I don't normally just post random stuff here, but this is more than worth it. It's a rendering of the famed Dock Ellis LSD-no hitter, with narration by Dock himself. The killer animation is by James Blagden. Thanks to RBI artist Mark Penxa for passing this along:
A few weeks ago, we asked readers to answer some silly postseason/Halloween themed questions. Their answers are pretty fun to read now that the postseason has ended and Halloween is long gone. Our favorite responses are below:
1. The 2009 Playoff Yankees: same old overpriced trick, or sparkling new, glorybound treat?
Dave: Can it be both? Still a corporate behemoth that kills the dreams of small-market-team children everywhere, they DO have pitching this time around…
Stretch: Sparkling new glorybound treat, thanks largely to the class and intelligence of their respectful-of-the-game skipper. Expect to see more titles in the next half-dozen years. (Note: this coming from a guy who has never liked the Yankees.)
Kenneth: Step 1: Compile team of superstars. Step 2: ???. Step 3: Profit(make the playoffs). Well those assholes have made it to the playoffs in 14 of the past 15 years. That sounds like an extremely old overpriced trick to me.
2. The postseason always seems to be prone to fluke performances and freak accidents. Closers blow saves. Left fielders drop routine line drives. Journeymen pitch like ancient heroes. Is this just statistical randomness at play, or do supernatural, paranormal forces bewitch the arms of hurlers and jinx the mitts of Gold Glovers?
BL: I find it rather distasteful to call Grover Cleveland Alexander’s battle with epilepsy during the 1926 World Series a “supernatural, paranormal force”
Ember Nickel:
There’s many a freakish, odd play
That would be forgotten in May.
But done in November
You’ll surely remember
It after the year goes away.
Akshay: Anabolic Steroids are known to only last exactly 162 games based on current research. No wonder Matt Holliday messed up and Joe Nathan forgot how to pitch.
3. Scariest Halloween nickname: Al “The Mad Hungarian” Hrabosky, Vlad “the Impaler” Guerrero, or Jack “the Ripper” Clark?
Consensus winner: Vlad "the Implaer" Guerrero
4. If you could put your own postseason curse on a team, which team would it be? What would the backstory be? Get creative.
Dave: I would curse the Chicago Cubs to win the World Series every season. At first they’d be thrilled, but soon they would come to lose their sob-story identity entirely, and everyone in the league would hate them for their constant success. This insane shift of fate would be so dramatic that Cub fans would start complaining that it isn’t fair that they never lose, just to get back to complaining again.
BL: The worse curse possible: I would have die-hard fans of a iconic glory starved team, say the Indians or Cubs, lose a heartbreaking 7-game World Series or NLCS to an expansion team that doesn’t try 4 out of every 5 years, prominently features teal in its uniform and plays in a football stadium where good seats are generally VERY available oh and Kevin Brown should be on one of the teams – that would be really fucked up
Paul: I would curse the Dodgers to watch an endless loop or “I don’t believe what I just saw” and Kirk Gibson doing his limp-ass fist-pump. Over and over, for all time.
5. Which overused historical postseason baseball highlight have you seen so often that you want to dump a bucket of blood a la Carrie on its head? Which underused moment in history should be prom king?
Alex: Sorry Eric, but Gibson’s homerun, great play, but lets give it a rest. And now for my homerism Endy Chavez’s catch in the NLCS.
Reeves: Kirk Gibson’s home run. I mean, Game 1? Really? Give me more Joe Carter
Paul: I would curse the Dodgers to watch an endless loop or “I don’t believe what I just saw” and Kirk Gibson doing his limp-ass fist-pump. Over and over, for all time.
Akshay: Kirk Gibson. Easy Answer. I would use 1995 Edgar Martinez double down the line ending with dogpile on Junior and that pretty smile of his.
Kenneth (edited version): The Gibson HR gets a disproportionate amount of airtime. Yes, yes FOX we understand that he could barely walk when he hit that HR. But really him swinging a bat pales in comparison to Willis Reed running up and down a basketball court for 40+ minutes.
Fine guys, I get it.
Ember:
Though it’s but my bias, I am
Partial to Ventura’s “grand slam”,
A ghostly home run.
Yes, the game was won,
But single, salami, or sham?
6. More effective Cardinals postseason disguise: Brendan Ryan as The Rogue or Albert Pujols as a banjo hitter?
Consensus: Banjo Hitter with bad mustache.
7. Hypothetical situation: a new rule requires admitted and convicted PED users to wear a scarlet letter of shame on their uniform during the playoffs. Do you support or oppose this rule? Why or why not?
Akshay: They should all be tattooed with a big asterisk on their forehead.
Steve: Consider where most of the Scarlet Letters of Shame would be needed. Do you really think they’ll show up well on the Red Sox uniforms? Oh, SNAP!
Ember:
Throughout the decades, baseball’s seen
Cheaters, racists, those just plain mean,
And various jerks.
I don’t think it works
To make this decade’s drama a scene.
You can’t choose one era’s bent laws
And claim they’re the ones to give pause.
Though the game’s been hurt,
Red thread on a shirt
Won’t do a lot to help the cause.
8. Name the horror movie villain who best corresponds to the postseason’s remaining closers: Mariano Rivera, Jonathon Broxton, Brad Lidge, and Brian Fuentes.
Rivera: Mike Myers, T-1000 from Terminator 2, that little bunny from Monty Python's Holy Grail, the Chupacabra (inexplicable), Hannibal Lector (winner!)
Broxton: Frankenstein, Biff from Back to the Future, David Wells, Swamp Thing,
Brad Lidge: Dr. Jekyll / Mr. Hyde, Jack Torrance (Nicholson's character in The Shining), The alien guy from Men In Black. He may be scary, but never succeeds.
Fuentes: Pennywise the Clown, Cartman, Brian Fuentes of the ‘07 Rockies (scared the dickens out of Denver, beginning about September 15th), Freddy Kreuger
I.
I had the chance to wander around outside of Yankee Stadium for an hour or so before Game Six. I’ll use clichés to describe the atmosphere: you could cut the tension with a knife, the air was electric (the crowd was buzzing), hearts were aflutter, and a lot of people were drunk.
II.
Here’s what pisses my friend Steve off: “For the past ten years, people have been saying that the Yankees have proven how money can’t buy a World Series. Today they say that the Yankees' winning just proves you can buy a World Series.”
III.
There were a lot of solitary men around River Ave. looking for individual tickets to last night’s game. They had signs, mostly, and stood apart from the usual scalper crowd. From the desperation in their middle-aged eyes, you might have guessed that the Yankees had never ever won a World Series before.
IV.
Here’s what Ted thinks about the Yankees' winning: “In the end, the Yankees' winning again signals a sort of return to normalcy, for better or worse. It’s like John Wayne regaining control of the ranch away from the raggedy outsiders.” Or a white, Protestant, male regaining the White House. Zing.
V.
Not enough people have taken the time to mock the whole “Win one for the Boss” theme. They were even selling officially licensed tee shirts outside the stadium with said motto. Has George Steinbrenner really had it so bad? Did he recently become – somehow – a sympathetic figure? Will this 27th ring be the one that finally allows the old codger to take a deep, satisfied puff on his cigar, tell himself “my life’s work is now complete” and then go gently into the Tampa night?
Edit: Stop reading this post right now! Instead, read Ted and I's "etherview" with FanGraphs destroyer Carson Cistulli. If you are here for the first time via said interview, then welcome, please make yourself comfortable.
In order to help you through these frozen hours before the World Series does or doesn't end tomorrow, we bring you some rare weekday reading. And this awesome John Wayne clip from The Longest Day that I hope both managers are showing their teams. "We came here to take something. We're gonna take it and hold it!"
Ted: The best part about making predictions is praising the ones you got right and pretending the ones you got wrong never existed. That said, what hasn't surprised you about the World Series so far?
Eric:You mean besides the fact that the Yankees are up 3-1? What hasn't surprised me is the way these teams have won and lost, and the sheer randomness when it comes to which players have driven those results. Sure, Mark Teixeira and Nick Swisher were having lousy postseasons. But is it really a shock that they have hit for power in the World Series? Sure, Brad Lidge has walked that tightrope successfully so far in the playoffs, but wasn't he doomed to fall off eventually? If anything, the World Series has been kind of a regression to the mean. Cliff Lee's performance in Game One withstanding, the Yankees have just flat outplayed the Phillies. But speaking of pitching performances, I want your opinion on what Cole Hamels said after his start:
"I can't wait for it to end," Hamels said, referring to his wildly inconsistent 2009 season. "It's been mentally draining ... It's one of those things, a year in, you just can't wait for a fresh start.
Sons of Steve Garvey wonder if if Hamels is the anti-MSB. Is that the case? Or did a frustrated dude just misspeak a little?
Ted: It seems like less than coincidence that a fellow who has appeared in more creepy ads than the Burger King king has also spoken out against wanting to play any more this year. And it's an odd time to say that you want the year to be over, in the midst of a World Series in which the end is in plain sight. What does he gain by saying such a thing, when he won't even be pitching again this year as his mates battle it out on the field? Anyone capable of such a statement at such a time is clearly a bit self-centered. No MSB would find satisfaction in but a single World Series ring.
As I watched Nick Swisher swish his way out of a slump during the game from two nights ago (it was a simpler time, before the Phils had to win three in a row), my buddy Dan turned to me and said, "He told everyone he was gonna end his slump tonight and he did it!" I don't know if that's true, but assuming it is, then you can see the difference between a Swisher and a Hamels. Swish's clubhouse presence has been hammed up all year, but when it comes down to it, I'll take a guy who's constantly talking about how tomorrow is a new day over a guy who sulks it out in the showers. Every team has to have that positivity freak who, even if he's annoying, rubs off on the more stoic ones in the group. I think Rollins has been that for the Phillies in the past, and Swisher's on it this year. He's the guy who skews up the median optimism up past mid-range through sheer force of will.
It's always easy to cite this mojo-type thing after the fact. But is it more a case of what Dan said later in that game, about Swisher bringing the team closer?: "Winning brings a team closer." Cliff Lee's game would suggest that a great starting pitcher is more valuable than a bragadocious, faux-hawked right fielder, but you'd have to check the numbers on that one. Though given one mediocre player vs. another, I'll take your Swish any day. Is it too late to bother with these questions, since the Phillies seem doomed anyhow? Are they doomed?
Eric: I like how our answers in these conversations are by themselves double the length of the average post on many other baseball blogs. I'll just skip all the stuff about optimism because well, I'm not really optimistic. As to your questions about the nature of this exercise, no I don't think it's too late. The Phillies may have been doomed from the start, but if they were/are then that's beyond our control. We have discussed the role of fate/religion/aliens/robots in determining the outcome of this postseason. But all along we've had to just accept the fact that if these things actually do matter, actually do have an impact, we don't know what that impact is. We speculate because we're ignorant as to exactly what factors will affect the outcome. Is it sheer force of personality a la Swisher, or is it sheer force of hitting the ball really hard a la A-Rod? Or, once again, is it aliens?
From a purely baseball perspective, I think the Phillies are done. We've seen teams come back from 3-1 deficits. But The Yankees. Are. Just. So. Damn. Good. Seriously, it's ridiculous. I still want the Phillies to lose, but the sheer awesomeness of the Yankee lineup is starting to annoy me. Looking at a Yankee box score is like standing at the bottom of Mount Kilimanjaro and staring straight up. You feel so insignificant. Any inkling of affection I had a few days ago for the Yankees has now been replaced by nerves and fear. They scare me a little. They are not of this planet. So I ask you -- bearing in mind that to disrespect them is to risk your life -- how can anybody actually like the Yankees? Is there anything sympathetic about them at all?
Ted: Every superhero has his weakness, and his/her endurance as a compelling figure hinges on the audience's capacity to fear their falling, or their failing. It may be that the Yankees flashed their vulnerability in the first game of the World Series, and games two through whatever are merely this plot's symphonic crescendo. Maybe A-Rod's early whiffs were like the Incredible Hulk taking that blast from the sound cannons before stepping up and hurling a Hummer into the fray, and Brad Lidge is General Thaddeus "Thunderbolt" Ross. Then again, Cliff Lee's up again. Perhaps the Phillies have got themselves an Abomination-in-the-hole.
