Why Casey, WHY?

WHY DID CASEY BLAKE SIGN WITH THE ROCKIES?

I DO NOT LIKE COLORADO.

I DO NOT THEIR UNIFORMS.

These are pictures of Casey Blake on Dodger's 70's night and a magical mountain.

I will now resume daydreaming about Cole Hamels in a Yankee hat.

Photos of Matt Kemp; My Plan to Buy the Dodgers (with Your Money)

Instead of dwelling on my mixed-because-they-were-never-positive-but-I-still-don't-want-him-to-have-taken-performance-enhancing-drugs-because-that's-not-good-for-baseball feelings about NL MVP Ryan Braun, let's just look at nice photos of Matt "he-really-should-have-won-that-MVP-award" Kemp. I don't know why I hyphenated his nickname.

Matt Kemp's mom must be really proud of him. I wonder what he bought her for Christmas.

I've never seen these Casey Blake t-shirts before! I cannot believe that something Casey Blake-related happened on the internet and I MISSED IT.

The Dodgers are my second favorite baseball team. Someday, I'm going to go to Chavez Ravine (with John Chavez) and get Casey Blake's autograph. I hope he doesn't retire before then.

John and I were talking about making a Kickstarter page to buy the Dodgers, but we had a hard time coming up with worthwhile rewards. Give us $250,000.00 and we'll make you a print out of this blog. And gild the edges. Okay no, give us $500,000.00 and we'll make a golden-edged print-out of this blog with your name substituted for every other occurrence of the words "Derek Jeter." Give us $50 million dollars and we'll name some seats after you and FedEx you a bag of frozen Dodger Dogs.

Buns included!

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.

Casey Blake's Beard Grew Back; Derek Jeter Had a Milestone

When Casey Blake shaved his beard back in March, it broke Sam's heart. In fact, no one's seen or heard from him since that last despondent blog post. Well, Sam, you can stop sobbing into your pillow and rejoin the rest of us in the baseball blogosphere because today I watched the first three innings of the Dodgers-Phillies game and Casey Blake's beard is back.

In this same game, Andre Ethier has gone 3/3 with 3 runs and 3 RBIs. And you know what, I BENCHED HIM. What kind of Fantasy Manager benches Andre Ethier? The same kind that still has Ken Griffey Jr. on her team. "Negligent" is absolutely the wrong word. "Emotionally punitive" and "death-anchored to superstition" are closer. I'll never forgive Jayson Werth. I'll be drafting Derek Jeter in the 3rd round for the next ten years. I'll....

Well, no. Let's just stay on the topic of Derek Jeter. He got his 2,874th hit on Sunday night, passing Babe Ruth on the all-time hits list. I was watching the game at the gym and almost started crying tears of joy on the treadmill.

Did you know that, along with being the Yankees all-time hits leader, Derek Jeter has more hits than any other active player in the Major Leagues? People love to tell me about how much they hate Derek Jeter. You can't be a reasonable, self-affirming person with a positive world view and hate Derek Jeter. Maybe I'll make 100 audio recordings of me reading his autobiography out loud and mail them to all of the Jeter haters in my life, because I think that that could really improve the emotional climate of our times.

ANDRE ETHIER JUST GOT ANOTHER HIT. This is too much. I'm so full of sports feeling and fury that I'm going to stop writing and join Sam in semi-retirement.

All-Star Campaign Posters

There's no time like the present to perform your civic duty of casting 25 All-Star votes for Derek Jeter (or for whatever non-celebrity athlete you idiosyncratically choose to prefer). It's also okay to think of this as casting 25 All-Star votes against players that you hate (i.e. Shane Victorino). This year, MLB.com has taken All-Star balloting to a unprecedentedly personal level by creating campaign pages for select contestants. So, in addition to casting your 25 allotted votes, you can also join player campaigns and encourage your sports buddies to do likewise. Every page is adorned with a graphic that superimposes a glamor shot-y button over a large photo of that player at-bat. While some are predictably and rightfully heroic...


...others are goofy and un-All-Star-like. I mean, really, are those the BEST photos they could find of Casey Blake and Andre Ethier? By now, Sam and I are both willing to admit that Casey Blake may be less good looking than we'd originally thought, but Andre Ethier? He's the Prince of Egypt!

Lest you think that this is some sort of anti-Dodgers overbite conspiracy, here's Matt Kemp looking like the most famous man on Earth. His photo is so hi-res that it's practically three-dimensional.

I want to point out that you can still vote for the freshly retired Ken Griffey Jr. On a related note, you can also absolutely still have him on your Fantasy team in all Yahoo! Sports Fantasy Baseball leagues. I have the personal experience and the losing record to prove this.


While we're on the topic of Fantasy stat killers, here's the campaign poster for last-season-soul-enemy Jayson Werth. Ugh. Don't vote for him.


Finally, here's a bonus screenshot of Cole Hamels and Stephen Strasburg pitching in different games on Sunday. I uploaded this by accident, but now it's part of the internet forever! Hi Cole. GREAT JOB. YOU FINALLY WON A GAME!

Voting ends July 1st.

Today We Remembered the Things We Went Crazy About Last Year

A-Rod, so evil, so well moisturized. Those diamonds really bring out the green in your eyes, Alex.


You're probably really tired of me telling you who won the World Series last year. It wasn't the Angels. Matsui got traded this winter.


Of course Derek Jeter hit a home run on Yankee Stadium Opening Day! Here's a photo of him hitting a single.


Guess who else hit a home run this afternoon? Beardless Casey Blake! Maybe it's time to reset the counter. Or should we just start this year at 18 and go up from there? THE PAST IS ALWAYS WITH US.

Please, please, please, for the love of Iowa, cover that chin. Joe Torre, is this your doing?

Then and Now

As Jennie astutely noticed last week, TBB favorite Casey Blake has gone beardless.

My first instinct is a combination of disappointment and horror. But on a practical level: how is this going to affect his performance?

Last year pitchers had a stare down a fierce, hard-hitting third baseman. Now? An ogre-ish man that may have crossed eyes? Could I strike him out? Of course not - he's a major league baseball player and he may just be squinting in the picture above. But can Tim Lincecum? Probably, in fact he did it 4 times in 7 AB last year. And that was with the beard!

Here's a side-by-side comparison for reference.

I suppose it's possible that he wants to save the beard for later in the season. And this smile certainly bodes well for future facial hair growth. But for now, I'm afraid Casey Blake can no longer be:

Ladies Love Us v. 2.0: The Infield

Last year was my first season as a Fantasy Baseball manager and during our league's draft, my only objective was to construct the most beautiful, heart-pleasing team possible. Once the season started however, the skill shortage of my aesthetically elite dream squad put me at a serious disadvantage to more logically composed teams, which in turn caused my "spoiled only child sore loser" neurons to fire with such a frequency that all non-fantasy baseball thoughts were almost completely silenced. It was an intense and oftentimes unpleasant experience. This year, I attempted to make more practical decisions during our Fantasy Baseball draft. Numbers-wise, this new group of Ladies is an obvious and undeniable upgrade. Has the team become correspondingly unlovable? Well, starting with our infielders, let's take a look:

CATCHER: 2009 - PABLO SANDOVAL (SF); 2010 - MIKE NAPOLI (LAA)

Mike Napoli, while somehow not as ugly as I remember him being, is no Kung Fu Panda. I don't care if he hates Jorge Posada as much as I do, this is a LOVE DOWNGRADE.

FIRST BASE: 2009 - RUSSELL BRANYAN (SEA); 2010 - MARK REYNOLDS (ARI)

These are both Paul picks, and both are pretty good. Branyan is nondescriptly handsome and hits home runs and Reynolds is nondescriptly not unhandsome and hits home runs. Reynolds also broke his own record for Most Strikeouts in a Single Season, which is a truly remarkable accomplishment. I can't evaluate how I feel about this change at first base because Russell Branyan is on the team again this year as a bench warmer, so let's call this a LOVE DRAW.

SECOND BASE: 2009 - ROBINSON CANO (NYY); 2010 - ROBINSON CANO (NYY)

BEST SMILE IN BASEBALL!!!!! MOST HANDSOME MAN IN THE MAJOR LEAGUES. I was pretty stoked to get Robbie in the 4th round, because he's a quality producer at a relatively shallow position. LOVE DRAW.

SHORT STOP: 2009 - DEREK JETER (NYY); 2010 - DEREK JETER (NYY)

Is he going to have a good year? I don't know. It doesn't, couldn't, won't ever matter. LOVE DRAW.

THIRD BASE: 2009 - CASEY BLAKE (LAD); 2010 - EVAN LONGORIA (TB)

As far as the infield goes, third base saw the most blatant sacrifice in love for talent. While Swebs has been hot for Longorium since day one, I've never really been a fan. His charmingly gappy teeth and goofy ears just don't make up for the fact that he plays for my least favorite team in all of baseball. I HATE THE RAYS. I HATE BJ UPTON. I HATE MATT GARZA. I HATE MATT GARZA I HATE MATT GARZA I HATE THE RAYS I CANNOT STAND MATT GARZA. I wanted to draft Casey Blake as a sentimental bench companion, but someone else took him first! Can you believe it? He was actually not ranked that badly. Beardless Casey is kind of a goon, but he still holds a special place in my heart. LOVE DOWNGRADE. Casey Blake owner, who are you? Let's have a talk. You can't have Evan Longoria, but maybe we can work something out.

Coming next, the outfield and my thoughts on losing Grady Sizemore....

First Look

Spring training has begun! Let's look at some aesthetically unsettling formal portraits of my favorite players:

The two sides of Ichiro are equally frightening.

Grady's in baseball jail on the moon. REDEEM YOURSELF, SIZEMORE.

Derek Jeter is so good. His head is exploding with goodness.

My first thought upon seeing this picture of Robbie Cano was,
"God, I bet he smokes a lot of pot." Do you think it's true?

For some reason, Mark Teixeira's portraits were published sideways. He doesn't need help looking strange, so I'm not posting them, here. I will, however, share this photo of Teix jogging in sports flip flops. Gah. I can't look at him without grimacing in a baffled and horrified, yet somehow loving way. He's not normal. He's not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not at all normal.

And finally, no one cares about taking artful photographs of Casey Blake. Aw. What happened to your beard, Casey? Do you want to play on my fantasy team again?

Sam, what happened to his beard?!

This is My Town

I've never been to Los Angeles, but thanks to their website, DODGERTOWN IS MY TOWN. Yeah! Matt Kemp's wearing a Casey Blake jersey with my name on it and high-fiving Andre Ethier. COOL!

The McCourts are getting divorced, Vincente Padilla got shot by his friend, and Manny Ramirez has just announced that 2010 will be his last year with the Dodgers, but I still feel optimistic about the team's chances. They're going to play the Yankees this year, which will be exciting. I'll bring my Dodgers hat so that I can wear it when Casey Blake bats. CASEY, IT'S YOUR YEAR!!! BREAK OUT!!!!! FANTASY ALL-STAR!!!!!!

Speaking of people who tanked my fantasy team last year, one or two weeks ago, Sam got drunk and warned me that he was going to address Grady Sizemore's nude photographs on our much neglected blog. "I'm going to make a post and it's going to be a post razzing [is this a word?] you for not being into those Grady Sizemore photos," is mostly what he said, "Come on, here's someone you spent a year toiling over and then this happens and you're not into it?!"

Listen Sam, when Grady Sizemore was just some handsome abstraction that I could daydream about meeting in the Continental Philosophy section of the Cleveland Barnes & Noble, life was great. Now that he's demonstrated himself to be a real person with an exhibitionist streak, a scary looking girlfriend and generally poor fashion sense (not to mention the fact that I've always known about his passion for The Doors), I can't help but feel slightly wounded. Unconditional love predicated on the knowledge of who a person is, as opposed to who I want them to be, is a feeling that I've reserved for only one professional athlete.

Now, here's some pictures I made that will make that last sentence seem completely disingenuous.

This blog just gets weirder and weirder.

Anyway, none of this means that I no longer like Grady Sizemore. I like him and I'll like him more once baseball starts again. I'll definitely go see the Indians when they're in New York. Maybe Sam can come with me. What do you say, Swebs?

Championship Series Days 7 & 8: It's Only Half Bad, Los Angeles

NLCS MVP and nice guy, Ryan Howard

NLCS Game 4: Phillies Go the Distance
Phillies 10, Dodgers 4
Philadelphia wins series in 4
W: Durbin (1-0)
L: Padilla (0-1)

HR: LAD Ethier (1), Loney (2), Hudson (1)
PHI: Werth x 2 (3), Feliz (1), Victorino (1)

I was out last night with no cellphone reception at Sam (not Weber) and Jamie's super great CMJ showcase, so beyond the basic fact that the Dodgers are now done for the year, I really have no idea what happened in this game. The ESPN.com gallery is full of obnoxious photos of Jayson Werth (smoking cigars, taking champagne showers, hitting TWO HOME RUNS), which I refuse to post here. After our tumultuous Fantasy Baseball relationship, I am so sick of Jayson Werth and his streaky production and his horrible facial hair. This guy has been my life's main antagonist since some time this summer and the thought of having to see him play in the World Series makes me pray even harder for a Yankee sweep.

Here's a photo of Casey Blake and Clayton Kershaw looking bummed. They were on my Fantasy team, too, but in a non-emotionally abusive way.

See you next season, friends. Now about that other L.A. team....

While watching tonight's Yankees-Angels game, I did an informal text survey (of Kei and Sam [Weber]) to see if Lackey v. Burnett was the ugliest starting pitcher match up of the post-season, so far. Both of them said "maybe." I'd have to go back and review all of the past games to be certain, but it's kind of hard to argue against:

Sam did an about face on Lackey's doughy visage, which he had previously called "likable," and proclaimed A.J. Burnett better looking. This was doubly surprising, given Sam's earlier distaste for Burnett and his ostrich hair, but we're all allowed to change our minds. As Kei noted, A.J. doesn't look nearly as much like a strung-out meth fiend with his hat off.

ALCS Game 4: Yanks Leave the Door Open
Angels 7, Yankees 6
Yanks lead series 3-2
W: Jepsen (1-0)
L: Hughes (0-1)
S: Fuentes (1)

Some things I've noticed from watching this series on FOX:

1. Joe Girardi does not emote. Possibly evil.
2. Scott Boras is always on the phone. Definitely evil.
3. John Lackey sounds like an inarticulate muppet.
4. There is a new kind of CIALIS for daily use, as opposed to the regular 36-hour kind.
5. Torii Hunter is super funny.
6. Jeter has a cold.
7. The Black Jack taco is not something I want to eat.
8. Toyota is the official car of BOTH the Giants and the Jets...further to that, Eli Manning is way more charming than Mark Sanchez.
9. Ozzie Guillen is going to do commentary on the World Series.

This game was nuts. I don't want to recap it because I still can't wrap my head around the fact that we lost. Here's some photos.

A-Rod and Teix: Just Another Night of the Weird Twins Acting Weird

I told you Melky got evil. Smiling Cano less bratty than Tuesday.

I LOVE TORII HUNTER!

I'm actually not that upset about this series coming back to the Bronx. New York always feels better when the Yankees are in town. Jeter makes the sun shine brighter. It's going to be a long winter once he goes back down to Florida.

Game 6 will be on Saturday night. Go Yankees!