"YouTube Hall of Fame" - Grantland.com

The best baseball moments recorded on film in pop culture. Pretty cool stuff. No crying in baseball, Field of Dreams, etc.

What I'm more interested in talking about in re: great baseball moments is, did you know that Kirk Gibson was basically the fastest white dude of all time? Look it up, that same mustachio'd Kirk Gibson who hobbled around the bases in the '88 World Series after jacking that home run. Apparently he played flanker at Michigna State and when he came out he was supposed to be the next Mickey Mantle. Like the greatest raw, white talent anybody had ever seen. Reports coming in that he ran a 4.1 forty. Shit is incredible to me, though I've mentioned this to about 30 different people today and I think maybe one person cared and he works with me so he may have just been being professionally diplomatic. Whatever, shit is bananas.

http://www.grantland.com/blog/hollywood-prospectus/post/_/id/44596/youtube-hof-special-spring-training-baseball-in-pop-culture-edition

"In Defense of Ryan Braun" by Charles P. Pierce - Grantland.com

I didn't get a chance to read this but I trust Charles Pierce and some of my dudes got all riled up about it today so I say read it. I haven't been really following this story but I don't see how if the dude didn't get any bigger or heavier or faster or whatever, how could he have been doing steroids? I'm no scientist but that shit doesn't make any sense to me. Was he taking duds? Because taking shitty steroids shouldn't be illegal. Dude's just shrinking his nuts with no upside. My two cents.

http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/7620049/in-defense-ryan-braun

"Spaceman Time Warp: A stoned baseball fan’s look at Bill Lee’s High Times cover story" by Brett Phelps - TheGoldenSombrero.com

So Bill "Spaceman" Lee was this huge stoner, professional pitcher in the 70s. Dude once pitched a no-no on acid. Then he became a cult figure. Appeared on the cover of High Times while still an active player. Here's an insightful reader's review of the High Times profile of him. Fans used to throw dimebags at him. He loved it.

http://thegoldensombrero.com/archives/5834

"The Silent Season of a Hero" by Gay Talese - Grantland via Esquire

I'm not 1,000% sure what happened here. Grantland took an Esquire piece from 1966 written by the great Gay Talese about the also great Joe DiMaggio and published an annotated version of it? I dunno, they basically just wrote an introductory paragraph. Not sure how this happened. Either way, it's considered one of the greatest pieces of sports journalism of all time, and it's definitely worth your time.

http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/7115592/silent-season-hero

"Deadspin Classic: A Prayer for Steve Bartman" by Will Leitch - Deadspin.com

Poor Steve Bartman huh? I watched ESPN's documentary on him last night and the only thing I wanted to do was give that poor defenseless nerd a hug. And that's saying a lot, because I hate nerds.

Here's a good essay on him and his infamous non-catch from Will Leitch's book, "Blah Blah Blah, Baseball Nostalgia, Blah Blah Blah".

http://deadspin.com/5844491/deadspin-classic-a-prayer-for-steve-bartman

"Baseball Has No Fighting Chance" by Jason Gay - WSJ.com

Jason Gay writes for the Journal about how the NFL dominates major league baseball. I wonder why that could be? Oh, I know. Could it be because baseball is boring as sin to watch? You know when I first realized baseball was boring? I was 8, watching the Mets-Dodgers in the '88 World Series, wondering exactly what kind of scenario would need to transpire for the Mets to call me up to bat in the playoffs, because I was certain I could have taken that nerd Orel Hershiser deep. The second I realized Davey Johnson wasn't stepping through that door was the second I realized baseball was boring to watch.

Wow there is a huge pod of dolphins out my window right now. I'm at the beach.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904007304576494440128632246.html?KEYWORDS=football+baseball

thanks to Healy

"The Best Team I Ever Covered" by Jack McCallum - SI.com

Pretty decent string of features SI.com has going on right now, getting a bunch of their writers to write stories about the best teams they ever covered. Here Jack McCallum writes about the original Dream Team and about Charles Barkley tearing up Spain during the olympics.

Barkley's gotta be the number one athlete of all time I'd hang out with. Mickey Mantle fucking partied but probably was kind of an uninteresting hick. Babe Ruth was a slob and looks like he smelled. Some dudes might say AI, but I guarantee you you would get bored hanging out with Iverson real quick and you'd be lucky if you didn't get robbed or beat up. Um. DiMaggio, Favre, and Brady are/were tools. Jeter would outshine you. Gronk seems like a good time but I don't know much about him. Honestly of active athletes I might hang out with Jared Allen. Dude seems legit funny. Anybody who signs copies of his DWIs for fans is probably pretty down to earth and chill to crack a Coors Light with.

But all time definitely Barkley. If only for what he said to the cops.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2011/writers/best_team_i_ever_covered/07/10/mccallum.dream.team/index.html?eref=sihp&sct=hp_t11_a2

"The Fan Who Fell to Earth" by Chris Jones - Esquire.com

Chris Jones is trying to break your heart.

http://www.esquire.com/the-side/feature/rangers-fan-dies-6060909

"Where Does Derek Jeter Rank in the 3,000 Hit Club" by Will Leitch - NYMag.com

I think I once almost subletted a room with this cat Will Leitch in the East Village? I don't know, name sounds familiar to me. Anyway, he did a comparison of some of Jeter's other stats to players in the 3,000 hit club. The Captain comes out shockingly well I think. Granted his WAR sucked, and you could make the argument that that's the only stat that matters (how many games did he actually help his team win, as opposed to if some other guy was playing for him that day). But still, 13th in batting average, 15th in home runs, 14th in runs ... not bad. Oh, and he was numero uno in World Series rings. CONCRETE JUNGLE WHERE DREAMS ARE MADE OOOFFFFFFF!!!!!

http://nymag.com/daily/sports/2011/07/where-does-jeter-rank-in-the-3-000-hit-club-.html

"The Big Trade" by Mark Jacobson - NYMag.com

Love this article. In-depth look at the time in 1973 when Yankees pitchers Fritz Peterson and Mike Kekich swapped families. Wives, kids, the whole kit and kaboodle. Just about the weirdest sports story of all time right? I can't think of anything weirder off the top of my head. I suppose at the time Magic getting AIDS was probably more shocking, but not weirder. Dock Ellis tossing a no-no while tripping balls is weird but more "holy shit" weird, than "what the fuck?" weird. I'm really kind of stumped. Randy Johnson nailing that pigeon with a fastball? Forty percent of the Yankees starting rotation swapping families for realsies has got to be it right?

Anyway, break down on these people based solely on the picture with this article. Clearly Kekich was banging both chicks well before the swap. He traded out the chick second in from the right for cheekbones on the far left. Cheekbones looks like she could be frumpy but has better bone structure than the other one and that's probably why the Robert Redford looking cat ended up with her. His first wife looks a little sluttier and probably caught him earlier on with dick-breaking sex but soon he realized that she was kind of shallow and boring and she probably realized that he was kind of a dick and was banging cheek bones anyway, so she was down for the swap because that tall dopey bastard Peterson was a hell of a lot nicer. Fairly certain that's exactly how it went down.

http://nymag.com/guides/summer/2011/mike-kekich-fritz-peterson/

"Back into the Belly of the Beast" by Chris Jones - Grantland.com

Chris Jones is good. You need to be reading him if you like sports and good writing about sports. He's Canadian though. Only deduct one half of a point. Nice guy.

Here he kicks off Bill Simmons' new Web site Grantland.com with an article about writing about baseball. Kinda meta, whatever whatever. It's a good site, and if you like this site, you should like that one.

http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/6629015/back-belly-beast

"Lips Get Smacked" by Bruce Buschel - Deadspin.com via Philadelphia Magazine

This piece is part if Deadspin's "Stories that don't suck" series. It was originally published in 1993 and was anthologized in "The Best American Sports Stories" 1994 edition. It's about Lenny Dykstra. Nails. A ballplayers ballplayer. This writer sat with Dykstra as he lost a bunch of money playing cards in A.C. You're gonna like this article.

http://deadspin.com/5802309/were-on-a-fucking-roll-dude-the-1993-profile-of-lenny-dykstra-that-warned-us-what-was-coming

"Aging Process Strikes Again" by Doug Glanville - ESPN.com

With Jeter and Posada getting older, and a changing of the guard taking place with the Yankees, much has been made about old players and when they should hang 'em up. Doug Glanville--a former pro ballplayer himself--writes an insightful and kind of heartbreaking article here about realizing that you've lost a step, and you're never going to get it back. He makes the interesting observation that "baseball players are terrible self-evaluators who need denial as much as they need a rocket arm." He's right. In a sport where failing 70% of the time is considered a good thing, you better have a short memory, be an optimist, and have mental toughness. If you don't, I'm sure it's not to late to try out for lacrosse. Bunch of little league drop-outs over there. Couldn't hit a curveball.

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/columns/story?columnist=glanville_doug&id=6547213

"Why I Think Steroids Are Out of Baseball" by Joe Posnanski - SI.com

Joe Posnanski thinks juice is out of baseball. Maybe. I don't really know. Players do seem flabbier these days. A-Rod is built like a normal human being now and not like the centaur he thought he used to look like.

In other news, I just had dinner at Southern Hospitality, and the bartender mistook my girlfriend for Nick Swisher's fiance except I looked her up and L-Boogie is better looking. So stick that in your pipe and smoke it.

http://joeposnanski.si.com/2011/05/11/why-i-think-steroids-are-out-of-baseball/?eref=sihp

"Inside Baseball" by Dan Shaughnessy - SI.com

This quote from the article sums it up just about right.

"Manny could really hit, but he never cared. Neither should you."

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2011/writers/dan_shaughnessy/04/10/manny.ramirez/index.html?eref=sihp

"Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu" by John Updike - Newyorker.com

An oldie but a goodie, this piece about Ted Williams' last game by John Updike is considered one of the best pieces of sports writing of all time. Ted Williams just amazes the shit out of me. Last man to bat .400, 521 career ding knocks, missed five years of his prime to two different wars and was such a sick fighter pilot the military made him an instructor for other fighter pilots. Love to see A-Rod's fancy ass do that. Splendid Splinter indeed.

http://www.newyorker.com/archive/1960/10/22/1960_10_22_109_TNY_CARDS_000266305

"'Would You Rather with Joe Mauer'" by Rafi Kohan - GQ.com

Love this game. Just the things you find out about people's psyches y'know? People are crazy. Joe Mauer would rather be bald for the rest of his life than finish last in his stupid division just once. That's what I call long-term dumb.

http://www.gq.com/sports/guides/201103/joe-mauer-would-you-rather

"Same .270 Average, Varied Weight" by Ben Shpigel - NYTimes.com

The Times weighs in on the Yankees on their season's eve. Oddly enough, Jeter and Rodriguez were two of only five MLB players who batted exactly .270 last year. Obviously people are tweaking out about Jeter's drop in batting average, but no one's made a mention of Rodriguez at the same number.

I don't know, I guess it can be rationalized by A-Rod's power numbers. I'm just still trying to figure out if I'm impressed that he's 6'3" 222 at 9% body fat. I expect more.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/30/sports/baseball/30yankees.html?_r=1&hp

P.S. Right?

"Derek Jeter's Swinging Years" by Seth Mnookin - GQ

This is a profile of Derek Jeter from the new GQ. It's high quality, but that's not what I want to talk about. Did you know Jeter just got voted second greatest New York athlete of all time? Do you know how absurd that is? Jeter's probably not even a top five Yankee of all time. Let alone NYC baseball player. And God forbid you say NYC athlete. Ruth, Gehrig, DiMaggio, Mantle are no-brainers. But then you have to sift through Whitey Ford, Don Mattingly, and oh yeah, Yogi Berra and his 15 All Star appearances, ten World Series Rings and 3 MVP awards. Do people realize how good Yogi Berra was? Read his http://www.wikipedia.com/ page, its absurd. Talk about short shrift, guy probably is a starter on an all-time greats team and all anybody remembers about him is the dumb shit he said about a fork.

Oh, Willie Mays and Lawrence Taylor also were NYC athletes. Jeter is duking it out with Ewing and Namath for like 10th place and they should all be happy if they snag it.

Just riffing there, enjoy your poops.

http://www.gq.com/sports/profiles/201104/derek-jeter-seth-mnookin

ps. 1. Ruth 2. Taylor 3. DiMaggio 4. Gehrig 5. Mantle (Mays was probably better but he wasn't as iconically New York as Mantle)