Friday, April 27, 2012

Don't Forget About Jayson Werth. I Never Will.

Jayson Werth is still out there, skulking around the outfield, making $18 million dollars a year and giving pre-humans their due representation in the Major Leagues.  There were a lot of photos of him in today's Yahoo! Sports MLB Photo Gallery, so I thought I'd share my three favorites with you.  I like these photos because each one of them teaches you something about Jayson Werth.


1. He's started using Chase Utley's hair gel.


2. He can roll his eyeballs all the way back into his head.


3. His arms aren't like other people's arms.

Maybe he's not pre-human. Maybe he's UNDEAD.  

Saturday, April 21, 2012

I'm Mad Because My Favorite Hobby is Looking at Things

There were a lot of baseball things that I wanted to see yesterday and unfortunately I didn't get to see any of them.  The first unseeable event was the Yankee-Red Sox game celebrating 100 Years of Fenway Park.  I wonder how many people skipped work or school to see Dustin Pedroia wearing a 1912 throwback uniform.  My boss, despite his alleged Red Sox fan-dom, didn't let me stream the game at work.  Maybe he knew that Clay Buchholz would give up five home runs?  I have Buchholz on one of my Fantasy Teams and this still absolutely delighted me.

Wikipedia says that there's a section of Fenway Park called "Williamsburg."
Maybe I should go there on a tour of All The Worlds' Williamsburgs.



Top: The old Red Sox uniforms look better than their current uniforms. 
I am a big fan of ice-cream-man-themed ensembles.
Bottom: Look who finally crawled out of his bottomless pit of Sports Hell.
I am a big fan of Tom Brady's facial expression.  WHAT A JOKER.

The Yankees uniforms look mostly the same to me.  Here's Derek Jeter wearing striped socks and passing Dave Winfield on the all-time hits list:

Fantasy Baseball Super Star, Derek Jeter

And here's a photo of the Yankees celebrating their 6-2 win:

Did Tom Brady cry? But also feel relieved that
other people lose things, too?

The second unseeable event was Cole Hamels pitching against the Padres.  Yes, I tried to watch this game on my phone while I was at a bar and yes, I realize that this was ill-mannered of me and no, it didn't work.  MLB.tv wasn't working when I got home either, which resulted in a huge temper tantrum.  Seems like Cole was also fired up, as he hit this random person...


...and then later had to be physically restrained from arguing with the umpire after a called balk.

Honestly, in my opinion, that body language doesn't 
really say "I need to be restrained."

Good game, Cole.  I wish I could have seen it.  Were you still angry when you woke up this morning?  I was, but I'm getting better.  What are you doing this weekend?  I hear it's going to rain.

Thursday, April 19, 2012

Baseball Makes People Happy


This is Munenori Kawasaki from Kagoshima. I'd like to go there someday.  I'm feeling overwhelmed by the changes to Blogger's back end, so I'm going to stop writing now.

Sunday, April 15, 2012

Batter's Box

Yesterday I watched some of the White Sox home opener against the Tigers. I turned the game on and there was a delay in the first inning; it turned out that Miguel Cabrera had noticed that something was wrong with the location of the batter's box. From what I understood as I was watching the game, the batter's box was too close to the pitcher; I imagine Miggy going up to the batter's box and noticing that Jake Peavy was a lot closer than he should have been. Here's a play by play of what happened.

Later in the game, the White Sox announcers Steve Stone and Ken "Hawk" Harrelson both admitted they had never witnessed a redrawing of the batter's box before. And then later at night, Detroit announcer Rod Allen tweeted that he has been in "Pro Ball for 35 years and have never seen anything like what I witnessed today with Cabby. That's why he's a 'BEAST'". MLB Network people were remarking on what happened as well. Harold Reynolds noted that Miggy stands really far back in the batter's box, which may explain this photo, taken from the comments section of the SB Nation link. 


Even with the box redrawn, Miggy's foot is on the line. Now I wonder what it would be like to stand in a batter's box, especially where he stands. Or, I wonder what it's like to stand on any part of the field. On White Sox Dog Day where you bring your dog to the park, you can apparently partake in the parade where you get to walk your dog with many others on the field. I guess you need a special pass for this, in addition to general admission to Dog Day. I'm starting to digress here, but I need to announce that Mitsu Scheckter will not be attending White Sox Dog Day this year due to her owners being out of the country at the time. I'm sorry, White Sox fans, and I'm sorry, Mitsu! Next year we'll go, and maybe we can parade on the field. 

Anyway, it's interesting that Austin Jackson and Brennan Boesch missed the detail before Miggy. Since they're more veteran-ish, I wonder if A.J. Pierzynski or Jake Peavy noticed anything. 

Baseball moves on quickly so I will try to as well. The Sox won yesterday's and today's game; the Tigers are slowing down a bit here in Chicago. Aside from the Marlins losing to the Astros tonight, and David Wright having a monster day after coming back from pinky injury, the only thing noteworthy that comes to my mind right now is Yu Darvish, who had another good enough but not quality start (maybe one day I can provide good enough but not quality translations of his blog posts/tweets). I hope everyone is enjoying whatever games they're watching this weekend!

Saturday, April 14, 2012

Marlins win!

It seems like there's a lot of drama in Miami with the new team, the new stadium, and Ozzie being Ozzie. The Marlins had their first win tonight at the new stadium. The win came in extra innings with a walk-off double by first baseman Gaby Sanchez. I watched some of the game on MLB.TV, and saw Billy the Marlin in the stands. Here's a screen grab!
  
Then I saw a shoe on the screen, and wasn't paying enough attention to hear whose shoe it was and why they were showing it so prominently. But I took a picture anyway.
Sorry I don't have more baseball-related details about the game, but I wanted to share these two pictures here. I'm glad baseball is back!

Wednesday, April 11, 2012

This Photo is Too Sad for Words

Okay fine, I laughed when I saw it. But only because sadness makes me laugh in self-defense.

In Which I Mention Even More Plans to Write Derek Jeter Fan Fiction

While baseball started, I was camping in an internet-less California forest. My first glimpse of the 2012 season was seeing Cole Hamels get shelled on Sports Center during the flight home. Good Lord. Since I started paying attention, though, things have gotten better. Derek Jeter hit a home run tonight! Anything is possible. NEVER treat your life like an old t-shirt.

Derek Jeter (as if you didn't know by now)

I've been saying that for years, but I guess I still don't really understand what it means. I'm wearing one of my mom's old t-shirts right now. I wonder how Derek Jeter and Jack Curry decided that that saying should be the conclusion of DJ's autobiography. I'll be sure to ask DJ when I ghost-write his next autobiography:

THE JETER YEARS: A White House Memoir by America's Most Beloved President, Including Photos (Mostly in Color), Recipes, Poems, Jokes, and Facts

Look for it on iTunes 30 or 40 years from now.