In this, the 25th official installment of “Bizarre Baseball Culture” (“Rockets Rigby” was something of a prologue), I don’t really look at anything new, so much as look at some things that keep popping up in the series. So far, we’ve had 19 comics-related posts (although some of them have been really short, and in other cases have been two-in-one deals), one movie clip, three animated pieces and one prose novel (plus the short story prologue). So, in all of those, what are some things I’ve noticed a lot of? Well… (GO BELOW THE JUMP)
When most people are at Walt Disney World, they take pictures of castles, characters, rides and palm trees. And I did do that. But, as a person with a new camera and a burning urge to use it and a baseball blog in the dead of winter, I also took pictures of basically every single thing baseball-related I saw while at Disney World in the week before Christmas.
Okay, so, I was going to make my picks for the NFL playoffs this weekend, but then Alex Rodriguez finally received his steroid suspension from the arbitrator, a one-year ban, which is lower than the 211-game ban MLB had originally given him but still the longest suspension in the history of MLB’s drug program.
So, here are my thoughts on that:
Not many people win in this. MLB and Bud Selig have now been shown to have overreached with the 211-game suspension, and also will get bad publicity even as the Hall of Fame vote stuff just starts to settle (on the bright side, Alex Rodriguez won’t see a MLB field in 2014). Rodriguez, of course, misses the entire next season. The MLBPA, although many of it’s members would probably be fine with letting A-Rod burn, has been dealt a defeat, with one of their members being suspended despite a lack of a positive test.
Interestingly, the only people who really benefit (besides lawyers) are the New York Yankees themselves. Without having to pay A-Rod next year, they have more money to possibly use in the Masahiro Tanaka sweepstakes.
This isn’t over. It’s unlikely the federal courts are going to side with Rodriguez, but it still will keep this story in the public eye. And even after the suspension, Rodriguez will likely try to make a comeback in 2015… wherever he plays. It’s hard to see the Yankees wanting him back.
Oh, and guess what? Due to a loophole, Alex Rodriguez will be able to come to spring training. Yankees’ position players must be in camp by February 19! Boy, oh boy!
And now, my thoughts on this weekend’s NFL playoff games:
I’m not going to go against the Seahawks at home, where the stadium has, in the past, caused small earthquakes and gotten to dangerously high levels of noise.
I will, however, go against the Patriots and go with the Colts. Maybe it’s the team of destiny the Colts gave last week, or maybe that’s just me.
I’m going with the 49ers over the Panthers. After going through Lambeau, Charlotte is probably a cakewalk.
I’m going with the Broncos over the Chargers. They just are the better team.
Okay, so, let’s see how well it all turns out to be!
Okay, so, it’s time for the NFL playoffs. Some quick thoughts:
I like the Chiefs over the Colts today. I’m not 100% sure why. Maybe it’s just my gut.
I like the Eagles over the Saints. This time, though, I have reasons. For one, it’ll be really cold in Philly, and the Saints don’t do well on the road, so the Eagles definitely have the elements and the crowd on their side.
Bengals over the Chargers. I feel like Andy Dalton is going to come into his own as an elite QB during this postseason.
I have no idea what might happen in Green Bay on Sunday. It’ll be so cold that weird things could happen, and who knows if Aaron Rodgers is truly “back” yet. So, for lack of a better prediction, I’m just going to say that the 49ers are the better team but I wouldn’t be surprised if the Packers win.
Two Heisman Trophy winners have played in MLB: The most recent one was, of course, Bo Jackson. But before that, there was Vic Janowicz, the 1950 Heisman Trophy winner from Ohio State. After graduating, he pursued a baseball career, only returning to football when it was becoming clear he was doomed to be a benchwarmer on the mediocre Pirates teams of the era.
Sadly, his professional football career was also cut short when the halfback/kicker sustained injuries in a 1956 car crash that left him partially paralyzed. The year before, he had been second in the NFL in points and 10th in touchdowns, leaving his career a giant question of “What If?”
In Bizarre Baseball Culture, I take a look at some of the more unusual places where baseball has reared it’s head in pop culture and fiction.
Today in Bizarre Baseball Culture, we are looking at Ozzie Smith and Tony the Tiger in “The Kid That Could”.
Yes, Ozzie Smith and Tony the Tiger. And I don’t mean Tiger as in “Detroit Tigers”. I mean… THIS:
Yes, this is an actual thing. There was an actual comic book published by DC in 1992 in which Ozzie Smith and Tony the Tiger teamed up. Have your attention yet? Go below the jump for more:
A new Bizarre Baseball Culture is coming tomorrow! But until then, here is a strange thing I found in storage: A Nickelodeon magazine cover where Mike Piazza is playing baseball in front of a bunch of Pokémon. Why? I don’t know!
(By the way, the first one to figure out what the two identical monsters are gets absolutely nothing, but, sure, go ahead.)
Starring Jon Hamm, Million Dollar Arm is the loosely-based upon a true-story tale of Rinku Singh and Dinesh Patel, two Indians who were discovered after winning a reality show in their home country meant specifically to find India’s first professional ballplayers. It looks like the movie is taking some liberties with the events, but, hey, it’s always good to see a baseball movie:
As 2013 comes to a close, I’ll remember the good times we had by reposting some of the most popular things from the Continuum in the past year. Today, from September 19, a look at the clever David Aardsma reference in the Parks and Recreation book:
In 2009, Parks and Recreation first aired. A spiritual spin-off (but not an actual spin-off) of The Office, it follows the life of the Leslie Knope (Amy Poehler) and the rest of the staff of the Parks and Recreation Department in the fictional, Springfield-like city of Pawnee, Indiana.
In 2011, Knope released a book on Pawnee in the show, entitled Pawnee: The Greatest Town in America. NBC released the book in the real world.
In 2013, as part of a Netflix/Hulu binge to get caught up on Parks and Recreation before the next season starts, I also read Pawnee: The Greatest Town in America. I got it from the library (thankfully, my local library is not run by Ron Swanson’s second ex-wife Tammi). In doing so, I was able to catch a clever baseball reference in it during a section on Pawnee’s school board- which is filled with people who have lots of A’s at the start of their names in order to be at the top of the ballot, helping them win simply through the laziness of the voters of Pawnee. I’ve put the page up below the jump*, can you spot it?
This is something that could just as easily be a Bizarre Baseball Culture. It’s the Sammy Sosa-starring slow-pitch softball, uhm… “classic”: Sammy SosaSoftball Slam.
I would have reinstalled this game to do a review, but I decided not to… because I can remember how much it sucked. I have played many horrible games in my day: I flew through freaking hoops in Superman 64 (how can you make a Superman game where the main activity is FLYING THROUGH FREAKING HOOPS!?!?!), I played a horrible Pokemon knock-off masquerading as an adaptation of Animorphs, I think I even played ET The Extraterrestrial for the Atari 2600 once in a museum somewhere.
Sammy Sosa Softball Slam is in that category of horrible. It was, for one thing, hilariously bad an idea. Let’s make a softball game… BUT WITH SAMMY SOSA! Even admitting this was the year 2000, I have to think some type of hallucinogens were involved for such a bizarre idea to happen.
The game itself wasn’t that much better. It was easy no matter what mode you were doing, the players involved (with the exception of Sammy himself) were ridiculously nondescript (compare this to the colorful cast of the great Backyard Baseball series), the graphics were bad even for their day, the announcer was annoying (he’d call Sammy “the man, the myth, the legend” basically every other time he came to the plate) and, oh, right, it was still a softball game starring Sammy Sosa. By the way, I remember that Sammy’s statistics were maxed out in the game, and that there was also a button on the player editing screen that would allow you to transform any player into Sammy Sosa- even if the player was a woman! Yes, with just the tap of a button, you could change anyone, regardless of age, race, or gender, into Sammy Sosa circa-2000… to play slow-pitch softball.
Think about the horrible implications of that.
Yeah, scary.
Oh, and this was the “thrilling” opening to the game. Although this is from the Playstation version and not the PC version, I seem to recall it being very similar:
Yes, this is an actual thing. There was an actual comic book published by DC in 1992 in which Ozzie Smith and Tony the Tiger teamed up. Have your attention yet? Go below the jump for more:
The Baseball Continuum 