And not just in the comments section for a recent post here. It might be hard to tell because of the shadow covering his face, but that Knight in Charlotte armor is none other than Flushing Fussing hero Lastings Milledge. This was taken today by real-life friend Scott, who has been named the PBR fan of the game in Charlotte, presumably because he’s the guy sitting behind the dugout taking all the cell-phone photos of Lastings Milledge.
This almost certainly isn’t legal, but it’s definitely cool:
Via Mets Thoughts.
*- I initially had “Your move, Tim Lincecum” because of Lincecum’s acrobatic delivery. But then I thought maybe Pascual Perez, since he was more prone to silly mound antics. But then I thought, nah, screw it, Todd Coffey.
The always-vigilant Cole Hamels photo archivists at The Fightins tipped me off to this: Our man Hamels pitched Saturday with a band-aid on his chin to cover up a pimple.
The photo is itself not terribly embarrassing, but the context makes it embarrassing enough for the archive. So it has been added. I should note that I am myself quite vain and probably not above covering a zit with a band-aid if I were going to be on TV in front of millions of people, but for some reason no one seems eager to put me on TV in front of millions of people, so I can comfortably taunt Cole Hamels for his vanity in this situation.
Also, on an only vaguely related note: Due in small part to that vanity and in large part to a continuing effort to meet girls, I scored a part in the musical my senior year of high school. The first day of dress-rehearsals I had to wear makeup for the first time in my life and, as a longtime football bro, this made me feel more than a little bit self-conscious. Between rehearsals, I went out for food and got pulled over for rolling through a stop sign.
I’m normally pretty good at talking my way out of tickets: Suppress any punk-rock instincts, apologize profusely, ingratiate myself, the whole thing. In this case, though — being a self-conscious 18-year-old — all I could think about was how the cop would judge me for all the foundation and blush I assumed he would immediately notice, so as soon as he approached the window, I blurted, “I normally don’t wear this much makeup!”
$75 or something.
Today is the last day of my vacation. I’m back in New York, but I’m fresh off a red-eye from Burbank and I have a lot of stuff to take care of before I head back to the office tomorrow. There will be more here about the week I just spent in California and some of the food I ate there, but for now allow some loosely collected thoughts while they’re on my mind, before I pass out:
– Dodger Stadium is gorgeous. I scored great seats to yesterday’s game a week ago on Stubhub with no idea I was in for a Jered Weaver-Clayton Kershaw matchup. The game was awesome; Kershaw threw a complete game and the Dodgers won on a walk-off double by Chris Gwynn. The park — the 28th big-league stadium I’ve been to — was equally impressive. My wife pointed out that it looks a little like something from the Jetsons, which makes sense: Both the Jetsons and Dodgers Stadium came out in 1962, trying to look futuristic. The stadium couples that retro charm with the natural beauty of the hills and mountains beyond center field.
I think I am biased toward the 60s and 70s era ballparks because I grew up watching games at Shea Stadium. But I hope Dodger Stadium and Kauffman Stadium in Kansas City last until they are recognized as classics. Their appeal may be more subtle than that of a Wrigley or Fenway, but they are great places to watch games.
– I believe people should be allowed to enjoy baseball however they want. But if you purport to be a Dodger fan and you were spending more time yesterday focused on a beachball than the game Kershaw was throwing, we probably don’t have much in common. Here’s your 23-year-old ace squaring off in a masterful pitcher’s duel with the best pitcher from across town, and for most of the game the loudest reactions from the crowd came when fans let beachballs drop to the levels below.
With two outs and the game tied 1-1 in the top of the ninth, Kershaw allowed a solo home run to Vernon Wells that put the Angels ahead. Still, after he closed out the inning, I shot up to applaud him, figuring any pitcher that completed nine innings of two-run ball with 11 strikeouts and no walks would inevitably earn a standing ovation from his home crowd. But alas. I was the only person standing in my section, and maybe the only one who even noticed Kershaw had thrown nine innings.
To the Dodger fans’ credit, the place rocked pretty hard in the bottom of the ninth when the home team staged its comeback victory.
– Driving around Northern California is a great way to end up with a bunch of Rancid and Primus songs in your head. Driving around Southern California is a great excuse to annoy your wife with a barrage of nonstop movie and television references.
– I made it to the World’s Nicest Taco Bell, in Pacifica. Words can’t really describe how nice that Taco Bell is. Here’s a photo of the view from its outdoor seating area, which doesn’t really do it justice at all:
Full speed ahead tomorrow, fully rested. Jose Reyes is still pretty great, huh?
As you may know, the trailer for the forthcoming Moneyball movie hit the Internet last week. It looks, well, kind of terrible. Here it is:
If you’ve read this site with some regularity, you might know I prefer movies in which things explode. There are precisely zero explosions in the trailer for Moneyball, unless you count Brad Pitt (as Billy Beane) upending his desk.
Anyway, it looks from the trailer like the Moneyball movie is going to be more about a ragtag group of unlikely heroes than exploiting market inefficiencies (which obviously makes a lot of sense, movie-wise). But the way I see it, if Michael Lewis dramatized the story a bit when he wrote it and now studio execs and screenwriters are taking liberties of their own, why not really push it?
Here are versions of the Moneyball movie I would more likely enjoy:
– Action: Jason Statham stars as a rogue general manager who probes too deeply into baseball’s numbers and discovers something he wasn’t supposed to know. Now 29 other GMs will stop at nothing to destroy him, unless he takes care of them first. Vengeance is the new market inefficiency. Features scene of Statham as Billy Beane and sexy spreadsheet vixen Megan Fox diving from exploding stadium.
– Sabromance: Billy Beane (Paul Rudd) has everything: Smarts, good looks, a great family, and a dream job in baseball. But when tough times force him to make some unpopular decisions at work, he finds out that what he needs most is a loyal friend. A story of two men who learn that stripping baseball of its soul just might save their own. Some gross-out manboob humor. With Jonah Hill as Paul DePodesta.
– Musical: The stuffed-shirt commissioner of baseball has banned dancing, but a young hotshot GM is ready to change all that. Starring Matthew Morrison from Glee.
– Film Noir: I can’t figure out how Moneyball might be remade as a film noir, but I bet it’d be sweet. You know I’m on vacation, right?
– Any movie with Terry Crews: We don’t spend nearly enough time discussing how great Terry Crews is. I watched about a half hour of the movie White Chicks the other night because it had Terry Crews in it. Guy steals every scene he has ever been in.
Hard to figure if he definitely needed to in this case, and not as awesome as the last time either way. But still pretty awesome.
Livan Hernandez is all caught up in some The Wire-type stuff. Yikes. (I say “The Wire-type stuff” because I’m in the process of re-watching The Wire, so right now everything about any large-scale drug operation and investigation is going to remind me of The Wire.) Sounds like he was mostly fronting money for a huge Puerto Rican drug-trafficking operation. Also, if you bet that this story would involve meetings at Chuck E. Cheese’s that did not include Livan Hernandez, you stand to make a lot of money right about now.
He is a man of many amazing hairstyles.
“When Cameron was in Egypt land, let Mike Cameron go…” – F. Bueller.
I should tread lightly here because I always find it annoying when people spend too much time deconstructing their own jokes (not that I have any exclusive claim to the blame-Beltran thing, for that matter). But pretty frequently now I’ll make some sarcastic comment blaming Beltran for something and someone will reply — with no lack of vitriol — to let me know that the joke is dead and I’ve killed it.
But killing it is kind of the point, no?
I don’t know. Come to think of it, I don’t really want to explain why I think it’s funny or why I think repeating punchlines ad infinitum is funny because I’m concerned trying to put it into words will make it stop being funny. But right now it still cracks me up to blame Carlos Beltran for ridiculous stuff, and as long as that’s the case it’ll continue. And I also think it’s funny when people who don’t think the jokes are funny get all riled up about them, because I have innate troll instincts. So, you know, SPOILER ALERT: Probably not going to stop.
Hmm… let’s see. Total guesses, obviously: I’ll say 15 percent chance Reyes gets dealt, 65 percent chance Beltran gets dealt, 30 percent chance Rodriguez gets dealt. That sound right?
I know many Mets fans and media think Reyes’ departure is a done deal, but it has never seemed that way to me. Obviously there’s some chance he goes because he’s in the last year of his contract and he’s awesome, but since the Mets will need to get something back that’s better than two high draft picks, it’s going to take a pretty big deal. And I’m still not convinced they won’t make a run at re-signing him.
Beltran, sadly, seems most likely to go. He’s in the last year of his deal, he’s hitting, and he has a clause in his contract that (selfishly) prevents the Mets from offering him arbitration after the season to collect the draft picks if he leaves in free agency. I have no idea what he’ll return in a trade.
I didn’t put the percentage higher than 65 because a) he could get hurt, b) the Mets could stay on the fringes of contention and determine he’s worth more to them, even for a couple months, than whatever he’d bring back in a deal, and c) working out trades is difficult for front offices, and though the Mets will have plenty of motivation to deal Beltran if they’re not near contention, he does have a reasonable amount of money still coming his way this year that could limit flexibility, plus the no-trade clause.
The 30 percent number might be optimistic for Rodriguez. I’m sure they’ll try.
Well first of all, I’m going to go ahead and argue that if the egg is on the outside of the sandwich, it’s not a sandwich. Looking at you, croque madame. I know a lot of people will bill that as a sandwich, but that’s a messy meal you need to eat with a fork and a knife, and once you’re picking up utensils you’re basically spitting on the grave of John Montagu, the 4th Earl of Sandwich. There are plenty of delicious sandwiches that can be a bit unwieldy, sure, but to me a sandwich by definition has to at least make an effort toward portability.
As for an egg inside the sandwich, that I’m fine with. At least in concept. It just so happens that I’ve been down on eggs lately for some reason. It happens sometimes; I eat a bunch of egg sandwiches and then I get sick of eating eggs. But in the past, at times when I am enjoying eggs, I’ve certain enjoyed them atop burgers.
One time I had a fried chicken sandwich with an egg on top, which felt like a great way to demonstrate our species’ dominance over the chicken. Sadly, the sandwich was a bit disappointing, because it turns out chicken doesn’t really go that well with egg, and the runny egg yolk got the fried-chicken breading all soggy.
Tedquarters 