Category Archives: Non-Baseball

Off-Topic Thursday: Summer Trailer Spectacular

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During the off-season, I occasionally had a “Off-Topic Tuesday” where I talked about stuff outside of baseball- usually something related to popular culture. Well, during the season, look for “Off-Topic Thursdays”, in which, well… you’ll see stuff that is off-topic. Like this:

Okay, so the summer slate of movies is coming, and while I have yet to see 42, it looks like it could be a fun summer with lots of interesting movies to go see. So, below the jump, I go through some of the trailers and give my thoughts. Note that I’m only going to look at traditional summer movie fare (action, adventures, maybe a comedy here and there)- if you wanted to hear my thoughts on the upcoming Great Gatsby movie, well, you’ve come to the wrong place.

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The Famous For Something Else Index (as of April 24, 2013)

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Want to see all of the “Famous For Something Else” features so far? Go through the links below:

Mario Cuomo (Governor of New York State from 1983-1994)

Randy “Macho Man” Savage (Wrestler)

Ricky Williams (NFL Running Back)

John Elway (NFL Hall Of Fame QB)

John Lynch (9-Time Pro Bowl Safety)

Kurt Russell (Actor)

Michael Jordan (His Airness)

George Halas (HOF Football coach and player)

Danny Ainge (NBA player and executive)

Scott Patterson (Actor)

 

Famous For Something Else: Scott Patterson

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I’m starting to scrape the bottom of the barrel of baseball players who became famous for doing something else, to the point where I’m now doing TV actors I had to look up on IMDB. So, anyway, here are the statistics for Scott Patterson (IMDB link). After his pitching career ended, he became an actor who has had roles in Gilmore Girls, some of the Saw films, Aliens in America and The Event.


(Go below the jump to see them.)

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RANDOM THING: Ninja Baseball Batman

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I am working on an article about my memories of some of the great baseball video games of the past, but while doing research, I have found something that will blow everyone’s mind: Ninja Baseball Batman.

What is Ninja Baseball Batman? I’ll let this video by James Rolfe, who has a web series, “The Angry Video Game Nerd”, in which he (in character) foul-mouthedly reviews crummy or bizarre games, tell it:

So, basically, Ninja Baseball Batman is a obscure beat-em up game in which you play as ninja baseball players. For those of you who skipped the video, the reason you have never heard of it is because it was only in arcades- not consoles- and was a total failure, selling only 43 machines. It was only found when some gamers came across it on (technically illegal) emulators. Therefore, I haven’t played it, and probably won’t, unless it’s released on a console I have or comes to the PC or Mac.

But, man, this seems like it would be the most bizarre baseball culture. Weirder than the “Double Trouble Header”, weirder than Martian baseball, and even weirder than Rockets Freaking Rigby. I mean, apparently the plot of this game is that the Commissioner hires four ninja baseball players named Ryno, Straw, Roger and Jose to retrieve objects stolen from the Hall Of Fame. Yes, there is a video game that exists that has ninja baseball players named after Ryne Sandberg, Darryl Strawberry, Roger Clemens and Jose Canseco. Although, to be fair, this is like the fifth weirdest thing to ever involve Jose Canseco.

So, there you go, a random post about some obscure video game I have never played… and one of the most unusual baseball-related products in history.

The MVP of Yesterday: The Real Heroes

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Today, I’m not going to write about yesterday’s baseball MVP (although I did pick one- you can see who it was by going down). Instead, I’m going to talk about real heroes. People like these guys. Or these guys. Or former Patriots’ lineman Joe Andruzzi. Heroes. People who, whether professional emergency personnel or merely concerned citizens, whether rich or poor, run not away from horror, but straight towards it, whether it be to save family, friend, or, so often, complete strangers. They are the best of us, and yet they could be any of us. And they need not be the ones actually there helping the injured. They could just as easily be people who gave blood, or who offered shelter to runners and victims who found themselves stranded as Boston was hit by such horror and chaos.

There will no doubt be talk in the coming days of the fiends who murdered innocent people yesterday. People will play armchair psychologist and armchair terrorism expert. But, far too much, the talking heads will forget the people who fell victim to this act, and far too much, they will forget the people who did not run away… but run towards the danger.

Stay strong, Boston.

(Note: For standings purposes, I have chosen yesterday’s MVP- Joe Mauer. He went 4-5 with three RBI and was a triple away from the cycle in the Twins victory. Go below the jump for the MVP standings.)

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Today is the 20th Anniversary of “The Sandlot”

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Today is the 20th Anniversary of The Sandlot. Two things:

A) This makes me feel old (I must have watched that movie on VHS 200 times as a kid).

B) If you haven’t seen this movie, well… you’re killing me, Smalls!

Blog Dealings: The Weirdest Search Results

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WordPress provides me with a list of search results that bring people to the Continuum, but, well, sometimes they can be very strange. Here are some of the weirdest search results that have brought people to this blog, as well as what I think they ended up finding by searching for them- all of these are put down exactly as they appear in WordPress’ list of search results:

  • examples addendum in letters (I have no idea.)
  • baseball gods rules (Presumably to one of the articles where I refer to the “Baseball Gods”)
  • the little scarecrow boy (I have no clue- possible one of the Bizarre Baseball Cultures.)
  • korean numbers (Probably something from the WBC.)
  • is josh reddick trying to copy brian wilson (A good question.)
  • is barbaro canizares jewish? (I don’t think so. Presumably this brought the searcher to a WBC article.)
  • operation polo image (?)
  • men dolls tied up (I don’t even want to comprehend what this person was searching for, but it almost certainly brought them to the Dollman installment of Bizarre Baseball Culture)
  • disconnect between perception & reality (That’s deep.)
  • marvel comics character with ball glove (I’m going to guess one of the Bizarre Baseball Cultures.)
  • savage .304 (Maybe I wrote “a savage .304” somewhere about something.)

So, have you ever come here with a strange search request?

Video of the Day: People Will Come

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Ray, people will come Ray. They’ll come to Iowa for reasons they can’t even fathom. They’ll turn up your driveway not knowing for sure why they’re doing it. They’ll arrive at your door as innocent as children, longing for the past. Of course, we won’t mind if you look around, you’ll say. It’s only $20 per person. They’ll pass over the money without even thinking about it: for it is money they have and peace they lack. And they’ll walk out to the bleachers; sit in shirtsleeves on a perfect afternoon. They’ll find they have reserved seats somewhere along one of the baselines, where they sat when they were children and cheered their heroes. And they’ll watch the game and it’ll be as if they dipped themselves in magic waters. The memories will be so thick they’ll have to brush them away from their faces. People will come Ray. The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game: it’s a part of our past, Ray. It reminds of us of all that once was good and it could be again. Oh… people will come Ray. People will most definitely come.

Happy Opening Day, everyone.

Cool Link: What if sports team territories were actually done by proximity to the stadium?

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Today’s link is of sports team territories. It is basically based on the idea of what the “territory” of each sports team (they have NFL and NBA in addition to MLB) would be if it was actually based off of proximity to a team’s stadium. It’s an interesting contrast to the haphazard, unfair and antiquated television territory maps that exist today.

Florida Gulf Coast University Basketball vs. Fresno State Baseball: What’s the bigger Cinderella?

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Florida Gulf Coast University is the darling of the NCAA basketball tournament, becoming the first 15-seed to advance to the Sweet 16. It is already being called one of the greatest Cinderella stories in college history. But I had to wonder: how does it compare to perhaps the greatest Cinderella story in baseball, the 2008 Fresno State baseball team?

If you aren’t familiar with it, I can’t blame you, as I’ve mentioned before, not many people pay attention to college baseball, especially outside of the College World Series. So I’ll refresh your memory: in 2008, the Fresno State Bulldogs, who only was able to qualify for the baseball tournament thanks to winning the Western Athletic Conference tournament. They were placed into their initial pool as a 4-seed (early rounds of NCAA baseball tournament are double-elimination pools), the equivalent of being a 13 seed or lower in March Madness.

But, a funny thing happened, not only did they advance through their regional and then super-regional pool, but they ended up winning the College World Series, defeating Georgia. They became the lowest seed ever to win a NCAA championship.

So, is FGCU more impressive than that?

Well, no. Mainly, this is because FGCU hasn’t won the tournament, and it probably won’t. However, should they continue on, that answer could change. The reason for this is because of the differences between baseball and basketball.

You see, unlike baseball, basketball doesn’t have any real “equalizer” position. While having a dominant player like a Lebron James or Kevin Durant definitely can help, there is no pitcher who can shut down the opposing offense or hockey goalie who can stand on his head. That means that, usually, the entire team more or less has to play above expectations if they intend to pull off an upset, or have their opponent have a bad day on the same day they have a few players have a good day. So to pull an upset in basketball is far more impressive and rare than an upset in baseball.

However, as I said, FGCU still has a long way to go. Fresno State, after all, won the whole thing- and that means that the Gulf Coast players will have to win four more games if they aim to take the overall crown of the greatest Cinderella in college sports history.