Category Archives: Video

Ruben Tejada can’t get into the bar yet, but he can treat you to the laser show

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Ruben Tejada went 3-for-4 last night with a pair of doubles, including a walk-off job against Brewers closer John Axford. It looked like this:

Since I wrote the epic post titled, “I don’t think Ruben Tejada is as bad at hitting as everyone else does,” the diminutive infielder has rewarded my faith by posting a .333/.394/.500 line across the tiny 30 at-bat sample, raising his OPS for the season to a still-bad .577.

There was a discussion on the post-game show last night over whether the Mets should enter Spring Training penciling in Tejada as their starting second baseman. Bob Ojeda said they shouldn’t even give Tejada the slightest inkling that he’d be considered for the job, and that, though maybe he could compete for a spot in Spring Training, he certainly hasn’t earned anything.

Ojeda’s right, of course. Tejada still needs to improve before he should play regularly at the Major League level for a team with any aspirations at contention, especially at second base (as compared to shortstop, where a .577 OPS is ever-so-slightly more palatable).

If the decision-makers for the 2011 Mets decide the team is unlikely to contend, and that Tejada is a real part of the team’s future and his development doesn’t stand to be hindered by his playing at the Major League level, then, sure, let him compete for a job.

It seems to me that the best and safest route, though, would be to sign a Major League stopgap like the ever-frustrating Felipe Lopez to a one-year deal and let Tejada, Daniel Murphy, Justin Turner, Reese Havens, Josh Satin and whoever else I’m missing battle to eventually unseat him.

After the departure of Alex Cora and with the team reportedly finally ready to cut bait on Luis Castillo, the Mets will need middle infielders anyway, so they might as well sign someone with some sort of reasonable track record while the younger players work to prove their merits in Spring Training and then Triple-A. In other words, let one of those guys force his way into the lineup instead of forcing one of those guys into the lineup.

Ornithopter pretty much B.S.

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Leonardo Da Vinci would be proud: the Snowbird has flown.

Centuries after the Renaissance inventor sketched a human-powered flying machine, Canadian engineering students say they have flown an engineless aircraft that stays aloft by flapping its wings like a bird….

A tow car helped the Snowbird lift clear of the ground, but then the pilot took over, using his feet to pump a bar that flaps the wings — giving it the look of a somewhat drunken bird, according videos of the August event.

The car was need to help with takeoff, because the aircraft had to be so lightweight it could not carry the equipment needed to get itself off the ground.

– Allan Dowd, Reuters.

Oh my, what a marvel of human accomplishment, Leonardo da Vinci’s vision realized, centuries– wait a minute, tow car!? So you’re telling me these Canadian engineering students basically created a glorified hang glider? Dammit, Canada. You always get my hopes up.

Anyway, the thing is pretty majestic to behold, especially set to this music, even if you can obviously see the rope pulling it to get it off the ground at the start:

Kiner’s Korner Revisited: Richie Ashburn

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Fun stuff about the 1962 Mets. Stay tuned ’til the end when he calls batting average overrated, like a good sabermetrician. Easter Egg: Shirtless photo of Jay Hook.

For what it’s worth, I just ventured to the 1962 Mets’ baseball-reference page to gawk at just how bad they were. Holy hell. They managed a team OPS+ of 82 and ERA+ of 82, meaning they hit like 2009 Omir Santos and pitched worse than the late Jose Lima.

Somehow, the 2010 Pirates actually have a team OPS+ of 82 and ERA+ of 81.

Chris De Burgh’s second-greatest hit

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I was mapping out my trek to Governors Island for the Vendys tomorrow and thought about this and it cracked me up so I figured I’d share:

My brother Chris was — and I say this not because he was my older brother, but because I’m pretty certain it’s true — probably the smartest person I’ll ever meet. But he had completely arbitrary taste in music.

Not downright awful taste, just haphazard. He introduced me to a lot of music I still enjoy today, like the Beatles and early-period Mighty Mighty Bosstones stuff before their major-label albums, but he also unironically enjoyed some of the worst music I’ve ever heard.

Later in his life, he claimed that he didn’t hear correctly and tried to blame it on an ear infection he had as an infant, an excuse I’m pretty sure stemmed from a combination of his absurd competitive streak and the fact that my sister and I both played and performed an awful lot of music through college.

He said he didn’t understand why notes an octave apart were considered the same note, and when I explained the science behind it — double the frequency, half the length of string, etc. — he thought it interesting but maintained he couldn’t discern any similarity. Maybe he couldn’t. (I should note that he was always supportive regardless; he showed up to just about every concert my sister ever had when they both lived in Boston and bought me my first bass.)

Anyway, one evening during the summer of 1995, on one of our countless trips to Shea Stadium, he announced that he stopped at the music store during his lunch break at the makeup-case factory and found — and he was proud of this, as though he uncovered a real treasure — a Chris De Burgh greatest hits CD.

I was 14, mind you, and blissfully unaware of “Lady in Red” at the time.

Chris didn’t buy the CD because of that anthem, though. He bought it partly because he and the singer shared similar names, understandable I suppose, and mostly because he was certain that Chris De Burgh’s second-biggest hit, “Don’t Pay the Ferryman,” was a downright awesome song.

He put the CD in the discman he had Velcro’d to the dashboard — connected to the tape deck through that amazing CD-to-cassette contraption I still haven’t figured out — and cued up the tune.

“This song’s great; it’s really scary.”

It played a bit. My tastes were still developing but I was getting into punk rock by then, and though I struggled at that time to find fault in almost anything my older brother did, my sense of decency overwhelmed the hero worship, and I spoke up.

“Ahh… dude. This song, ahh… This song kinda sucks.”

“What? ‘Don’t even fix a price!‘ It’s spooky!”

“I’m sorry, I, ahh… It’s not spooky at all.”

“Well, maybe if you saw the video. It had a really cool video. There were, like, ghosts and stuff.”

I think probably in truth he was a bit chagrined, maybe indeed realized that the Chris De Burgh compilation CD was not the world’s wisest purchase, but was unwilling to demonstrate buyer’s remorse.

I never thought to look up the video in all these years of YouTube until I started searching for details on the ferry to Governors Island. To my brother’s credit, though, the video is, well, kind of awesome. It’s not really particularly scary, and the music certainly didn’t age well, but there are, inarguably, ghosts and stuff.

Supposedly Stephen Colbert testifies here somewhere

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I’m told that Stephen Colbert testifies at some point in this C-Span clip, but I’m almost 20 minutes deep and so far it’s all just sucker MCs hogging the mic. They show Stephen Colbert a couple times so I know he’s in the room, and he’s got a smirk on his face that pretty much announces that as soon as he does something it’s going to be awesome, but still, nothing.

This is so boring. If I ever get elected to Congress I’m going to have to appropriate a ton of taxpayer money for notebooks for all my doodling.

Reports of Carlos Beltran’s demise: Exaggerated?

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Carlos Beltran hit his fifth home run of his injury-shortened 2010 campaign last night. It looked like this:

In the waning days of the season, much of the talk around the Mets has focused on how the team will likely try to move Beltran and the $18.5 million left on his contract this offseason.

And given the presence of Angel Pagan to play center field and the nature of Beltran’s bone-on-bone knee condition, it might not be a terrible idea if the new front office can find a trade partner willing to take on a reasonable portion of the money owed Beltran.

But, as discussed here before, it hardly seems wise for the Mets to eat the bulk of Beltran’s contract just to get rid of him, especially as Beltran — quietly and across a tiny sample, mind you — begins to hit a little bit like the Carlos Beltran of yesteryear.