A 2014 Cole Hamels Hair Update

Another year has passed, another summer has ended. After many, many long months of being completely fixated on dogs (my dog specifically, but all of the dogs in the world additionally), I've been trying to reconnect with the things that I loved before I loved only dogs, i.e. baseball, fantasy baseball, football, fantasy football and Bill Simmons.  It's been pretty good so far, despite my baseball thoughts being dominated by fretting over when I'll see Derek Jeter for the last time and why there are Snoopy dolls in the Mets Team Store. This morning, however, I pushed the anxiety aside to indulge in another of my all-time favorite baseball hobbies: taking blurry MLB.tv photos of Cole Hamels on my iPhone.

Congratulations on your combined no-hitter, Cole! Are you wearing that titanium-infused necklace for style or for POWER?

While these photos testify to the fact that Cole Hamels does know how to smile, they don't provide any information about the current state of his hair. To save you the trouble of asking Google (don't bother asking Siri, she only wants to talk about Heidi Hamels' hair), here are some 2014 Cole Hamels Hair Updates:

So, basically, nothing new to report. Although I guess I missed a mustache phase in 2013:

via ...but I'd say more AMAZING than EMBARRASSING.

Yes, I found this by Googling "Cole Hamels dog 2014."  And no, there weren't any new photos of Cole carrying his dog around in a back pack.  

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!