TheComeback- With the Milwaukee Brewers trailing the Phillies 8-5 heading into the eighth inning Sunday, manager Craig Counsell called on a 25-year-old reliever named Adrian Houser, who had been called up from Triple-A earlier in the day. Houser jogged in from the bullpen, took the hill, threw some warm-ups pitches and then… vomited. Right there behind the mound.
After a visit from the Brewers’ training staff, some water and a brief delay, Houser re-assumed the rubber, and promptly allowed a double to Jorge Alfaro. He induced Jesmuel Valentin to ground out to third base but was then hit with another round of sickness and deposited his lunch on the mound. With Brewers fans predictably chanting “puke and rally,” Houser served up an RBI double to Scott Kingery before retiring the final two batters of the inning, to head back to the dugout having allowed one run on two hits and a whole lot of vomit. --------- More so than being an unsightly display of regurgitation, that was a blatant reminder that you've successfully ignored more calls from your own mother than you have from a weak stomach. Even the most ironclad of insides have been put in a helpless position by impending hurl, but nothing highlights how powerless aggressive nausea leaves us quite like watching a 25 year old pitcher make a complete mess of the stage after finally receiving a call-up to 'The Show'. Of course no one would choose to vom on the mound in front of tens of thousands of on-lookers. Still, if it were at all possible, you'd think that the minor-leaguer whose career has already outlasted that of the Greyhound that was forced into early retirement by the amount of miles he spent on it would work especially hard to avoid having the majority of his professional impression made on the Brewers' janitorial staff. Credit to Adrian Houser for laughing off the unforgiving feeling of what was sure to come when his hands instinctual clutched his knees in response to his throat moistening. He might not have done all that much to prolong his stay in the Majors, but in having only a relative amount of success powering through a puke & rally he gave a glimpse of the future to all minors.
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I typically keep a feather tucked in the craw for instances in which officials take it upon themselves steal the spotlight, but I think I have to soften my stance on behalf of those whose judgement calls govern their respective game on a bi-minute basis. Being a home plate umpire has to be one of the most thankless jobs in all of sports. Therefore, in the rare instance that one gets a little too impassioned in his punch out I think we just need to consider it an occupational hazard of dealing with a startling disparity between things to get yelled at for and things to get excited about for hours on end. I mean, even as the catcher in this situation you'd to be a real prick to get pissed about a swift jab of justice that was in response to a call going your way. If you ask me, that pitch was a wee bit high, so the perhaps the player who tried to frame it should really be more outwardly appreciative of how anxious big blue was to hammer home the nails in hanging that 'K'. After all, happily fixing your helmet is a better fate than having to duck and cover from the type of aimless bat flip that would leave American traditionalists covering their children's eyes and writing nastily-worded letters to the editor...
In almost all cases in which the wrongdoing is not willful, I would say it's extremely unnecessary for one professional athlete to flatly apologize to another as it's generally understood that those who get paid millions to play sports are trying their best. It can typically be interpreted, through both common sense and non-verbal communication, who is letting who down, so I'd imagine that a verbal atonement really only stands to somehow makes things even more awkward in an already contentious clubhouse. In this case, however, I would say it's extremely unnecessary for Todd Frazier to flatly apologize to Jacob deGrom until there's been at least one sliver of evidence that he's happened upon a solution. Apparently it's easier said than done, but perhaps the guy who struck out three times in a 2-0 loss should take a crack at making some contact before offering condolences. Nothing comes off as more disingenuous than repeatedly apologizing for the same damn breach of trust, and...well...just take a look at this shit...
At this point, any Mets' hitter who tries to make amends with Jacob deGrom is the baseball equivalent of a "sex addict" saying sorry to his wife while he reeks of latex and has another woman's lipstick on his collar. Todd Frazier may have had all the right intentions, but so does the alcoholic father who stops at the bar for one single beer on the way home from work. To put it mildly, the entire lineup is way, way, way past any sort of verbal penance. There's no amount of 'Hail Marys' or 'Our Fathers' that can possibly make up for the sins of a team that has just straight up whiffed behind ten acts of a God-like arm, so it's time to work on fixing things in the batter's box as opposed to the confessional booth. Actions speak louder than words, so I wouldn't even blame Jacob deGrom if he were no more than seven shutout innings in a low-scoring loss away from demanding that one of his many underwhelming teammates literally fall on an actual sword as a selfless sacrifice to the Angels In The Outfield. That might seem excessive, but the Mets' offense has been rendered way too impotent for far too long not to take tangible steps to erecting their ace's spirits.
The good news is that, given the ease with which he was able to turn a routine play into a blooper of gut-clutching embarrassment, Chase Chambers may have shown the Mets that they hit on someone that will fit seamlessly into their culture of comedic incompetence with their 18th round draft pick. It almost seems like a self-fulfilling prophecy that the Metropolitans can't even avoid comically bad looks in the college game, but at least a first basemen that can't catch a pop fly seems destined for a farm system that will suit him the best. The bad news is that the visual of that blooper is somehow about 100x more embarrassing than the explanation of it, and that it will be eternally enjoyed by the entirety of the internet. Having a fair ball deflect right off your dick only to skip over the plate that an opposing runner ever-so-casually took at the expense of a sore shaft and a bruised ego sounds bad, until you see it in GIF form. Maybe it's because it's impossible to describe how mystified an observer the pitcher was, but my words could never do justice to a sequence of events that I'm liable to watch on loop all day. That clip might haunt the online existence of Chase Chambers, but it's an absolute godsend of a GIF to anyone looking for a non-verbal way to respond to any and all situations in which someone was made to look stomach-curdlingly clumsy. 
The two plays above are most definitely noteworthy enough to be referenced separately, as one was a timely act of trickery and the other was simply a mistake, but it's the summation of them that is going to haunt Auburn for the foreseeable future. I would argue there's a cap to be tipped to both the ballsy base running and the outfield effort that went awry, but there's nothing the Tigers could possibly be told that make them feel any better about losing on a stolen run and a self-inflicted walk-off. Just like the hand that laser of a game-winning home run careened off of, that loss is going to sting for a while. The pitcher, in all likelihood, will blame himself, even though it would take a whole dormitory worth of Adderall dosing to keep his full focus on the runner at third while there was a runner swimming in the sand in his periphery. The outfielder, who it bears mentioning is a recently converted catcher, will probably blame himself, even though the visual of his detrimental defense is worse than his execution of it on a ball that was absolutely crushed. The truth is, Auburn would have been hurting no matter how they lost to the #1 seed with a College World Series appearance on the line, but these particular circumstances really played matchmaker between the salt and the wound. A great game that went extras, and an obvious "what if" or two is all they are going to be able to lament on heading into the offseason. So, next you find yourself praying to the sports' gods, keep in mind that they have a tendency to be quite sadistic. 
TheComeBack- It’s preposterous that Chad Pinder hit back-to-back foul balls to the exact same seat. And it’s even crazier that the fan sitting in that seat proved capable of snagging both pop ups with his bare hands. That’s not easy!
So who was this man with some of the softest hands in Northern California? His name, he told the A’s broadcast, is Bill, and he lives in Pittsburg, California. “I caught the first one, and by the time I could get the other ball and put it in my pocket, the other one was coming at me,” Bill explained. “I reached up and grabbed the other one too.” Bill said he goes to about 10 Athletics games a year and had never before caught a foul ball, which should give hope to all you out there waiting for that pop up to be hit in your direction. One of these days it will happen. And then it just might happen again. -------- Before now, I didn't necessarily think that you can learn a lot about someone by gauging their reaction to a rare event like the snagging of their first ever foul ball, but I feel pretty damn confident in saying that fan is second only to Beane as the Bill that's most invested in the success of the Oakland Athletics. We can even set aside the fact that the self-torn sleeveless is the unmistakeable mark of a grown ass man in his comfort zone, because the outfit isn't even as telling as the actions of the person in it. I know that fame is typically measured in 15 second increments in 2018, but how many excitable fans out there would set their watch to not overstaying that observance after casually snagging their first souvenir in decades? Bill didn't just act like he'd been there before in quickly pocketing that ball, but he managed to swiftly make it through all his rounds of slapping fives and kissing babies to be standing back at attention for the next wind-up. I don't even think it's a 7th inning-esque stretch to say that there were active Royals' outfielders who weren't as fiery in their focus on the upcoming pitch during the 6th inning of a game between divisional doormats in early June. Of course it bears mentioning that the odds of back-to-back pitches being hit to the exact same seat are about as overwhelming as the pythons on Wild Bill, but - as some of the greatest athletes have our time have taught us - you create your own luck. In this case, it probably wasn't so much the creation of luck as it was the avoidance of a massive migraine. Still, always keeping your eye on the ball isn't just characteristic of the tee-ball players that have the chops to hit a coach's changeup. It's also characteristic of the type of fan that's not just there for a fearsome farmer's tan, but also to root on his team throughout the entirety of the afternoon. 
To be honest, I'm not quite sure I follow the line of thinking on this one. While I totally understand that the most deep-seated and die-hard of fandom gets put out to pasture the second that any team offers you a chance to realize your dream, I'm not so sure that I would now feel better about the outcome of last season's World Series if I were Cody Deason. That's the right thing to say, of course, as it would be preposterously tone deaf to speak disparagingly of the most outstanding accomplishment of the organization that just picked you to be part of their presumably bright future. However, all pleasantries aside, wouldn't giving up his passion for the Los Angeles Dodgers immediately after having celebrated their first title in his lifetime served as a bigger high to leave on than the most mind-blowing of breakup sex? What's even the "downside" there, that he'd be joining the ranks of an up-and-coming team that was still hungry for their first title in franchise history? The truth is that the organization that ultimately grew his love for a game that he's now one step closer to calling a profession could have started packing their shit and heading back to Brooklyn yesterday afternoon and that news would have been merely a footnote on the best chapter of Cody Deason's life to date. Clayton Kershaw could have announced his retirement on the grounds that the Houston Astros killed his competitive spirit, and it wouldn't cause but one drop of rain to fall from Cloud 9 as he stood atop it following the calling of his name. Getting drafted into the MLB, by anyone really, is undoubtedly the greatest thing that can happen to a young athlete. However, in saying that, I don't think we have to act like getting the chance to fully enjoy his first championship before having to start contributing far more than just raw emotion throughout the long, arduous path to winning one wouldn't have been the greatest thing to happen to a young fan. His future is obviously what matters here, but - regardless of how successful his career as an Astro ends up being - there will always be a golden opportunity to go out on top as a devote Dodger that was just barely missed in his past. 
In theory, Mike Fiers makes a fair argument here. An extended stare down, a flipped bat, a deliberate home run trot, and an emphatic finger point back to the mound is a bit much in terms of a reaction to getting accidentally plunked on the forearm with an up-and-in pitch. Unfortunately, I think you kind of have to keep that argument to yourself when you've previously put the man that it's being made against into the hospital with a broken face that brought a swift end to his season. Getting hit by a pitch is most certainly an occupational hazard, but being carted off on a stretcher with a mangled money maker typically isn't. Therefore, it seems a bit disingenuous for someone to go around using insults like "childish" in reference to the type of grudge he's never had to worry about holding. It's probably wise to take a swing in another man's shoes before publicly questioning his character and, if we are judging by Mike Fiers own implication that his accuracy is average, I can almost guarantee that Mike Fiers wouldn't feel totally at ease digging his heels into the batter's box against Mike Fiers. Therefore, I think it's time he shuts the hell up and accepts his long-belated emasculation like a man instead of whining that the person who brought it upon him acted like a boy in doing something as natural and instinctive as remembering who it was that had that bad blood leaking from multiple features of his face. One single base is a small price to pay for each 100 MPH mistake, so maybe we can pen the humble acceptance of any and all vengeful responses in as a consequence of high-speed baseball beaning. Especially in cases where the batter is left laying lifeless on the ground. Safe to say that definitely doesn't carry a self-imposed statute of limitations, and - even on the off-chance it did - there was simply nothing "childish" about the exit velocity on that dinger. 
It's not even necessary to enjoy the hilarity that ensues, but for contextual purposes, this is the controversial play that ultimately resulted in the two polar opposite view points from the opposing managers that followed...
That led to such an outlandishly absurd addendum to one of the above quotes, that no one in their right mind could possibly take it seriously...
....right? RIGHT?!?!
The truth is, I can't be too critical of a Major League announcer that was probably just mindlessly reading off whatever screen was put in front of him throughout the 3-4 hours of dead air he's tasked with filling on damn near a daily basis. It was definitely a Ron Burgundy moment, but give me a microphone and the responsibility of engaging an audience for the running time on Titanic and after about 30 minutes I'd be more likely to sound like Brick Tamland than Jim Brockmire. For that reason, I give Pirates' play-by-play guy Greg Brown a pass here. That said, it is quite the comedic reminder that sarcasm, much like every other language, is not one that is universally understood. The internet can be a confusing place, and that's in large due to the fact that some people are too dumb to decipher things like hyperbole. Again, I'm not saying that Greg Brown is one of them. I am, however, saying that there was easily a handful of followers that were able to put their full focus into the reading of that tweet and still came away questioning whether or not Joe Maddon had ever put in the time-intensive work necessary to plant a tree or build a sand castle. We should get our laughs, because the sincere tone behind the cry for a catcher to instantaneously dig a foxhole to provide himself protection from an errant, unsafe slide is hilarious. Unfortunately, learning the surprising amount of people that had a hard time catching up probably wouldn't be as funny as it would be concerning. h/t AwfulAnnouncing Carlos Gomez Shared A Cool Moment With The A's Fan Who Let Him Borrow Sunglasses To Combat The Sun5/30/2018 
I can promise you I don't say this often about mid-game fan interactions that feature a grown adult that made the decision to bring his or her own baseball glove out with them in public, but that was a pretty cool display. As evidence of just how pleasant it was to catch the rare instance in which a professional athlete and an opposing fan treat each other as people, I'm not even sure I have another snarky comment to add. That was just some good, old fashioned mutual appreciation of sports. One person with a dramatically different rooting interest showing selflessness in gladly giving up his shades, and a much more prestigious person showing gratitude in returning them in addition to a souvenir tip for offering his services as a Sunglass Hut. As long as you are able to suppress how sad it is that an increasingly combative society makes something so simple seem so seldom, I'd say it's worthy of a non-sarcastic smirk. 
SportsIllustrated- During Briarcliff's Section 1 baseball quarterfinal playoff game, fans spotted a small plane sporting a banner that read, "Fire coaches Schrade & Kowalczyk."
The banner referred to the team's head coach John Schrader and assistant Walter Kowalczyk. What's so bizarre about the anger is that Briarcliff has been the No. 1 seed in Class B for the past two seasons and finished the regular season at 17-3 this year. "Although there are some detractors out there, I feel we have the best kids and best parents in Section 1," Schrader texted The Journal News/lohud.com. "I would not want to coach at any other district. ... I love it here." According to The Journal News, a woman paid Fly Signs Aerial Advertising $1,250 to fly the sign over Briarcliff High School for 30 minutes. Although the identity of the women remained undisclosed, Justin Jaye, owner of the advertising agency, said such requests are common. ------- In theory, a parent couldn't possibly be more pretentious, biased, and intrusive than one that pays four figures to fly a banner bemoaning the coaching of a first place team due solely to her own son's (presumably) limited role on it. You're not going to get an argument from me that this particular mother isn't some meddlesome, made-of-money maniac. That said, I kind of appreciate the way in which she chose to go about her perfectly literal execution of helicopter parenting. As obnoxious as it to send your misguided message by way of aircraft, it's almost certainly more bearable than any other way in which she would have approached bitching Billy into the batter's box. Flying a plane that demands the firing of high school coaches might be a little too aggressive to be considered passive aggressive, but I'd imagine it's a hell of a lot easier to ignore than a constant berating from the bleachers. Trying to finance your first-born up a lineup, that is presumably merit-based, by trying to write a completely unnecessary coaching change into existence in the sky is an insufferable move. However, I can almost promise that it's one that's preferable to the auditory abuse that would result from Miss Daisy actually being enough of a proactive parent to drive her ass on over to the field. 
I'll tell you what, I think it might be time to talk to a particular high school coach about becoming a little more open-minded in the utilization of his talent. I know that Todd Peterson had very little to lose by stepping up to the plate for the first time in five years so his confidence was definitely aided by a lack of risk, but the disproportional reward was being treated to one of the most picture perfect swings these eyes have ever seen. What I just witnessed might have just been a freakish, once-in-a-college-career occurrence, but you can't tell me that diabolical weight transfer wouldn't have paid dividends against still developing arms. The story isn't so much that he hasn't hit since 2013 as much as it is that he lied his way into being given the green light in 2018, but there should definitely be a high school coach out there that's currently counting the amount of runs he cost himself by looking out for the health of his ace. As for LSU's coach, I think he could benefit from taking a class on how college kids communicate. If Todd Peterson had made such an over-the-top proclamation to his teammates then he would have been taken about as seriously as the kid that spends so much time talking about the sex he's having that there's not enough time left in the day for him to be having half as much sex. The phrase "I hit bombs in high school!" is an absolutely hysterical thing to drop on a coach mid-game, but it's also as clear-cut an exaggeration as almost every freshman's overly statistical breakdown of how much many shots they totally took at their graduation party. On second thought, maybe it's best that Paul Mainieri isn't hip to how his players hide insecurities, because playing baseball by the book wouldn't have worked out nearly as well as letting Todd Peterson swing away did. Still, it's a testament to the generational gap that such an egregious overcompensation sounded sincere to him. h/t TheComeback  GameTimeCT- After another round of rain pushed back the start of the SCC tournament, the North Haven and Amity baseball teams took it upon themselves to get their quarterfinal matchup in as scheduled. They did it with an epic game of Rock-Paper-Scissors at home plate of the Bob DeMayo Sports Complex. And, after 11 tense rounds, it was the Indians who came from behind to defeat the Spartans 5-4, ostensibly advancing to the SCC semifinals and giving North Haven coach Bob DeMayo’s 900th victory. It was Amity’s first SCC quarterfinal loss in SCC baseball playoff history… Well, ok, maybe not. We’re awaiting a ruling on that from the SCC commissioner’s office. It probably won’t hold. -------- As awesome as this whole scene was, it's really just a shame to see the integrity of competition tainted so carelessly. Glad these guys had their fun during a suspiciously dry rain-out, but I'm not sure the damage they did to the purity of sport will prove worth it in the long run. What do we even have if we can no longer grasp tightly to the prevailing truth that what happens on the field will ultimately decide hard fought games between emotional invested participants? That might sound like I'm scoffing at the idea of deciding who advances in a high school baseball tournament in the same fashion that friends might decide who gets the last slice of pizza, but I'm going to give the SCC more credit than they probably deserve and assume that their semifinalist will inevitably be decided by way of a makeup game. Therefore, my real beef is with the undermining of the once decisive drawing of rock, paper, or scissors. There's just something inherently wrong with hosting a first-to-five series in which the loser doesn't even feel as though they actually lost anything. Is assigning circumstantial values to household office supplies and the most rudimentary of rubble in random drawings not as fundamental a part of America's pastime as the swinging of a bat at a ball? Getting theoretically smashed, snipped, or smothered is supposed to come with consequences, even if they only equate to buying the net round at the bar. It might not be as important as the results of the upmost and elaborate game of base running, but - at the very least - let's hope that Amity got snipped of home-field advantage with that series-clinching tossing of sheers. P.S. Special credit to the scorekeeper. The world would be a better place if we all had a lifetime record kept of our potency in competitive pantomiming... NORTH HAVEN 5, AMITY 4 Scoring: 1st: Amity 1-0 (Rock over Scissor); 2nd: Push Amity 1-0 (Paper Paper); 3rd: North Haven 1-1 (Rock over Scissor); 4th: North Haven 2-1 (Rock over Scissor); 5th: Amity 2-2 (Rock over Scissor); 6th: Push (Paper, Paper); 7th: Amity 3-2 (Paper over Rock); 8th: North Haven 3-3 (Rock over Scissor); 9th: North Haven 4-3 (Rock over Scissor); 10th: Amity 4-4 (Rock over Scissor); 11th: North 5-4 (Scissor cuts Paper) Batteries: NH – Peyton Farina, Luca Lawerence (9). A – John Lumpinski, Peter Spodnick (9) WP: Luca Lawrence. LP: Peter Spodnick. 
Don't you just hate that? One second you think you're about to approach an old friend to catch up on lost time, and the next thing you know you're unknowingly insulting a complete stranger after failing to pick him out of lineup. You really got to feel for David Pingalore here. He was just trying to reminisce about his glory days running around Orlando with Carlos Gonzalez, and - whoops - wrong Latin American fella! Happens to the best of us...just typically not when we are within two dozen drinks of sober. In all seriousness, we all owe Noel Ceuvas a huge 'thank you' for both humoring that reporter and being a good sport, as that clip isn't anywhere near as funny or awkward without the introductory anecdote. If checking the back of his jersey before declaring that two players who look alike in complexion alone are basically identical served as the comical chocolate syrup, and the nervous waving was the whimsical whipped cream, then having his implication that he's hung in the same social circle as ball players for years tick, tick, and BOOM right in his face was the cherry on top of the ice cream sundae of laughably botched interviews. 
You know what, I'm honestly just glad that it wasn't the other way around. Not that it really matters, seeing as Brandon Crawford and Gerrit Cole are former teammates turned friends turned family, but if there's a side for the casual viewer to take in a brother-in-law on brother-in-law at-bat then it's undoubtedly that of the actual brother. After all, while I'm sure it goes largely unspoken (at least when sober) during holidays, there is an upper hand that has to get selflessly relinquished when your buddy takes the hand of your hot sister. A completely meaningless dinger in late-May was really just the somewhat inevitable byproduct of pseudo-siblings through marriage working for opposing organizations in the same competitive profession. However, as I think everyone who has felt obligated to protect a younger sister would agree, if one had to slightly strengthen his family name at the expense of the other then this was the more fitting outcome. If not because a Gerrit Cole already connected with a heater in hitting a hell of a lot more than an opposite field home run off the Crawford's, then because a Cole exerting well-deserved dominance over the discourse at a Crawford family thanksgiving table might have been tougher for a very proud patriarch to swallow than dry turkey... 
Despite him suspiciously offering up zero clarity as to the meaning of the random, otherwise indecipherable, message that he spelled out in unmistakable letters on the mound in the immediate direction of the camera that he knows to be trained on him at all times, I'm with Trevor Bauer in the following sense. I agree that it's ridiculous to presume that a pitcher, who clearly needs work on his decimals, turned the focal point of a professional baseball field into an ode to a teenage conspiracy theory regarding the most deadly terrorist attack on American soil. Theoretically, there's a lot of things that 'BD 91(.)1' could represent, so it takes quite the leap to immediately jump to the conclusion that it was the President-before-last's alleged involvement in killing thousands of his own people by orchestrating the flying of airplanes into prominent skyscrapers while forever compromising his own national security. Unfortunately, the fact that enough people voluntarily chose to take that leap says more about Trevor Bauer than it does those accusing him of trivializing long lost innocent lives with a public political statement that you'd expect out of someone in a tin foil cap, as opposed to a baseball cap. Let's put it this way, in the year 2018, (most) people aren't tuning into baseball games looking for an excuse to bring up 9/11. Therefore, there has to be some sort of precedent set for viewers to believe that a starting pitcher just might be partaking in the type blatant pandering that's usually saved for the most anonymous of internet trolls. I guess what I'm getting at is that perhaps Trevor Bauer should work on cleaning up his reputation before he gets all pissy about an allegation that was a direct reflection of it. It would be dumb to automatically speculate that someone dug 'Bush Did 9/11' into an MLB mound simply because his general viewpoint on just about everything is so Trump'd up that you'd assume The Donald grabbed him by the proverbial pussy to use him as puppet. It's just not as dumb as assuming that someone who sliced their hand clean open while playing with a drone days prior to a playoff start is too smart to do something so stupid. 
Ah, the classic conflicting of priorities! To do things right or to do them efficiently? Despite the half-assing of many a household chores, it remains a question that's as old as the day is long, which is ironically pretty close to the running time of most professional baseball games. To be clear, it does seem a bit rude, to all parties involved, for a manager to hightail it to the mound so quickly that he intersects the celebratory jog of the batter responsible for the visit, as well as sends a message that loosely translates to "I can no longer stand the sight of you" to his underperforming pitcher. That said, as much as baseball loves it's unwritten rules, are we not willing to sacrifice a little sportsmanship to speed things up? Is souring some delicate sensibilities not a fair price to pay for getting the show on the road? Sometimes you have to cut a couple people off if you want to get where you are going in a timely fashion, so maybe giving the middle finger to ritualistic detours is the best way to swerve through the traffic of a nine inning outing in mid-May. Assuming that didn't cross the baseline into grounds for a retaliatory fastball upside the face of an involved player, I'm going to go ahead and declare no harm, no foul on an act of mildly impolite impatience. If not because it's an extremely small step to shortening the game then because I'd be a hypocrite to hate on Buck Showalter for displaying the same type of irritable mannerisms you might see written across my face while on line at the grocery store. 
TheComeback- The Fairfield Stags’ college baseball team had their home finale on Tuesday against UMass. That also meant the final home game for the Stags’ seniors, and of those seniors is first baseman Drew Blake.
In the bottom of the sixth, Blake crushed a two-run homer all the way to a parking lot well beyond the right-center field wall at Alumni Baseball Diamond. The ball landed right in the arms of the one fan standing in the parking lot. That fan is Blake’s dad. ---------- Sometimes sports are just too weird for words, and I say that knowing full well that Drew Blake's father was strategically standing out past that part of the outfield in case his son got all of a pitch in his wheel house during the last home game of his college career. Still, even you consider that the most mild of foresight made that feel-good moment possible, it's tough to argue that you wouldn't roll your eyes if you saw something as unlikely as a game-tying dinger directly to dad serve as a heartwarming scene in a movie. I mean, that ball wouldn't have been any easier for his father to catch if it was magnetized to his belt buckle. Maybe, and only maybe, it could have been more perfectly placed if it were tossed to him from right field. Other than that, he's probably had to move more during the passing of the asparagus than he did when taking one half-step to his left to casually corral a 400 foot bomb from the bat of his boy. It's also cool, awesome, and a whole host of other adjectives when sports give friends and families unforgettable memories to share, but - in this case especially - you'd have to include 'weird' in the list of ways to describe a college athlete being able to cap off his career with such a perfect caption. 
Well, well, well...looks like the jokes on Justin Verlander here. Not only because that response bears a stark and undeniable contrast to the one he had when it was his teammate getting suspended for the use of PED's...
...but also because the only thing the Astros' ace should have been counting was 'almost' (against Brandy's wishes, of course) after Robinson Cano beat his snarky little subtweet by a full nine minutes with an immediate press release that predictably claimed negligence... — Robinson Cano (@RobinsonCano) May 15, 2018 In all seriousness, I'm having a tough time deciding which party I find more unbearable here. On one hand, Robinson Cano looks like an even bigger schmuck for cheating the game while his wallet continues to get fat off the more statistically slender years of a $240 million dollar deal. On the other hand, it's extremely hard to sympathize with a pitcher who is ultimately whining about a handful of tainted at-bats throughout the longevity of his $180 million dollar contract. I know the cyclical arguments regarding the use of steroids, or a - ahem - "steroid masking agent", aren't entirely monetary in nature. Competitive advantage is definitely still a factor in how fans, athletes, and leagues alike view PED's, but it didn't seem to be one that had Justin Verlander up in arms when it was benefiting him. I don't know, I guess I would just have a much easier time relating to the thought process of both the guilty party and his most impassioned detractor if they weren't already set for f'n life. Give me an injury-plagued slugger that chose to jam a needle in his ass in hopes of turning his rookie contract into something that offers some long-term financial security and a young pitching import that's having his keep compromised by having the aforementioned slugger in his division. That's some financial risk/reward-driven animosity that I can get behind. But two guys who, at one point or another, set the insanely lucrative market for their respective positions aren't exactly tugging the strings at the heart of the steroid issue. 
I think everyone with a fully functioning head on their shoulders can admit that getting arrested, detained, and slapped with a lifetime ban is a punishment that it is so egregiously unfitting of the crime of switching seats in a half empty stadium that the sentence might it as well be wearing an obnoxiously neon cap. I'd imagine that inching as close to the playing field as the attendance permits is a practice as old as professional sports themselves, so I'm not going to shame a guy for trying to take advantage of a harmless benefit one might feel entitled to after having waited out the rain. Unfortunately, I have no choice but to shame him for repeatedly doing so while dressed like this...
Now, I think 24-hour stays in central booking should probably be reserved for the thousands of actual criminals running around New York City at any given time. Still, shameless self promotion comes at a cost, especially in the prestigiously priced 'Legends' section of a building as self important as Yankee Stadium. As annoying as Marlins Man is, at least he pays top dollar to guarantee he gets as much screen time as possible while dressed like a complete dickhead. The same can't be said about his distant cousin in the family tree of self-titled human mascots. The Bronx Boob, as he'll be affectionately known be me and only me, clearly doesn't care as much about his view of the game as he does the camera's view of him. You want to run around a professional stadium like it's your own personal playground then at least have the damn decency to show some inconspicuousness by changing out of your self-made EDM outfit before doing so. Again, a lifetime ban is an outrageous penalty, but considering those are impossible to uphold in a stadium that seats tens of thousands of people, all this really does is take attention-drawing, luminescent colors out of his game day wardrobe. If not being able to walk around looking like a crossing guard is enough of a reason for a self-proclaimed "superfan" to stay home then I'd argue it's not enough of a punishment for a guy who seems to like the limelight just as much as he does baseball. |
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