American Hooligans

For all that I slag on ESPN, ESPN The Magazine usually has some really, really good articles. This installment is a hell of a story about Greg Maddux. Make sure to print this out and contemplate it upon the porcelain throne.

King Kaufman is one of the first guys I’ve seen that actually looks better as a caricature. Nigga looks like a hipster werewolf.

On to the story, though. King Kaufman went to check out an open tryout for one of the indie leagues and filed a video report. These are the guys still struggling just to stay in the pros, much less make it into the minors. It’s a really interesting, if slightly depressing, look at the scrappy underside of baseball.

Patrick Thoresen of the Philadelphia Flyers made the ultimate playoff sacrifice. As a result of blocking a shot, it looks like the young guy is going to lose a testicle. Dear Jesus.

The legend goes that when Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown, the British military band played a song called “The World Turned Upside Down,” because the greatest empire in the world had just been beaten by a bunch of gritty upstarts in tricorner hats. It’s like J.D. Drew suddenly waking up in the ALCS to hit a grand slam…

Nevermind.

Let’s take a look at what’s happened since we collectively woke up in Baseball Bizarro World.

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Florida even corrupts dudes from The Dominican Republic.

A Tampa Bay Rays pitcher was Tasered by an off-duty police officer Thursday night at the Hyde Park Café.

According to police, pitcher Rafael Reyes, known as Al Reyes, was arrested after being Tasered twice by the officer.

Witnesses said Reyes was drunk and stumbled against a ceramic pot, but thought someone pushed him. The witnesses said he got into an argument with a man who punched him in the face and caused the player to bleed.

No word whether these were real cops or baseball cops.

I am bias, I admit, but to me the Montreal Canadiens have easily the best atmosphere and crowd of any pro sports team in North America. The way the city gathers around the team, reacts to everything and is just so loud is intense. I think it beats even the big football stadiums.

A video after the jump.

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Last night, the Blue Jays were playing the Oakland Athletics in extra innings. The Jays being the home team, they of course only needed to score one run to win. They ultimately lost, but not before a play where they demonstrated a universal rule of baseball that every coach from Little League to the MLB uses and in so doing proved that baseball is for girly men.

Here is the situation: Bottom of the 11th (or 10th?), they have 1 out and runners on 1st and 2nd. The batter hits a blooper into the shallow outfield. What do you as a coach tell the runners?

Hold! Hold! HOLD!! (See photo)

Of course you do, because your sixth grade gym teacher read it in a book.

This is why baseball is for girly men (see Arnold for a counter example).

The fact is, sports involve risk and had the coaches waved the runners to go there were two possible outcomes: he catches it, tosses to a base and ends the inning. Or he misses it, Jays win.

Who wouldn’t risk an inning ending double play for a shot at certain victory? A girly man!

The other outcome is the runners on 1st and 2nd hold close and then dart if it falls in. The result if it does? The runner at second gets tossed out, you have 1st and 3rd with two out. Or, they’re all safe (unlikely) and you have the bases loaded with 1 out. Keep in mind, the Jays only needed one run.

Ultimately, they played it safe, the guy got caught at 2nd and then Frank Thomas struck out to end the inning. Sure, they could have won with another base hit, or they would have ironically won had they had two out for the blooper, but these things don’t matter. They should have rolled the dice and gone for victory. The upside of loading the bases was less relevant than having two out. Had they had 1 out, they could have sack flied and that is the logical play, but they didn’t, because the Road Runner was not at first base waiting to go.

So Thomas stikes out, the inning ends, no one scores and the Jays lose in 12.

They should have run, taken the risk and grabbed the victory.

Good job Manager McNoBalls.

You know, I sat down and looked at American Hooligans today, and I said, “Man, nothing’s going on in sports lately. I sure wish I had something to write about!” But since there’s really nothing worthy of commentary right now, I shut the fuck up. Lucky for me, though, Mike Bauman doesn’t have the same filter.

You see, everything in sports has changed, folks. The Red Sox have turned the corner on the Yankees.
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Sports Illustrated does one of their fancy photo galleries, this time since no one likes hockey, they compare NHL stars to real life stars in side-by-side shots. I’ve seen many of these over the years and they’re usually, “mm, I can kinda see that,” quality, but not this time. Some of these are downright creepy.

For your clicking pleasure.

Good news, Braves fans!

Jordan Schafer, the Atlanta Braves‘ prospect suspended for 50 games for human growth hormone use, did not test positive for HGH. Rather, he was suspended after major league baseball probed anecdotal evidence of HGH use by Schafer, two sources familiar with Schafer’s case told ESPN The Magazine’s Buster Olney.

The article goes on to reveal a new and exciting development.

But Major League Baseball does have the authority within the agreement to pursue specific information about possible violations. Schafer is the first casualty of MLB’s new Department of Investigations, sources familiar with the case told ESPN’s T.J. Quinn.

Baseball has cops now, sports fans. All I want to know is where do I sign up to enter the Academy? I’m a loose cannon who only plays by one set of rules: my own.