Wednesday, August 06, 2014

Baseball is Poop

Hall of Shame
There is a glaring grammatical error on Greg Maddux's Hall of Fame Plaque. The line reads "only hurtler with 300 wins, 3,000 strikeouts and less than 1,000 walks."
It's fewer. FEWER! How many times do I have to tell you? When something can be counted individually you use fewer. Less is for things that can't be counted, like intelligence. The guy who did this plaque has less intelligence than Les Miles's parents.
The Hall of Fame absolutely needs to redo this plaque and display a grammatically correct version for generations of baseball fans to see.



15,000 Rockies Fans Can't Be Wrong

The Rockies had Troy Tulowitzki jersey night and gave out 15,000 shirts with his name on the back. Only it was spelled incorrectly.



Fans can come to a game in September and trade their jersey for one with his name spelled correctly, at which point he may not even be on the team anymore.

Finally a Ballplayer Who Lives Up To His Name
Reds pitcher Jumbo Diaz is listed at 6'4" and 315 pounds. That's believed to be the highest weight ever for a baseball player. His real name is Jose, but he got the nickname Jumbo because he weighs 315 pounds.



There's Hope for Jumbo Diaz
Former National and Tiger (among other things) Dmitri Young is half the man he used to be. Well not quite, but Young has lost 85 pounds from his 2008 listed weight of 290 to his current weight of 205.
He says a doctor told him to lose weight so he started doing cardio, and he takes a shot of NovoLog (insulin shot, he has diabetes) before every meal and that explains his weight loss.



Supermodels at Ballgames I
Kate Upton seated behind the dugout at the Tigers game gets a baseball from her boyfriend, Justin Verlander.



Supermodels at Ballgames II
Chrissy Teigen threw out the first pitch at the Dodgers game. It actually wasn't a bad throw, it did bounce, but at least she threw from the mound.
She was wearing a "40 Nugz" jersey because when she gets drunk she goes to McDonald's and orders...40 Nugz.

Song of the Week

"Bread and Butter" - The Newbeats
I can't believe it's been 50 years since this pop classic took the music world by storm. I'm even more surprised that it has never been an SOTW before.
Were these guys midgets? They look very short to me.

Monday, August 04, 2014

Don't Anger Hunter Pence

Some creative (vindictive?) Mets fan decided to taunt Hunter Pence when the Giants came to town.
They came to the ballpark with a bunch of creative signs:



"Hunter Pence Puts Ketchup On His Hot Dog"

I prefer to eat my dogs plain. But if I had to use a condiment I would much prefer ketchup to mustard.

Insult rating (on the Don Rickles scale):








"Hunter Pence Eats Pizza With a Fork"

This is a more serious one, but it's worse for the Mayor of New York City than it is for an outfielder from Texas

Insult rating:




"Hunter Pence Can't Parallel Park"

Not funny.

Insult Rating:




"Hunter Pence Likes Godfather 3"

Probably the worst thing you can say about a person's character and judgment.

Insult rating:






But Pence had the last laugh as the Giants won 3 out of 4 and Pence went 6 of 18 with 2 doubles, 2 triples, 2 home runs and 7 RBI for a slash line of .333/.368/1.000.

Not When I Was There

Syracuse University tops Princeton Review's list of Party Schools for 2014.
According to the Princeton Review website, “Schools on the ‘Party Schools’ list are those at which surveyed students’ answers indicated a combination of low personal daily study hours (outside of class), high usages of alcohol and drugs on campus, and high popularity on campus of frats/sororities.”
Legend has it that SU made this list once before in the early-90s which led to a crackdown by the University to avoid this label.
I'm glad to see the school is making a comeback and that the young people who choose to matriculate there are enjoying themselves. But I really thought Greek life was a negative and divisive influence on campus as I detailed in my famous letter to the DO.
I was surprised to see SU ranked #3 of 379 schools in terms of sports scenes. Again, not when I was there. During my time on campus I remember hearing that fewer than 2,000 students had basketball season tickets. A recent run of success, and a National Championship in 2003 (which probably set many current students on the path to SU) certainly have meant a lot for the basketball team, but football, not so much.
But it's nice to see my old alma getting some positive national attention.

Thanks to TON for the suggestion