they don’t have to go home but they can’t stay here – like, dashing and magnificent to the power of 10!*
* Graph not included.
Our friends at MyKBO.net pass along this footage from a recent game in the Korean Baseball Organization:
Let’s not gather together here as the lesser Internetters are wont to do and mock someone beyond our circle of relations. Instead, let’s look at this horrendous turn of events for the Korean center fielder Na Sung-beom and recognize it for what it likely is: A once-in-a-career moment.
No player would find himself among the professional ranks if he or she frequently visited Three Error Town. This center fielder here, he’s in no way as bad as this, his worst fielding moment. So let’s enjoy this rare destruction of pride and professionalism. Let’s laugh alongside Na Sung-beom — though he may not yet be laughing — and admit, “Hey, that’s us out there in center field, booting the ball, then dropping the ball, then wildly slinging the ball at no one in particular. That’s all of us. Today, we’re all Na Sung-beom.”
True story, the softball team I founded and manage lost 32-0 and then 32-0, again, in our first two games. We’re a team of Na Sung-beom’s worst moments. And, hey, we kinda love it.
UPDATE:
Read the rest of this entry »
It won’t surprise anyone familiar with my colleague Dayn Perry or his work to learn that he passes the majority of his nights and days entirely sans shirt. It is wholly within the realm of credulity, moreover, to find that the only garment for which Perry exhibits any tolerance — because it allows him to evacuate at leisure — is a disposable diaper. Finally, no one anywhere is likely to disbelieve the suggestion that Product of the American South Dayn Perry devotes a sizable portion of his waking life to striking his head against objects both foreign and domestic (with a marked preference for the latter, naturally).
What has happened today? Today, noted weblogger Dayn Perry was spotted at a Cubs game.
At about 4am ET this morning — a time when only criminals and Australians (i.e. a very tan criminal) are awake and active — the Arizona Diamondbacks and Los Angeles Dodgers began the 2014 baseball season.
The event, of course, carries all manner of significance for all manner of people. For the present author, however, the main concern regarding the contest wasn’t the final score or how Yasiel Puig looked as he entered his sophomore campaign, but rather how many pitches right-hander Kenley Jansen would require to emasculate an opposing batter with his emasculating cutter.
The answer, as the footage below indicates, appears to have been “roughly zero pitches.”
With his club leading by a score of 3-1, Jansen entered the game in the ninth inning — which inning he began with a 92 mph cutter to Mark Trumbo, as illustrated here:
