Opening Day 2011

The forecast promises snow and freezing rain tomorrow, but the long, dark season of "I-guess-I'll-get-interested-in-football-but-I-still-don't-like-basketball" is finally over. I've been watching baseball on my computer, on my phone and on a muted television at the Greenpoint YMCA for nine hours and counting, now. Here are my favorite photos of things I may have seen at one point during the day:

TIGERS v. YANKEES

AMERICA: giant flag, fireworks, Statue of Liberty, advertisements,
Yankees, baseball, hot dogs (probably somewhere).

Curtis Granderson's diving catch. Later, he hit a home run.

Welcome to New York, Miggy.

Mark Teixeira hit a 3-run home run. Derek Jeter said "Congratulations!"

BRAVES v. NATIONALS

AMERICA: shooting columns of fire into the air,
men charging through clouds of smoke

Bahhhh. You again.

BREWERS v. REDS

Prince Fielder with beard and earflaps.

PADRES v. CARDINALS

I have this guy Chase Headley on my Fantasy team. Here he
is scoring a run. What does his face look like?

ANGELS v. ROYALS

Bobby Abreu chewing gum.

GIANTS v. DODGERS

I typically cheer for the Dodgers, but with Joe Torre gone, Casey Blake injured, Andre Ethier wearing a ponytail and MLB.tv not allowing me to listen to the Vin Scully audio over the ESPN video feed, I wasn't sure how I'd feel during the game. The ESPN announcers sucked. I mean, you can't just say that Pablo Sandoval lost 40 lbs. on the "chicken salad diet" and not describe what was in the chicken salad. I don't know what he was eating before, but mainlining mayonnaise doesn't sound like the fastest route to good health.

The California Baseball Giants

But he looks a lot thinner here.

Matt Kemp had a good night. I forget how attractive he is and then
see him and think he should be a movie star.

Anyway, despite the aforementioned factors, I really enjoyed this game. You'd have to have a heart made out of wormy garbage to not feel closer to the Giants after their World Series victory last year. I hope Buster Posey becomes a baseball megastar and that Panda enjoys continued success with that chicken salad. Do you put apples in it? Golden raisins?

THE YANKEES WON!
THE DODGERS WON!
ROY HALLADAY IS PITCHING TOMORROW.
I LOVE BASEBALL!!!!!

BAAAAASEBALLLLLL

I promise to provide some non-ESPN-produced baseball thoughts and pictures later in the day, but I just woke up and.........
Is this a mistake or a joke?
Four point eight percent of people went with it, regardless. Sometimes you just have to go with it. Anything could happen. aNYYthing.

This Team

I drafted some excellent mugshots in my Grinnell College Fantasy Baseball League. This team resembles my Marauders of Time Auction Dynasty Keeper Team, although I did not have to pay a combined total of $61.00 for Derek Jeter and Cole Hamels. No one freak out. I would have gone up to $93.00 each and spent $47.00 on Robbie Cano and filled the rest of my team with dollar scrubs in a heartbeat.

Yes, Cole is the "ace" of my pitching staff. I'm putting that in quotes because of this New York Times article:

Identifying an ace is largely subjective, but baseball people tend to give no more than 13 active pitchers the title, with about the same number falling just a shade below and three others (Johan Santana, Stephen Strasburg and Adam Wainwright) probably out for the season with injuries.

The members of the vaunted, if unofficial, class: Chris Carpenter, Zack Greinke, Roy Halladay, Felix Hernandez, Ubaldo Jimenez, Josh Johnson, Cliff Lee, Jon Lester, Lincecum, Price, Roy Oswalt, C. C. Sabathia and Justin Verlander.

That's three Phillies starting pitches not named Cole Hamels! We'll see.

We're All Probably Moving in a Direction, Somewhere, Somehow

I read on Twitter that Grady Sizemore is running again:

As someone who also suffered a knee injury and who starts "running again" once every few weeks after intermittent binges on internet television and fried Chinese food, I can't say that I'm so impressed that Mr. Pro Athlete / Former #1 Fantasy Baseball Draft Pick is running again. But since I haven't completely forgotten my early infatuation with Grady, here's a picture of him running away from a cone.

RUN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Cleveland.com suggests that Grady may even be running the bases soon. "He's probably moving in that direction," said manager Manny Acta. Grady Sizemore is probably moving in the direction of running the bases. That's a lot of potential motion for one sentence. Should I draft him again this year? So far, my strategy has consisted of drawing angry X's through Jayson Werth's name and nervously wondering if I'd spend all $260 of my budget on Derek Jeter.

Loser.

Of course I would. The way I see it, $260 in imaginary money is a small price to pay for my future career as Derek Jeter's art advisor/Yankees radio co-host.

Happy weekend everyone! If the weather improves and you start running again, make sure to tweet it!

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?