Blue Cats and Red Sox

2009-09-13T22:26:00.003-04:00

Just some thoughts on the Lions' first game of the 2009 season:

--Chris Myers (announcer), on Larry Foote going from winning two Superbowl rings with the Steelers to playing for the Lions: “It’s like going from dating Beyoncé to Oprah.” What a statement with which to start the season. Really sets the tone.

--I hate the new helmet logo in action much less than I thought I would. I don't like the new stripes on the pants, though. The blue as the thickest element in the stripe is just too much. What I do actually hate is the new 'LIONS' font. I wasn’t in love with the old font either (which looked a little like what you’d see on the side of a circus carriage; doubly unfortunate since you WOULD expect to see the word “lions” on the side of such a vehicle), but this toothpaste-packaging-looking typeface is not the answer.

I quite liked the little fleur-de-lis on the hips of the Saints.

--Anyways, if there’s one thing we’ve learned, it’s that uniform changes don’t do a damn thing for the Lions. Black jerseys, anyone?

--Very appropriate that the first Lions points of the season were scored on a Jason Hanson field goal. Anything else would have seemed like false advertising.

--Last year the Lions' secondary had one interception, all year. They have one in the first half here, on an admittedly ill-advised flea flicker pass from Drew Brees. So that's goin' better, kind of, maybe.

--At the beginning of the game they said that the Lions felt one of their biggest areas of improvement had been the defensive linebackers. After the first half I feel that this was a lie; the defense as a whole looks terrible. The only area where they seem to have shown some improvement is special teams, and even that has been inconsistent at best.

Finding out that the team has lied to me this early in the season is not a good sign.

--I wish more people would take a swipe at Jeremy Shockey when he's celebrating a touchdown. I don't even care about that penalty, and the Big Cat hit the ball, not Shockey, anyways. Good job, Lions. The rest of the league should take note of how satisfying that is.

--The Lions taped the National Anthem and had the players look at it, so that they would stand correctly and present a respectful picture before the game. Let me repeat that: the coaches had the Lions study tape of the National Anthem. This is what team resources are going towards. IT ALL MAKES SENSE.

--This was the 18th consecutive loss for the Lions, going all the way back to 2007.

2009-04-13T21:12:00.002-04:00

Content? Psh, what's content? Have some cartoons from my sketchbook. It seemed like a good idea to scan them in at the time.

I think all ballplayers should be required to grow strange facial hair, so that they will be easier to render in simplified cartoon form.

2009-03-20T22:48:00.003-04:00

You guys. You guys. YOU GUYS. This is a big one. World Baseball Classic semifinal! The winner goes on to the final! The loser has to live with crushing shame for the next four years!! THERE IS NO MIDDLE GROUND! Titans clashing, baseball cultures warring, etc.

USA/JAPAN! Sunday March 22, 8pm, ESPN! Plan your evening accordingly.

WBC Semifinal USA/Japan

postscript: things we learned from this game:

--David Wright, heroically injured in the toe
--how dare you take a walk with a man in scoring position, how DARE you
--Ryan Garko Fed-Ex'd his own 1B glove to Mark DeRosa because DeRosa did not have one
--Brian Roberts =/= Dave Roberts, Joel Hanrahan =/= Jim Hanrahan, no matter what Jon Miller may tell us
--Munenori Kawasaki turned himself into a left-handed hitter because he was an Ichiro fanboy
--JOHN GRABOW
--Panama Hat Man was shown chatting with Tommy Lasorda and Sadaharu Oh, too amazing to be truth, and yet it is truth
--Rule 34
--Derek Jeter is the ultimate Fail for America

Many thanks to Tony, Snuppy the Hound, ivantopumpyouup, and 2632 for excoriating the everliving hell out of Derek Jeter here with me tonight.

2009-03-18T14:07:00.003-04:00

ELIMINATION! Japan vs. Cuba, winner plays tomorrow for seeding, loser goes home. Two teams that care VERY DEEPLY about this tournament, and will be GREATLY HUMILIATED if they lose. Someone is going to feel very, very bad at the end of this one! YOU ARE EXCITED TO WATCH IT!!

The Battle for Orestes Destrade's Heart!

WBC Pool 1 Japan/Cuba

postscript: things we learned from this game:

--when it is foggy, turn off the freakin' greenscreen ads, just turn them off, they will not work properly
--Orestes Destrade knows all the languages
--Ariel Pestano is SO ANGRY
--Yulieski Gonzalez and Ariel Pestano= hatelove
--Hisashi Iwakuma is groundball pitching magic
--Hisashi Iwakuma= Bambi
--don't use illegal drugs, or Dave Winfield will bust you
--Ismel Jimenez has a hypnotic ass

Many thanks to Tony, ivantopumpyouup, and Snuppy the Hound for suffering through the fog and ESPN2's determination to give their sponsors what they paid for, even though it was screwing up the entire broadcast!

2009-03-17T15:55:00.003-04:00

Pool A rematch! Korea/Japan, the return of The Rivalry. This will be an 11pm start, to keep us suffering on the opposite end of the gametime spectrum, and it will be on MLBN. Alas.

WBC Pool 1 Japan/Korea

postscript: things we learned from this game:

--giant Korean drum, awesome but not available in the WBC store, like all good things
--other Things We Badly Want That the WBC Store Does Not Carry Because They Do Not Actually Want Our Money: four-color WBC pens, WBC logo baseball gloves, those sweet matte team Japan batting helmets, stuffed toy versions of Snuppy the cloned Korean Afghan hound
--Yong-Kyu Lee= Korean Ozzie Guillen
--Yu Darvish will never play in MLB, unless he goes back on his Solemnly Sworn Word
--the 61 mph pitch thrown by Shunsuke Watanabe shall henceforth be known as the suhpee pitch, opposite of the eephus
--inexplicable plastic bag hats

Many thanks to Tony, Snuppy the Hound, ivantopumpyouup, and briefly Jennifer and stillawakward for enjoying this Battle of the Thunderstix in glorious liveblog action.

Japan has been humiliated by Korea again, how will it all end?? Tragically, somehow, I expect.

2009-03-15T13:08:00.003-04:00

A return to liveblogging after a brief hiatus! I know you are all terribly, terribly excited, by which I mean that I fully expect to be doing this one on my own. Expect rambling. I believe that our announcing team will consist of Gary Thorne, Steve Phillips, and Orel Hershiser.

WBC Pool 1 Cuba/Japan

postscript: things we learned from this game:

--Orestes!!!!
--Panama Hat Radar Gun Man!!
--Yosvani Peraza= Cuban Cecil Fielder
--Japan headed to America with humiliation in their hearts
--Orestes Destrade is a multilingual genius of words
--the first Japanese player in MLB was not Hideo Nomo, stop lying to us ESPN2
--San Diego sunlight hates baseball
--Steve Phillips has been sneaking into WBC ballplayer hotel rooms and also going with them to SeaWorld
--Ariel Pestano= Cuban Mike Sciosia
--Yulieski Gonzalez looks like Jeff Francoeur a little bit, true fact
--ORESTES!!!!

Many thanks to Snuppy the Hound and ivantopumpyouup for joining me in this exercise in baseball humiliation!

2009-03-11T18:08:00.002-04:00

Just another quick note to let you know that the 6:30 pm Wednesday USA/Venezuela Pool C final will be liveblogged right over here at RotT. OUR EXCITEMENT KNOWS NO BOUNDS.

2009-03-10T14:44:00.002-04:00

Just a quick note to say that the liveblog for the Italy/Venezuela WBC game will be over here at RotT if you want to play along. There should be at least a couple Tigers starting, so I figured that was probably the right place for it.

Will Italy get mercy rule'd? Will we see an upset on a par with the Netherlands/DR fiasco? ALL THINGS ARE POSSIBLE! WORLD BASEBALL CLASSIC!

2009-03-09T00:39:00.005-04:00

The last Tokyo Dome game of the 2009 World Baseball Classic. On the one hand, yay: no more Sickeningly-Early-o'clock start times! On the other hand: the last game of this WBC that Orestes Destrade will broadcast.

:(

WBC Korea/Japan Pool A Final

postscript: things we learned from this game:

--Hisashi Iwakuma= Japanese Mike Mussina
--Jung Keun Bong, the Korean starting pitcher, is an Ichiro fanboy and needed a moment every time Ichiro came to the plate
--rocket of arms
--Orestes Destrade makes the worst Stu Scott/boo-ya joke in the history of the world
--Yu Darvish, sexy in both the pitching sense and the literal, posed naked for a magazine sense

Many thanks to ivantopumpyouup and stillawkward, who joined me for this last and best bit of pre-breakfast baseball and frantic Google Images searches for the naked photos of Yu Darvish.

We will miss you, Tokyo Dome! ORESTES DESTRADE AND SUPER "DRY" FOREVER!!

2009-03-08T08:40:00.005-04:00

I do not promise that this will work because I will be relying on a sneaky wireless signal, but I am going to try to liveblog a game that is not in Pool A. South Africa vs. Cuba, 2 pm Sunday afternoon. There are two underwear models on the South African team and basically nobody on their roster actually plays baseball; I expect this will be fun. Or terrible! Or terribly good fun.

WBC South Africa/Cuba

postscript: things we learned from this game:

--Norge Vera is the new El Duque
--Charley Steiner is a terrible play-by-play man
--South Africa's only functional play is the pick-off move
--Charley Steiner hates baseball and fun
--Team Cuba's trainer is Fidel Castro's son
--Pool B is the worst pool
--dude in the Panama hat with the enormous cigar is awesome and should have announced the game
--seriously fuck Charley Steiner, he is trying to ruin baseball

Thanks to ivantopumpyouup, Snuppy the Hound, and briefly ashmark for suffering, suffering so much.

This was the worst game.

2009-03-08T00:11:00.002-05:00

Sunday morning, feel the excitement.

Ah, nothing quite like a little elimination baseball to add some zest to your hideously early Sunday morning. China and Korea face off here, and the loser will be heading back home. Red vs. Blue! Great Wall vs. Thunderstix! Team that was defeated by Japan vs. Team that was defeated by Japan! WORLD BASEBALL CLASSIC!

WBC China/Korea

postscript: things we learned from this game:

--DID YOU KNOW THE GREAT WALL, CHINA, FROM SPACE
--only announcers may acquire the glorious four-color WBC pen
--Suk-Min Yoon is good at pitching baseballs
--bento boxes
--Sun Lingfeng= Chinese Ichiro
--Dae Ho Lee= Korean Adam Dunn
--I want that fucking pen

Thanks again to ivantopumpyouup, who likes keeping me company and loves baseball and hates sleep.

THE CAMPAIGN TO HAVE ORESTES DESTRADE ANNOUNCE EVERY SINGLE GAME IN THE REST OF THE WORLD BASEBALL CLASSIC BEGINS NOW!

2009-03-07T08:19:00.002-05:00

Two liveblogs in one day, what is this madness? This is Blue Cats and Red Sox! THIS IS THE WORLD BASEBALL CLASSIC!

WBC Canada/USA

postscript: things we learned from this game:

--"Weglarz"
--Russell Martin loves his mother
--the 13th inning starts with men on base, the 16th inning is decided by curling, the 21st inning is the start of 'naked time'
--Canadian stereotypes
--Team USA brings all the Jews to the yard
--Jimmy Rollins and David Wright are in the delicate beginning stages of a truly beautiful relationship
--The People want more Curtis Granderson
--French insults for French Canadians
--Adam Dunn is adorably excited by the WBC and we kind of love him

Many thanks to ivantopumpyouup, Snuppy the Hound, Tom Clifton, stillawkward, ashmark, and Siani for joining me to become way too stressed out over non-regular-season baseball. AMERICA, FUCK YEAH!

2009-03-06T22:29:00.003-05:00

Three 4 am wakeups in a row, for no reason at all-- except for WORLD BASEBALL CLASSIC GLORY! Am I crazy or am I.... no, I'm crazy. Here we go for the winner's bracket of the second round of Pool A play. The enormous Japan/Korea rivalry! The Tokyo Dome!

Thunderstix! SUPER "DRY"!

WBC Japan/Korea

postscript: things we learned from this game:

--Daisuke Matsuzaka pitches like he's having sex with the game of baseball
--when they implement the mercy rule, everyone wins, except for Korean national pride
--Norichika Aoki has the best name for Tokyo Dome chants
--gyroball
--if you're fat you're a power hitter, if you're skinny but still hit homeruns you're a 'nonpower power hitter'
--baseball statistic abbreviations, for grate lulz
--grackles

Many thanks to ivantopumpyouup, famous cloned Afghan Snuppy the Hound, and Tom Clifton for contributing to this exercise in waking up early to lovingly stroke the dewy flank of international baseball. Sorry your boys lost, ivan, but, um.... yeah, no, sorry, there were no positives to that performance.

2009-03-05T22:57:00.003-05:00

Oh no not another one! I am just doing these for my own purposes-- if you want to follow along or join in, you are more than welcome to do so, but I'll be livebloggin' away even if it's just me. This one will go live for Chinese Taipei (Taiwan)/Korea, Friday, 4:30 am.

WBC Chinese Taipei/Korea

postscript: things we learned from this game:

--Korea invented Thunderstix
--Korea cloned a dog and named it Snuppy
--Korea is Orestes Destrade's favorite Pool A team because they have fat players
--pitcher Jung Keun Bong is an Ichiro fanboy
--Chinese Taipei is terrible at baseball

2009-03-04T20:53:00.004-05:00

Liveblog of the first game of the 2009 World Baseball Classic. Oh yes. I am EXACTLY that crazy.

WBC China/Japan

Well, that was exciting. Regular RotT commenter ivantopumpyouup was also awake to keep me company and watch LIVE BASEBALL FROM THE TOKYO DOME. The entire liveblog (which is basically just the two of us rambling) can be viewed above at any time simply by clicking "replay" in that box up there. It is probably deadly boring, but if you're sitting at work bored out of your mind, maybe it will be less boring than that.

SUPER "DRY"!

postscript: things we learned from this game:

--China has first and last names on the backs of their jerseys
--pitcher Yu Darvish is really, really good
--CHINA= GREAT WALL
--JAPAN= MT. FUJI
--MLB 2K9 should be boycotted by everyone because of their terrifying digital Tim Lincecum ad
--Ichiro is a sexy beast even when he's not hitting
--US and Asian League baseballs are made out of different dead animals
--Orestes Destrade likes meaty ballplayers
--do not question SUPER "DRY"

2009-02-06T20:14:00.005-05:00

Truck Day! The one true sign of spring. Or, at least, a sign that things are moving in a generally spring-ish direction. The weather today was not really in a spring frame of mind, but a small, determined, bundled-up group of fans (most of them clutching cameras) huddled around the back of the truck behind Fenway this afternoon.

Brr.

A small, chilly, but appropriately attired fan.

Johnny Pesky made a brief appearance to speak to the media and send the truck off properly. He shook his head when asked if he was heading down with the truck. "Too many people," he said, adding that he'd join up with the Sox in Fort Myers a little closer to the official start of Spring Training.

Truck Day is not much of an event in and of itself, of course; it's the symbolism of Truck Day that Red Sox Nation so adores. It means baseball is officially On the Way to Starting, and since we're all baseball-starved obsessive freaks out here, On the Way to Starting is something we take seriously. Even when it's really cold out and there are lots of other, warmer things to do at 1 pm in the city.

At least there was sun?

Happy Truck Day, kids and kittens!

2009-01-29T22:14:00.001-05:00

They should put me in the front office, I tell you what.

2009-01-24T22:39:00.004-05:00

Man I have not posted over here in ALL OF THE AGES. That is remarkable. I think that I feel guilty because all of my drawing goes to Roar of the Tigers and then I am like, "Oh kittens I just do not want to draw another comic for another baseball team and also there are so many Red Sox blogs and nobody cares."

Maybe I should draw some bad Red Sox comics though? I did some sketch cards and I guess I did not post them over here, but here they are.

It is kind of amazing to me that the Red Sox do not even have a real catcher yet. I guess the FO is assuming they will get Varitek one way or another, in spite of the cruel and unusual shenanigans of The Boras, but I look at the roster right now and I snicker so damn hard. We are talking Josh Bard and a bunch of folks who were born in the 80s but are not actual prospects. And it is ALMOST FEBRUARY. At what point do we just sit back and say, Wait... wait, shit.

AWESOME BASEBALL ANALYSIS

Then it is also kind of hard to post about the Red Sox when I have just written a bunch of Tigers stuff, because all the Red Sox problems seem so tiny in comparison. So, say, the Red Sox have some bullpen concerns, fact, but then I come up against the fact that THE TIGERS HAVE NO BULLPEN LIKE AT ALL. We are talking about people being KIND OF EXCITED about the idea that Brandon Lyon might be the Detroit closer by the end of Spring Training. BRANDON LYON. I know the Red Sox have issues in middle relief but at least they don't have such issues that Brandon Lyon is the best candidate for closer in their entire bullpen.

THANK YOU FOR EXISTING JONATHAN PAPELBON

And then of course there were the Lions and the Wolverines, neither of whom really inspired me to keyboard mash any more than I was already doing. There are only so many ways you can say, "Gosh we are so bad in every way," after all.

2008-11-26T02:52:00.006-05:00

Just... read the quote, OK? Just read the quote. I can't prepare you for this. You just have to read it.

"It's really good for us right now to have a chance to get under the spotlight," Lions coach Rod Marinelli said Monday. "I'm really looking forward to that, where everybody is scrutinizing everything about us right now."
...
Some would argue that if the Lions were trying to win, then all the talk about 0-16 might get in their heads. As I thought about that hypothetical scenario, I asked Marinelli: Couldn't the spotlight be ... you know ... a bad thing?

"I guess if you're from Hostess Twinkies it would be," Marinelli said.

I was poised to ask a follow-up question, but the only one I could think of was "Huh?" Are the Hostess people worried about scrutiny? Do they have nightmares that somebody will figure out how they put the cream inside the cake?

Marinelli later was asked if he was worried some of his players were soft, like Twinkies.

"I'm not saying we're Twinkies," Marinelli said. "I'm saying the question was a Twinkie. It was a Twinkie question for me."

WHAT.

I... WHAT?!

It. Was. A. Twinkie. Question. For. Me. For me, Rod Marinelli, the head coach of an NFL professional football team.

The Detroit Lions are like some sort of horrible practical joke that is being played on all of us.

2008-11-17T22:28:00.002-05:00

Oh man you guys things are so bad right now when it comes to Blue Cats. I can't even really call them 'Lions' anymore because that implies a certain amount of majesty and toothy power that would be the most obvious false advertising ever.

I mean you see this blue cat here; he is not swimming, he is slowly sinking beneath the logo'd waves. Straight up watery tragedy.

If you are wondering why there have not been very many posts about this potentially historic season so far, I can only tell you that every week I spend a few moments in quiet contemplation, trying to think of something to say other than 'EVERYONE IS SO BAD AT FOOTBALL'. I have a hard time thinking of anything. EVERYONE IS SO BAD AT FOOTBALL.

Occasionally the Blue Cats will play well for a series, or a quarter, or (more rarely), a half. But the opposing team then always remembers how to play football, and the Blue Cats always revert back to their bumbling ways.

If you have a quarterback with a big arm-- one of the few things Daunte Culpepper inarguably does still have-- why would you not throw down the field? You have not won a game yet. Why stick with runs and short, sometimes backwards passes? THERE IS ALMOST LITERALLY NOTHING TO LOSE. Take some bloody RISKS! This seems obvious, unmistakable, self-evident. Yet somehow, somewhy, the Blue Cats insist upon short runs and tiny passes.

I just... WHY?

And the tackling; holy cats, the tackling is still some of the worst I have seen at any level. You don't just try to BUMP INTO GUYS, you have to WRAP THEM UP and HOLD ONTO THEM and generally NOT TOUCH THEM ONCE, WEAKLY, AND THEN LIE DOWN ON THE TURF TO WATCH THEM CONTINUE ON DOWN THE FIELD.

This is obvious, yes??!? To you, this is obvious? To me, this obvious! To the Blue Cats, this is not at all obvious. It has been going on since Week One. You would think that perhaps they would have begun addressing it by now, but you would be thinking a wrong thing.

HOW IS THIS AT ALL POSSIBLE ON A PROFESSIONAL FOOTBALL TEAM? It boggles the mind so hard that mind-bits will leak out of your ears and nose, it truly does.

What more can I even say? These Cats are bad in a way that defies description. There are no words in the English language sufficient to describe the terriblocity of this 'football team' (and I use that phrase in the loosest possible sense).

0-and-10. Absurd, ghastly, sickening, farcical, lunatic, ridiculous. And, in all likelihood, it will only get more so.

2008-10-17T01:29:00.004-04:00

I don't believe what I just saw.

I cannot believe that game. I just... wow. My voice is GONE. People were leaving in the 6th inning; we moved down to the loge box where my cousins have season tickets because the people who share the box with them left early. I can't even imagine how it would feel to have left that game early.

There have been articles about how complacent Red Sox Nation is getting. How blasé. And there is some truth to that; after all, there were those seats emptying in the 6th inning of a playoff game. You wouldn't have seen that in 2004. Heck, you probably wouldn't have seen that in 2007.

But that 7th inning. I am not sure I can coherently express it. The David Ortiz three-run homer brought people to their feet in a way that would make even the most die-hard 2004-vintage fan proud. The screaming. The stomping. The jumping around and, and, and.... the continued screaming. How could we NOT? It was David Ortiz, our Big Papi, who had been struggling SO HARD, who had been wishing for EXACTLY THIS HIT for SO LONG, with all of us wishing for exactly the same thing right behind him.... and he GOT IT, he got the EXACT HIT he'd been waiting for, and Fenway just exploded.

We were still down 7-4! But from that point on, we did not sit down. We did not stop making noise. The last three Rays pitchers all had names that lent themselves wonderfully to taunting chants: "Baaaaaalllll-foooouuuurrrrr!" "Wheeeeee-lllleeerrrrrrr!" "Hoooowwwww-eeelllllll!" And oh, how we chanted. ESPECIALLY for Balfour and Wheeler, who seemed to actually become more rattled and uncertain as the crowd's volume increased.

There were Rays family members sitting in the section next to my cousin's seats. She was irate because, around the 6th inning, Fenway security came over and was talking to the Rays people about protocol when it came to running onto the field and celebrating, how they could get on there to party with their family members, and so on. "RED SOX security!" my cousin said, outraged. "Can you believe that?"

It did seem unbelievable. Even down by 7... these are the Red Sox! Have we learned nothing? I know that it was something those people had to be told at some point, but AT LEAST wait until the 8th inning, jeez.

Then of course the comeback began. The unbelievable comeback. I really cannot properly express how intense it was. On our feet, screaming and clapping and chanting and hopping and living and dying with every pitch. Practically hyperventilating. I honestly felt like I was going to throw up several times, or pass out, or SOMETHING.

It has been a while since I was last at a Red Sox game where every single moment hung you out on tenterhooks like that, but there was no denying the feeling: it was that good old 2004 feeling, where you WANT every out for every Red Sox pitcher so badly that you almost feel like you're throwing the balls yourself, where you WANT every base for every Red Sox hitter so badly your hands twitch like you're holding a bat.

I'm still obviously pretty verklempt from this game and I'm not being very coherent. But holy cats. Holy freakin' cats, that GAME. This TEAM.

Even if we go on to lose the series, it will not take away from what the team did in this game. It will not take away the fact that the Red Sox looked at the Rays and said: no. Not in Fenway. Not in our house.

Down 7-0, came back to win 8-7.

I don't believe what I just saw.

2008-10-15T01:17:00.004-04:00

Well, that game sucked. Many photos to come, but really the highlight of the evening was the extremely drunk/irate guy in the right field box section behind us who decided that he hated Rays relief pitcher JP Howell.

This particular bit of right field box, if you're not familiar with the area, happens to have a good view down into the Rays bullpen, and it was not too unreasonable to expect that the Rays could hear a particularly strident crowd member from that section. In fact the very first time this guy stood up and screamed, Hey Howell!11!, Howell made the mistake of actually looking in his general direction. Regardless of the truth of the matter, the drunk guy was then dead convinced that JP Howell could hear his heckling, and so proceeded with due gusto.

Things this dude yelled at JP Howell over the course of the game:

"Hey! It's six-tee three dahgrees! Hey, nice gloves, ya pansy. It ain't 32 dahgrees out!" [Howell was wearing a sweatshirt and batting gloves while stretching in the bullpen.]

"Hey, ya big fairy! It don't matter, 'cause at the end'a the day you go home and yer still a fairy!"

"Yer sister sez hi!"

"Keep wavin' those arms, Howell! You just keep on doin' that!" [Howell was doing that windmill-arm stretching thing.]

"Must be hahd to stay warm, sittin' on that bench!"

"JP! You suck! You suck! Yer terrible!"

"I don't care what the score is! Yer still a bum!"

"Howwwwww-ellllllll! Hoooowwwwww-elllllllll!"

"Yer a custodian! Jan-ih-terrrrr!"

And a number of other things in a similar vein that I did not note down around the edges of my scorecard.

The best part is the fact that this guy didn't heckle ANY other Rays. Not the right fielder, who could certainly hear deranged drunken rants from the section if the bullpen could. Not any of the other relievers, including guys who warmed up in the 'pen and actually got into the game (something Howell did not do). JP Howell and JP Howell alone was the target of this determined fan's ire. You just have to admire that level of dedication, detail-orientation, and insanity.

2008-10-12T02:30:00.003-04:00

CATDAMMIT, TIMLIN. Why do you hate me? Why do you want me to suffer? I have never done anything to you.

I know there are many other things to blame here, including:

--Whatever Is Wrong With Josh Beckett Oh Jeez I Bet It's the Oblique Even If He Says It Isn't
--the homeplate ump and his terrible strikezone
--the throw from Drew that was awkward and offline
--Tito for leaving Beckett in so long
--every stupid feature of Tropicana Indoor Skatepark
--Jacoby's 0-for-6 night
--Mark Kotsay's 0-for-6 night
--cowbells
--Evan Longoria and everything associated with Evan Longoria
--the removal of the word 'Devil' from the Rays' name
--BJ Upton
--MLB's scheduling, which has playoff games starting after 8 pm
--the TBS announcing crew
--Joe Maddon's black magick and sorcery
--men left on base
--Javier Lopez
--the rays in the outfield touch-tank.

But because it is nearly 3 am and I am irrational with woe: CATDAMMIT MIKE TIMLIN WHY MUST YOU WOUND ME SO?!

I know that Timlin used to be a good pitcher. I know that those days are not too long gone. Why, he was downright GOOD last season.

Those times are gone forever. Mike Timlin is 42 years old. Those times are not coming back. We are collectively in a place right now where we see Timlin come into a game and we say, "Oh shit no we're doomed now," and most of the time we do that, we end up being right. Red Sox fans are naturally paranoid and pessimistic but this is not OK. We don't like being right when it's the result of our paranoia and pessimism coming to actual fruition.

With that in mind: why did Timlin come into that game? Why would you bring a ticking timebomb who doesn't even have the powers of his formerly high socks to raise him above the muddy waters of mediocrity anymore? Why would you do that in the bottom of the 11th inning of a vital ALCS game? Why do that when Papelbon had only thrown 18 pitches and had at least one night off immediately following the game?

First the first Wolverine loss to the MAC team in school history, on a frikking missed field goal, and then THIS. My frowny faces shall be epic this weekend.

2008-10-10T17:12:00.003-04:00

It's on.

All photos by Samara Pearlstein, obviously.

2008-09-21T23:42:00.003-04:00

Evidence that, no matter how much I try to be a level-headed, even-handed, sane baseball fan, I am still at heart a simple surly Red Sox fan:

This whole Yankee Stadium thing is making me throw up in my mouth a little.

I watched the game, because it is historic and all that and I'm a fan of the Game of Baseball with the caps and everything. But all the ceremony surrounding this, the media sobbing, the whole fucking circus-- ugh. For fuck's sake. Where was the outcry for Tiger Stadium? I know there was attention given to it, of course, but I don't remember it being ANYTHING like this, and Tiger Stadium WAS STILL ORIGINAL TIGER STADIUM, as opposed to this, which is Yankee Stadium Circa Mid '70s.

Tiger Stadium was a National Historic Landmark (and they still knocked it down, woo, Detroit!). Yankee Stadium is not one.

And of course this last EMOTIONALLY CHARGED HALLOWED GAME featured such starting Yankee dignitaries as Johnny Damon (member of the Red Sox team responsible for one of the greatest Yankee collapses in modern memory), Xavier Nady (who's been on the team for three months), and Jose Molina (catching in place of the injured Posada).

Ugggggh.

I know at least part of this, maybe most of it, is just my gut reaction as a Red Sox fan. I won't deny that, I own it, man. And I do understand that this is a big deal... but it is NOT as big a deal as people (maybe read: media) are making it out to be. That this should get more attention than the closing and subsequent (much-delayed) demolition of Tiger Stadium is, honestly, ridiculous.

2008-09-20T03:08:00.003-04:00

I need to write about the Red Sox and my MANY STRANGE AND OBSESSIVE WORRIES about them soon, but this? This I cannot pass up.

I'm talking about an article by Nicholas Cotsonika in the Detroit Free Press titled Matt Millen says Lions have his back-- and they can win this year. Although I will get into it below, I will summarize it here for the lazy readers: Matt Millen is awful, but has no concept of his own awfulness. It is as though he is so awful at handling a National Football League team that his mind simply refuses to process the full magnitude of his FAIL. The result of this brain hiccup, this disturbance in his gray matter, is a near-delusional outlook on his team, his management of said team, his personnel, and probably many other things as well.

Let's have a look, shall we?

Millen said he believes in Marinelli more than ever before because Marinelli has remained consistent amid adversity. He said he still believes in the coaching staff and players -- and that if the Lions just do what they've been doing, they will win this year.

"Stay the course," Millen said. "It's a little bump. ... It's not like you have to panic. You don't have to make wholesale changes. You don't have to do all that stuff. It's all right there."

He believes in Marinelli because Marinelli has remained consistent amid adversity.

He believes in Marinelli because Marinelli has remained consistent amid adversity.

HE BELIEVES IN MARINELLI BECAUSE MARINELLI HAS REMAINED CONSISTENT AMID ADVERSITY.

Say you have a nail that you have to hammer into a wall. You're holding the nail in place so it doesn't fall out before it's nailed in properly. Your friend ROD MARINELLI is swinging the hammer. He keeps smashing you in the fingers and missing the nail. He does it every single time. Over and over again. And instead of telling him he's DOING IT WRONG, instead of telling him to GO AWAY and finding SOMEONE ELSE to hammer the nail in properly, you PRAISE HIM.

You tell everyone that you believe in his ability to hammer that nail into the wall because despite adversity-- despite his CONSTANT FAILURE TO DO THE TASK ASSIGNED TO HIM, despite his CONSTANT FAILURE TO COME UP WITH THE DESIRED RESULT i.e. the nail in the wall and your hand intact-- he has remained CONSISTENT. He has NOT EVEN TRIED TO HAMMER THE NAIL IN A NEW WAY SO AS TO AVOID BREAKING YOUR PHALANGES.

And you praise him for this!!!

Matt Millen is out of his catdamned mind.

"I said at the beginning of the season, 'Come on out, and you'll like what you see,' " Millen said. "And I think the people who came out (to training camp), they like what they see because they see discipline. They see the approach is right. They're practicing right. All the little things."

What about the fan who says, "That's practice, but these are games"?

"Well, if a fan says that, then they don't understand the game of football, because it can't happen on the field if it doesn't happen here," Millen said.

It's not happening on the field. Quite frankly I don't give a flying diseased rat colon about what's happening in practice for the Lions these days because IT'S NOT HAPPENING ON THE FIELD. I have seen better tackling in HIGH SCHOOL football games. Tackling!! One of the most BASIC and INTEGRAL of the football skills! Obviously Matt Millen and I mean different things when we talk about 'all the little things'.

Does Millen hold himself accountable?

"Look," Millen said. "Rod stands up there and says, 'It's on me'? It's on me. It's me. That's fine. ... The guys who are out here are here for a reason. It's not happenstance. I believe in the guy I hired. I believe in the staff we put together and I believe in the players we have on the field. And if you want to point the finger at any of that stuff, that's on me. I'm fine with that, because I believe in what's out there. Nothing else needs to be said."

If he believes in what's out there, then he believes in a terrible football team that cannot tackle opposing players and glories in finding new and exciting ways to lose games that they seem to have a shot at winning. I BELIEVE!!!

Hasn't it taken too long to build a foundation, let alone build on top of it?

"From since I'm here, sure," Millen said. "Yeah. Obviously. But like I said earlier, I'm the one who hired the guy, and I believe in him 100%. I believe in him more now than I ever did. That guy, he's exactly what you need."

Why?

"Because he's consistent," Millen said. "You guys see that. That's not changing. He is a straight line."

I don't understand this. I just don't. If your team is terrible at playing the game of football, why would you insist that the best thing for everyone is to hold that course? The course you are on is one of losing! You don't want to hold that course! It's like someone once told Millen, "Now sonny boy, don't you ever stray from a path once you're on it," and he took that advice to heart so much that he now could not get off a conveyor belt even if he was unrestrained and the conveyor belt was approaching a circular saw that would remove his balls.

"He will do what he believes is the right thing to do, and what he's doing is the right way. The players we have picked, we picked in the beginning for a reason. The same reason still exists. They still have the same skills and abilities. The staff's in place for the same exact reason. Rod likes to use the term, 'Don't blink.' I never use that term. But you just keep on walking. ...

"I just think what we're doing is the right thing to do, and if they just keep doing what they're supposed to do, we'll be fine."

First of all, what the hell is he saying with the blinking and the walking?

Secondly, saying things like, "if they just keep doing what they're supposed to do, we'll be fine," presupposes that your players are doing the proper things in the first place, and you CANNOT presuppose that with the Detroit Lions.

Millen declined to go into his discussions with Ford. He said he didn't want to put words in Ford's mouth.

"He has high expectations," Millen said. "When you have high expectations, you also get frustrated, too. There's answers you want, too."

Millen said he told Ford basically the same things he said Thursday, just in more detail.

"He asks all the right questions," Millen said. "Let's just leave it at that."
Nicholas Cotsonika/Detroit Free Press

Except for the questions that will lead to the creation of a winning Lions team.

2008-09-10T00:51:00.001-04:00

Ugh, that game was amazing/sucked so much. Getting to see Kazmir pitch live, for one thing-- that was the first time I'd seen him in person. Carlos Pena, whom I still love in every irrational way. The 'MVP' chants every time Pedroia came up, the hysteria when Papi came out on deck to pinch hit in the 7th, the Jason Bay homer... that homer was INCREDIBLE, I thought people were going to start passing out in their seats from all the screaming.

And then Papelbon came in and spent enough time warming up for the sound system guys to play the entirety of 'Shipping up to Boston' and everyone was clapping and singing along and oh maaaaaaan.

And then, of course, the rare blown save, with a homer from DAN JOHNSON: OAKLAND REJECT, of all people, and a double from Dioner Navarro, he of the Molina School of Baserunning. Deflating.

The sky turned a crazy color right before it got dark out and I was pretty much convinced that a tornado was going to descend from the heavens and take Jed Lowrie off to Oz or something.

Alas, Jed did not at any point during the game have to break out his ruby slippers.

2008-09-03T18:00:00.000-04:00

Again? Seriously.... AGAIN??

I was unhappy when this game started. The first time in five years I haven't been at the season opener... it was weird, OK? Weird and wrong-footing and seeing that full stadium but not being in it is just wrong. But life goes on, I thought. You grow up, you move away; at least you're not out there schvitzing to death in the heat and probably getting a horrific sunburn because you forgot to put on sunscreen again.

I expected things to improve, though. Oh, I knew full well that the team is young, it's the first game with a new coach and a new system after several eons of Carr-ship, we're starting a walk-on at QB and the backup is a red-shirt freshman. I knew all that. Intellectually. I still expected... I don't know. Not a blowout, but a victory of some sort.

I really, really need to stop having expectations about this team, unless they are expectations of SHAME and AGONY.

Nothing against Utah. I tip my cap to them while simultaneously cursing out every single one of their players, especially that friggin' kicker. This is a less embarrassing loss than last year's Appalachian State disaster; the Utes may be in the mostly imaginary Mountain West conference, but at least they're actually, you know, Division I.

We have no running game. Like... none. I have no idea how our receivers look after this one game, because the combined Sheridan/Threet QB situation was awful enough to make them a moot point. The offensive line was bad. The defense adjusted in the second half in a very encouraging way, but the atrocious first half can't be ignored. Special teams were pretty good? I guess?

The close score at the end of the game was pretty deceptive. Utah made some terrifically bad mistakes, but Michigan did not look like a Division I football team out there.

It's gonna be a long season, 'though I guess this is maybe the best way to ease me out of the habit of actually going to the games.

ETA: Tatum Bell, after being released by the Lions, stole the luggage of Rudi Johnson, who had been brought in to replace him.

The Lions keep finding new and exciting ways to remind everyone that they are 100% clown shoes.

2008-08-24T23:09:00.009-04:00

Things that screw up my brain, # 3,478: Watching the Dodgers/Phillies game, where both Manny and Nomar are in the lineup. I feel like I'm in the middle of some sort of strangely pinpointed hallucinatory flashback.

It doesn't help that Joe Blanton started the game for the Phillies, so the whole 'Deranged Alternate Universe American League Game' thing was even more strongly reinforced.

It's been feeling like Crazy AU Time with the Red Sox lately anyways. Seems like half the roster is filled with Red Sox farmhands, and since when have the Red Sox been able to fill their team with guys from their own minors? I know, I know, since THEO, but every so often I still sit back and say, "These are the Red Sox now? Shit is CRAZY!" I mean, we're at the point where trading to get a guy like Jason Bay seems almost weird and Jacoby Ellsbury is our natural, ~~god~~ Theo-given right. Five years ago, the opposite would've been true.

Shit is CRAZY!

I have been a wicked bad blogger over here lately. I know it, I apologize for it, I blame RotT for it (which is, of course, only blaming myself again). I keep saying posting will pick up and that continues to be a lie, but I think it really WILL pick up soon, if only because I will need somewhere to pour out all the pain and anguish in my heart as the Detroit Lions take the field.

ETA: OH CATDAMN CHAD DURBIN JUST GOT INTO THIS GAME. He loaded the bases and then got out of it scorelessly!! Chad Durbin! Everyone's favorite pimp. Chad Durbin's continued success in the game of baseball brings me inordinate amounts of happiness.

ETA2: Manny just flipped a ball in from the outfield instead of throwing it hard, allowing Shane Victorino to take second base. Weird, usually throwing in is one of the things Manny's somewhat consistently GOOD about. It's reassuring to see that he's doing the same shit out there that he did in Boston. During a pitching change that followed the play, Andre Ethier came over and gave Manny a hug, as if to say, 'Hey, it's OK, we still love you even though you are manifestly an idiot.'

ETA3: JASON JOHNSON IS IN THE GAME NOW. What is this!!? I didn't even know he was still playing!! SHIT IS CRAZY! This also supports my theory that the NL is entirely imaginary, because where else would Jason Johnson still be pitching? It could not be in any actual, real-life league.

Watching this NL game that I care nothing about has turned out to be a startlingly good decision.

2008-08-04T15:47:00.004-04:00

Here's the thing with the Manny trade. I know, in my heart of hearts, that it was the right move, maybe the ONLY possible move at this point. Manny had created an impossible situation for himself in Boston. Even if he goes on to hit .360/.430/.667 with the Dodgers, you can't really fault Theo for the move, because he wouldn't have done that in Boston with any kind of reliable consistency, not if he felt like he was being wronged by the tiny green gnomes that live under the Monster or whatever his latest gripe would have inevitably been. Declining to run out ground balls, fine, we were used to that and had accepted it as a part of the whole general Manny-package, but he was starting to get sulky AT THE PLATE, which is.... well, it's just deeply not OK.

And for once this wasn't just a bunch of fans getting all foamy about the mouthparts: Manny's own teammates were expressing concern to the FO that Manny could no longer be relied upon in games.

It may not be the absolute best move from a pure baseball standpoint. But it may have been the only move, and thus the right one.

That said, it still sucks rat testicles and Jason Bay, whatever other positives he may have, is not going to be nearly as fun as Manny to watch. He just won't be. It isn't possible. Manny was a crazy, surly, occasionally frustrating buffoon, but he was OUR crazy, surly, occasionally frustrating buffoon, dammit, and his antics WERE often entertaining, and what the hell is baseball anyways if it's not entertainment? You know, aside from a cold-blooded soul-sucking business and a religion/tribal-analogue for otherwise jaded and sarcastic New Englanders.

So, aside from the fact that I DID just talk about it, I don't really want to talk about it. Instead, I will talk about the one thing I can pretty much guarantee no other Red Sox blog in the world is talking about right now:

The Detroit Lions!

If you, like me, have been lucky enough to view FSN Detroit lately, you have probably noticed that the Lions have started running ads for the upcoming season. These ads feature their new tagline, slogan, whatever you want to call it. The first time I heard it, I literally burst out laughing. It is marvelous. It is splendiferous. It is (are you ready for this?):

DO YOU BELIEVE IN NOW?

That's the slogan. The ad consists of vague Lions footage, and a few players staring into the camera and saying, "DO YOU BELIEVE IN NOW?" At no point is there any mention of, say, scoring points, or anything obviously insane like that. The ad does not go on to say, "Do you believe that NOW is when we will win?" There is in fact no mention of victory at all, which is both refreshingly honest and keenly disturbing in an ad that's supposed to get fans fired up for the season.

After I got over my initial reaction (the aforementioned hysterical laughter), I had to stop and think. What could this slogan really mean? It is so very open, so strangely... philosophical.

DO YOU BELIEVE IN NOW?

I mean, let's break it down. NOW. What is 'now'? 'Now' is the time at present, the current moment. 'Now' is the bit of fourth dimension that the universe is experiencing right, well, NOW. It looks neither forwards nor backwards; it is neither future nor past. It is ever-changing, never static, impossible to capture and preserve. You think you know what 'now' is? In the time it took you to read that sentence, 'now' has changed a near-infinity of times. What you thought was 'now' has become 'then'.

DO YOU BELIEVE IN NOW?

What does it mean, to believe in 'now'? Do I believe that the universe exists such that the present moment is a Real Thing, not merely a figment of my imagination or some other sort of illusion? Hard to say. We as human beings are bounded by our senses and our brains; it may be argued that we cannot 'know' the world without them. This is an inherently solipsistic way to live. 'Now' seems real. It FEELS real. But is it? After all, it cannot be captured. Time marches on; it does not stop. Maybe at the event horizon of a black hole, where space and time warp in ways we cannot experience in our daily life, there is a sort of perpetual NOW. But can we ever know that for sure?

We feel like we are experiencing a series of 'now's. But is this real, or is it merely an artifact of the limits of our human sensory equipment and the scales which our brain is able to practically comprehend? We are incapable of perceiving infinitely small demarcations of time, but such micro-moments (quantum-moments?) may exist. If you view the fourth dimension as a linear progression (this, of course is debatable) and if you assume it is not at some level an indivisible particle, you may also assume that time can be broken down into ever smaller moments, seconds to microseconds to nanoseconds and so on down to parcels of time as-yet unnamed-- to parcels of time that the human mind simply cannot comprehend in any visceral, meaningful way.

What then? Can 'now' truly be said to exist when what we perceive as 'now' is only a very rough approximation of immediacy?

Or do we ignore this? Do we say, no, 'now' is what we believe it to be, therefore it exists? Do we say that because 'now' is a human concept, it necessarily MUST exist, because if we have invented the concept-- if the concept cannot exist in a pure state-- then it must exist as defined?

DO YOU BELIEVE IN NOW?

I don't know. I don't know if I believe in 'now'. To say yes is to fall into the darkly existential well of human solipsism. To say no is to question our very perception of time. Why do the Lions demand these things of me? Why?! It is a cruel organization that so torments its fans.

What does my belief (or lack of belief) in 'now' have to do with the Detroit Lions? I am not sure. I believe that the team will exist and that a number of large men wearing Honolulu blue and silver (and sometimes, sadly, black) will appear on various football fields at various pre-determined times, where they will (badly) attempt to play the game of football as defined by the National Football League. This is a belief based on habit (all these things have happened many times in the past) and probability (it is more likely that these things will happen than it is that a previously undetected meteor will obliterate Ford Field and negate the season).

But my belief in the existence of the upcoming Lions season is not tied to my belief in the 'now'. And it is CERTAINLY not at all tied to my belief that the team will in any appreciable way do well.

THAT is something I do not believe in.

I look forward to the Lions raising more questions of this sort all season long. If they can provide exercise for my brain, maybe it will in some small way make up for the execrable things they are preparing to do on the field.

DO YOU BELIEVE IN NOW??!

2008-07-15T16:56:00.004-04:00

So, Josh Hamilton, huh? I think he can maybe hit the baseball a little bit.

I have to admit that I had basically no expectations for the Home Run Derby. All Star festivities are generally just too much for me-- I get bored with the endless, pointless ceremony; the speeches given by people who, like Chris Berman, really have no business giving speeches; the treatment of the selections as a Srs Big Deal when they're really, REALLY not (see: Varitek, Jason); and so on. The Yankee Stadium lustfest that is this year's All Star Big Story doesn't help either. I'm sure I'd love it if I was a Yankee fan, but since I'm very much NOT, I am more annoyed by it than anything else. WE GET IT ALREADY.

Thing is, I know it's a historic stadium and historical shit happened there and like the entire Hall of Fame played there and what-the-fuck-ever. BUT IT'S NOT EVEN THAT OLD. It's not like this is Fenway or Wrigley. For cats' sake, THEY'RE KNOCKING DOWN TIGER STADIUM EVEN AS WE SPEAK and that gets MAYBE a mention and a couple seconds of video on Sportscenter. Yankee Stadium gets a bloody memorial service. I know that I'm biased, I know that full well, but I think that most everyone who is not a Yankee fan is getting sick of endless parade of wankery.

I mean, I've been to Yankee Stadium. It was kinda cool. It was interesting. It was (gasp!) historically significant and I appreciated that. HOWEVER, it was NOT a spectacularly beautiful park like Comerica or PNC, and it is NOT a perhaps-inconvenient-but-overwhelmingly-charming-due-to-its-age kinda park like Fenway or Wrigley. It originally opened in the '20s, sure, but it doesn't look like a ballpark from the '20s. It looks like a ballpark from the mid-70s, which is essentially what it is, after the remodel.

I'm not trying to hate on Yankee Stadium. Normally I am perfectly content to leave it for the (understandable!) enjoyment of Yankee fans. But this All Star crap is driving me crazy, because they're treating the place like a veritable Wonder of the World, and it just... isn't.

Anyways. Josh Hamilton!

Like I was saying before I got sidetracked into rant-mode, I had few expectations for the Home Run Derby. I had it on for the sake of having it on, but I was doing work on the computer at the same time and was only kind of watching it.

Now, I'm aware of the Josh Hamilton Story. Everyone, at this point, is aware of the Josh Hamilton Story. I know some people who derive immense amounts of joy from the Josh Hamilton Story. Personally speaking, it always skeeved me out a little bit. Of course it's awesome and great that he overcame alcoholism and heroin addiction to get back to where he is now, but I always felt wicked bad for the (Devil) Rays, who believed in him first and really got screwed over by the whole thing.

While it's good for him that finding God helped him to overcome his Issues, y'know, to each their own, it always makes me wince a little to hear another ballplayer thanking Jesus after he had a good game. Like, really? I'm with Jim Bouton on this one-- I'm waiting for the ballplayer who thanks evolution for helping him develop the hand-eye coordination he needed to hit a big homerun. And of course there's the whole race issue, which is not Josh Hamilton's own fault, of course, and many other people have already addressed it in many other places.

The point (there's a point?) is that I was pre-conditioned to be underwhelmed by the Derby, and that while I admit to the awesomeity of his story, I haven't exactly been wholeheartedly squeeing over Josh Hamilton this season.

Then he started hitting.

And you know what? It didn't matter. It didn't matter that this was a player with a somewhat controversial and probably heart warming story. It didn't matter that this was taking place during one of the most overblown 'events' of the season. It didn't matter that ESPN had like 12 guys announcing it and a single announcer would have sufficed.

I defy anyone-- ANYONE-- to watch Josh Hamilton hitting those homeruns and NOT enjoy it. It was impressive and spectacular and it was damn near impossible to keep from saying, "Wow," and, "Holy freaking cats," at the TV. It was awesome in the sense that it actually inspired awe. It was FUN. It was, probably, what the Home Run Derby SHOULD be.

Of course then there was the let-down of the second round, and the hilarious sadness of Justin Morneau actually winning in the end (getting both snubbed for the post-derby interview AND called 'Jason' by the guy giving him his check). But for that period of time when Hamilton was batting during the first round... that was what this crazy All Star crap should be all about.

(Josh Hamilton photo from a Red Sox/Rangers game in mid-April of this season.)

2008-07-05T00:26:00.006-04:00

The 4th of July was good except for how the Tigers lost at baseball. The Red Sox did not, though, and Jason Varitek got to wear stars all over his gear and get called Captain America all day long, which I bet he's been secretly waiting for since he got that big C. The 'FUCK YEAH AMERICA!!' hat designs were also OK....

...until I saw them on teams whose usual color schemes did not include blue. Teams like the A's, who looked downright absurd wearing their green jerseys with those royal blue hats, and the Diamondbacks, on whom royal blue just does not work. I get that they wanted the hats to be blue so they would still be 100% 'FUCK YEAH AMERICA!!', but if only they'd gone with a much darker blue, it would have looked less bizarre on a lot of teams.

And let us not EVEN get into the HORROR that was the Cleveland hat. On the one hand, you have a racist caricature of a native American with the American flag on it, as if to say 'FUCK YEAH AMERICA CONDONES THIS IMAGERY! THIS IS WHAT AMERICA IS ALL ABOUT!' On the other hand, much of Chief Wahoo's face is covered with the dark part of the flag design, so he looks like he's in blackface. Good work, MLB. Way to go.

The ugliest uniform of the day award, though, goes to the Chicago Wrong Sox, who apparently confused the 4th of July with Memorial Day and decided to wear camo jerseys. Desert camo jerseys. With tan pants. And brown hats. Brown hats with black-and-thus-barely-visible logos (unless they were slightly darker brown; it was hard to tell on TV). Combine that with stuff like Nick Swisher's ugly Buckeye face and you have a sight that no eyeball should ever be forced to encounter.

2008-07-03T00:14:00.005-04:00

So that game sucked, and the dome sucked, and the series sucked. Unfortunately I can't say that the Rays sucked, because they mostly did not. Playing 'Sweet Caroline' after tonight's loss was a jerkweed kind of thing to do, but I suppose they earned it.

It's not like we as Red Sox fans are in denial over the fact that the Rays are good this season (well, I probably can't speak for everyone). The fact that this particular game featured a complete collapse of the bullpen was what made it so hard to take.

I mean, can Craig Hansen even pitch at this level anymore? I want to say yes-- he's still striking guys out more than he's walking them and, uh, he doesn't have a 135.00 ERA like Fernando Rodney did earlier this season and... uh, he got a haircut, which shows, uh... dedication to the team and. Stuff. Definitely stuff. But HOLY FREAKING CATS was he HORRIFIC in this game. Sure, he came into a shitty situation, consider that fact duly acknowledged, but in 0.0 innings of work he allowed 5 runs: 2 inherited runners, and 3 all his very own. That is not 'slight meltdown', that is 'eeeaaaayyyyaaaaggghhhh gurk gurk splat wibble'

And what of Manny Delcarmen before him, who was just handing the bases to Rays all over the place without recording a single stinkin' out, what of him? Can HE still pitch at this level? Can he do so after a meltdown this intense? If he was a closer, in a way I'd feel better, because closers at least are practically trained to forget outings like this. Run-o'-the-mill middle relievers, however.... well, if they were tough enough to keep from getting psyched out by their own suck, maybe they wouldn't be middle relievers. Also maybe if they were good at throwing baseballs.

So, all of that sucked, a whole bunch of suck, infinite suckulation, but the postgame was made AWESOME by the presence of Mr. Dennis Eckersley, who reacts to bad Red Sox pitching like it's meant to specifically and personally insult him. After ranting a little about Dice K's short (5 inning) start opening the door for Bullpenplosion, they cut to commercial, and when they came back he was smiling in that 'I laugh so I don't start screaming' way he has.

Then he had to assure the audience that he was calm, he had calmed down, so the discussion could begin again.

I do not think that there is another analyst in baseball right now who takes bad pitching so personally, and, if there is, there is most assuredly no one who does it with such amazing crazy rage and pure '70s style.

2008-06-21T01:44:00.004-04:00

I have seen a lot of games at Fenway Park. I've seen wins and losses and extra innings. I've seen homeruns and grand slams and triples, walk-offs and double steals and brawls. I've seen Red Sox players making spectacular plays and awful plays, hugging each other and hugging players on other teams. I've seen them feeding the mourning doves that sometimes land on the field and I've seen them almost hit the red-tailed hawk that lives in the lightbanks with a high pop fly and I've seen them almost get hit in the head by low-flying swallows.

I've seen Fenway sunny, and lit up in the dark, and cloudy, and in the middle of a brilliant sunset. I've been to obnoxiously hot games at Fenway and nose-runningly cold games at Fenway and games where the temperature is absolutely perfect. I've seen rain so dense that the light towers hang double reflections in midair. I've seen mist and fog so thick the Prudential building completely disappears.

I had never seen a rainbow at Fenway.

Before tonight.

So I can check that one off the meteorological checklist.

I had also never seen Paul Pierce shaking off Jason Varitek's pitch signs before tonight, so that was a fun little bonus.

2008-05-19T22:44:00.002-04:00

Jon Lester.

No-hitter.

It would have been a spectacular game from him anyways-- the strikeouts were crazy-- but what a glorious no-hitter it was. And the catch from Jacoby to preserve it, wow, talk about a heart attack after the fact. It was a good catch at the time, but as the game wore on and everyone became aware of what, exactly, that catch had made possible... eeep eep eep.

AT FENWAY! This was at Fenway. I mean, can you even imagine? Jon Lester is 24 years old and he just threw a no-hitter for the Red Sox in Fenway Park.

Tito was completely overcome after the game, and isn't that just a perfect like microcosm of us all?

TC and the Eck are talking about how the last out-- that punchy strikeout-- was the perfect way to end a no-hitter, and catdamn if they aren't right. Of course any out would have been great, 'cause, dude, no-hitter! But that strikeout, wham, bam, Jon Lester just kicked your ass PERSONALLY. Doesn't get much better than that.

Justin Verlander, Clay Buchholz, Jon Lester. I have been dead spoiled when it comes to no-hitters for my boys lately.

2008-05-16T20:48:00.004-04:00

In case you missed it (and really, I update so randomly over here that you probably did), I was at two out of the four Red Sox/Tigers games in Detroit. Good times for the Red Sox half of my brain, as I'm sure you may recall. My seats for the first game were in a luxury box (!!), so I took mostly photos of Comerica, which is decidedly a Tigers photo interest, but for the second game I showed up early enough to take in BP. Red Sox BP.

The entire photoset is here if you just wanna check 'em all out, but here are a few highlights.

There really are insufficient words to describe how amazingly nice The Mayor is. He seems extra-friendly because he's a pro ballplayer, sure, and pro ballplayers aren't exactly known as an unusually friendly group of people (more the 'prickly, overpaid prima donna' types, really), but he'd probably have people raving about his niceness even if he was a stock broker or something.

I'm not really sure what the deal with this is. It's Aardsma and Buchholz here, but lots of guys on the team were doing it. It appeared, to the untrained eye, to be Rock, Paper, Scissors, and they seemed to be doing it in greeting, you know, like instead of a high five or ass pat or other more commonplace gesture. Just a quick rousing game of Rock, Paper, Scissors. Accompanied by much crazed ballplayer laughter. I don't know. Anyone got an explanation?

Jon Lester, bubble gum, triptych. Nom nom nom POP!

I know that Beth already posted with the other shot of this event, but I thought it bore repeating. Dice K snuck up on Tavarez, grabbed him from behind, and gave him a surprise back stretch.... much to Julian's delight, as you can see in the photos. Aw, hell. I don't WANT to miss Tavarez, but damn it all, I rather think I'm going to.

O hai reunion! I saw Edgah chatting quite a bit with Papi, and Manny, and (for whatever obscure reason) Youk. Actually most of the Spanish-speaking Tigers took the time to have a little meet-and-greet with Ortiz, and I took photos of a bunch of the hugs and such, but I especially liked the fact that Papi is tugging on Edgah's shirt here.

Of course I took loads of boring portrait-y shots too:

and so on.

As I said at the top, if you want to see the rest of the shots from the game, they're right here. Yeah, I went a little crazy. I don't usually see the Sox on the road so I don't usually get to see Sox BP. That's my excuse and I'm stickin' to it.

2008-05-04T19:27:00.005-04:00

I first came to the University of Michigan in the fall of 2003.

Michigan 35, Ohio State 21. 2003.

Michigan 45, Michigan State 37, 3 overtimes. 2004.

Michigan 27, Penn State 25. 2005.

Michigan 14, Ohio State 3. 2006.

Michigan 31, Michigan State 13. 2006.

Michigan 17, Oakland University 0. 2007.

Michigan 5, Eastern Michigan 3, walkoff homerun. 2008.

Today, in May of 2008, I went to a baseball game.

Michigan 15, Ohio State 1. 2008.

Tomorrow I move out, with a BFA, a minor in Biology, and 5 years of memories.

Thanks, U of M. Thanks, Ann Arbor. I'll miss ya.

2008-04-08T23:30:00.003-04:00

I have to admit, it's hard to get too much enjoyment out of this series right now. It definitely did not help that this is the first Sox/Tigs Fenway series in a while that I won't be seeing in person. I am all kinds of sulky over the lost photo opportunities.

I hear tell that the ring ceremony is up on NESN, and I guess I'll watch that tomorrow if I get time, but the actual baseball? Man. I can't even thoroughly enjoy the performance of the Sox, because it's not like watching them play well: it's like watching them do well because the Tigers are so completely incompetent at the moment.

The Tigers are such a mess right now. It's really baffling to people out here, and I think not knowing what the hell is wrong is making us all a little depressed and/or crazy. I've had to resort to things like this, which is obviously just not OK for anyone.

Of course I watched the game anyways-- Red Sox baseball that I don't have to watch on my computer? YES PLZ. Matsuzaka's little hip shimmy when he brings his arms up just doesn't translate well in a tiny pixellated format, and it just ain't the same without the little hip shimmy. In the midst of my Tigers sadness I have to admit that the Matsuzaka hip shimmy made me grin. Not the hair, though. The hair can go anytime he feels like it.

I would love to be able to say that tomorrow's Bondo/Lester matchup will be a better one, but I honestly don't know right now. Bondo wasn't bad his last time out, but the Tigers' offense has been so dismal (except for one game which Jason Grilli, unsurprisingly, pissed away) that it's hard to say what, if anything, they'll do.

2008-03-31T15:15:00.004-04:00

Oh general baseball population Opening Day! Look at this schedule I'm working on here, kids:

8 am- 1 pm: class

1 pm: Tigers/Royals (RotT post up)

4 pm: Giants/Dodgers (expected mentions of Barry Bonds despite the fact that Barry Bonds is no longer on the team: 1,093)

somewhere in here: a bit of Cubs/Brewers (Gabe Kapler!)

7 pm: Angels/Twins (Torii Hunter returns to Minnesota OH THE DRAMA OH THE HUMANITY!)

10 pm: Astros/Padres (um... baseball!)

You know how when a dog finds something that smells really good to them they'll roll around in it? Just seriously go to town, rolling back and forth in a crazed canine ecstasy? That's basically what I'm doing with this Opening Day schedule. WALLOWING IN BASEBALL. If I could literally roll around in it, I would.

Also making me smile: I went to a bunch of Michigan baseball games this weekend, including a double header on Saturday with rain expected on Sunday. That means they put the tarp on the field after the game, and since it was a college baseball game, the team had to put the tarp on the field.

Kevin Cislo makes a friend.

Alan Oaks frolicks.

There are very, very few things in the world funnier than watching college baseball players do the groundskeeping.

A few more photographic highlights:

Kenny Fellows, fastfastfast.

I'm always excited when I manage to get an in-focus shot of the outfielders (Derek VanBuskirk, in this case) in action.

Zach Putnam makes a combination of the :D and :P faces.

The rest of the photos from the game are right here. Lotsa shots, since it was a double header and I was enjoying the heady feeling that comes from shooting a double header with a camera that (unlike the camera I had last year) does not make me worry about a) battery drain or b) how many photos are on my card.

Hope you lot are all enjoying the general baseball population Opening Day as thoroughly as I am.

2008-03-27T23:11:00.003-04:00

Here was my favorite thing about the Japan series.

I set my alarm for 5:30 in the morning so that I would be mostly conscious by the time the game started. I made coffee and got waffles (frozen) and maple syrup (local). I turned on the TV at a low volume so it wouldn't wake my roommate up. I grabbed a pillow so that I could beat it up when the game got too tense and/or awesome for self containment.

I looked at the completely sunless sky outside and wanted to die. Because it was so fucking early. But it did not even cross my mind, not for a MOMENT, to sleep more, because BASEBALL.

That's not my favorite thing about the Japan series. Nor is it Manny with a bat making friends with thousands of Japanese fans all at once, although that ALSO happened and was in fact magnificent. Seriously. Pretty much the entire baseball-loving population of Japan is now one giant collective Manny Ramirez fan. This is a sign of some deep rightness in the world.

My favorite thing about the Japan series is also not the way Boston fans all over the eastern time zone staggered around like zombies all day, downing coffee and giving each other sympathetic looks. I am not even kidding. I must have exchanged the tired face with at least 4 different kids in Red Sox hats during and immediately after that series, and that's all the way out in Michigan.

No, my favorite thing about the Japan series was the fact that, as I sat there trying to get coffee fumes into my sinuses, with the sky doggedly NOT lightening with sunrise, not even out of my pajamas yet (my pajama pants are Red Sox patterned; it was appropriate, dammit!), I thought to myself, "You know what? This is early, and I am tired, but at least I'm not a California-based Oakland fan. Those poor bastards have to be up at 3 am on a weeknight if they want to watch this live."

I felt a lot better after that.

It helped that there was baseball.

2008-03-17T23:26:00.004-04:00

It has been a long time. I know! The excuses behind this are many and varied and good, but I will not bore you with them. Imagine that I've been extremely busy flying fighter jets or something.

But I return. BCRS returns. It is high time. Why, you may ask, is NOW the time? Well, like the caribou and warblers and humpback whales making their rounds of the globe, I have noted a seasonal sign, and it has told me to Get A Bloody Move On Already. It is not the changing of the weather (it's snowing right now in Michigan). It is not the length of the days. No, this is a far more tangible and marvelous sign indeed.

NEW ROSTER PHOTOS ARE OUT!!

Fun with Roster Photos is a tradition here at BCRS. Like most traditions, it is beautiful and it brings people together. We make fun of how horrible baseball players look in their roster photos, and how harassed/bad the roster photographers are. It's humanitarian magic.

Usual disclaimer: these images are linked directly from the MLB pages, so they'll change when MLB changes them. If you're viewing this archived, the photos in the post may no longer correspond to the commentary. I leave it this way because a) it lends a surreal aspect to the whole exercise, and b) I'm lazy. I'm going off the active roster as of March 17-18, 2008.

Fun with Roster Photos! Boston Red Sox, 2008

Pitching!

David Aardsma
I'm clearly guilty of wishful projection here, but I still think this glorious big-eared, squinty-eyed photo makes him look a little bit like an aardvark.

Josh Beckett
Josh Beckett is not amused by photo day. Josh Beckett is also apparently a firm believer in two-tiered mini goatees, which isn't really something I ever needed to know. Ever.

Craig Breslow
Excellent, we only needed to wait 'til #3 for my first real-life LOL. What is wrong with Craig Breslow here? He looks like he's making a donkey braying noise deep in his throat at the exact moment when this photo was taken. That's what's wrong with him.

Clay Buchholz
Murderous living doll Clay Buchholz leaves his ventriloquist trunk only at night, armed with a really fucking big steak knife, and you know it's true. We have photographic proof.

Bryan Corey
What can you even say? WHAT CAN YOU EVEN SAY? How could a photographer look Bryan Corey in the eye after taking this photo?

Manny Delcarmen
Oh, that's where the rest of Beckett's facial hair went.

Craig Hansen
He looks high here, which is nothing new for Craig Hansen. The really curious thing is that he also looks like he recently had a chin implant and the scar hasn't quite healed yet.

Jon Lester
Oh Jon Lester. I just wanna reach into that photo and unfold that right ear. Like with a puppy. Awww, puppies.

Javier Lopez
What in the god damned hell that doesn't even look like Javier Lopez. Who the hell IS that? Holy fuck, it's like parallel universe Javier Lopez, who never went into professional baseball and instead got his degree in neurology from Virginia and published a couple of obscure papers and that was the highlight of his life.

Daisuke Matsuzaka
"Hey Dice-K! BADGERTOES!" "Uh... what?" "BADGERTOES!" "Uh...ha ha, er..... what?" *camera flash*

Hideki Okajima
Every year. Every goddamn year there's someone who can't make it to photo day and they use a wax model in his place and hope no one will notice.

Jonathan Papelbon
Look at him rearing back like that. Like in another second he's going to shoot forward and bite you.

Kyle Snyder
Someone needs to get this man some sunscreen and a smack on the ass to wipe that smug smile off his face.

Julian Tavarez
So happy, so content as his head slowly melts into his neck.

Mike Timlin
Probably the first roster photo so far that hasn't been just awful. Washed out? Yes. Potentially dubious goatee grooming choices? Yes. Laugh out loud terror? Not quite. Good job, photographers/Timlin.

Tim Wakefield
Wake's roster photo looks like his roster photo from last year, and the one before that, and probably every roster photo of his since like 1996. There's a Dorian Grey-esque painting of a ravaged, elderly Tim Wakefield somewhere in the bowels of Fenway.

Curt Schilling
This is a special treat, since he's not on the active roster right now. But look at that expression and tell me it doesn't make you think of muppets.

Catchers!

Dusty Brown
Another puppy who needs his wittle ear untucked.

Geoge Kottaras
Wow, it's a teenage baseball player as envisioned by the people who animated The Triplets of Belleville. That was unexpected.

Jason Varitek
Grrr, me Tek! You fan! You fan, me Tek! Hurr! Base Ball! *ineffective concentrating noises*

Infielders!

Chris Carter
How many hungover college boys do we really need on this team?

Sean Casey
What the hell did they tell him to do, cock his head to the side like a kitten? Be adorrrrrable, Sean! He looks like he's got a strained muscle in his neck.

Alex Cora
That is one creepy-ass smile, there. Like he's smiling that smile at the same time he's trying to grab your ass in a crowded bar.

Mike Lowell
NOOOO WHAT DID THEY DO TO MAKE MIKE LOWELL SO SAD NOOOOOOO

Julio Lugo
The face of a man who has never actually seen a camera before and is completely confused about what he's doing in front of one.

Dustin Pedroia
Oh photo-induced lazy eye, you never fail to appear on photo day.

Kevin Youkilis
Holy cats. Holy FREAKING cats. He's actually growing his goatee to match his pubic hair in density, shape, everything. I need to know in what universe he thinks this is a good thing.

Outfielders!

Coco Crisp
He looks 10 years old here. I don't know. His head is too big for his neck and the bits of his hair you can see makes it look like he's got tiny pigtails. He needs a bag lunch, a Lisa Frank pencil case, and possibly a pony.

JD Drew
JD Drew or.... THE MOLEMAN??

Jacoby Ellsbury
OK, it's pretty hard to mess up a photo of Jacoby Ellsbury. He just looks so uncomfortable here. Like he's not actually wearing any pants and he's really painfully embarrassed but he has to sit still because the photographer's only gonna be here another 20 minutes so he can just suck it up and put his pants on after.

Brandon Moss
We have a leprechaun on the team who isn't Bobby Kielty?

Manny Ramirez
I feel like this is last year's shot, or the year before, because Manny never shows up for these things. Can someone confirm or deny this?

the DH!

David Ortiz
His goatee/chin looks like the Wu Tang Clan symbol and I can't stop thinking that. That's all I can see when I look at this photo. I'm sorry.

Ah, it's nice to be back. I've missed this space.

2007-11-25T22:48:00.000-05:00

Mmmm, losing, how it has consumed my football.

I of course attended the Michigan/Ohio State game, which was a disaster. A total disaster. It was freezing cold out, but just warm enough to keep the rain rain and not snow. I don't know how it was possible for the air to be as cold as it was while we were still getting rained out, but apparently Ohio State bewitched the air to make us just that much more completely miserable. I was soaked through by the end of the game, and I had rain gear on. Some people were worse off. And of course there's no shelter in the Big House.

Part of the problem was that, while the game didn't ever really 'feel' close, and even though it definitely never seemed like Michigan (and more especially Chad Henne) was going to make a comeback, the score technically WAS close enough to keep most of us in our seats. Of course leaving a ballgame early is despicable behavior, but in this case it would have been perfectly justified by the soul-destroying nature of the loss and the potentially health-destroying nature of the weather, and if this had been a blowout I would've been out of there before you could say, "Jim Tressel eats babies."

ALAS, IT WAS NOT A BLOWOUT. The score at the end was only 14-3. That's a surmountable score even in the NFL, and it's easily surmountable by college football standards. Hell, I've seen Michigan overcome much bigger deficits in that very stadium. You can't leave a college game when the score's that close, you just CAN'T, because if the losing team makes a comeback and you aren't there for it you can NEVER FORGIVE YOURSELF.

I mean, look at that MSU game in 2004. We were down by 17 with 8-some-odd minutes to go in the 4th quarter. As the game wore on, the mid-70s temperature of the daytime gave way to the mid-30s temperature of the night, meaning that we had all showed up wearing tshirts and were literally freezing. It seemed like the perfect time to leave, and Michigan ended up coming back and winning in triple overtime. It's one of the most epic games in recent memory and a classic in the UM/MSU rivalry.

Can you imagine being at that game and leaving early? Lots of people did. (I almost did, but my seatmate said we should wait for at least the 5-minute mark, and Michigan started the comeback around the 6-minute mark). I know some people who left. THEY HAVE STILL NOT FORGIVEN THEMSELVES.

So, with Michigan only down by 11 at the most, I just couldn't leave. Not even with the pervading air of hopelessness, not even with the weather that threatened to end both me and my camera. This time around, Michigan did not reward me with a win. The defense played well (witness the fact that OSU was held to 14 points), but the offense doesn't even rate mention. Suffice it to say that the offense was Bad, and the capital B is intentional.

Photos from the game are here. I went early to take a bunch of stadium shots, as it's my last game as an undergrad. Thankfully the rain did not start until the game did. I got some nice player shots from warmups too. Not so many good shots during the game, due to the aforementioned and much belabored weather. YOU CANNOT UNDERSTAND HOW TRULY MISERABLE IT WAS UNLESS YOU WERE THERE. The weather for that game: also Bad.

In happier news, I was also at the Thanksgiving Day Lions game! Oh wait, did I say 'happier'? I meant 'equally sad but less overtly miserable because at least the Lions play indoors'.

This was, by far, the highlight of the game. Dippin' Dots. In a miniature Lions helmet. I think you will agree with me that this is awesomeness made solid and incarnate, yes? Yes.

As for the game itself, whatever. I literally spent parts of it thinking to myself, "Hey, this isn't half as bad as the Michigan game! I'm inside! It's climate-controlled! I have a real seat instead of a small section of bleacher! The Lions are playing with some hope here at the end! I have Dippin' Dots! Altogether a superior losing experience!" And all that was TRUE. It made the Lions game just seem so whatever-esque. Brett Favre and the Packers are on a streak of vicious football prowess. The Lions have been winning, with the exception of the Denver game, by the skin of their pointy feline teeth. Whatever! At least it wasn't an absurdly bad blowout like the past two Thanksgivings. This game was close! So, whatever! See?

Photos from that game are here, in addition to some shots from before and after, as we trotted around the city.

At least it looks like the Patriots are going to win this game. If you listen carefully, you can hear my feeble, beaten-down cheer as I muster the little enthusiasm I have left for football right now.

Oh, and PS, check out this downtown Detroit bar:

Yes, it is called "Jacoby's". I had to take a photo of that. Who wouldn't?

2007-11-13T13:27:00.000-05:00

Late to the party? Yes. Apologetic? Very. Blogging now? SEE THE REALITY OF IT! As a token of my true apologeticality, that Papelbon image on the left is clickable for a desktop-sized version.

Lest you fear otherwise, I did of course watch the World Series, every glorious moment of it. I just haven't had a ton of time for blogging lately, and what little time I did have was dedicated to Roar of the Tigers, because I'm actually obligated to post over there, while the posting over here is on a 'whenever I feel like it' basis. It's not just the Sox: you'll note that I've missed blogging about the Lions and the Wolverines as well, although I'm definitely watching/attending all those games too.

I realize I've said this before, but I think I'm ready to pick it back up on a more regular basis. The end of the season was a crazy time, and the start of the school year was a crazy time, and.... I hate genetics. Genetics is destroying my life. That's basically the reason for all of this. BLAME UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN GENETICS.

The plus side of posting so long after the World Series has ended is that instead of posting an immediate YAY GO TEAM US THEO IS A GENIUS I LOVE EVERYONE post like the rest of the blogosphere, I can stand back and say what made this World Series most memorable to me.

There were lots of memorable storylines this season, don't get me wrong. Just going over the bare bones of it:

--The fact that we won a World Series in the first year of our Japanamania is certainly worth noting-- even if Matsuzaka wasn't as crazygood as we wanted him to be right out of the gate, the fact that Okajima was good at ALL, when he was basically supposed to be a companion donkey to the stud racehorse of Dice-K, more than makes up the difference.

--Josh Beckett ate babies for breakfast and used the youthful energy he gained from that heartiest of meals to power him to insane levels of domination on the pitching mound. I know Beth is going to disagree with me since I haven't put him as my memorable thing, but I am not QUITE as fascinated with Josh Beckett the Man/Myth/Only-Slightly-Human-Beast-Creature as she is.

--Not only did he play much of the season with a broken hand, the kind of broken hand that puts other players out for MONTHS, not only did he overcome the fact that he's approximately half the size of some of his own teammates, but Dustin Pedroia also won the Rookie of the Year award. Short men all over New England rejoiced and enjoyed much attention from single ladies who wanted a slice of that action.

--Every single thing that Mike Lowell did, up to and including all the ways that he is not Alex Rodriguez.

--The fact that the Red Sox became the only team in MLB to have a fully functional bullpen band, which was not afraid to use water bottles, hands, benches, overhangs, and anything else as instruments. Doug Mirabelli became an instrument when he was musically hammered upon from both sides by overly enthusiastic teammates. I honestly don't think there are enough words to describe how awesome this whole thing was.

--JD Drew redeeming his season with one swing of the bat. The one moment when the entire ballpark was certain the at-bat would only end in tears and possibly with men stranded on base, and JD freakin' Drew comes through with the grand slam. Did this really happen, or did I just hallucinate it?

--Every Red Sox fan everywhere, regardless of gender association or sexual preference, falling deeply, madly, intensely in love with Jacoby Ellsbury. Seriously. He cuts across all attempts to categorize and separate sex and gender roles. He is JACOBY ELLSBURY, and he appeals to all.

--So, this kid named Clay Buchholz threw a no-hitter. Didja hear? It was pretty great. (Even better was the fact that I got to watch no-hitters from both my teams this season, as Justin Verlander also threw one, and it was also pretty great.)

--Many of Coco Crisp's catches in the outfield. Dude can FLY, and it is fun to watch.

--Everything that Manny did, as usual. He doesn't even need to do one big crazy thing... it's just the little things, like snorgling with various teammates on the bench and growing his hair out so much that it won't even fit in his 'do-rag anymore, and wandering around the field like he doesn't know the difference between the infield and the outfield and the lockerroom (or, more likely, knows the difference and just doesn't care) that make Manny so consistently enjoyable to watch. If you're a Sox fan. I guess he's fairly infuriating if you're not getting to watch him crank out the hits from the right rooting side.

--David Ortiz playing through screwed-up knees. David Ortiz trying to steal bases and slide because he cares that much about getting the extra base. David Ortiz winning games for the team and that being a NORMAL thing. David Ortiz EXISTING. I can understand why some people have a problem with Manny, but if you have a problem with Big Papi than you're just looking for excuses to be sour and I'm very sorry for you.

--Insert your favorite happy-making memory from this year here.

All that said, when I think back on this World Series, there is one particular storyline that I'll remember. This wasn't like 2004. That World Series was THE World Series for us. You can't really separate the image of Dave Roberts stealing the base from the image of Keith Foulke and Doug Mientkiewicz leaping skyward from the image of Curt Schilling's bloody sock from the image of Bronson Arroyo getting the ball slapped out of his glove from the image of Mark Bellhorn's homerun smashing off the foul pole from the image of Jason Varitek falling to his knees in the grass and getting hugged by Kevin Millar. That's all one amazing entity. This year was more like a 'normal' World Series, though: without that historical ubersignificance, certain things can stand out more.

I am, of course, referring back to the image that started this post. So far as me and my memories are concerned, this year was above all the Year of the Papelbon.

He has a pre-pitch stare towards the batter that causes TV announcers and AP photographers to fall over themselves! He can throw 100 mph! He was one of the best closers in the game! Feared! Adored! In a way, though, we already knew all that. This season stood out because this was the year we were exposed to the full spectrum of Papelbon-ness.

It's not just the dancing, although I have to admit that the dancing was a big, big part of making him memorable. Jigs! In his underpants! OUT ON THE FIELD! Playing air-broom on the duck boat with the Dropkick Murphys! Do-si-do-ing with Mike Timlin and aggressively hugging a slightly nervous Hideki Okajima! He dances with an empty box of beer on his head!

But the public dancing was just a tiny part of Jonathan Papelbon the Crazy Closer and Equally Crazy Human Being. He plays Scrabble! He and Josh Beckett fight like little boys sniping at each other! He refers to his pitching personality as Cinco Ocho (the reverse Chad Johnson)! He... oh, hell, HE DANCES IN HIS UNDERWEAR WHERE TV CAMERAS CAN SEE HIM.

I feel certain that, years and years from now, when many other details have faded (hopefully in the face of loads of intervening Red Sox and Tigers World Series victories), the image of Jonathan Papelbon's crazy dancing self will still be there whenever I think about 2007.

2007-10-22T12:00:00.000-04:00

I know I haven't been posting over here very often, but rest assured, I have been spreading the insane Sox love during that time:

I have to say that Game 5 was maybe the most stressful baseball game I've watched in a long, long time. There were any number of times when I thought my roommate would come in the next morning and find me curled up dead in front of the TV. It really did feel like 2004 again: that sort of awful do-or-die thing that most of us, given the kinds of jobs we have and lives we lead, just don't feel that often. Eeesh. I mean, there are big games, and there are Big Games.

Of course this is why JD Drew's grand slam at the start of the next game was so very amazing to RSN. It wasn't just that he hit a postseason grand slam; it was that we knew, at that moment, that we probably would not have to live through another Game 5 just yet. Two of those games one after the other might have been too much for us.

Last night was tense most of the way, but still nothing approaching Game 5. I LITERALLY thought I was causing myself physical damage during Game 5, either from the nail biting or the stress-induced internal traumas. Game 7 was rough until we broke it open, but still, WE were the team on a roll at that point, not the Indians, and despite the double plays (which, by the way, NEED TO BE ADDRESSED before the World Series, 'cause my GAWD I know Westbrook throws that sinker, but that many balls on the ground in the infield with men on base is NOT OK) the Sox just looked more tapped in than the Indians did.

Now, of course, comes the Dire Challenge. We have the Red Sox on a roll, and the Rockies on a roll. I am split on this World Series (prediction-wise... obviously not rooting-wise), for two reasons:

The Rockies' streak may have had time to cool down since they've had a relatively long wait between the end of the NLCS and the start of the WS. Obviously the Rockies have some good players, or they wouldn't be able to rattle off that streak in the first place, but a lot of baseball streaking is made up of amorphous stuff like 'staying hot' and 'feeling locked-in' and other such newspaper tag phrases. The Rockies were able to maintain their streak in part because they were playing game after game with no breaks (or short breaks), so they were as individuals and as a team maintaining a rhythm that worked. Maybe (hopefully) the time they spent waiting for the ALCS to resolve itself will have put them off their game a bit. The Red Sox are on a roll, and they only have two days to stew on it. Advantage: Sox.

The Red Sox may be burnt out after the struggle to win the ALCS. That's the problem with the league championships when the games and series are close. You can't slack off, because then you have no shot at all at the World Series, but in a way you don't want to exert quite as much effort as you possibly can. Most everyone's hurting in one way or another by this time of year, and if they push too hard just to get through the LCS, they might not have much left for the WS. See: Detroit Tigers, 2006. Of course this isn't always the case (see: Boston Red Sox, 2004), but it can be, and it worries me. The Rockies had pretty stress-free series, and they've had lots of time to rest their pitchers. If Game 5 was that stressful for ME, I can only imagine how much exponentially worse it was for the actual players. Advantage: Rox.

We shall see what we shall see. All we can do is keep the mojo up (DON'T WASH THAT JERSEY) and hope for another Papelbon jig.

2007-10-12T14:34:00.000-04:00

True story.

That's my living room wall: the little painting all the way on the left is Fenway Park, the big painting is old Tiger Stadium, and the flag, of course, is the Detroit Lion.

We were having some trouble with the electricity in my apartment (i.e. my roommate managed to trip one of the circuit breakers three times in a single morning), so I alerted the apartment manager and toddled off to class. I came back just as the maintenance guy was finishing up. He hadn't been able to replicate the problem, so it was all Very Mysterious and we were both at a bit of a loss to explain it.

As he was packing up his tools, his eyes alighted upon the Lions flag. Well. As you can see, it's hard to miss, especially since that's the wall that faces the front door.

Maintenance dude nodded at the flag. "Well, that's your problem right there. Suckin' all the energy right outta the place."

I laughed. In light of the Lions' most recent outing, this was a fair assessment.

"Really. That'll take all the energy right out." At this point I wasn't quite sure if he was joking or not. On the one hand, how could he NOT be joking? On the other hand, the Lions have been bad enough for long enough to do some serious damage to people's minds.

After another minute of conversation about the Army recruiters staked out in our parking lot, maintenance dude left, but not before casting a baleful glance over his shoulder at the Lions flag.

I'm a little worried now.

2007-10-07T12:14:00.001-04:00

Although I really am not a fan of TBS's broadcasting, I do have to say that I appreciated their blatant Jonathan Papelbon fangirling on Friday night. Jonathan Papelbon, more than almost anyone on the Sox, seems to regularly reduce grown men and women to squealing 12 year old fangirls. This is pretty par for the course when it comes to Sox fans, but it's remarkable when people who are NOT Red Sox fans do it.

I can't keep track of who's broadcasting what game for TBS, because so long as it's not Don Orsillo I don't actually give a flying goat liver about it, but the whole crew on Friday night was complicit in this. Jonathan Papelbon was on the mound. As every good Red Sox fan knows, Jonathan Papelbon has a crazy, insane stare that he uses before every pitch to reduce the opposing batter to a quivering mass of protoplasm.

The TBS guys were obviously captivated by this patented Papelbonian stare. The video guys zoomed in on his face, multiple times-- close enough for everyone watching the broadcast to get a little protoplasmic quiver themselves. The broadcasters waxed poetic about the intensity of his gaze, the power of his stare, the cool level-headedness of his eyes, and all manner of hideously intangible things that most of us admire as incidentals but that they seemed to treat as skills on a par with his ability to throw a baseball 97 mph while nicking an inside corner of the plate.

Between the audio problems and things like the way they cut away from a Manny/Papi hug just before it started, I have not had much reason to be happy with TBS. But as they zoomed in on Papelbon's deranged pre-pitch face for the third time on Friday, I found myself for the very first time praising the TBS staff.

2007-09-17T09:01:00.000-04:00

Red Sox

Saturday: good. Sunday: bad. For once I have a lot of support out here in Michigan when I pay attention to the Sox, because every Tigers fan with half a brain realized that we badly needed the Sox to beat some Yankee posterior in this series. I actually got a couple high fives on the strength of my Sox hat at the Michigan game.

When David Ortiz came up in the bottom of the 9th with the bases loaded and two outs and the Sox down by one, it seemed inevitable that the game would be won, or would at least go to extra innings. David Ortiz! Situation of ultra-clutch! Clutchiest situation to ever grasp the world of clutch hitting since Derek Jeter last had to clutch at his underpants to keep them from falling down! EPITOME OF CLUTCHIFIED MOMENT.

We're talking about a David Ortiz who had just walked off a ballgame, and a Mariano Rivera who was visibly struggling.

Alas, it was not to be. Although these games did live up to their epic Red Sox/Yankees Rivalry to the Death billing (The Beast from the East vs. Roger Clemens' Personal Pool Boy! Matsuzaka vs. Pettitte! Man vs. Myth! Beckett vs. Wang!! Battle of the Ancients! Schilling vs. Clemens! Games to Test your Endurance!), the end result was not what we wanted.

It doesn't matter so much for the Red Sox, if you discount the whole 'insane rivalry' thing. It's probable that they'll just coast into the playoffs (although really, if they keep on losing... and the Yankees keep on winning... ugh, it doesn't even bear thinking about), and then we can start worrying. But, as everyone today is going to tell me-- man, this SUCKED for the Tigers.

Blue Cats

Forward down the field,
A charging team that will not yield.
And when the Blue and Silver wave,
Stand and cheer the brave.
Rah, Rah, Rah.
Go hard, win the game.
With honor you will keep your fame.
Down the field and gain,
A Lion victory!

GOOOOO LIONS!

Shock. Amaze. It wasn't just a Lions victory-- although it WAS a LIONS VICTORY!!-- but it was a Lions victory led in large part by Jon Kitna. The Lions looked energized when Kitna was in the game, and Kitna looked energized in turn. Let me just repeat this, so that you may more fully savor it.

Jon Kitna was the spark that fired the offense.

Jon Kitna led the Lions offense.

Jon Kitna. Good things. Quarterback. Detroit. Good.

You know what he looked like? He looked like Joey Harrington did in the game where Joey had the flu and the scruffy beard and the bloodshot eyes and, because he didn't give a damn, he threw for a bazillion yards and looked more like a real live quarterback than he ever had before. Nobody remembers the game for that; they instead (quite rightly) remember it for the horrific end, but if that series of completely ridiculous and tragic events had never taken place, that game would have been remembered for how Joey looked. LIKE A LEADER OF MEN.

(As an aside, Joey Harrington was sacked 7 times in a Falcons loss yesterday. I wonder if the offensive line is really that bad [in which case, why pick up Joey, someone that everyone in the universe knew could not run an offense with a weak line, as so manifestly proven by his time in Detroit?] or if something like the anti-Joey behavior that infested the Lions has already started to take hold in Atlanta. Poor guy. Who can tell if he's effective or not in a new offense if he can't stay on his feet long enough to get his bearings downfield?)

Point being, that's how Kitna looked this past Sunday.

Now, I've heard a lot of the "pundits" saying that the Lions are basically being liver flukes right now, and they're "pretenders", and cat knows what else. On the one hand, I tend to agree. These are, above all, the Lions, which means that they'll be managed poorly and will find exciting new and previously unexplored ways to lose. On the other hand, how many of those so-called football experts do you think ACTUALLY sat down and watched the Lions game? I would guess not very many.

Michigan

Finally won. Woo. Thanks, Irish.

2007-09-09T15:13:00.000-04:00

Forward down the field,
A charging team that will not yield.
And when the Blue and Silver wave,
Stand and cheer the brave.
Rah, Rah, Rah.
Go hard, win the game.
With honor you will keep your fame.
Down the field and gain,
A Lion victory!

Well, THAT was a pleasant and unexpected occurrence!

My brain is starting to get scrambled. The Tigers were down by 7 runs-- 13 to 6-- and when the announcer said this I thought, "Oh, 7 points, that shouldn't be too hard to make up." I was thinking in FOOTBALL terms, see, instead of baseball terms. Eeesh.

None of this is helped by the fact that the Lions played in Oakland today, where the Athletics' infield is still clearly visible, even though they've expanded the field and painted the hash marks across it and ritualistically excised the actual bases.

The first Lions drive ended with an interception in the endzone. This was so typical, so purely LIONS that I found myself almost happy. It reconfirmed everything that is Lions football. We're back, baby.

The hilarity of this is the opposing quarterback, Josh McCown, who was of course on the Lions last year, and who got used in strange Lions-ish ways, for instance as a back-up receiver in a couple of games. He actually had a couple of receptions. The pass he threw in the 3rd quarter for an interception (which was tipped and then picked from the air) looked like a high effort pass. It didn't look like it came out of his hand easily; it looked like the ball weighed a hundred pounds. He also fell over as he was throwing it, possibly due to that aforementioned baseball grass. Somehow all of this is, again, familiarly bumping and Lions-esque, but for once not directed at the Lions themselves.

Roy Williams calls Calvin Johnson "Megatron", and he said, of him: "He'll have a touchdown today, one or two." Turns out that, for once, Roy Williams was 100% right.

I'm not sure what to say. There were completions-- real actual completions on the football field, by the players in Honolulu blue and silver. There were turnovers that actually went the way of the Lions. Jason Hanson was perfect, as always. It was a win... a GOOD win. A LIONS win. It is crazy and I do not know what to do with myself.

Dominic Raiola and Dan Orlovsky came up after the game to greet McCown. Raiola gave him a great big hug and McCown ruffled his hair. It was very 'awww'.

Unrelatedly, Pedro Martinez hit a double today off of Roy Oswalt. I don't think Boston fans will ever fail to care about Pedro, and Pedro hitting will never fail to be funny.

2007-09-02T17:39:00.000-04:00

I'm hoping that writing about this will be sort of therapeutic. Or something.

By now you're probably all well aware of the historically horrific Michigan football game that took place on Saturday, when Appalachian State became the first 1-AA team in the history of ever to defeat an AP-ranked team. It was every bit as bad in the stadium as you probably imagine.

Usually the first game of the season is a time for fun and happy good times. The opposing team is always some non-conference school with a definite fluff factor, and while of course there's the Any Given Saturday factor and all that, it's still THE MICHIGAN WOLVERINES playing against SOME LOW-DIVISION SCHOOL, so the odds are not exactly squared up. If you're a Michigan fan, it's stress-free. All you have to worry about is how hot it's going to be in the stadium at gametime, and if you're watching at home, well, no worries at all.

This year already got off to a bad start, because most people who wanted to watch at home couldn't-- thank you, Big 10 Network. Bad karma for sure.

It was pretty warm out, but I've experienced worse in the Big House before. We also weren't sitting in the student section for the first time in my life, which meant that instead of balancing precariously on a narrow bench with a bunch of drunken frat boys swaying dangerously into me, I actually got to sit down for much of the game. That and the fact that there was a seat or two vacant in my row (so we weren't packed in like sardines) makes the heat shockingly easier to bear. I still managed to get sunburnt, but that's par for the course.

Still, it was a pleasant sunny day, with one of those "high skies" you hear about sometimes in baseball. You know the kind: that endless vault of blue without a scrap of cloud in it, bright enough to look perfectly collegiate against anyone wearing maize. It was hard to imagine that the game was going to have any outcome other than the expected one.

When Michigan first drove down the field and scored on a Mike Hart touchdown run, it seemed even more like things were going to progress in the usual manner. Mike Hart looked great, a force of sheer unstoppable Mike Hart-ness. Who does not love Mike Hart? Is this a thing which is possible? I think not.

Appalachian State scored soon after that, though. It was a little deflating, especially because it came on a great big 68-yard pass, the kind of thing that it would later seem impossible for Henne to throw. Chad Henne apparently prefers little dumpy passes that may travel 30 yards sideways, but only ACTUALLY go 2 yards up the field. We know Henne has the arm; when he does go long, part of his problem is actually going TOO long and overthrowing his receivers. So I'm not sure why the coaching staff sticks with this wee-pass scheme when it has failed to work so many times.

But the point is that even though the game had been quickly tied up, we weren't too upset yet. A little pissed off at the defense, sure. Grumbling a little, sure. But no one in the stands ACTUALLY believed that we were looking at a straight-up defeat. This kind of stuff has happened to Michigan before. We've had a TON of trouble with mobile quarterbacks the past few years, and Armanti Edwards is very, very mobile (or at least we sure made him look that way).

(Why yes, that IS a hole the size of Alaska that has obligingly opened up in the Michigan defense for Mr. Edwards to saunter right through.)

I guess this is a kind of arrogance, but honestly? We win these kinds of games. We may do so annoyingly according to the fans, especially in the Lloyd Carr era, where the win would likely be just enough and not a whit more, but we win. This isn't an arrogant statement; it's a statement of FACT.

The whole game slowly became a series of unbelievable occurrences. Surely we wouldn't be down this much by halftime. Surely we wouldn't be down in the second half. Surely we wouldn't be down so close to the end of the game.

When we came back in the last minutes of the game to squeak ahead, it was like everyone in the crowd said, "Ah ha!, so THIS is how it will go!" We would sneak ahead of the Mountaineers and it would be an ugly, ugly game that would get the attention of the team, so they would hopefully be extremely motivated to learn from their mistakes... but we would still WIN. It seemed impossible that we wouldn't. And then when we came back AGAIN, with that great pass from Henne and the great catch from Mario Manningham... when we got into field goal range...

That was ugly. That was an ugly, ugly blocked kick, but holy freakin' cats, it should not have even come down to that. Is it inexcusable for Gingell to be kicking the ball that low? Yes. Of course. What the hell. But it is MORE inexcusable to be depending on a field goal with the clock ticking down to prevent a defeat at the hands of a 1-AA team, even if that 1-AA team is the best 1-AA team to ever put on its little 1-AA pants.

I am not sure that I can accurately describe the feeling in the stadium after the Mountaineers ran that blocked kick back and dogpiled on the Michigan sideline.

It may best be summed up by the older guy sitting in front of me, who, as soon as the game ended, sat down heavily on his bit of bleacher and immediately pulled out and lit up a cigarette. This is a clear violation of probably 50 different and equally strident Big House rules and regulations. You'll see people sneaking alcohol into Michigan games all the time, but I had never seen someone smoking; that always seemed to be a much worse offense.

This guy was so obviously stunned and traumatized that he did not, in that moment, care. At all. He stared into space, motionless except for the little motions needed to smoke his cigarette. He looked so utterly lost that people coming up the stairs past him kept patting him consolingly on the back. It's possible that he didn't decide to ignore the rules; it looked like he might have just forgot where he was altogether.

Were there any good moments? Sure. Of course.

One of the best moments was after the bands had come off the field at halftime and the kickers were warming up. Jason Vitaris, the Appalachian State place kicker, was kicking down at my end of the field. They had only managed/bothered to get the net about halfway up, so when he boomed a kick way high, it ended up in the crowd, maybe 10 or 15 rows up.

Vitaris gazed patiently into the crowd, waiting for the ball to get thrown back. The Michigan fans of course immediately started passing the ball backwards, farther and farther up into the stadium, yelling at people who didn't understand what was going on. This took a while, since the ball had a long way to go and its passage was pretty erratic. The whole time this was going on Vitaris was just staring at the crowd, like he couldn't quite believe that he wasn't getting the ball back.

This continued until the crowd collectively managed to get the ball all way to the top row, where it was ceremoniously hurled out of the stadium entire. Vitaris kind of looked around furtively, like he still could not believe that the whole thing wasn't some sort of colossal joke and he would be getting his ball back shortly, before he finally had to give up on it.

The other best moment was when we were walking back from the stadium and one of the kids hanging out of a window along the way was screaming to everyone, "Drink the loss away! Drink the loss away! It's the only way!" in a truly brave and heroic manner. That's the good ol' collegiate spirit right there, that is.

The rest of the photos from the game are right here, if for some sick masochist reason you want to look at them all.

(Watching Sportscenter. They're talking about BASEBALL. The Yankees/Devil Rays game, to be exact. The Sportscenter announcer says something along the lines of, "Nobody expected much out of the Devil Rays here, but they're at least as good as Appalachian State". Of course the D'Rays went on to win. Yuk yuk yuk. We're a catdamned joke now. People will for years talk about some rinkydink team upsetting a powerhouse and they'll use Michigan and Appalachian State as a metaphor. This may never die and I hate that fact just as much as I hate the game outcome itself.)

2007-08-28T11:52:00.000-04:00

My excitement for the upcoming Yankee series is only heightened by having seen what the Tigers just did to them.

Traditional baseball thought indicates that the Yankees can react in one of two ways. They can be crushed by these epic defeats and wither away to a mere memory of a ghost of a team, OR they can be fired up and energized by the way they were dispatched, leading to an overwhelming surge of victorious marching. Real-life baseball thought indicates that their offense is great, but it's only as good as their pitching. If Pettitte, the Clem-bag, and Wang all pitch really well, the Yankees have a damn good shot at taking the series. If Pettitte, the Clem-bag, and Wang pitch less-than-spectacularly, the Red Sox will come down on them like a sack of overweight capybaras tied to anvils.

Obviously we are all hoping for the capybaras.

When you think back to the start of the year, it seems insane that we're worried about the Yankees now. They've shown that they can be the most annoying team on the planet, though (as if we've forgotten), and the scariest thing is that if by some catastrophic chance the Sox drop in the division, the wild card is by no means ensured. As the Tigers grapple with the Indians from afar, all Tigers fans view with wild card race with deranged and immense fear. I would be pretty happy to not have to do this with the Red Sox as well.

It is true that the Yankees have a juggernaut offense.... but they do not have overweight capybaras tied to anvils. That kind of "knock 'em down and out and then laugh 'cause they got flattened by a giant hamster" power will hopefully only reside with the Sox. We just saw it against the White Sox (admittedly not that hard a team to capybara-paste, these days) and hopefully the Sox will have got a taste for it now. I know I have.

Let the capybara-wrangling begin!

2007-08-17T15:38:00.000-04:00

Oh, Wily Mo. You may have been a lovable hug machine and a friend of miniature ponies everywhere, but it was time to face facts. Facts like your .218 batting average. Facts like your .676 OPS. Facts like your complete and utter inability to field the baseball, possibly related to the fact that you are about as quick on your feet as an overfed dead sea lamprey.

In case you hadn't heard, Wily Mo (and cash) was traded today to the Nats for a player to be named later. A lot of people are going to be pretty happy about this; it was often near-agonizing to watch Wily Mo stagger around the outfield, and while his homeruns were majestic, they were also too rare to make waiting around for them worthwhile. I mean, come on now... Dustin Pedroia, who is about a third of Wily Mo's size, has the same number of homeruns (one more, actually, since he just hit one out).

At the age of 25 Wily Mo's still got some potential left, but there just wasn't enough room on a team that has Jacoby Ellsbury waiting in the wings to see if he still might develop. Ellsbury's bat might not end up being any better, but at least he's got speed on the basepaths and in the field, making him valuable in two ways that Wily Mo can't even dream of.

Anyways.

This has been a weird game. Clay Buchholz made his debut, and ended up doing OK: 4 runs (3 earned) on 8 hits over 6 innings. He looked like he had good movement on his pitches but wasn't overpowering or anything like that. Doug Mirabelli did something heinous to his calf while rounding third (looking a mess as he did it, 'tho that's SOP for when Dougie tries to run), meaning that Varitek had to come into the game, meaning that the night game is going to be caught by... well, nobody knows just yet.

I guess they kind of HAVE to call someone up from one of the minor league teams, but can someone get here in time? In a dead emergency I suppose they could have Alex Cora catch... I'll be at that game, and would LOVE to see that happen, just for the comedy factor. I mean, surely Beckett's enough of a pro that he can pretty much call his own game and throw to a terrible catcher if he has to, right?

(edit: Looks like Dougie's heading to the DL, and the Sox are trying to get Kevin Cash up from wherever he is, Pawtucket I think, in time for the night game. Oh well.)

We also learned, thanks to Don and Remy's interrogation skills, that Eliza Dusku is dating Brad Penny. At least, I learned it. Some people may have known it before (apparently they've been known to show up places wearing mildly classless matching outfits) . I tend to not follow these things, and it seems that Don and Remy don't either, but when Ms. Dushku dropped a hint that she followed one Dodger in particular, her fate was sealed. There was no way she was getting out of that booth without telling all to the NESNites.

Thank cats for our hard-hitting announcing crew, eh?

2007-08-08T02:16:00.000-04:00

Best moment from the Barry Bonds 756 press conference: a Japanese reporter in the crowd asks him (I'm paraphrasing), 'Well, what about Sadaharu Oh and his 868 career homeruns?'

Barry responds weakly with something about Josh Gibson and his '800 homeruns' and 'have we forgotten about him?' Except most everyone knows that the 800 homerun total is mostly apocryphal, and Gibson probably hit 150-200 runs in official Negro League games, hitting the rest in games against unofficial teams, some of whom may as well have been high school teams and the like.

Nice try, Barry. But the Japanese just pwned you. Hard.

2007-08-05T20:33:00.000-04:00

Weird. That's the only way I can sum up my feelings about Barry Bonds tying (soon to be breaking) Hank Aaron's record.

Everyone in the universe has already chimed in on this. I've tried to maintain some semblance of media blackout, because I know I'll get very very sick of it very very quickly, but I did listen to Bonds' postgame press conference last night. As is usual when I hear Barry Bonds speak (as opposed to reading his words in a digital or print format), I found myself thinking that it was all good. Has anyone else noticed this? The guy's got a voice that soothes, that lends humanity to his words. I've read his words (properly quoted, in context) and come away thinking he's a douchenozzle and he's making a mockery of baseball, but I don't think I've ever come away with that impression when I hear him. Weird, eh?

So, there's this weird disconnect. Do I believe that Barry Bonds used liberal dosings of steroids? Yes. Do I believe that this is "bad", even though it wasn't expressly prohibited by MLB at the time? Yes-- at the very least, since 1990 the use of unregulated anabolic steroids was illegal so far as the federal government was concerned, and I rather think that trumps baseball rules.

Some people were grumbling about Bonds taking the day off after tying the record. Surely, they said, this is a sign of selfishness, of putting himself before the team-- Bonds himself said he wanted to spend the day with his family, savoring the moment. Selfish? Maybe so, but Hank Aaron had the day off after he tied Babe Ruth's homerun record, and he had the day off again right after he had broken it. (Thank you, Retrosheet!) If Hank Aaron could do it, I reckon it's more than fine for Bonds.

In a way, I wish we could just vault over Barry Bonds and wait for ARod to break the homerun record. Trust me, it is sickening to say that, but for all his failings, ARod has at least not been tied to steroid use. I wouldn't be happy that it was ARod breaking the record, just because he's ARod, and we could groan about whether or not he "deserved" to break it, but at least there wouldn't be much doubt about whether or not he honestly was breaking it.

Alas, if wishes were fishes we'd all be drowning in cod. There's no getting around the fact that Barry Bonds is going to break this record, either tomorrow or soon thereafter. And I hope he does break it pretty soon, because starting tomorrow the Giants play a 7-game homestand, and cats knows those poor Giants fans deserve to see that record broken in their own ballpark.

So, with all that, and believing that Bonds' steroid use was "bad", I shouldn't be happy about him breaking the record, right? Right... but it's not that simple, because I'm not UNhappy that he's breaking the record. I have reservations about Barry Bonds, for sure, but mixed in with those reservations is a sense of awe at what he's doing, something that I feel like most baseball fans, at some level, are aware of. This is a HUGE record, and no matter HOW he hit those homeruns, he DID hit them-- lots of them hugely, immensely-- and that's something at which we can't help but marvel.

This is history. We're living to see it. But you might call it tainted history.

I guess I still don't know how I feel about all this. Other than weird.

2007-08-02T20:36:00.000-04:00

So, I was at the game in the Sox/O's series that started with Josh Beckett giving up a homerun to Brian Roberts on the very first pitch. It wasn't pretty, and apparently I missed a pretty good Beckett freakplosion because my seats didn't give me a view of the dugout, but it was almost worth the pain to see David Ortiz get his bat back on track with a couple of homeruns. 'Cause, let's be honest: are there many things better than the way that Fenway reacts when Big Papi goes yard? I think not.

I don't have the photos from it up yet (I only just finished uploading all the shots from the last independent league game I went to), but that one up top is a preview, because in addition to the usual game photos, I did make it down early for BP, and thus saw endless Oriole action. Which is what it is (namely: orange), but...

Kevin Millar, of course, was there, and I SWEAR TO CATS that man does not know how to form a normal facial expression. I don't know if I got a single photo of him where he doesn't look somehow deranged. Some of it was him playing it up for the crowd, but most of it was just Kevin Millar being Kevin Millar.

I don't miss the enormous foul balls, and I don't miss the off streaks, but I was reminded how much I miss Kevin Millar the dude. Of course we still have characters on the team, but the Manny/Millar tandem was epic in its insanity and is unlikely to ever be replicated. I know he's been a good clubhouse influence in Baltimore (as much as one guy can be in Baltimore), but I wonder if he misses Boston when he comes back here.

Anyways.

I also want to point out that Gagné means win.

I guess I could be saying that in a metaphorical Eric-Gagne-is-good-at-baseball sense, but I'm not. I mean literally, in French, the verb "gagner" mean "to gain or to win", and if you wanted to say that Eric Gagne had won the baseball game you would say that "Eric Gagne a gagné le jeu de baseball."

I'm sure that someone else has already mentioned this, but I'm too lazy to go trolling through every Red Sox article and blog in the whole wide internets that's been written since the trade deadline. I'm just sayin'.

He already looks like a member of the Red Sox. He's definitely scruffy enough to fit right in.

2007-07-28T01:59:00.000-04:00

Raymond. Remy. A battle for the ages.

(click for big)

It's on.

2007-07-26T23:41:00.000-04:00

So I'm half-watching the postgame show, and notice that they're interviewing Kason Gabbard (Kason!!! And every time I hear or write "Gabbard", I keep wanting to replace it with "scabbard". Which just makes it weird). You can hear the clubhouse music blaring behind him. It's that Rihanna Umbrella song (its official name may not be "Umbrella"; I don't really know, and am not particularly inclined to go check, but you know the one).

So I'm looking at Kason Gabbard's sweaty, unusually red face as he explains why he started struggling all of a sudden against the Indians, while Rihanna warbles "Ella ella ella!" in the background.

It is entirely possible that the juxtaposition has caused my brain to explode.

I mean, a thoroughly chagrined, sweaty and unusually red Kason Gabbard is funny enough on his own. That Kason Gabbard with Rihanna? I think I'm done for the night.

2007-07-25T14:06:00.000-04:00

This is somewhat belated, but I've been busy, so. Yeah. I was at the Sox/Royals game on the 18th, and naturally took a bunch of photos, all of which you can see here. I wanted to get into some of them, though.

First off, I was very excited to maybe see Real Live Royals Fans at the park. I know that they're a rare breed, and while I have seen some of them on the magical internets, I had never seen one in person... kind of like how I've seen photos of giant deepsea squid online, but I've never seen one in the flesh. The arrival of the Royals at Fenway was a kind of challenge: would any Real Live Royals Fans show up? Do any of them live in Boston? And if so, could I see some?

The first Real Live Royals Fan that I spotted was wearing a Red Sox hat, it is true, but she was also sporting a classic John Buck jersey (I think he stopped wearing #2 and picked up #14, his preferred number, when Tony Graffanino left the team in 2005. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong) that seems to actually be signed. I (obviously) can't knock someone who loves two teams, and if this girl remains a Royals fan even with the sweet, sweet temptation of Red Soxdom on hand all the time, more power to her.

The second Real Live Royals Fan was all Royalled out. I don't know if his seats were up at field level here, or if he had just snuck down to take some close-up shots of his beloved Royals. Either way, hardcore, man. Major props.

At this point the game started, which made Real Live Royals Fan viewing a secondary pursuit (presumably it would've been better had I gone in for BP, but it was so rainy that day, I didn't end up heading in early, and in fact I don't even know if they took BP).

Real Live Royals Fan #3 was sitting a few rows in front of me, showin' off another classic Royals jersey: Joe Randa, last seen in KC back in 2004. I guess you have to be pretty dedicated to a) be a Royals fan at all and b) be willing to pay Fenway prices to see the Royals in Boston. I guess there aren't too many bandwagon Royals fans. In fact, I would boggle at the level of recently unrewarded dedication it takes to be a Royals fan and actually pay real money for a Royals shirt these days, but I'm a Lions fan who owns a Joey Harrington jersey, so I can't exactly talk.

Real Live Royals Fan #4 was merely a tantalizing fly-by as he walked past my section. I only got a haunting glimpse of his mesh-backed Royals hat and all the royal blue suffering that it entailed.

This was the game that the Royals won 6-5 (with Manny stranding Ortiz/pinch runner Alex Cora at first to end the game), so I hope that all these Real Live Royals Fans thoroughly enjoyed their Real Live Royals Victory in Fenway Park. It wasn't very enjoyable for Red Sox fans; if there were at least a few Royals-faithful in the crowd, we can take solace in the fact that someone had a great time that night.

A few more highlights from the game itself:

Julian Tavarez digging in his pants. It wasn't a little grope, like most ballplayers enjoy; he very deliberately tugged his belt away from his body, plunged his hand down his pants, and did whatever ferocious adjustment he needed to do.

Dustin Pedroia had himself a nice night, both offensively...

(cruising into second with a double here)

...and defensively.

Manny homered.

Mike Timlin's back to wearing his camo glove.... again.

Julio Lugo has magical powers.

And, just for the heck of it....

This was the first game at Fenway to which I brought my wide-angle lens. To see the difference this makes, you can compare it to this photo, which is basically the same shot, from the same seats, but with a non-wide-angle lens. You can see how much more I can get in the wide lens. It's definitely a neat bit of equipment.

2007-07-24T02:30:00.000-04:00

I know that I haven't talked Blue Cats over here in a while. This is because the Lions are so incredibly depressing, regardless of the insanity about the number of wins we can expect this season that various blue cats were delusionally spouting. My dad has taken to referring to football season as "the 16 weeks of self-loathing". All Lions fans can understand that. I have no particular desire to start that period of self-loathing much before I have to.

But Joey Harrington, you guys.

Joey Harrington is going to be the starting quarterback in Atlanta.

Joey Harrington, you guys.

Starting quarterback. In Atlanta.

Because the original starting quarterback, the super-mobile, play-making (former?) quarterback, of course, is being told to stay the hell away from training camp while he's being prosecuted for crimes related to raising battledogs and running dog fight rings.

Can you imagine anything more diametrically opposite to Joey Harrington? I mean, Joey Harrington is your basic mild-mannered piano-playing guy whose idea of quarterbacking is to receive the ball and cringe apologetically until he can get rid of it (a habit learned by playing behind the Lions' offensive line for so long). The idea that he can step into a team used to playing with Michael Vick and keep them going on a similar track is sort of laughable.

Good luck, Atlanta. Good luck, Joey. You're all going to need it.

(No good luck to Michael Vick. Dog fighting is sick, you wacked out freak.)

2007-07-16T16:22:00.000-04:00

I'm a baseball card fiend. That's the first thing you should know.

Topps, in addition to the usual player cards, does these little whole team class-photo-esque cards every year. They're not too thrilling, but what can you do.

Here's the Astros team card from 2006:

Aside from the fact that it's not at all clear whether the 'stros really were in the stands, or if they were Photoshopped in, a wholly unremarkable card.

I got my hands on a bunch of '07 Topps card a couple weeks ago, and was sorting them out so I could file them away in my overly obsessive baseball card arrangement system. Team cards go at the back of each team section in my system (which is alphabetized by team, then by player within team, by year if there's more than one card for a player, then alphabetized by card company for multiple cards of the same guy in the same year...). This means that they're very easy to file in, so I was flipping through them with no more than a cursory glance.

Ho hum, Orioles...

La di da, Red Sox...

Dum te dum, Royals...

....

... waaaaait a second...

.... that can't be right...

My eyes must be playing tricks on me. Surely they wouldn't... I mean, these are team cards, so... there has to be... a team...

... let me look at that again...

Yup. The Royals team card has no Royals on it.

Lest you think this is some strange ballpark card, as opposed to a team card, I can assure you that the information on the back of it is exactly the same as on the other team cards, and I have a good number of Topps '07 cards by now... and I have not seen another "ballpark" card. I'm fairly certain this is a team card. Just... without the team.

I wonder if this is a deliberate message about the state of the team by a really, really disgruntled Royals fan somewhere in the depths of the Topps company.

2007-07-11T13:46:00.000-04:00

Personally, I think the best part of this year's All Star Game was Eric Byrnes' dog's mad rush for freedom. The game itself, aside from Ichiro and the very last inning, was fairly boring.

If you didn't see it, FOX had Byrnes out in the Cove (for no discernible reason, except maybe to keep Byrnes out of the hair of the other sportscasters), and Byrnes had his bulldog Bruin with him (in a life jacket). During one slow point in the action they had Byrnes and Bruin on a boat, with Byrnes boasting that his dog had been keen to get in the water all day, and he was going to throw a baseball in for Bruin to fetch.

In went the baseball. The dog wavered in doggy excitement for a minute before, with Brynes' encouragement, he plunged into the water, and... immediately started swimming as fast as his stubby little bulldog legs could take him away from the ball and away from Eric Byrnes. He never hesitated. Not once did he even pretend to be making for the ball, or back towards Byrnes. The moment he was in the water he was trying to make good his escape.

"My dog is trying to escape!" Eric Byrnes exclaimed, although seemingly without much surprise and more with amused resignation. I don't blame the dog. If I was Eric Byrnes' dog, I would try to flee at every available moment too.

Eventually a couple of the other kayakers in the Cove managed to head off the poor beast and hand him back over to Eric Byrnes, but at least the animal can now console himself with the knowledge that his brave actions were seen by millions.

You can read the rest of my thoughts on the All Star Game right over here.

2007-07-02T23:19:00.000-04:00

So, I went to Yankee Stadium yesterday. That photo you're looking at is, of course, former Sox Mike Myers, whom I still can't bring myself to dislike even though he now wears the Pinstripes of Great Evil.

I will freely admit that I went to Yankee Stadium expecting to hate it. It's the Lair of the Beast, the Den of Foulness, the place where iniquity and depravity are nurtured until they are hatched and spewed forth all over the AL East. You don't expect much from a place like that.

Yankee Stadium, however, refused to live up to my expectations, instead turing out to be fairly pleasant, as ballparks go. The place is architecturally bland, without the charm of a Fenway or the innovative interest of a Comerica. The seating, at least in our section, was roomy compared to Fenway (then again, everywhere is). The section numbering was, if I may be so bold, absurd. Half the stadium is odd numbers, and half is even numbers... this means that section 28 is not next to section 27, it is directly across the field. Does that make sense? No. Why not have them consecutive? It's not hard. Who sets up a building like that? Just plain old weird.

ballpark as Captain Obvious

The fact that EVERYWHERE YOU TURN are NY symbols and pinstripes is extremely unnerving. I liken it to the first time I ventured into East Lansing... green and white and Spartans helmets everywhere. I felt like I could barely breathe. SURROUNDED BY THE ENEMY. I didn't want to touch any surfaces for fear of getting the Spartan stench on me. And the thing of it was that I KNEW it was irrational, but that was my gut reaction.

Anyways. That, only with Yankee stuff. Let me tell you: the merchandise stands? With row upon row of Yankee hats and nothing else? The human body can be trained to react with a physical sense of revulsion to a simple symbol. 100% of fact.

With all that said... the park just wasn't as bad as I was expecting. While it lacks any particular personality beyond those arches 'round the top, it also manages to avoid the "inexplicable design elements because we can't think of anything better to do" sickness that afflicts US Cellular in Chicago (random pinwheels for the win!). There were a lot of food options, the hot dogs were (horror of all horrors to a seasoned Fenway-goer) cooked through, there was even a catdamned bakery in the ballpark (did not partake, mostly due to horror at the sight of... cookies frosted with the Yankee symbol. Shudder-inducing).

I didn't see one single rat.

many Yankee fans, no rats

The pitching matchup was to be Pettitte/Haren, which sounds good on paper. It turned out to be not so good. Haren wasn't as sharp as he usually has been this year, and Pettitte got creamed. The A's batted around on him in the 2nd inning, and in that inning managed to score SEVEN RUNS. After having already put up a run in the first inning.

ahhhhh I'm fallliiiinnnngggg

You know how lovely it was to see Pettitte get lit up like that? We're supposed to fear him. And here he was, throwing all the hell over the place. A Yankee meltdown, like a fine wine, should be savored.

i am bobby abreu. i am sad. i make error. crowd make fun of me for rest of game.

i am andy phillips. i play first base because everyone else dead. look at my silly walk.

i am derek jeter. i have owie. i get hit in hand because i lean over plate like homeplate is magnet for my nose.

Oakland, on the other hand...

i am jack cust. i get congratulated because i am perpetual backup who suddenly showing power. i hit 3-run homer against big bad yankees. i da man.

i am kurt suzuki. i am baby. i play almost never. i get RBI single and two runs in this game because yankee pitching really IS that bad.

It was exactly as fun to watch as it sounds.

The entire photo set is here, for your viewing pleasure. I just have one more thing that I want to draw you attention to.

We are all, of course, familiar with the catcher ass pat. It's a time-honored baseball tradition, as everyone knows that a pitcher's sense of courage and stamina is directly tied to his ass, and patting of that ass will ease his pitching woes. Normal. Baseball-y. Imagine my surprise, then, to see that Jorge Posada has taken this tradition a step further.

You're probably going to have to click that to get to the larger version to see this, but Posada is TUGGING ON MIKE MYERS' PANTS. Like, he has a bit of pants material between his fingers, and is pulling on it. This would be totally unremarkable except that baseball pants are so tight... it's like walking up to someone wearing spandex, grabbing a bit of it (probably having to pry it up off their thigh), and tugging. I mean, imagine that. Am I wrong in thinking that's a little... weird? I can't imagine doing that to my friends (whereas ass pats, depending on the friend, I can see in a joking context), so... yeah, I don't know.

Posada has DEFINITELY upped the pitcher/catcher love ante on Pudge Rodriguez, the previously acknowledged king of such displays. Pudge has to step his game up now. All Star Weekend is a prime opportunity, so be on the lookout for that.

2007-06-27T22:19:00.000-04:00

Of course it's not only Julio Lugo who was hypnotized by the Mariners and their evil moose-ish ways, but he was a big part of it. I'm aware that everyone has slumps, but with Lugo it's starting to look like we're leaving the "alas, poor fellow's in a bit of a low spot" slump and rapidly entering the "may as well go up there holding a fuzzy purple pipe cleaner, he's just as likely to hit something with THAT" slump.

I'm starting to fear that we have the Curse of Cabby. It's nothing quite so panic-mongering as that Bambino business; just that since we declined to keep Orlando Cabrera, we will henceforth be doomed to suffer through shortstops who really, REALLY just can't hack Boston. It wasn't the kind of place where Alex Gonzalez could play, and it's starting to look like it's not the kind of place where Lugo can play either.

When he was pulled for a pinch hitter today and smashed his bat at the ground in the dugout, that was when I realized it. Oh, I had realized that he can't hit a cockroach's weight right now (or, rather, I SAW that... it didn't take any REALIZING) some time ago, but I thought that maybe his simmering belligerence would be enough to buffer him against everything that comes from playing in Boston.

That wah wah wah i don't wannaaaaa bat slam showed a depth of helpless frustration that convinces me this is not the case. He may be simmeringly belligerent, but he's not using it to shield himself against Boston... he's directing it AT Boston, or at himself, or at both at once. And that will only end in tears, and a lot of angry words about contracts from everyone in the area.

And to think, I usually LIKE when the Sox play the Mariners. I get to watch Ichiro play baseball, which is always a delight... when you watch Ichiro play baseball, you are watching a more pure and exacting form of baseball. His little measuring gesture with the bat, his pigeon-toed stance, the way he flies over the outfield grass... it's just a simple joy to watch. I reckon that if you don't like watching Ichiro, you don't like baseball.

Oh, and the whole Matsuzaka vs. Ichiro thing is a pretty good storyline too, y'know. I love how everyone gets so unreasoningly excited about it. NESN even put on the NHK broadcast for an at-bat-- so there I am, watching Ichiro up to bat against Matsuzaka, and the broadcast is in Japanese, which means I don't understand a single word of it... and I still LOVE IT. Why? I don't even know. It's probably something to do with the fact that you can almost imagine what they're saying. The universality of baseball announcing and all that. And maybe it's that little reminder that somewhere halfway across the world there's someone your age sitting there, listening to that very same broadcast, just as excited about the coolness of the matchup as you are.

I also always enjoy seeing JJ Putz, because with Mike Matheny out of baseball, he and Rich Hill are holding down the Wolverine alum fort. So it was great to see how well Putz is pitching. The Red Sox fan bit of my brain, however, spent much of that series screaming that HE MUST BE STOPPED. 'Cause, wow. That was SOME kind of game closing action.

edit: Man, I REALLY need to get around to overhauling my sidebar. I've got a bunch of work-things due soon, and am heading into NY this weekend for art and a ballgame, but after that! Blog gets attention. Suggestions welcome.

2007-06-24T14:06:00.000-04:00

Fun with Roster Photos! New York Yankees, 2007

I feel like harassing Yankees today, especially since next week I will, weather permitting, be venturing into enemy territory.

Usual disclaimer: all these photos are from the official MLB site and are directly linked, so they WILL change year to year and as guys switch teams. The images you see may no longer correspond exactly to the comments if you are viewing this in an archived form. But I am OK with this, because it lends an air of strange surreality to the whole thing, and also reassures you all of the happy laziness of bloggers. (I also copy-and-pasted this disclaimer from the last time, so you can REALLY be reassured that the laziness of bloggers is going strong as ever).

Pitchers!

Brian Bruney
If a toad could look self-satisfied after swallowing a particularly juicy fly, that toad would look very much like Brian Bruney here.

Roger Clemens
Holy freakin' cats aahhhhhhh!!!! THE PASTY ZOMBIE FACE OF DEATH! I am NOT just saying that because it's Clemens either; just look at him!! His face is melting off of his cheekbones!

Kyle Farnsworth
The rectangular block goes in the rectangular hole, children.

Kei Igawa
Yet another ballplayer falls victim to the old "quick, he's starting to smile, take a photo before he gets there so he looks like he's actually uttering the sound 'durhurrrr'!" photography trick.

Mike Mussina
It's pretty hard to screw up Mike Mussina, but the half-squinted eyes and the half-smirk, plus the washed-out prison mugshot lighting manage the job quite nicely.

Mike Myers
Give him some pointy teeth and a helmet and you've got an orc straight out of Lord of the Rings.

Andy Pettitte
His left eye has some serious designs on laziness. I don't THINK Andy Pettitte has a lazy eye, so it seems likely that we can put this one down to another fine piece of work from the photographer.

Scott Proctor
Sixty-five years old, AND with the dreaded triangle neck.

Mariano Rivera
The very first pitcher to successfully play Major League Baseball while heroically battling leprosy.

Ron Villone
I had no idea the Yankees were employing a beluga whale to pitch for them these days.

Luis Vizcaino
I feel like I say this every year, but every year I CANNOT get over how TINY Vizcaino's facial features are in relation to his ENORMOUS, OUTWARDLY POINTY cheekbones. It looks like someone took the Liquify tool in Photoshop to his face.

Chien-Ming Wang
The wide-eyed, innocent 8-year-old was startled to find himself pitching for the Yankees.

Catchers!

Wil Nieves
It's like his entire face was flattened and allowed to squish out horizontally, so his mouth is too wide, his eyebrows go too far around the sides of his head, and he generally looks like smarmy roadkill wearing lipstick. I don't think the angle helps here.

Jorge Posada
If Nieves was flattened top-to-bottom, Posada was flattened front-to-back, as from a hearty SPANG in the face with a frying pan. Looks like he was pretty startled to receive the spang too. The jersey falling off to the side is clearly a dishevellment resulting from the frying pan attack.

Infielders!

Chris Basak
Who? Well, whoever he is, he looks like his head is being jerked to the side by an invisible fish hook through the mouth.

Miguel Cairo
Has he been Botoxing?

Robinson Cano
This is actually a lot better than some of his past roster photos. Still seems to be sort of staring in two different directions, which would be a useful baseball skill I guess.

Derek Jeter
After a hard night out on the town, with some hardy ladies of the night, Jeter stumbles in unprepared for photo day.

Andy Phillips
OH MY GOD A GOPHER.

Alex Rodriguez
The appearance of lipstick clashes mightily with the appearance of a shadowy mustache. Perhaps he likes the transvestite look on himself as well as in his strippers?

Outfielders!

Bobby Abreu
Fozzie Bear!

Melky Cabrera
What the hell. Is he pregnant and retaining water? Did someone decide to pump his face full of saline for obscure fetishistic reasons? This oddly swollen and rubbery beast barely even looks like Melky Cabrera.

Johnny Damon
His mouth just kind of disappears into the rest of his lower jaw. I can't tell if this is due to the lighting or because his face is desperately crying out for a beard again.

Hideki Matsui
As he so often does in roster photos, Matsui looks like someone has thrown acid on his face. This year, however, he's pleasantly bemused by it.

Kevin Thompson
The eyes of a 15-year-old atop the jaw of a 50-year-old. Creepy.

Ladies and gents, your 2007 New York Yankees.

2007-06-20T15:19:00.000-04:00

Yes, it is now time for the not-at-all anticipated follow-up to the mascot rant. Because it's a poor blogger indeed who complains about something without offering an alternative.

The Mascot Rant, if you've forgotten ('tho how could you, because it's just two posts down... I was so bummed about the Michigan loss that I had to take a little break to sulk and kick beavers).

Now, I'm not saying that these mascots are The Answer. They are simply alternatives to the current designs. They may not be any good, but they are, in my wildly biased opinion, better in concept than the ones in use now. Let's be honest: it would be hard to be WORSE than this terrifying and confusing beast, or this ferocious abuse of fake fur.

First up, the Astros!

Again, to refresh your memory, here's the current mascot, Junction Jack, feeling up his front-butt.

Why a rabbit? Why a rabbit wearing a train conductor's uniform? Why all of this ESPECIALLY for a team named the ASTROS, a team whose name has roots in the local space program? WHY NOT A MASCOT THAT MAKES SENSE??

Do you see how RIDICULOUSLY EASY it would be to have a dude in an Astros-colored astronaut suit running around out there? Or even how easy an aggressively goofy rocketship in Astros colors would be? Both of these would make SO much more sense than a sleepy-eyed rabbit manbeast that it's not even funny, except in that "ha ha oh god nervous laughter" kind of way.

For the record, I am a big fan of things that shouldn't have arms or legs having arms and/or legs sticking awkwardly out of their bodies but clad in similar-colored spandex so that everyone knows they should be assuming they're a part of the costume. Donuts... coffee cups... hot dogs... space shuttles.

the Devil Rays

If you recall, the current mascot is Raymond, seen here making terrifying eye contact with the cameraperson.

The more I think about Raymond the more OK I am with him as a mascot. He just misbehaves too well, by which I mean that he torments the other team during BP, he goes out of his way to interact with fans, he runs over tiny stuffed versions of rival mascots in toy cars, etc. That's what you want in a mascot, and I give Raymond credit for doing his best.

HOWEVER. This does not satisfy me, because when I see a team name that IS AN ANIMAL, I want to SEE THAT ANIMAL AS A MASCOT. There is no giant plush devil ray, and this strikes me as a deep wrongness. So.

You can see how a person would wear this. The 'wings' would be stiff foam, I guess, or whatever it is that makes Lefty and Righty's protruding sock appendages possible. The tail would be stiff and would stick out the back, while the mascot-suit-wearers limbs would be all black spandexed up and would have pretty good freedom of movement.

Yes, it would be bad news going through doorways, but since when are mascots supposed to be practical? At least they don't have to deal with oversized clown shoes and giant unwieldy paw-hands. And the eyes (which Devil Rays do not have, but a mascot would need, so the children know where to poke it) could be googly eyes, so when he danced around they would jiggle all over the place and it would be a hilarious floppy chondricthian.

the Indians

Current mascot, again, is the abominable pink furman known as Slider.

Slider exists because nobody wants to see the mascot that would be based on the actual logo. Can you even imagine? A giant dancing bright red figure with a hooked nose, huge grin, and a feather sticking out of its headband... ugh, I can barely even type that. Which is maybe a sign that you need to CHANGE YOUR LOGO, CLEVELAND.

Personally, I think that Cleveland's best bet is to go back to the days of baseball in Cleveland BEFORE there were the Indians, which means going back to the Cleveland Spiders.

Pros:
-getting rid of Chief Wahoo
-embracing history
-spiders are cool, different (when it comes to mascots), and scarier than, say, orioles
-TONS of new merchanidising opportunities!
-no longer having to be embarrassed to market your team logo
-positive press for getting rid of a longstanding racist image
-losers are cool (look at the Sox pre-04, and the Cubs now)... the Spiders are the holders of the worst record in baseball history
-ability to get rid of the pointless and alarming Slider

Cons:
-having to revamp an entire team brand
-having to do the work to get new logos/mascot designs/uniforms/etc. made and approved
-idiots who claim that history is important to preserve even when it's wildly offensive
-necessity of having the chutzpah to make the change

I don't really see an argument.

I'm not sure if you can see the outline there, but the suit fits so that two of the spider legs are the person's real legs (in red spandex) and two of them are the person's real arms, similarly attired. I did try to make him as goofy and nonthreatening as I could, since some people are irrationally afraid of spiders, but my mother still claims that the 8 eyes are not cool. I think a giant fuzzy blue and red spider dancing up to you with 8 possibly googly eyes staring in 8 different directions would be AWESOME, but maybe that's just me.

the Diamondbacks

For reference, the current mascot, Baxter the bobcat, in his old uni.

Aside from the problems relating to the fact that Baxter looks like a furry, this is another team with an animal name that DOES NOT USE THAT ANIMAL AS THEIR MASCOT. Why. Whyyyyyyy. Is it because they thought a snake would touch off some people's snake phobias? Because let me tell you guys, they have snakes already in their logos. See? Snake. And check it out, this is their sleeve patch: more snakes (I actually REALLY like this logo, it's a glorious success of graphic design and I could write a whole separate article about how good I think it is. But that's for another time).

So the snake phobic ship sailed a long time ago, Arizona, and anyways, what about the people who have serious phobias of fursuiters? They're going to be just as perturbed by Baxter as they would be by a snake mascot. YOU ARE THE DIAMONDBACKS. THAT IS A SNAKE. EMBRACE IT.

This is the same mascot, just from the front and the back. He's friendly! He's goofy enough to count as a mascot and not terrify children! He doesn't look like a sexual fetish! HE'S ACTUALLY A SNAKE!

I think children would love this. Two of my favorite stuffed animals from my childhood were snakes: one was a snake made out of ties that I think my grandmother sewed for me, and one was a big fuzzy cobra that is in fact still sitting up on top of my dresser, along with a giant cheetah pillow I made myself, and a sock monkey. Snakes are awesome. Bobcats are SO overused as a mascot... how many college teams are the bobcats? They're probably only overrun by the wildcats, which are even more ubiquitous. You have a good mascot potentially right there in your lap, Arizona.

I'm still trying to decide which would be better for Seattle: a giant compass, or a seafaring dude in the style of Bernie Brewer. And I'm thinking about the White Sox. Suggestions welcome.

2007-06-10T23:22:00.001-04:00

Stupid freaking tree-gnawing paddle-tail-having brown scruffy hideously-pinstriped cheap-hit-getting Beavers.

Let me tell you something: Zach Putnam pitched the game of his life. The game. Of his life. His fastball had sink on it like you would not believe if you didn't see it yourself. It seemed to fall out of the sky in a way you almost never see with a fastball; it almost looked like a curveball, except that I don't think it was. He was almost short-arming his pitches, which I guess is his way of keeping that sink on it (really 'sinky' pitchers are often sidearmers... see this kickass Hardball Times article for more on that).

It was like watching Derek Lowe when he threw his perfect game. I know how whacked-out that sounds, but I'm not kidding. It was the same. kind. of sink. I mean, pitchers get in trouble when they leave the ball up in the zone. Putnam hardly seemed to scrape the upper parts of the strikezone. It was MASTERFUL.

OK, obviously it wasn't a perfect game. Zach Putnam is not Derek Lowe (this makes it a lot easier to wholeheartedly root for Zach Putnam). There were a few walks, and in the end there was one hit. That was all it took. If you didn't see the game I can't impress on you how suddenly it was all over. A guy walked. There was a sac bunt to move him up to second. Putnam got another out, I think it was a strikeout. Then Joey Wong stepped up, dumped a single into left that was weakly thrown home by Derek VanBuskirk, not nearly fast enough to catch the runner, and that was that.

Maybe VanBuskirk thought it would come back to him quicker than it actually did on that weird carpet turf they have in Oregon, and his throw was off because of that. Maybe he just couldn't set himself properly. Maybe he never got a good grip on the ball. Maybe the animal spirit of a beaver rose from the ground beneath the turf and bit his ankles with its unnatural giant ghostly beaver teeth, surprising him enough to slow down the throw. Who knows?

That one hit, that was it for the Beavers. I mean that was IT. Zach Putnam threw 8.2 innings of HITLESS BASEBALL. He threw 129 pitches. It was.... I can't describe how amazing it was to watch him pitch this game. Maybe it's just that his delivery looks different when I'm not watching it through the back end of a camera, but he seemed to be pitching with a greater clarity of pitching than he has before. I guess that doesn't make sense. I can't really think of any other way to put it.

And you know what, there were a lot of dubious calls in this game-- A LOT, and some of them were SERIOUSLY off-- but I will give the homeplate umpire credit for one thing. He called balls and strikes based on where the ball was when it crossed the plate, not when it ended up in the catcher's glove. This is, of course, what they're supposed to do, but it doesn't always work out that way and can sometimes hurt a pitcher like Putnam, whose pitches often end up dragging dirt as they cross into Pickens' glove because they've dropped so far AFTER they've crossed the plate. The homeplate ump correctly called a lot of these strikes, and infuriating as some of his (and his crew's) miscues were*, I have to give him props for that.

The problem is that while Putnam was busy throwing this beautiful, miraculous game, the opposing pitcher was busy doing the exact same thing, and every time Michigan got men on they were unable to bring them home. Frustration? Yes.

I waited a long time after the game had ended to write this post, in the hopes of allowing myself to calm down a little, but I find that I'm beginning to get riled up again, so bollocks to that, I need to ask a vital question about the Oregon State uniforms, that question being: WTF?!

Gray. With dark pinstripes (I couldn't tell if they were black or dark brown or navy or what). With orange piping around the jersey front closure and collar that COMPLETELY failed to work in any way, shape, or form with the pinstripes. That would be a visual mess by itself, but the numbers were orange satin and were unreasonably large, on the front and the back, and they ALSO did not really work with the pinstripes... pinstripes and shiny satin, I think, is too many textures. THAT would have been horrible enough, but they ALSO had the letters "OSU" across the front, ABOVE the overly large and shiny numbers, in UNBORDERED WHITE, which failed to work with the pinstriping, the piping, and every color/texture already on the jerseys.

Their socks might have been black, but looked navy blue. Their hats might have been black, but looked a kind of dark faded brown. Neither shade of possible-black referred back to any color on the jerseys.

It's possible that the Michigan hitters were rendered so speechless by this sartorial horror that they were unable to muster up more than a few hits today. I would believe it. They also might have been hypnotized by the dancing layers of stripes and piping, or maybe by the shiny, shiny orange. Or maybe they were just terrified of the Oregon State people who designed these uniforms. Who knows what goes on in the sick minds of people who think this combination is a good idea?

I would believe almost anything after a game like that. Ugh. What a frustrating loss, what a frustrating waste of a pitching performance.

If you desire mental relief from this agony, I recommend bathing yourself in the fetid waters of yesterday's baseball mascot rant.

*Major miscue the first: Early-ish in the game, Joey Wong watched a pitch go by, too low to be a strike. The umpire(s?) called it a strike, saying he had gone around. Replays showed that he had barely flinched. Nobody seemed to know what the umpire(s?) had been looking at.

Major miscue the second: The leadoff Beaver in the 7th inning bunted inside the first base line. Putnam picked it up, threw it to first. Out. Only... not. The homeplate ump called the batter back, saying that the ball was foul because it had hit him (the batter) before he left the box. Replays clearly showed him bunting the ball a good foot or two in front of himself, well away from his body before it made its first bounce. The ball remained inside the baseline and Putnam picked it up inside the baseline and long before it reached first so... fair in every particular. Should've been an out. The kid ended up working a walk, so this could have been disasterous, but Mitch Canham grounded into a lovely double play for us to clear him off the bases.

2007-06-10T00:37:00.000-04:00

It is time for me to go on a rant about one of my favorite/least favorite subjects: MASCOTS.

Or rather, THE APPROPRIATENESS OF VARIOUS MASCOTS IN RELATION TO THE TEAMS THEY REPRESENT.

Some things irrationally infuriate me. One of these things is a bad concept mascot. This is not to say that I don't appreciate a random mascot... I'm a huge fan of surrealism, y'know, and a completely wacked-out and random mascot can be a huge success. But some mascots are just A DEEP WRONGNESS. I don't ask for a lot. Usually I just want LOGIC to dictate the form of the thing, with something clever in the name of the mascot. You'd think that wouldn't be so hard to find, but you would be dead wrong.

So I have here compiled a list of Major League Baseball teams, the mascot I think they SHOULD have, the mascot they DO have, and why this actual mascot is, in my opinion, good or bad. It's been too long since I went on a pointless, inane rant around these parts. BCRS shall be rantless no longer.

The Mascots of Major League Baseball

Baltimore Orioles
Mascot they should have: An oriole.
Mascot they do have: The Bird.
How'd they do? Good job, Baltimore. Boring name, but it's an oriole. Bonus karma points for having a realistic design on the hats, and even MORE bonus karma points for having the mascot design refer back to the old, thankfully abandoned cartoony logo design.

Boston Red Sox
Mascot they should have: Red socks.
Mascot they do have: Wally the Green Monster.
How'd they do? As it turns out, the Red Sox DO actually have a pair of red socks mascots... I've seen 'em in the ballpark before. Wally's the main mascot, however, probably because those red sock things are completely terrifying. When I step back and try to look at Wally objectively, I guess he's OK. The Green Monster (the wall) is a very distinctive and well-known feature of Fenway... he's a 'green monster'... his name is 'wally'... ehhh. Let us not forget that when he was first introduced at Fenway, though, he was booed loudly and thoroughly. It's only through the efforts of Jerry Remy that he's become almost universally beloved in Boston.

New York Yankees
Mascot they should have: Satan. Alternatively, a giant dollar bill. I'm being mean. Really they should have a giant baseball thing along the lines of Mr. Met, because they consider themselves to BE baseball.
Mascot they do have: none.
How'd they do? The Yankees are too good to have a mascot, didntcha know? I can't fail them because there's nothing to fail.

Tampa Bay Devil Rays
Mascot they should have: A devil ray. I'd settle for a zoologically incorrect but thematically similar manta ray.
Mascot they do have: Raymond.
How'd they do? What is Raymond? His biography describes him as related to a dog, and I think we are supposed to assume that he's the product of an unholy mating between some sea mammal (dolphin, manatee, whale, walrus, dugong, take your pick) and a strong-swimming golden retriever, despite the fact that he looks like a giant fuzzy blue imagining of a sugar-high six-year-old.

I know what he's NOT, and that's a goddamn manta ray.

Bonus points for giving the mascot a blog, bonus points taken away for having it updated so infrequently.

I was going to fail Raymond, but then I thought about it more closely. He's got personality, backstory, and he definitely misbehaves... he hates Wally and always torments stuffed versions of him at Sox games. It's possible that, in time, he will reach the status of the Phanatic for sheer random beloved mascotness and I'm just being unfair because Raymond hasn't been around that long. However, the Phanatic comes from a team with no obvious mascot possibilities. Raymond comes from a team with a built-in mascot. I thus label him a

potential FAIL.

Toronto Blue Jays
Mascot they should have: A blue jay.
Mascot they do have: Ace.
How'd they do? Pretty good. It's a blue jay. The head design is a little aggressively cartoonish for my tastes (he looks like a freaking Hanna Barbera creation), but such is the mascot business. I assume he's "Ace" because he's a good pitcher or something. I don't know what this has to do with birds, but it has to do with baseball, so I guess I'll let it pass for now. Bonus points for using the actual scientific name of the blue jay in his profile.

Chicago White Sox
Mascot they should have: A pair of white socks.
Mascot they do have: Southpaw.
How'd they do? O HAI GUYZ LOOK ITS RAYMOND ONLY GREEN. Unlike Raymond, who at least has a backstory, absurd and moronic though it may be, Southpaw has no explanation available. What does he have to do with the White Sox? Nothing, so far as I can tell. What does he have to do with Chicago? Nothing. He's a lefty, presumably, and that's all we know.

FAIL.

Cleveland Indians
Mascot they should have: Um. Let's put it this way. Chief Wahoo should not be their logo, so despite the fact that he IS, I'm not gonna say that he should be their mascot. I think it could be cool for them to have a spider as their mascot, you know, recalling the Cleveland Spiders of old. Or something generically baseball.
Mascot they do have: Slider.
How'd they do? It's pink. It's hairy. What is it? Nobody knows. Beyond the pink and the hairiness there is a vacant, soulless creature. It only exists because the actual logo/mascot is a racist holdover of a bygone era and nobody in the Cleveland marketing department was clever enough to come up with something actually relevant to the team or city.

FAIL.

Detroit Tigers
Mascot they should have: A tiger.
Mascot they do have: Paws.
How'd they do? Good. DO YOU GUYS SEE HOW EASY IT IS WHEN YOUR TEAM NAME IS AN ANIMAL AND YOUR MASCOT ACTUALLY IS THAT ANIMAL?? Why do so many teams have trouble with this simple, simple concept? We may never know. Anyways. Paws recently underwent a redesign, which is good, because his old incarnation was actually an incredibly deformed and disturbing-looking version of a tiger. He's still not great (how can you screw up a TIGER costume? only in Detroit), but he's getting there.

Kansas City Royals
Mascot they should have: A king? Now I'm getting mental images of the Burger King guy leading the wave at Kauffman Stadium and it's just a bad scene.
Mascot they do have: Sluggerrr.
How'd they do? A lion is a clever take on "royals", I'll give them that. And "Sluggerrr", while cutesy, also works. MAJOR point loss for the fact that he's a MUTANT LION WITH A CROWN GROWING OUT OF THE FLESH OF HIS HEAD. I get that the crown over the scoreboard is a major feature of the ballpark, but I think a regular old gold-colored lion, sans crown, would have done just fine. Or even a lion WEARING a crown. The idea that his skull is deformed out into a crown form is just disturbing.

Minnesota Twins
Mascot they should have: Twins, maybe. I dunno. Freakish siamese twin baseballs. That would be insane and amazing.
Mascot they do have: TC Bear. All of poor TC's photos seem to be red-x-ing... are they phasing him out of existence? Here he is.
How'd they do? Not bad. I think the bear thing refers to a number of Minnesota landmarks which are named after bears, right? They should have two, though. Identical twin bears.

Los Angeles Anaheim California Western US Region Angels
Mascot they should have: The name is religious, but the mascot shouldn't be. So they shouldn't have an angel. 'Tho I must say that a giant 3D dancing version of their logo- an A with a halo 'round its top- would be hilarious.
Mascot they do have: Rally Monkey.
How'd they do? Good. It's got nothing to do with the name or the city, but the Rally Monkey is a freakish, idiosyncratic LAAWhatever Angels phenomenon. It's random, and they've embraced it. Perfect mascot material. Bonus points for having a real monkey, or at least video of a real monkey, instead of a guy in a cartoon suit.

Oakland Athletics
Mascot they should have: I got nothin', beyond some generic big muscular guy. Someone who knows something about the Oakland area could maybe suggest a mascot, but I know very very little about Oakland (except for the fact that apparently it's terrible and the team needs to flee it).
Mascot they do have: Stomper.
How'd they do? Good. It has nothing to do with Oakland or athleticism, but the elephant nickname is a part of the team's history, and as such makes for a unique yet topical mascot. Top work, Oakland.

Seattle Mariners
Mascot they should have: A mariner. Anything nautical. A ship. A giant freaking anchor. A compass, like their logo. Anything along those lines.
Mascot they do have: The Mariner Moose.
How'd they do? They try to claim that the moose has tenuous ties to the "forests of the great Northwest". Yeah, OK, how many forests are there in Seattle? If they were the Washington Mariners, maybe. As they are, nope. Sorry. Doesn't work. They FREELY ADMIT that the damn moose was chosen as a mascot because a 14 year old girl thought that moose "are funny, neat and friendly. The Moose would show that the Mariners enjoy playing and that they still have a few tricks up their sleeves. It shows they're having fun no matter what the situation." You know what else is funny, neat, and friendly? My dad. Why isn't he your mascot? He has exactly the same amount of claim on the position as the moose does, because guess what the moose actually has to do with the team? NOTHING.

FAIL.

Texas Rangers
Mascot they should have: A ranger. Cowboy hat, boots, spurs, fake guns, badge, the whole hokey shebang. It is the Mascot Way.
Mascot they do have: Rangers Captain.
How'd they do? OK. I guess this is the horse the ranger rides in on? Boring, but serviceable. Loss of points for the most boring mascot bio in existence, and the resemblance to an oversized plush chess piece.

Atlanta Braves
Mascot they should have: Er, this is another thorny one. A dancing Native American is not the route to go here. A giant anthropomorphic tomahawk isn't much better, but it seems to be what the Braves have set themselves up for.
Mascot they do have: Homer. Homer doesn't seem to have a page, but you can see him in the photo accompanying the article here.
How'd they do? Mr. Met is a Braves fan? Or is it the Cincy Red dude? Either way, it's a blatant knockoff inspired by the fact that, like the Indians, the Braves' old mascot was too racist to be allowed to exist. Sorry, guys, no sympathy here. Update your shit and get with the times.

FAIL.

Florida Marlins
Mascot they should have: A marlin.
Mascot they do have: Billy the Marlin.
How'd they do? Good! Florida Marlins... Billy the Marlin... good lord it's LOGICAL! Small loss of points for having two flipper-like feet instead of an actual tail. You could totally have a guy in a suit where his feet go in the ends of a huge one-piece tail. I could design it. It would be a little awkward, but it could definitely be done. Heck, even keep the legs separate and just have the tail in a kind of skirt down to the ground... you gotta problem-solve, guys!

New York Mets
Mascot they should have: Since Mets is short for Metropolitans, I would love to see a big plush walking city skyline. You may not be able to picture that but I could design that suit in a second. A giant apple would work too. Big apple and all that, and they do have that apple that comes up in Shea when someone hits a homer.
Mascot they do have: Mr. Met.
How'd they do? He's an institution. And it's kind of hard to argue with a baseball as a mascot for a baseball team. I do wish they'd done something a little more specific to the team and city... put him in a different uniform, and Mr. Met could represent any team in the league. But he doesn't fail because he is, as I said, at least a long-standing Met.

Philadelphia Phillies
Mascot they should have: Tough, tough. A giant plush liberty bell.
Mascot they do have: The Phillie Phanatic.
How'd they do? What does the Phillie Phanatic have to do with anything? Nothing. I can find no reasonable explanation for his design, and I think this is probably because none exists. The name makes sense, at least... it's a reference to insane Philly fans. But the creature himself? No reasoning can explain it.

And yet. Unlike Raymond, who comes from a team with a built-in mascot possibility, there is no ready answer for the Phillies.

The Phanatic is beloved BECAUSE it is so random. It eats people's heads! It misbehaves gleefully! It has an enormous tongue! It is AN ABOMINATION AGAINST NATURE, and this last is perhaps exactly why it fits. Philadelphia fans are ALSO an abomination against nature. It begins to make sense.

The Phillie Phanatic also manages to get Tommy Lasorda's manties into a twist, so whatever inclination I had to fail it is immediately nullified based on that alone. That is solid win.

Washington Nationals
Mascot they should have: Lots of choices here. The capitol building! Abraham Lincoln! Anything patriotic!
Mascot they do have: Screech.
How'd they do? OK. It's a bald eagle. Totally works. I actually especially like the feet, or at least the fact that he HAS talons and not some comically oversized sneakers. The only problem I have with him is that he seems to be less of a bald eagle and more a... well, an eaglet. He looks like a baby eagle. Why couldn't they have had an adult eagle? You know?

Chicago Cubs
Mascot they should have: A baby bear.
Mascot they do have: none.
How'd they do? I couldn't quite believe it. I guess I just hadn't thought about it before, but despite the fact that several of their logos have bears in them, and despite the fact that they have a ready-made easy mascot in their name, the Cubs... do not have a mascot. Huh. Wow.

I guess this is a "we're so old-school we don't need one" kind of thing, and is the same reason why the Yankees don't have one, and why it took so long for the Red Sox to get one.

Cincinnati Reds
Mascot they should have: Reds is short for redlegs, IIRC, so... more red socks, I guess.
Mascot they do have: Mr. Red and Gapper.
How'd they do? Mr. Red is a classic, especially his incarnation with the mustache. Gapper is a pointless, inexplicable and superfluous hanger-on. Why would they team a vague fuzzy anthropormorphic nightmare up with their classic guy? Only the twisted minds in Cincy can tell.

1/2 FAIL.

Houston Astros
Mascot they should have: A rocketship! A star. Something related to NASA or astronomy.
Mascot they do have: Junction Jack. His photo there is red-x-ing, so here he is.
How'd they do? IT'S A DEFORMED RABBIT IN A TRAIN CONDUCTOR'S OUTFIT
IT'S A DEFORMED RABBIT IN A TRAIN CONDUCTOR'S OUTFIT
IT'S A DEFORMED RABBIT IN A TRAIN CONDUCTOR'S OUTFIT

FAIL.

Milwaukee Brewers
Mascot they should have: A brewer. Or a giant beer bottle.
Mascot they do have: Bernie Brewer.
How'd they do? Awesome. I think Bernie Brewer is the only mascot in baseball to be based on an actual guy. The suited-up mascot is a little terrifying; what's up with those INSANE eyes? But the concept is too cool.

Pittsburgh Pirates
Mascot they should have: A pirate. A ship. A cannon. A parrot. Anything piratey.
Mascot they do have: Pirate Parrot and Captain Jolly Roger.
How'd they do? Good. Both mascots are piratey to the max. The parrot is the classic... I'm not sure why they felt like they needed another mascot to go along with him, but I guess when you're the Pirates and you draw 3,000 fans per night or something, you need all the mascots you can get.

The guy behind the parrot in the mid 80's used to smuggle cocaine to the players. The rumor is that he did this by hiding it in the beak of the parrot suit. Now THAT'S mascot history.

St. Louis Cardinals
Mascot they should have: A cardinal.
Mascot they do have: Fredbird.
How'd they do? OK. Bird teams are 3-for-3 when it comes to actually using their name as their mascot. There's one thing about Fredbird (I assume a cutesy take on "red bird") that worries me, though. Why are the feathers hanging from his arms/wings yellow and blue? Not nearly enough to fail him, but I do wonder.

Arizona Diamondbacks
Mascot they should have: A diamondback snake.
Mascot they do have: Baxter.
How'd they do? Why. Is it. A bobcat? YOUR TEAM NAME IS A SNAKE. YOUR TEAM LOGO IS A SNAKE. IN FACT YOU HAVE SEVERAL DIFFERENT SNAKE OR SNAKESKIN-RELATED LOGOS. HOW DO YOU GO FROM ALL THAT TO A BOBCAT??? This is exactly what I mean when I say that you'd think it would be easy for a team with an animal name to have a mascot, but it apparently is not. A bobcat?? WTF? Not only that, but Baxter in "person" is incredibly disappointing. He doesn't even have a bob-tail sticking out the back.

He also looks a lot more like a furry than most MLB mascots.

FAIL.

Colorado Rockies
Mascot they should have: A mountain crag! Or a giant boulder. A boulder with eyes, you can't tell me that wouldn't be amazing.
Mascot they do have: Dinger.
How'd they do? Uhhhhh.... OK? It's a triceratops? Colorado is indeed known for having several important paleontological sites, with dinosaur fossil deposits, so. I guess it works, although the whole 'purple dinosaur' thing is dangerously Barney-esque. Loss of points for the completely ridiculous name of "Dinger".

Los Angeles Dodgers
Mascot they should have: A trolley car.
Mascot they do have: none.
How'd they do? Another grandfathered-in mascotless team.

San Diego Padres
Mascot they should have: The name suggests a padre, which I think is a priest of some sort. I'm still uncomfortable with religious figures in baseball though.
Mascot they do have: The Swinging Friar.
How'd they do? Fine. Uninspired, but it fits, and the friar's been around for a while. It's just awfully hard to beat out the Chicken...

San Francisco Giants
Mascot they should have: A giant.
Mascot they do have: Lou Seal.
How'd they do? Good. This is a blatant slap in the face of the team name, but I assume it's a reference to the fact that the ballpark is on the water, and... well, I assume there are seals in there. It's a little bit of a stretch, but it makes more sense than the Mariner Moose, and makes a whole heckuva lot more sense than, say, Slider. Can't fail it.

So there you have it. Out of 30 MLB teams, you have 6 outright FAILs, one half FAIL, and one potential FAIL... and that isn't even getting into the design issues many of these mascots have. If we went into that, we would have many, many more FAILs and partial FAILs. The moral of the story is that marketing departments are filled with idiots.

2007-06-07T18:27:00.000-04:00

How badly did you want to kick Shannon Stewart in the spleen after this one? The entire ballpark's standing up, A's and Red Sox fans both, everyone at home is holding their breath and squealing... two outs in the ninth... no hits... Schilling rearing back and pitching... and Shannon freakin' Stewart pokes through a single.

It wouldn't have been a perfect game anyways, because there had been an error on Lugo that resulted in a baserunner, but a no-hitter would have been amazing, both for the morale of the team (which sorely needs boosting after this latest streak of losing) and for Schill himself, at this advanced state of his age and career.

The win's still good, obviously, and breaking up the losing streak is still good, obviously, but now everything is gonna be tinged by that slightly deflating 'what if'.

And then listening to the postgame dissection by the dolorously-voiced Ken Macha... blah. Just depressing. I would've liked to hear The Eck's take on this one, and I'm quite sure he would've had a lot to say. Macha just plods on in that droning voice and eventually you kind of want to scoop your own eyeballs out... but slowly, you know, in time with his speaking cadence.

Oh wait, lockerroom interviews. Shirtless Jason Varitek DOES do a little something to erase the Macha-depression, I must admit that. NESN is good people.

"I looked at the board, I saw all the zeros under the H, and I was like "Wait a minute!" Then I looked around and everyone was like shhhhh!" -David Ortiz in the lockerroom, on when he realized that Curt was throwing a no-hitter

OK. Still an amazing outing for Schilling. I hope Daisuke was taking notes.

2007-06-04T22:53:00.000-04:00

They won!!

Michigan baseball! They won Regionals!

I know nobody who reads this cares, but eeeeeeee! First time since 1989! They had to beat NUMBER ONE RANKED Vanderbilt.... twice! And, goodness, they did! They lost the middle game, but it was unlikely that they were going to make it out of this round, because, you know... Vanderbilt! Ranked number one in the country! And Michigan DID make it out of the round, they're on to the Super Regionals, and Vanderbilt... now they've fallen to THE WOLVERINES!

I saw that the game was tied 3-3 in the 9th, but I couldn't watch the little online stat-tracker thing because I was a) too nervous and b) afraid of jinxing it. I know, I KNOW how irrational that is, but the one game I tried to follow on the stat tracker was the one they lost, so. No more checking. It was all I could do to restrict myself to that small glance in the 9th. And just now I thought that surely the game must be over, it should be safe to check again, and it was over, and we'd won!

For those of you who don't follow NCAA baseball, Michigan "won" the Big 10 regular season, coming out of it with the best record. They lost the Big 10 Championship to Ohio State, though, and thus were not assured a spot in the NCAA tourney. They received an at-large bid, though, which was right and proper because they had been the highest-ranked Big 10 team on the national boards throughout the year (in fact, they might have been the only Big 10 team to be nationally ranked... but don't quote me on that, I think Minnesota might have been on there too).

Michigan fans were grateful to see them in the tourney at all. Anything beyond that was assumed to be gravy.

They were matched up against Memphis first, which seemed a tough battle because the tourney is in Tennessee and Memphis then should have a home field advantage. No such luck, though, and Michigan beat them only to suddenly find themselves scheduled to face an even more fearsome opponent in Vanderbilt.

Whom they defeated! The middle game, which Michigan lost, even that wasn't some kind of insane Vandy blowout, like one would maybe expect from the nominally best team in the nation. It was a 10-7 score, and Michigan had come back from a 6-2 deficit, I believe. But the Wolverines won the first game, and they just now won the last game in extra innings, sending me into a series of overwhelmingly happy squees.

SQUEE!

Opponents to be announced for the Super Regionals... I guess we have to wait to see who wins the other games and whatnot before we know who Michigan plays next. In any event, the team's already done more than most people expected them to do, and it is nothing short of painfully exciting.

2007-06-04T01:05:00.000-04:00

I was commiserating with Beth about this game, and the bloody UNFAIRNESS of it all. "How could this happen?" we sulked. The Red Sox are playing good ball these days! The Yankees are cellar-dwelling gnomes whose supposed savior is an old man with a case of muscular crotch rot! The standings say that this series should have been ouuuuurrrrssss!

Maybe so. But Red Sox/Yankees games exist outside of the "real" world. If the standings represent the space-time continuum, a Red Sox/Yankees series represents a parallel plane of existence where none of the usual physical rules of the universe apply. In the NORMAL world, the Red Sox should have at least taken 2 of 3. But in the RED SOX/YANKEES world, records go out the window and anything at all can happen. In my deranged little Red Sox fan mind, I firmly believe this.

The Nation did its collective best. Chants of "Where is Roger?" and screams of "MINE!" or "HA!" every time a ball came near ARod... blonde wigs and masks, also directed at ARod, and all the usual range of anti-Yankeedom that unites Fenway for such games were out in full force.

There was the usual dash of Sox/Yanks drama. All the hit batsmen in the first game, and then Lowell and Mientkiewicz colliding... Yankees saying Lowell's play was maybe dirty, Lowell immediately snarking back that he learned that sort of thing when he was on the Yankees... just a mess. A glorious, typically frenzied rivalry-fueled mess.

It all came down to those moments of ridiculously perfect drama that characterize Sox/Yanks matchups. Who should hit the game and series winning homerun but ALEX FREAKIN' RODRIGUEZ, the brunt of every joke in both cities for weeks. Of course, right? Like it could come down to anything else. And then Mariano Rivera had to remember that he's Mariano Rivera, and shut us down. The rest of the league has been discovering that he's human, but of course in the strange parallel world that is Sox/Yankees, he has fully regained his alien powers.

It's tiring. It's hard being in an alternate universe where up is down, black is white, and the Yankees are an actual threat. I'm sure everyone will be glad to head to Oakland for some hopefully normalized baseball, even if it does mean Wrong Coast times and prolonged exposure to the sheer horror of Danny Haren's facial hair.

2007-05-27T22:07:00.000-04:00

Obviously, I never should have left Ann Arbor.

The Wolverines won nearly every game I saw in person. I head home for the summer, and they come out on top of the Big 10, but are knocked out of the Big 10 Tournament in the minimum two games. Too bad. They won it all last year, of course, and it would have been nice to see them do so again, especially with a relatively young team.

If they had won the Big 10 tourney they would have an automatic bid into the NCAA Tournament... now we don't know. I think the selection is tomorrow (Monday), so I guess we'll find out then. Michigan was nationally ranked for much of the season so our chances of getting in are still OK, but we suffer the permanent baseball-in-the-midwest bias. It's hard to give an at-large bid to a midwestern school when you have schools in the south who live and die by their baseball teams, but who don't win their conference championships simply because every other school in their conference is the same way.

We definitely still deserve it. Uh, not that I'm inclined to lean one way or the other. But really, we WERE nationally ranked (respectably so! I think we were up to 16th in the nation at one point), which is a BIG HONKIN' DEAL for a Big 10 school known infinitely more for football, basketball (even if our basketball team sucks of late), and hockey.

I don't like the double-elimination format of the Big 10 Tournament. It's just not suited to baseball. It's more a football kind of thing... even the AL/NLDS gives teams 3 games before minimum elimination. Baseball games can be so quirky that you need a lot of them to really get at the true skill of a team; this is why baseball seasons are so long and why so many games are played over the course of that season, especially compared to other major sports. To give a team only two games before they get sent home is cruel and unbaseball-like.

In both games Michigan kept it close. The first loss, to OSU, was only by two runs, and the second loss, to PSU, was only by one, in the 10th inning. It's not like Michigan got blown out by vastly superior teams. I know that this is a good baseball team. If they'd been given more games, it would've been completely unsurprising to see them win it all.

Now, I'm not crazy. I know it WOULD be a huge upset if they did well in the NCAA tournament. But I'd like to see them get a shot at it.

Ah well. We'll find out tomorrow.

Relive happier Wolverine baseball times with some photos!

The home opener, which Michigan won over Oakland University 9-2.

A Michigan/OU doubleheader, both of which Michigan won, 4-1 and 4-3.

A Michigan/OU blowout, 17-0 in Michigan's favor.

A Michigan/Eastern Michigan doubleheader. Michigan lost the first game 10-2, but won the second game 10-7.

A Michigan/Purdue doubleheader. Michigan won both, 6-5 and 7-2.

The last game I went to this season, Michigan/Purdue. Michigan won big, 10-1.

Alright. I'll be at the Sox/Indians game tomorrow, assuming it doesn't get rained out and assuming the ticket thing works out (it's complicated). So that'll be Trotter's return, and should be interesting. Hopefully Michigan will get into the NCAA tourney and I'll be in a good mood heading down to Fenway.

2007-05-15T12:29:00.000-04:00

Wow. That was something to see.

Now, don't get me wrong, I was prepared for the Matsuzaka Madness. They do have TVs out there in Michigan, after all. And computers. And newspapers. And anyone with access to one or more of these things is probably aware of Matsuzaka Madness to some degree, regardless of where they are.

But I was still, as I made my way into Fenway for my first Sox game of the year, a bit taken aback by the length, breadth, and depth of the insanity. I suppose that's not what's so surprising; it's how something this massive has taken hold in so short a period of time. Dude just got here! Yet there are signs and billboards in Japanese welcoming you to Fenway, the scorecard I bought outside the park came with a "Welcome to Boston Daisuke Matsuzaka-san" headband, there were kids everywhere with "Dice-K" tshirts and people with Dice-K signs and jerseys with Japanese on the back (which is interesting, because I think the Japan League uniforms, for whatever deranged reason, use English). All this for a guy who's barely been in the country two months. We don't mess around with our baseball crazy in Boston.

The one thing I was looking for that I did NOT see was someone with a Matsuzaka Seibu Lions jersey. I did see some guy in an Expos Pedro jersey, which was impressive, but nobody seems to have dipped into the Dice-K past just yet.

Insanity or not, I then got to see the kid pitch.

Early on it looked like the Tigers might have a chance. The swings they were taking weren't bad, and although Nate was struggling to hold onto batters, he seemed to be more or less up to the task. The thing is, while Nate tired and had to be removed in favor of Tim "I just got here I don't even know if I have the right uniform on ahhhh where are my shoes ahhhhhh" Byrdak and Bobby "O" Seay "can you see how bad my pitching is", Matsuzaka actually.... seemed to get.... stronger.

I noticed it in the 6th inning, when the Tigers started taking cuts so hard they were spun around at the plate. Yeah, Sheffield was one of them, and that's how Sheffield swings, but it was happening to other, less jerkasaur-bat Tigers too. I'm talkin' huge swings, the kind of swing a guy takes when he's SO SURE he has a bead on the ball... only they didn't, and the bafflement upon their faces was extreme. It's like he started REALLY moving the ball around later in the game. "Oh hi, yeah, those first 5 innings were just warmups! NOW YOU SUFFER."

Matsuzaka is not a particularly imposing figure out there on the mound. He's not some giant elongated freak like Randy Johnson and he's not some enormous mountain of a man like Roger Clemens or CC Sabathia. He doesn't seem like he's going to leap off the mound and eat your liver at any moment like Carlos Zambrano. He doesn't even have the same feel as a small guy with a huge mound presence, like a Pedro or a Tim Hudson. He reminds me most (in mound presence, not necessarily pitching style) of Johan Santana.

You see him (Santana or Matsuzaka) on the mound and you think, "Huh. Not as big as I expected. Kinda sweet-looking. Kinda quiet-looking." Then they start pitching and you think, "Well, that's not too overpowering. Maybe this won't be so bad." Then they continue pitching and eventually you realize, "Wow, we're getting our kidneys carved right the heck up." It's a little scary and a lot disconcerting.

Anyways. I obviously took a great many more photos than just the one heading up this post, but I'm still processing them. I'll link you when I'm done.

For the Tigers side of my brain and its view on this one, you can check out my Roar of the Tigers post about it.

For the foreign angle, you can see Iain's post about it, since he's in town and is getting to see all these insanely good games. Obviously the Red Sox love him. For MOAR MOAR MOAR, you can see Jere's post, since we ran into him pre-game and he has a photo of us obsessing over Tigers BP in his post (or, OK, in his shot I'm obsessing over the Tigers while Beth and Iain taunt me about Brandon Inge).

Oh, and Ian of Bless You Boys has an "interview" with me up 'cause he likes getting other blogger opinions. I opine about the Red Sox and swear a lot. It's ace.

2007-05-11T02:40:00.001-04:00

Sox Suck
Originally uploaded by Yankees Man.

This is the scariest damn thing I've ever seen. The dog looks like a person.... in fact he looks more like a person than Jason Giambi does. I am loathe to blog someone else's photo but honestly, I could not resist this one, even if it is wearing a hat of sin.

If I had a dog like this, I would take photos of it in different outfits ALL THE DAMN TIME.

2007-05-06T21:53:00.000-04:00

It is time.

If you've been following baseball for a while, you know that every year Major League Baseball takes a new set of roster photos during Spring Training. And if you've been reading BCRS for a bit, you know that these roster photos usually come out TERRIBLY, in the grand tradition of driver's license photos and the like, and it is one of the sworn blogging missions of BCRS to expose these terrible photos, ruthlessly making fun of them until such time as MLB should hire a photo day photog who uses proper lighting and manages to avoid making half the players who come through look high (regardless of whether they are or not).

Please bear in mind the usual disclaimer: all these photos are from the official MLB site and are directly linked, so they WILL change year to year and as guys switch teams. The images you see may no longer correspond exactly to the comments if you are viewing this in an archived form. But I am OK with this, because it lends an air of strange surreality to the whole thing, and also reassures you all of the happy laziness of bloggers.

Are you ready? I'm ready. It is time for

Fun with Roster Photos! Boston Red Sox, 2007

Pitching!

Josh Beckett
We're off to a quality start. Beckett looks unaccountably ruddy (from... THE EVILS OF DRINK?), and the bags under his eyes indicate that he hasn't slept for days. Exactly where we want him to be when he shows up for Spring Training! I assume he's recovered by now.

Brendan Donnelly
Block head, 5 o'clock mustache shadow. Hawt.

Devern Hansack
Oh lord. He seems to have no lower lip, like his teeth end and some sort of epic chin begins. Does it hurt to chew on your own chin? Only Devern Hansack can know.

Daisuke Matsuzaka
Nervous smile, one eye open more fully than the other... you can just imagine the photog holding up a puppet to try to get Daisuke to smile for the camera, only the puppet is of a disemboweled spleen and Daisuke is kind of terrified, but trying to smile as directed so he can make a quicker escape.

Hideki Okajima
SCARY PLASTIC PUPPET MAN

Jonathan Papelbon
First real-life LOL of the exercise for me. Why does he only have hair on one side of his head? Why is his neck so enormous? Why does he look like he started to smirk, but then was startled by an unexpected flash of light?

Joel Pineiro
The clear-eyed toothy grin of someone who gets a real serious kick out of rooting through your garbage cans.

J.C. Romero
Is it really SO HARD to tell these guys to smile? IS IT, MLB PHOTOGRAPHER? IS IT??

Curt Schilling
Wow, he looks bedraggled here. I think it's the stubble, and the tired expression. Maybe he can go play the homeless straight man to Joel Pineiro's homeless crazy man.

Kyle Snyder
A tan clown without his clown makeup on. And without eyebrows. I'm not sure whether to blame him, his hair color, his hat, or the photographer for that one. Maybe a little fault for everyone.

Julian Tavarez
Jesus christ. Not the bobble-headed alien of yesteryear, Julian now seems to have an actual neck, which has most certainly been filled with illegal smoke some time right before this photo was taken.

Tim Wakefield
Not too bad, actually, in the grand scheme of things... although Wake does end up looking a bit like an apple-cheeked affable hick here.

Catchers!

Doug Mirabelli
A frog-eyed stare directly into your soul. Continuing in the frog theme... no teeth!

Jason Varitek
Why the turtleneck, 'Tek? 'Cause if you were aiming to make your neck look as huge as your thigh, congratulations, you've found the perfect way to do it.

Infielders!

Alex Cora
Wow, he looks like a Ferengi. A really friendly, happy one, but a Ferengi nonetheless. And I wonder about that tiny smudge of facial hair nestled under his lip... does he even know it's there?

Eric Hinske
What in the hell is an Eric Hinske and what in the hell is it doing on my team? Take it away. It's frightening the children.

Mike Lowell
Awkward, close-mouthed smile, check. Oddly misshapen-looking goatee, due to aforementioned 'smile', check. Harsh lighting that highlights the bags under his eyes, check. The goatee is also freakishly black, instead of Lowell's usual charming salt-and-pepper look, but I think we have to blame Lowell himself for that. PUT DOWN THE JUST FOR MEN, MIKE LOWELL. YOU'RE MUCH BETTER LOOKING WITHOUT IT.

Julio Lugo
Infielder, or small rodent? You decide!

Dustin Pedroia
Poor Dustin already has a kind of jaw-heavy face. The slightly lowered angle from which this (and all these roster shots) was taken just makes it worse. Buttchin makes an appearance.

Kevin Youkilis
I'm sorry, but I can't even look at Youk anymore these days. His goatee looks like something Photoshopped onto his face. It's ridiculous. I literally can't handle it. My mind refuses to believe that it is real.

David Ortiz
David Ortiz does not photograph well from head-on, when he's only got half a smile in place, and his eyes seem to be focussing on something a thousand miles into the distance.

Outfielders!

Coco Crisp
Woah... dude... like, woah... I so totally was not expecting you to, like, take a photo and shit... I mean woooaahhh...

J.D. Drew
If Eric Hinske and JJ Putz made sweet, sweet love and had a biologically improbable baby...

Wily Mo Pena
Ha ha, well, we know that Wily Mo's neck really IS that huge, but the one eyebrow up/one eyebrow down thing is hilarious. Why? Did the photog ask him a really weird question and Wily Mo's all, "Say whaaat?" We may never know.

Manny Ramirez
.... I swear to cats this is Manny's roster photo from last season. Which makes me think he just didn't show up for Photo Day this year which... well, it's very Manny.

Ahhh, it's nice to revisit these. It is good to know that rosters may come and go, management may change, but roster photos are always terrible, year in and year out. It's something we can all count on.

(note: if you're having trouble seeing a lot of the banners and icons and things on this site... well, it looks like the server I have 'em on is having some issues. Hopefully it's temporary. If not, I'll move stuff, but for now I'm waiting for it to resolve)

2007-05-03T17:59:00.000-04:00

Ahhhhh! I'm BACK!

I know, I know, I haven't posted in forever and a half years, but I am now DONE with school for the summer and I am HOME in Massachusetts, where there are CATS and RED SOX and.... MORE CATS. And JONATHAN PAPELBON. And DAISUKE MATSUZAKA. And HIDEKI OKAJIMA (whom I secretly love more than Matsuzaka, mainly because of that "I am willing to be a hero in the dark," quote, which is so Cyrano de Bergerac [if Cyrano was, you know, Japanese] that I can't STAND it).

In fact, here is an example of how good it is to be home.

I am watching the local news right now, and there is a WHOLE SEGMENT where they took a photo of Tom Brady wearing a Yankee hat around to various people around Fenway and filmed their reactions.... which ranged from confusion, to disbelief, to disgust, to horror. This is NEWS. PRIME TIME NIGHTLY NEWS. Massachusetts is completely insane, and I love it.

I must admit that I have been a bit baseball-distracted lately. The new baseball overlord over at MVN likes us to write every day, so I've been posting a lot at Roar of the Tigers. I also went to a bunch of Michigan baseball games, because that's probably the best time it is possible to have.

College baseball games.... ah, you can get so close to the action, get all kinds of fun photos, and when the ballpark is within easy walking distance of your apartment, it's even better. In fact, that was one of the few things that saddened me about leaving Ann Arbor for the summer: missing out on the rest of the Michigan baseball season. (I don't have the same reaction about moving away from Detroit Tigers on TV, because we have a dish at home and were thus "allowed" to purchase the Extra Innings package. So now it's just a matter of flipping back and forth on days when the Tigs and Sox play at the same time. Which I will cheerfully do.)

It was a very baseball-ish year art-wise too. My huge year-long project had to do with baseball, and you'll be hearing more about that near the end of this month. I also did some paintings; that's what the photo heading this post is of. 'Tis Fenway. It's a pretty small painting, only about 5x7", maybe a little larger, and an inch and a half or two inches thick. I just wanted to mess around with rendering a ballpark in black and white like this.

Here's a detail shot.

And here you see the 3D nature of the canvas.

Not the only baseball painting I did this year, but the only one of Fenway, so.

Anyways. Although I probably won't be able to post every day over here (it's more than enough 'work' keeping RotT going on a daily basis), I will be posting much more often. There are things to be said about the Lions' draft, posts to be made about Michigan baseball, and of course the Red Sox. There are roster photos to be made fun of. If anyone is still reading this old thing ('tho I'll be writing even if you aren't, o invisible readers), it's good to be back with you guys.

2007-04-20T23:34:00.000-04:00

Hideki Okajima: talk about an IN-FREAKIN-SANE introduction to the rivalry. Yeeeeesh. Could that have BEEN more dramatic? I posit that it could not.

Welcome to the Nation, Hideki-san.

2007-04-15T16:22:00.000-04:00

2007-04-04T10:24:00.000-04:00

2007-04-03T00:07:00.001-04:00

2007-04-02T00:18:00.000-04:00

2007-03-29T00:19:00.000-04:00

2007-03-28T00:36:00.001-04:00

2007-03-27T01:01:00.000-04:00

If you're really, REALLY confused, the answer's in the file name...

2007-03-26T01:28:00.000-04:00

By the way, Michigan baseball is baaaaaack. Post about it here. The photo album from Friday's game is here. The album from Saturday's double header is here.

Once I get the shots from Sunday's game up, I think I'll take a break and do the post for that over here. Just as a heads up.

2007-03-23T10:09:00.001-04:00

2007-03-22T00:38:00.000-04:00

2007-03-21T00:35:00.001-04:00

2007-03-20T01:29:00.001-04:00

I have to say, I watched a spring training game on MLB.tv, and getting to hear Don and Remy go off about NESN's new dating show made the whole cost of the thing entirely worthwhile.

2007-03-16T00:06:00.001-04:00

2007-03-15T00:04:00.000-04:00

2007-03-14T00:51:00.000-04:00

2007-03-02T01:07:00.000-05:00

I've got to say, anyone complaining about how heavy or how much more relatively heavy Curt Schilling got over the winter has clearly never seen Runelvys "Runny Elves" Hernandez.

Like all the rest of us sick puppies, I too watched some of the first Spring Training game. The only reason I did not watch all of it was because it happened to be on at the same time as the UConn/Villanova game, which I was obligated to watch because the BCRS little brother was a student manager on the floor for UConn, which meant that he made edge-of-the-shot TV appearances throughout the game. The fact that I couldn't see the entire game because of this ACTUALLY UPSET ME, which I think is proof positive of my deep and all-encompassing insanity.

I saw a bit of Brendan Donnelly pitching, which led me to think two things:

1. Hooray for a possible induction of pitching goggles into the Red Sox bullpen this season! They are a uniform piece that is JUST GOOFY ENOUGH. I approve.

2. The jerky, almost violent delivery that he has reminds me of nothing so much as a more completed Keith Foulke motion. What I mean by that is that if Foulke's delivery wasn't such a short-armed Tyrannosarus Rex kinda deal, and it involved the full range of motion usually employed by pitchers, it would be Donnelly's delivery. And if that makes sense to any of you, congratulations, you've lost your mind.

Then I had to watch more of UConn being terrible at basketball, but I did get back in time to see some of ol' Runny Elves on the mound.

This is where I tell you that I hate Runny Elves. I hate him. I really do. I wish he would crawl back into the moutainside from which he was birthed and he would spend the rest of his cursed days slowly sinking into the planet's crust. I hate him mostly because he sparked this whole mess with one of the most classless displays of bad baseball behavior I have ever seen on a field. If you're too freakin' lazy to visit the link there, basically he drilled Carlos Guillen on the foot, there was distraction and the ump didn't see it and ordered Carlos to continue batting, and the next pitch from Runny Elves hit Carlos square in the head. Having hit him once, I think there was little question in anyone's mind as to the intentionality of the next pitch. This all of course sparked the brawl where Kyle Farnsworth picked up Jeremy Affeldt and drove him into the turf, which was admittedly freakin' awesome, but the starting point of the brawl was not, and that's the point.

My hatred for Runny Elves was thus first logical ("he has no respect for the game"; "he throws at people's heads") and quickly grew additional illogical supports ("he is made of coprolites"; "he eats puppy livers for his dinner"). I don't care. I hate him. I hate that he's on my team and I have to muster up a cheer while he lumbers around out there.

He is also undeniably fatter than both Curt Schilling and Daisuke Matsuzaka, so eat that, local media.

2007-02-20T13:10:00.000-05:00

Is there anyone who cares at all about the Red Sox and ISN'T talking about Matsuzaka?

The insanity involved in this is pure, utter Bostonishness. There are other cities that are obsessed with baseball, of course, but the Bostonian brand of obsession is a distinct and particular one. It's an obsession that does not keep baseball in its own little niche, but spills it out into all walks of life, as if Boston Baseball is some kind of molasses that you're trying to hold in your hands.

It's not just the baseball that's interesting, but everything surrounding the baseball. What does Matsuzaka look like? What does he sound like? What kind of smile does he have? What kind of glove is he using? How does he wear his hat? How well does he seem on a completely superficial level to be interacting with Varitek? Is he getting along with Okajima? What happens when he meets Manny and Ortiz? Will it be easier for him to stand Schilling for long periods of time because he won't always know what he's being lectured about?

What does the media covering this dude look like? There are teams of photographers whose job seems to be to shoot the Japanese photographers, who are there to shoot Matsuzaka. That's how freakin' meta we've gotten.

And it's not just one slightly creepy and obsessive web entity (exhibit A) chronicling his every move. It's EVERYONE, from the newspapers to the TV stations to the radio shows to the bloggers to the AP photographers. And of course that's not even getting into the constant critical inspection he's undergoing at practice every day from his coaches and teammates. This level of scrunity is not unlike that under which the President of the United States operates. It should be enough to drive most people, even "celebrities", batshit insane.

Here's the thing with Matsuzaka, though. He's from Japan. He's been a huge pitcher in Japan for a long time now, ever since he was in high school. And if there's one international baseball media market that could compare to Boston for sheer relentless obsession, it's Japan.

In a way, Matsuzaka is perfectly primed for Boston, and Boston is perfectly suited to him. He should be used to the kind of insanity that we can dish up, because he was followed so closely even before this*. And I think the language barrier may actually work in his favor a little bit; he's not going to be getting himself upset listening to the wacknuts on WEEI after a bad game. He's accustomed to the scrutiny and simultaneously more able to readily ignore it than, say, ARod (or, to be fair, Schilling).

The Japanese media, who will be probably be entrenched for the season and the long run, get a city that is less bemused by their persistence and more understanding. Boston as a collective whole doesn't really have to wonder when we see a vast horde of Japanese media sorts tailing hopefully behind Matsuzaka as he goes about his day; we can recognize a little bit of ourselves in that horde.

*Of course this assumes that Matsuzaka had learned to handle the media gracefully back home and is past the point where such intense regard could ruffle his feathers. I think he has, or he probably wouldn't have been as good a pitcher as he is, but if he hasn't, eh, you can disregard this post.

2007-02-05T21:26:00.000-05:00

Gather 'round, children, for I shall tell you a marvelous tale, a tale of how Peyton Manning managed to tame a beast famed in myth and song, a beast known all throughout the ESPN-receiving lands, the Pony of Annoying Dickweed Victories.

A scruffy beast is this pony, mangy of coat and mane. But there are those who pursue this pony despite its foul appearance. Yes, truly do they pursue it hither and yon as it skips nimbly through the fertile Fields of No One Giving a Crap Except for National TV Announcers. For the pony is a creature of these fields, birthed among the grassy knolls and from the loins of FOX Sports color men.

Those who pursue this pony do so for their own personal gain, of course; such is the nature of the execrable beast. Many are those who jeer at their quest, many are those who remind them of people more deserving, more likeable, less overhyped. But the pursuers of the pony pay no heed to any of this noise, for they are single-minded in their quest. The Pony of Annoying Dickweed Victories is not for everyone. It may only be tamed by those who are, deep in their innermost hearts, huge fucking dickweeds. I am sure that you, children, have heard of this beast before in, perhaps, a different context; for you must know that Alex Rodriguez longs for it with all of what passes for his soul.

So yes, many are those who pursue the pony, and they are similar in nature. But Peyton Manning grew unhappy with his lot in life, always chasing after the pony, never to lay hand upon it. "Lo!" he thought unto himself as he lay upon his waterbed filled with the semen of unicorns one starry night, "I must find a way to entice the Pony of Annoying Dickweed Victories to my own person. I must somehow capture the attention of this notoriously fickle beast, and I must charm it until it is eating from my very palm."

Peyton Manning had pursued the pony long and far. He was tired, he was fed up. He was blessed with the cunning that God and/or Nature gives to those of evil disposition. He formulated a plan, and enact it he did.

He went forth unto the grocery store and did purchase a truckload of baby carrots. These he did purée, and in this purée did he roll, nude, until every inch of his awkwardly gangly inbred pasty white body was covered in soft orange paste.

Then he did venture into the Fields of No One Giving a Crap Except for National TV Announcers and he called out to the pony. Mildly interested, the pony ventured over, and then the pungent odor of mashed carrots mixed with the salty sweat of a raging inferiority complex hit its sensitive nostrils. Cunning Manning had known full well that this combination would be irresistable to the pony, and indeed the beast did run up to his side and commence hasty, slobbery licking.

The sight of this man-beast love was too much for the noble Chicago Bears, who promptly began vomiting so much in sheer horror and disbelieving disgust that the ball was rendered too slippery for Rex Grossman to hold onto or to throw properly.

So it was that Peyton Manning did tame the Pony of Annoying Dickweed Victories, and there amongst the waving flowers and grasses in the Field of No One Giving a Crap Except for National TV Announcers did he finally gain an Annoying Dickweed Victory to call his very own.

The End.

(copious vomiting)

2007-01-26T22:34:00.000-05:00

It's winter, so that means time for my own personal terrible tradition. That's right. The Winter X Games.

For some reason, I have watched these things every year since coming to college. I could not begin to tell you why. I think at first they happened to be on at times that I wasn't in class, and then I just kept on watching them out of morbid fascination and a distinct lack of baseball or whatever.

It's at the point where I recognize the names now, despite the fact that I know next to nothing about any of these sports. For instance, I think Tanner Hall's new beard looks stupid. I wonder why they got rid of the Moto-X events? And I was concerned enough about the absence of Mike Metzger (before I realized that no Moto-X events were happening) to look him up and make sure he's OK (in short, he is not... he broke his back trying to do a jump from one barge to another [gosh, I wonder what might go wrong with THAT], although it looks like he won't be paralyzed). I appreciate the female snowboarders who get good amplitude out of the pipe, because I realize that they don't usually get near as high as the guys do (and none of them as high as the skiiers).

I get a dorky kick out of Sal Masakela and that reporter with the terrible Boston accent.

I HAVE A WINTER X GAMES PROBLEM OK.

The damn things are only 11 years old, and every year there's new stuff. All these sports are actively evolving. One year, people are doing single flips, the year after someone throws down a double, and the year after that everyone has to be doing doubles just to make it to the finals. If I'm remembering correctly, nobody was throwing 1080s when this stuff started, but you see them now (and, shit, Simon Dumont just rolled a 1260 in the ski pipe). It's not like baseball or football, where there's innovation and new superstars come up, but nothing similar to this current year-to-year growth. It's like watching Darwin's finches. Only, you know, colder, and with more bad music.

The analysts use the word "gnarly" in a relatively earnest way.

At least half the people competing are younger than me, which is simultaneously awesome and extremely depressing.

Mostly, it's just fun. It's fast and bright and loud and requires exactly no thinking power to watch and enjoy. I guess you might call it the perfect ESPN-sponsored event.

2007-01-19T18:28:00.000-05:00

Trot's an... Indian?

I have to admit that this completely blindsided me. Maybe if you're in Massachusetts you've seen it coming, because there's been coverage of some sort or another, but I honestly had no idea. On some intellectual level I knew the likelihood of the ol' Trotter being back was slim, but.... he's TROT NIXON. The concept of him in anything other than a Red Sox uniform is so utterly foreign that I can't even process it. And although I KNEW he had to go somewhere else, if he wasn't going to play here, I guess I didn't believe it.

So when I fired up Rotoworld this morning, fully prepared to just skim through a bunch of short-term transactions with utterly unimpressive middle relievers on National League teams, I saw Trot's name and my brain just kind of... stopped. Nixon agrees to deal with Cleveland? What? WHAT?

I had to head up to the studios, then, to work on some paintings, and that was where I started trying to think this through. Trot Nixon, an Indian. Trot Nixon, playing AGAINST the Red Sox. Trot Nixon, regularly patrolling a right field without the specifically sadistic contours of right field in Fenway.

Trot Nixon with a filthy Chief Wahoo on his head (oh jeeeeeez) instead of a filthy Boston B.

Like so many moves in baseball, this is easy to understand from a logical perspective, and almost impossible to understand from an emotional one. Trotter's older, he's VERY injury-prone, and that's a tendency that's only going to get worse with time. It makes all the baseball sense in the world for the Red Sox to move on and go with someone younger, someone fleeter of foot and less wonky of knee.

But this is TROT NIXON. The ORIGINAL Dirt Dog, the guy who's been there through.... hell, through everything. One of the few Sox who came up through the system from day one onwards, and that's terribly rare in MLB, even more so with the Red Sox... although, with Theo at the helm and the minor leagues improving, I expect that'll start becoming at least a little more common sooner rather than later. But Trot did it in a time when the Red Sox were not at their most developmental best, and he stuck with the team through thick and (very) thin.

The entire length of my active baseball consciousness, Trot Nixon has been a member of the Boston Red Sox. It's about the same for anyone around my age. The Red Sox are not Trot Nixon, but Trot is the Red Sox, if that distinction makes any sense.

I was going to Photoshop Trotter into an Indians uniform, but I can't bring myself to do it. It's too utterly weird, too incredibly wrong. I don't want to picture it, and I'm going to try avoiding a mental image of it until the season starts and I'm forced to see it.

It is, of course, impossible wish him anything but the best of luck in Cleveland (even though, as a Tigers fan, I wish his team overall falls somewhat short). And he had bloody well better get the standing ovation of his lifetime when the Indians first come to Fenway this season.

Trot Nixon playing for the Cleveland Indians.

Still can't quite believe it.

2007-01-09T09:55:00.000-05:00

Man, I know it's been a while here. But I kind of wanted to wait for all of college football to be done so I could have some closure on the season before writing about it.

SUCK A DEAD DOG, OHIO STATE!

There are many opinions around here, the two most obvious camps being the "I feel incredibly filthy but was rooting for Ohio State because it makes Michigan and the Big 10 look better" people, and the "I don't give a flying fruitbat now that Michigan's out of it, and under no circumstances can I make myself root for those foul Ohioan cretins" people. I am one of the latter group. I spared it a thought, before the game, but really? The thought of Buckeyes celebrating wildly in confetti makes me sick to my stomach, almost literally. I did not care how weak an OSU loss would make the Big 10 look; I did not want to see happy Buckeyes. Not ever.

I've suffered enough of that.

So, yeah, the Rose Bowl stunk. A lot. I am really growing to loathe USC in new and gloriously passionate ways. Also, the Trojan is too close to the Spartan for mental comfort (team hate by mascot association? It's the new black!). But today I am relatively happy, because the Buckeyes were horribly embarrassed in front of a national audience, God, and Tostitos. And that's A-OK.

As an odd side effect of this, the amount of Florida pride showing up around campus today is unusually high. Not many people have actual Florida apparel, but even at this relatively early hour I have already seen a ton of Miami Dolphins gear out and about. Hilarious, and definitely not coincidental. My friend Travis showed up (to the art school!) today wearing a truly amazing Dolphins jacket from the early '90s.

I don't want to talk about the Lions. Talk about a pointless win. Talk about not mattering where they are in the draft because they're going to screw it up regardless. Talk about a bloody hopeless mess of an organization.

2006-12-25T00:16:00.000-05:00

ran
This is truly disgusting.

The fact that, at the end of the game, I was sitting there saying things like, "But we COULD HAVE WON if only it had been Roy of the Williamses in that corner of the endzone, instead of Mike of the Williamses and his useless, useless hands," is a reflection on my own personal level of derangement, not on any actual skill on the part of the team. This is a terrible football team. A TERRIBLE FOOTBALL TEAM. This is not a point that can be emphasized enough. A bunch of dudes (even the word 'team' is giving them too much credit) who are INCREDIBLY TERRIBLE at playing the game of football.

Jon Kitna is a miserable human being. He perpetually looks like someone held his head to a giant grindstone, shearing all the flesh off of it, and it's only just finished growing back in a cruel, agonizing parody of humanity. He looks even more like this after he's had his face planted in the turf by the opposing team for the 8 THOUSANDTH TIME IN A GAME. Seriously, how horribly familiar are we all with the image of some fat blob of an opponent lumbering forward unchecked, grabbing Kitna around the ankles, causing him to pitch forward comically as though a giant zip-tie has just cinched his lower legs together? And then BAM, facemask filled with bits of grass and discarded dignity.

EVEN SO, things might be different if the Lions receivers were capable of catching any pass other than a perfect spiral delivered softly and directly into the palms of their waiting hands. THEY ARE NOT. And sometimes they even miss those! Do they ever sit in the lockerroom and wonder how other teams do it? How other groups of receivers manage to catch less-than-110%-perfectly-thrown footballs on a semi-regular basis? Does this not INTRIGUE them? Because I can't shake the feeling that they just shrug their shoulders and assume that the rest of the league is filled with strange, magical creatures that they, as mere mortals, cannot be expected to emulate. IT ISN'T TRUE, RECEIVERS. YOU TOO CAN BE PRECIOUS LITTLE PEGASUSES.

Why did I even watch this? Why do I continue to watch this trainwreck of a pisspoor excuse for a football team???

It's like an abusive relationship, and the Lions are the hideous, abusive boyfriend who beats you (the fan) up every Sunday without fail. But he doesn't even whisper misleading sweet nothings in your ear the rest of the week to make up for it and keep you chained to him by the cruel rope of undeserved love! No! You are so far gone that the cajoling words of love are ONLY IN YOUR OWN HEAD, and the abusive guy calls you a nasty slut and goes out to a strip club with his friends instead of returning your calls and you STILL STICK WITH HIM, why? Why???? IT'S NOT LOVE. You don't know! He never treats you right and he sleeps with other girls (and probably other guys too, we know about your sick "friendship" with Brett Favre, Lions!) and hits you about the face betweentimes, but you CAN'T TEAR YOURSELF AWAY, because THAT'S HOW IT IS IN AN ABUSIVE RELATIONSHIP and THAT'S WHAT IT'S LIKE TO BE A LIONS FAN RIGHT NOW.

What about the offensive line? WHAT OFFENSIVE LINE? Rick DeMulling makes me VOMIT UP MY SPLEEN. I need that spleen, DeMulling! Why do you do this? WHY??

Clint Stickdorn? WHAT THE HELL IS A CLINT STICKDORN????? Is this a real football player who is really on our real roster or is he A FIGMENT OF MY FEVERED, ABUSED IMAGINATION?

Why aren't we playing Dan Orlovsky???? Jon Kitna has nothing to offer us. We would need a quarterback who cries Grey Goose vodka tears and pisses liquified gold to make the kittenish paws of our receiving core receptive to the football; we need a quarterback who is half man, half MANTICORE; that isn't Jon Kitna. It isn't Orlovsky either but who cares?? WE HAVE NOTHING TO LOSE EXCEPT FOR OUR DIGNITY. OH WAIT.

At this point in the season people in other cities talk about running games, and I stare at them like they're claiming a goddamn Tyrannosaurus rex is running around their backyard eating complacent suburban squirrels. In Detroit this mystical creature is long since extinct. The University of Michigan is heading some really groundbreaking archaeological expeditions to exhume the fossilized bones of the running game. They've found petrified mud with cleat tracks in the banks of the Detroit River. There are rumors that such a creature once roamed the earth and breathed the air, but right now it's just academic speculation. I DON'T REMEMBER WHAT A RUNNING GAME LOOKS LIKE.

Also!

MIKE WILLIAMS IS TERRIBLE AT FOOTBALL AND AT LIFE.

MERRY FREAKIN' CHRISTMAS!

2006-12-19T09:42:00.000-05:00

b,
Happy Red Soxful Chanukah!

Heading home for break, thank cats, where there are no more finals, and the news is all Matsuzakan. I've nothing to say about that that everyone else hasn't already said (insane money, but oh this market, hatred for Scott Boras, he had better be worth it, I hope Damon cries himself to sleep over having his number given away, stupid posting system, what's up with his ridiculous puffy jackets?, etc). So, random business.

There have been some pick ups of the Donnelly variety, but this is why I hate the offseason; I can't say anything about these guys, because ANYTHING could happen, most especially with relievers, who sometimes seem to be completely different players from one year to the next. We're stocking up on pitching, and that is good, because I think (hope) that we've learned our lesson there.

Dave Roberts is a Giant, in case you were paying attention. The Giants play at Fenway in interleague this coming June. Wicked, wicked excited to welcome Dave Roberts back to Fenway.

Jonathan Papelbon, starter? Theo's feeling good about it, so I shall as well. Hopefully he can tone his intensity down enough to last, although his first year might be a rocky one. People in Detroit have already started saying the same things about Zumaya, actually... he did come up through the system as a starter, and he throws so insanely hard that they're worried about burnout unless they try to settle him into a more necessarily sedate starting role. I think Papelbon can develop more pitches better than Zoom can, though, at this point in their respective careers. Zoom's still young enough so he's kind of in love with the fact that he can throw 103 mph. Papelbon seems more flexible, at least mentally.

Everyone who has ever had JD Drew on their team hates him, apparently. I don't know. There are guys who flourish in Boston, and there are guys who become nightmare versions of themselves. We already (apparently) have Manny for next season; we don't need anyone out there dogging it. Bleh.

I don't know what to say about this, really, but I was cleaning out my backpack to make it airport-safe (being an art student, it gets filled with unairport-safe things, like scissors and steel metal scraps and *gasp* water bottles over the course of a semester) and found these little dudes hanging out at the bottom of it. Uh, yeah, I guess there is not much to say about them, but I thought I ought to share.

Click for big, natch. Er. Right then.

Oh, and Roar of the Tigers (and MVN) is in the midst of a very exciting makeover. There may be some HTML snags, and things like the blogroll and archives aren't... quite.... working yet, but it'll get there soon. It's much cleaner now, although also less orange, which I think is a shame. Have a look!

2006-12-13T01:35:00.000-05:00

The Red Sox/Boras evening face-down ended before midnight? Lame, everyone involved. If I'm still awake, you bloody well can be too. I wanted this to turn into a grueling all-nighter, with Boras and Theo having a caffeine-fueled staring contest at 4 am while Matsuzaka looked on in complete and utter confusion. I wanted sportswriters uploading hallucinatory notes to their online papers as the night wears on into day.

Basically, this is the final crunch for the Sox to try and get this business settled. It is time for FINALS. I am also in the midst of FINALS. I get about THREE HOURS OF SLEEP A NIGHT. I expect a deal of this importance to require the same rules of engagement that college finals do.

Anyhow, I bet it was Boras who sent everyone home for the evening. Theo's young enough to still have his nocturnal collegiate powers flowin', and goodness knows Lucchino's got enough belligerent energy to keep him up.

Also, I know we're in the midst of a very expertly waged media war between Boras and the Sox right now, but if this deal fails to get done, I am ready and willing to blame the majority of it on the Bore. Have I taken the Sox media lure? Probably. But if Boras has failed to communicate his personal propaganda as effectively as the Sox have, that's also a failing of his, and one that his clients shouldn't be too pleased about seeing. Either way, Sox good, Scott Boras VURY BAD MAN.

Now if you'll pardon me, I have some more work to do, because SOME of us can't afford to call it a night just yet.

2006-12-07T16:07:00.000-05:00

The winter meetings are, I think we can all agree, endless amusement. Yes, there is the ridiculousness of some of the contracts offered (this year in particular) and the hilarity of watching grown men snark back and forth at each other while low-level ESPN peon # 206 makes up rumors just to see someone's boxer briefs get all in a twist. But there is more than that. The winter meetings are fun on an even more simple level, which can be summed up in one phrase:

"Baseball guys wearing what they consider to be business casual dress."

Heavens yes, this never ever EVER fails to be something you can laugh heartily at when large numbers of baseball people get together, because while a few of them might have their sartorial shit together (or at least their wives caught them before they made it out the door), you can be dead certain that plenty of them will not.

See, when they're on the field, they just wear the uniform, or their warmups, or some combination of those. These clothes are HANDED to them, so baseball players don't have a problem wearing them. And if an event's really formal, they can usually handle the concept of "suit and tie", although there are a select few who manage to bollocks that up as well. But the realm of 'business casual' is a dreaded one in the world of baseball. It's pretty evident that they, quite simply, have no freakin' idea what to do with themselves.

One of my favorite business-casual-confused ballplayers is of course Jon(athan) Papelbon, as pictured above, because there simply are not many events outside of painfully hipster outings, prep schools or nursing homes where argyle sweaters of that sort make sense, and to the best of my knowledge, Papelbon is neither hipster, nor prep student, and certain not octogenarian. Another repeat offender is Roger Clemens, whose collection of 'casual but not tshirt' shirts appears to have been put together by a sadist hopped up on psychotropic mushrooms.

But this is not about the players, because this is the winter meetings. This is about the managers, the GMs, the owners, the people who are OLD ENOUGH TO KNOW BETTER, but who still show up dressed to give us a laugh, because they are baseball guys, dammit, they weren't stylish in their day, and they're not going to start being stylish now.

Images are tiny so as to not overwhelm-- clicking them gets you to the marginally larger version.

Mike Hargrove, manager, Seattle Mariners

We'll start off slow. Hargrove's problem here is not the cut of the shirt, at least not as far as we can tell from this shot. The problem lies in the fact that it looks, subtly but undeniably, like the kind of fabric you'd find in your grandmother's living room. Pea green and what looks like muted, yellowed embroidery stripes.... that's not a shirt fabric, that's a fabric for upholstering the couch with.

Buddy Bell, manager, Kansas City Royals

If this shirt isn't shiny, and it's just the light... it doesn't matter, because the truth of the matter is that this is a shirt that WANTS to be shiny. It wants to be silver and gleaming and is almost exactly the same color as ol' Buddy's hair. Kids, it's generally not a good idea to match your outfit to your hair, unless your hair is neon pink and you're going for a Certain Look. Also, shiny shirts with open collars make me think of dance clubs. Impressionable children and managers would do well to never forget the hilarious disaster that was Justin Verlander in shiny purple (and, to his credit, at least Verlander seems to have since made progress in the right direction).

Bobby Cox, manager, Atlanta Braves

This outfit is not so much problematic as it is utterly perplexing. Cox, perhaps knowing his own limits, just decided to throw out all that 'business casual' bunk and wear a normal suit. Braves colors would be a nice touch on the tie, but these colors are, if not particularly topical, at least inoffensive. What confuses me here is how a simple suit can make Bobby Cox look EXACTLY like William Shatner. Because, damn. Seriously, how did that happen?

Brian Cashman, general manager, New York Yankees

I suppose it's not too hard to assume that working full-time for Steinbrenner is a stressful job. I'd imagine that, during the offseason, Cashman doesn't get too much sun. Which is cool, as someone who spends the bulk of the daylight hours holed up in a 10' x 10' ~~cubicle box~~ studio, I can understand. And light blue by itself might be OK, but a light blue shirt under that pale tan jacket is making Cashman look even more pale than he already does, if that's possible. Add in the fact that he looks as though he hasn't slept in about three weeks, and you've got a GM wandering around the hotel looking so sickly that no one (except for ladylike-glasses-chain-dude here) will want to come near him to work out a trade, because they'll be afraid of getting consumption if they get within spitting distance.

Bob Melvin, manager, Arizona Diamondbacks

I believe this pattern (or, more accurately, group of several patterns, laid eye-twistingly on top of one another) speaks for itself.

Joe Maddon, manager, Tampa Bay Devil Rays

Another one that's not so much bad as it is baffling. Maddon does NOT look like a baseball guy here. He looks like he could be wandering around an art gallery. The outfit, the haircut, the artsy glasses... I don't know whether to be afraid or very impressed. I guess you have to take a different tack when you're working in Tampa Bay... the traditional ways obviously aren't working anymore.

Grady Little, manager, Los Angeles Dodgers and Eric Wedge, manager, Cleveland Indians

Double whammy of STYLE! Good old Grady Little looks like Miami Vice gone elderly, with his shrimp-pink shirt under grandfatherly pale gray jacket. Eric Wedge looks like Jack Nicholson in The Shining. I'm not sure what kind of look he was going for with the all black deal, but whatever it was, it's wholly neutralized by his slicked-up hair styling and homocidal grin. Grady, we know you aren't one to move very fast, so you'd better get a running start now while you still can.

Manny Acta, manager, Washington Nationals

The black-on-black gridded shirt over a black tshirt... the bald head... the giant neck... Manny Acta is mere steps away from being an actual bouncer at a nightclub. It's possible that this is actually a useful vibe to put out if you're dealing with baseball players up close and personal for a whole season; perhaps they respond better to this sort of thing than to a manager.

Brian Sabean, general manager, San Francisco Giants

Here is a very simple way to know when something's wrong with a shirt, gentlemen. Look at the shirt. Think to youself, "Would Roger Clemens wear it?" If the answer is yes, don't wear the shirt.

If Sabes had looked at himself in the mirror before leaving his hotel room, he would have realized that Roger Clemens would wear this shirt (seriously, is that a Greek square spiral pattern down the centers of those inexplicable white chunks? seriously?), and we could have avoided all this.

Kenny Williams, general manager, Chicago White Sox and Jerry Reinsdorf, owner, Chicago White Sox

This is one of my favorites. Kenny Williams is wearing a tolerable color (it's a little bright, but they are in Florida) that's ruined by the weird satiny cowboy-style embroidery down the front of the shirt. It actually looks better in this photo than it is, because he's standing next to Reinsdorf, who looks senile, or at least like he allowed a senile buddy of his to dress him for the day. He appears to be wearing a shell jacket. From the 80s. Along the lines of something like this. Chicago fans can be thankful that it's in White Sox colors instead of, say, lime green, but that's about all anyone can appreciate in this little number.

It also looks like Brewers manager Ned Yost showed up wearing the same shirt as Reinsdorf. Awkward!

Jim Leyland, manager, Detroit Tigers

I love him to pieces, but this lurid floral pattern on this curiously formal cut of shirt really does not work well on anyone, up to and including Jim Leyland. It doesn't help that he's got his hands going down the front of his pants (next time, ask your wife to get you some pants with pockets, Jim), but it's really the shirt that leads to laughter.

I dunno, Leyland just looks weird wearing anything other than a baseball uniform anyways... perhaps he was trying to have a little fun with it. Who can fathom the workings of his genius mind? Certainly not us mere mortals.