This is a Professional Athlete

Is there any person who looks more like his or her name than Bartolo Colon does his?

If CC Sabathia can lose 25 pounds simply by not eating an entire box of Cap'n Crunch for breakfast, what is this man doing wrong? Or rather, refusing to do right?

My First Baseball Movie

Phil helped me learn how to use iMovie and I made this:



I've had a really productive weekend on the internet, as you can see.

Play Fantasy Baseball with Jamie

Hello college friends. Do you want to play Fantasy Baseball with Jamie (again)? If so, tell him YES so that he'll stop being so absorbed in his Canadian life and set up a league for us.


If you join, I'll make you a crappy Photoshop collage about your favorite player. Or, if you'd rather just read about a Fantasy league that involves some Grinnellians and many Asian people, you can do that here.

Hatless

The Phillies did a pitcher presser on Monday to show off their "historic" rotation. Are they going to win the World Series? Yeah, maybe. Are they the best looking rotation in baseball? I don't think so, but Cole Hamels has really nice hair.

Joe Blanton. Ugh.

Signs of Life

Happy Valentine's Day! The curbside piles of frozen trash are finally melting in New York and the city's cold wave of mass seasonal depression seems to be peaking. Spring must be on it's way! And so, pitchers and catchers from across the globe have begun reporting to their team camps in Arizona and Florida. In celebration of the fact that BASEBALL SEASON IS COMING, here are some old photos of our favorite pitchers and catchers in sunny places, including some with palm trees.

Top Top: Roy Halladay, Fantasy Baseball All-Star
Top Bottom: Cole Hamels, Walking Purposefully
Bottom Top: Fans in sports shorts watch Mo run
Bottom Bottom: CC's new diet

I heard that CC Sabathia's already lost 25 pounds and that he expects to lose 5-10 more during spring training. According to this photo, his new nutritionist is a giraffe. GO YANKEES.

Top: Joe Mauer reading Proust
Bottom: Happy Tigers

I'm not a very dedicated follower of the central teams, so perhaps you can tell me two things. Does Joe Mauer live in Minnesota during the off-season? And who is that jumping person?

Pitchers and catchers in California have a nice life, year-round. They also enjoy dressing their rookies as Alpine women.

Top top: Chad Billingsley: Dodgers Right-handed Pitcher
Top Bottom: Clayton Kershaw in a dress
Bottom Top: Buster Posey in a dress
Bottom Bottom: Sports Celebrities...they're just like us!

If that isn't a photo of Tim Lincecum stoned in the hotel hot tub, I'll buy and mail everyone ten boxes of conversation hearts each.

By Popular Demand

I never really know what to expect when I check in on the list of Google keywords that lead people to this blog. This month, almost 40% of all searchers came looking for photos of Drew Brees's baby. An additional four or five people were just looking for "sports children." Well, okay. Here's a baseball child and here's Cool Breez-y Jr. at last year's Superbowl:



Joe let me steal this card from him this summer. I keep it on my desk even though I rooted for Peyton Manning, because like everyone else on the internet, I find this baby cute.

While we're on the subject, I'd like to publicly welcome the very first friend-baby to enter my life. I can't believe it. Congratulations, guys.

Refractors

It's Sunday, so I spent the morning half-listening to The BS Report and looking at baseball cards on the internet. I don't know anything about the baseball card market-- I just appreciate that they're uniformly rectangular objects with images on them. Some cards look SO good. I love nostalgia cards and cards that resemble paintings, like this Chase Utley National Chicle card I got out of a pack I bought while in Door County, Wisconsin with my parents this summer (note: this is not an image of my card). Someday, I'm going to curate a show of my favorite baseball cards and write a really pretentious press release and have an opening with lukewarm white wine in clear plastic Solo cups. Maybe Kei and Mordecai will consider hosting a similar exhibition in their beautiful new house.

Anyway, I looked at a lot of refractor cards today:





Cool, right?

January Update

Tonight, while reading my second anxiety-inducing Jonathan Franzen novel of 2011, I started thinking about how much happier I would be staring at the Yahoo! Fantasy Baseball Stat Tracker while simultaneously monitoring the slightly delayed live game feed of the night's most interesting pitching match up and listening to the Yankees game on the radio. Even though these two bad things happened in the off-season...

...and this happened again...


...and this will probably happen soon enough...

...I still can't wait for baseball to begin! On a happy note, this happened, too...

...which means that I will see ugly, old Jayson Werth about 95% less next year than last year. Have fun in loserville, loser.

Thank You for Baseball

Thank you for baseball. Thank you for Derek Jeter, Derek Jeter's autobiography, the Yankees, Yankee Stadium, Robbie Cano, C.C. Sabathia, Mariano Rivera, our 28th World Series, Snoopy night, souvenir cups, and chicken tenders with french fries. Thank you for inviting me to Yankees Women's Mini Fantasy Camp in Florida. Thank you for sometimes showing your games on regular television and for the radio broadcasts that have taught me nothing about how the game of baseball is played.


Thank you for Joe Torre, Vin Scully, Matt Kemp's eyes, Casey Blake, Citi Field nachos, Mr. Met, Southpaw, Ozzie Guillen's Twitter account, Ichiro, Ichirolls, Ken Griffey Jr., Miggy Cabrera, the vanished Grady Sizemore and all other players that wear #24. Thank you for Cole Hamels and Roy Halladay, Clayton Kershaw, rookie pitchers, Buster Posey, big fat Pablo Sandoval, Jayson Heyward, Chase Utley's hair gel and for the Twinkies consistently falling apart in the first round of the playoffs. Thank you for the Phillie's blue hat uniforms. Thank you for Albert Pujols being a good human being. Thank you for that kid who dressed up like Ron Washington for Halloween and for Daisuke Matsuzaka's adorable Japanese children. Thank you for Torii Hunter's smile and Vladdy Guerrero's batting helmet. Thank you for Allen & Ginter baseball cards and ESPN Baseball Today with Peter Pascarelli and ESPN Fantasy Focus: Baseball.

Thank you for real sports, fantasy sports, my awful fantasy teams, the Mannings, celebrity quarterbacks, Drew Brees's babies, sports food, sports radio and Friday Night Lights.

Thank you for other things and people that have nothing to do with sports.

And that's it. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Baseball is Over

The Giants won the World Series. Congratulations San Francisco. You waited for a long time.

Top: I predict a surge in Californian babies named Buster.
Middle: Tim Lincecum was the winning pitcher.
Bottom: Edgar Renteria won the MVP for hitting this home run and others.

Now, baseball is over. It's been a long season. Where will Cliff Lee go?

And what will happen to the rest of us?

One Cool Thing About Brian Wilson

“I’d like to be a crossword clue one day,” he said. “I want to be in The New York Times’s Sunday edition. Right now, the clue ‘Giants great’ is always Mel Ott. I want my clue to be down, not across. The down ones are usually harder. And when I’m the clue, I’ll fill it in — just that one — and frame it.

“How sweet would that be?”

-Brian Wilson

Beggars Can't be Choosers, Winners Can't be Losers

There are only four to seven baseball games left in the year, so instead of sulking and wishing intense pain upon anyone wearing a Rangers hat on the subway, all Texas sports teams (except Coach Taylor's) and most non-baseball pro-athletes, it's probably healthier and more enjoyable to just give in and get excited about the World Series. Here are some players I know about:

THE SAN FRANCISCO GIANTS

1. Closer Brian Wilson, evil-eyed trivia expert
2. Catcher Buster Posey, rookie heart throb
3. Pitcher Tim Lincecum, television commercial megastar
4. Cheerleader Barry Zito, cosmic donut
5. Panda Pablo Sandoval, panda panda

THE TEXAS RANGERS
1. Catcher Bengie Molina, will win a ring either way
2. Josh Hamilton, younger than I am surprisingly
3. Vladdy Guerrero, older than everyone you know unsurprisingly
4. Ian Kinsler. What I love about him is that he is always visibly whining.

The Rangers have the ugliest mascot in the Major Leagues. The Giants also have an unfamous mascot, but theirs is at least marginally cute. His name is Lou Seal and he wears sunglasses, sometimes backwards. And then there's this bad crab, which you can read about here.

Baseball! It starts tomorrow.

Goodbye Yankees, Goodbye Phillies

Goodbye teams I know and sometimes love, hello teams I didn't watch once this year.

That said, Texas and San Fransisco are both interesting clubs and the Red State-Blue State culture clash could produce some excitingly strange moments in the stands. So, other than the fact that my team lost and I'm bummed about it and nothing matters the way it would have, I'm stoked for the World Series to begin...next Wednesday. That's a long time to wait for baseball.

This looks dangerous.

Of course, considering that the Rangers have waited something like 40 years to make it past the first round of the playoffs, it doesn't seem that long. Ron Washington is going to be chewing his gum faster than anyone ever thought possible.

This game sucked. We don't have to talk about it.

Top: A-Rod's walk of shame
Bottom: Good for you, Vladdy!

I thought for sure that the Phillies would make it to Game 7, especially after taking an early lead against crazy Jonathan Sanchez. An unexpectedly rude Chutley almost started a brawl in the third inning. You should watch the video here, because it's funny. If you don't want to do that, you can at least look at this photo that someone official tweeted during the game (commentary and penguin are my additions).


Yeah, that's right. Cole Hamels strolled up to a benches-clearing confrontation with his hands in his pockets. Jayson Werth, however, was right in the thick of the action. He was always sort of a grubby looking cave dweller, but now he looks like he's from another dimension-- like he's forgotten how to use human language. I think I saw him silently communicating with his bat in the on-deck circle tonight. He hasn't opened his mouth wide enough to form words in months. He's reading your mind right now, while you look at his photo. He knows everything you know, and he doesn't like any of it.

Top: ... ... ... ... ... ... !!! ...
Middle: What's with the scoreboard? Does Ryan Howard have duck lips?
Bottom: Chutley wondering what went wrong

Here's another Twitpic, this time of the Giants drinking Bud Light in their locker room. Do you think the Phillies refused to supply them with champagne or do the Giants just genuinely prefer tall boys on momentous occasions?

Congratulations to Cody Ross and Josh Hamilton for being their Championship Series' MVPs. Congratulations to Aubrey Huff for being the only player on either of my Fantasy Teams to make it to the World Series. Congratulations Rangers fans (whoever you are) and Giants fans (I know some, actually). Thank you, Derek Jeter, and see you in Florida. The nice thing about being a Yankee fan is that there is always, always, always, inevitably always next year.