My Favorite Getty Images 2011 Baseball Portraits

A No Longer Breaking, but Still Upsetting Hair Alert: Cole Hamels's Goatee Part III

Yes, Cole Hamels still has his goatee. Moreover, Cole Hamels's goatee has a chatty twitter account. Here's an iPhone photo I took of a professional photograph, followed by something clever I thought to do while trolling the internet for more professional photographs of Cole Hamels's goatee:

ENLARGE IT. They're twins. Cole won another game today. I'm not crediting the goatee. He's just good at baseball.

Pairings

Buster Posey with....

...Aubrey Huff

...Barry Zito

...Brian Wilson

...two awards
...two babies(?!)

Breaking Hair Alert: Cole Hamels's Goatee, Part II

From my personal Cole Hamels archive:

If you want to read or contribute to a message board about this goatee, you can do so here.

Breaking Hair Alert: Cole Hamels's Goatee, Part 1

Last night, Cole Hamels shut down the Padres. He also got two hits! Why don't these count towards my Fantasy stats? I have a few players who have only had one hit this week (Jeter) and could use the boost in batting average. Here he is caught in a run down between first and second base:

But the important news is Cole Hamels's new facial hair. What's going on, here?? More photos to follow.

Brooklyn Throwback

The newly orphaned Dodgers wore Brooklyn throwback uniforms yesterday in their extra-inning victory over the Atlanta Braves. Our old friend Casey Blake hit a home run!

Emerging ace Clayton Kershaw struck out seven batters and wore very large pants. Matt Kemp hit a walk-off home run in the 12th inning. I think he has the right idea with the high socks. Is this shade of powder blue the universal signifier of PAJAMAS? I remember the Blue Jays doing something like this once, to pretty much the same effect.

In case you've forgotten, this is what the Dodgers usually look like:

And what they did look like when they were in Brooklyn (courtesy of this cool fan blog):

Now, I too must brush my teeth and leave Brooklyn.

Look Now, Look Again

Here are some things I noticed while scrolling through the Yahoo! Sports MLB Photo Gallery:

Successfully pitching his first complete game of the season did not change Roy Halladay's perpetually dour expression. The above photo made me think of this, for some reason:


It's Saint Sebastian! The patron saint of "soldiers, plagues, arrows, athletes/athletics/sports." I googled "patron saint of baseball" and this is what happened:

Thanks dude. Since we're on the subject of religion:

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I love thinking about what the Connecticut basketball player to A-Rod's right is texting in this photo. Doesn't A-Rod look like he's made out of plastic?


And finally, I swear that Derek Jeter is wearing bigger pants than normal:

See?

I did a few image searches for "Derek Jeter big pants" and "Derek Jeter tight pants" and "Is Derek Jeter wearing bigger pants than usual?" Which lead to this:

The internet...who knows why anything is the way it is. More Derek Jeter pants updates to follow.

Baseball as Experienced Through my iPhone

Here are some iPhone photos of my recent baseball activities:

Yankee Stadium, Hat Night

A page from my baseball card binder

Watching the Dodgers on my computer

Earlier today, an appropriately dreamy photo of Cole Hamels

Cole Hamels was great this afternoon. Here are two notable excerpts from his 2009 Sports Illustrated profile:

In early January 2009 Cole and Heidi drove their Jeep, with a U-Haul attached, from their house in suburban Philadelphia to Clearwater so Cole could start his off-season workouts at the Phillies' spring training facility. On the way they stopped in Orlando. There Heidi, a dedicated runner who has a master's degree in exercise physiology, ran a half-marathon and attended a convention on behalf of a company she has started with her sister Dawn called sistasshirts.com, which produces and sells inspirational T-shirts for female runners. (Cole manned the credit-card swiper.)

Hamels is also humble and quick to laugh at himself. He casts himself as the rube in many of the personal stories he tells. There was the time that shortstop Jimmy Rollins and a few other teammates invited him to play cards on the team plane. ("I was like, Sure, I know how to play poker, but it wasn't poker, and the next thing I know, all my meal money's gone.") And the misunderstanding over the 2010 Chevy Camaro he won as the World Series MVP and promised in a postgame interview to give to Heidi. ("I kept waiting for them to deliver it, so I finally called and they said you have to order it online, and it'll take eight months. I was like, I thought I just got the one that was on the field!")

I'm now listening to the Yankees-Red Sox game on the radio. No photos will be taken.

Evan Longoria's Hair

I don't want to talk about Evan Longoria's strained left oblique. I want to talk about his hair.

This mullet of free spirited curls isn't that bad when he keeps his hat on, especially considering this look:

Or this one:

Or this one:

APRIL FOOL'S! That's Johnny Damon. Did you see him fall down in left field the other day?