Sammy Sofa

There's a video showing them a few posts up from yours. They look exactly like you'd expect indoor bullpens to look. Like horsefeathers. I don't like them. I wouldn't like to sit in them If I were a relief pitcher. Like a fish in bowl. Some would say it's freedom.

You're going down, Peterman. Gonna be drowning your sorrows in yam-yam and Shanghai Sally.

WE DID IT.

Good god, that uniform color is searing.

He's more dong now than man...twisted and evil: [tweet] [/tweet]

Rich Hill's got blisters on he fingers, or something. I dunno; he's broken again, so Alex Wood is pitching. It doesn't really matter who the Dodgers put out there because Lester is going and I'm assuming LA is still a bunch of schnooks against pitchers with the mystical ability to throw with their left hand. Lester might look like he escaped from Making a Murderer, but there's nobody else I'd rather the WORLD SERIES CHAMPION CUBS have out there for their triumphant return home. Bang a dong/get it on, motherhunkers: https://youtu.be/6YTusMMJCGU

"Spank? SPANK?!? SPAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANK!!!"

So the Cubs are coming off of a pretty tasty win that was accomplished sans dong. Woe betide the foolish team that faces them once they are unsheathed. Let's see them make that day today. Jake is taking the mound so Lester can triumphantly parade in front of the masses at the Home Opener or something, and he's facing a guy who has pretty poopy numbers over 5 starts against the Cubs. Let's get freaky and see something like Heyward boxing the Brewers' ears with a couple of humongous dongs. BANG ON. https://youtu.be/hZkJxq1_31E

Good god. What are you?

Which would make sense if he had said "I'd honestly rather be 2-2 than 4-0" and didn't explain what he was saying. Y'know, that thing that he actually did.

Because it's not automatically "weird" given the drawn out nature of the game we're here to discuss. Sure, 4-0 is great record-wise no matter what, but what if all 4 of those wins were something, like, 8-7, and required the offense donging out of their minds, or multiple comebacks/extra innings wins because the pitching stunk? Whereas the 2-2 team lost 2 very, very close games, the pitching looked damn good, and the "problem" is a stacked lineup getting off to a shaky start at the very beginning of the season. The context of those sample sizes are very different.

Fixed. Forgot that that nightmare matchup has happened FOUR horsefeathering TIMES.

Last's night game was so boring I fell asleep on the couch before it was over. Tonight's game will be the good type of boring as amazing pitcher and world famous boring guy Kyle Hendricks takes the mound. Here he is at Dartmouth wearing a t-shirt that diplomatically does not choose a side in the 2004 World Series: He faces some dude named Tommy Milone, who is already on his fourth team and looks like the weenie lovechild of the bad guy from Desperado: http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/images/players/head_shot/543548.jpg http://www.hotflick.net/flicks/1995_Desperado/995DPO_Joaquim_de_Almeida_005.jpg Let's help the mighty Cubs offense wake up and catch up to the pretty bitchin' pitchin' we've seen so far by posting some choice bangers (you may choose to go with songs or sausages).

Yeah, for at least a couple innings now it looks all fuzzy no matter how many times I try to restart it.

A Tebow home run at least gave us this magnificent Derwooding. Maybe he's not all that bad.

REPENT, HEATHENS: [tweet]https://twitter.com/TitanicBaseball/status/850144688950607872[/tweet]

I'm just conceding that yes, no doubt the guy was racially prejudiced, as typical of most everyone back then, but the label of "racist" shouldn't apply to him anymore than it would to Walter Johnson, Pete Alexander, Smoky Joe Wood, or any other ballplayer born that year. It's an interesting thought. The average person with any sports knowledge knows who Ty Cobb is because of the Stump myth. You've got the Soundgarden song, the movie, the Field of Dreams reference (which is interesting since Cobb and Jackson were good friends and Cobb financially supported Jackson for years until Joe's death in the early 50's.), the Ken Burns series, etc. None of these pop culture references exist if not for Stump's BS. I think that without the Stump book, Cobb would obviously still be a well known name to the likes of you or I, but to the average person he'd be a Walter Johnson or a Grover Cleveland Alexander. Agreed.

Or maybe he's actually truly switched sides and is doing it to spite you, by forcing your pee break to be shorter than preferable. This team is just one big pee break right now. I'm chugging as much water as I can so I can be in the bathroom instead of watching.

I swear, Dex is doing them an intentional favor with some of these horrible 1-2-3 swinging K AB's he's having.

Thing is, there are NO DOCUMENTED instances of him being racist. There are no documented instances of him doing anything ugly with racial motivation, not by actions or words. This is something that Leerhsen harps on quite a bit in the book, which by the way is a fascinating read and has won tons of awards. He was stunned to not come across anything verifiable about him being a racist. As Leerhsen wrote: "“If you stick to the facts, and not the myth or the assumptions about someone born in Georgia in 1886, it's very hard to make a case for Cobb being racist.” Quite the contrary actually. His grandfather was a notable Southern abolitionist and had to go into hiding to avoid being killed for it during the Civil War. His father was the most progressive Georgia politician during his time (before famously being killed by his own wife at 42 the day before Ty was called up to the bigs). His father repeatedly put forward legislation to improve black schools (always failed) and broke up multiple lynch mobs, physically putting himself between the black men about to be killed and the mob themselves. So yes, it does matter because it's unfair to besmirch someone's character for being a racist when there is no evidence that they were (in early 20th century terms). Dude, you're all over the place; one post you're all, "of course he was a racist, as it was the style at the time," and now you're yelling at me like we have to acquit because the hood does not fit. If Ty Cobb wasn't a racist or not, I really don't care; I'm more curious as to what you think of the rest I said. Honestly, I think non-bastard Ty Cobb would be all but forgotten except when showing up on stat lists broadcast factoids. Oddly, his horrible reputation arguably did him a favor and actually made him a legend. "Amazing player/horrible human being" is, for better or for worse, MUCH more memorable. A reformed Cobb is potentially a forgotten Cobb.

I think you could argue pretty well that someone like Jeter and Brady are pretty similar figures/celebrities relative to their respective sports. Griffey is a good example of a singular player who became one of those next level-type figures. It's hardly impossible, and personally, I think you're going to see more guys along those lines as the game goes forward. I don't know if you think I'm agreeing with everything Stark is saying, and I don't; I just agree that baseball has had a dearth of big time marketable players for a while (but I don't think this is necessarily terrible or pointing towards a bad fate for the sport; I just agree in that it's a thing that has been going on for a while that wasn't always the case) and I'm optimistic the Cubs can help change that. I think "the health of the game" or whatever is fine; it's not going to go south if it keeps chugging along without big national stars. I just like the idea of seeing those types of guys again, and I like the idea of the Cubs supplying them.