IT CAME FROM MLB.COM AUCTIONS: The Tigers’ Snack Container

Due to freelance duties, there will be no “Headlines From Around The Continuum” today. However, to make up for it, I bring you another weird internet baseball auction! To be more specific, this one isn’t on eBay, but from MLB.com’s own auction site. I present to you, the 2015 Frito Lay Snack Container from the Detroit Tigers Dugout!

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Yes, you can own a snack container that may have been grabbed-from by Justin Verlander, Miguel Cabrera, pre-trade Yoenis Cespedes and David Price, and Jose Iglesias! Just think of the sesame seeds taken from this container that were then chewed by such greatness! If not for the insane 15 dollars shipping, I would surely be first in line to bid for this piece of baseball history*!

I mean, yeah, you could be going after the jersey that Jose Bautista was wearing when he unleashed the Bat-Flip of the Gods, but that’s just one player! This snack container represents the history of an entire (last-place) team!

Bid now!

 

*No, no I wouldn’t. It’s a freaking snack container. This entire thing is tongue-in-cheek, as you probably figured out.

Nothing good can happen tonight in Mets-Dodgers

(The following is about 90% sarcastic. I hope.)

Given that Chase Utley is going to be eligible, here are a few possibilities of what could happen tonight:

Scenario One: Nothing.

Utley doesn’t play. There are boos and stuff during the pre-game and during the game, but no retaliation is done and it more-or-less is uneventful. However, this just means that the bad stuff will happen later. This is the least-bad scenario.

Scenario Two: The Mets Go Bad

The Mets are America’s darlings right now and most everyone is feeling for them after what happened. However, imagine if tonight Chase Utley doesn’t play, but the Mets go for their vengeance anyway. Perhaps they do a hard slide against a Dodgers middle-infielder, or decide that Adrian Gonzalez would make a nice substitute for Utley at the plate? Then, all the sudden the Mets look like just as big of bullies as the Dodgers, and while the home crowd will eat it up, almost everyone else will be disgusted.

Scenario Three: The Carousel of Boos

Utley plays, but doesn’t do much at the plate or in the field and the Mets don’t retaliate either. He just hears very loud boos all night long. One of the least-bad scenarios.

Scenario Four: Taken Vengeance

This scenario is simple: Harvey or another Mets pitcher pegs Chase Utley with a pitch. Maybe they get thrown out, maybe they don’t. Whatever happens, though, Utley just walks to first, knowing that he deserved that. The score more-or-less settled, the game goes on.

Scenario Five: Throwdown in Flushing

Like the above scenario, except Utley, possessed by some strange demon, charges the mound. Low-level fisticuffs are had, people’s mothers are insulted, there is pushing and shoving, and both Utley and the pitcher who hit him is sent to the showers, perhaps with other players as well. It’s a bad look for MLB and the two teams.

Scenario Six: Doomsday

You’d think the above would be the worst scenario. You would be wrong. Here’s the worst scenario:

Utley plays. In his first AB, he homers or does some other big play that scores runs for the the Dodgers. The fans are incensed, especially because they believe he should have been suspended. Things are thrown on the field, the game is delayed for a time, security is heightened.

And then things get worse. The Dodgers start to go nuts at the plate, running up the score. And then, during his second AB, Utley gets beaned. All hell breaks loose. The benches clear, the bullpens empty, actual punches are thrown. In the chaos, fans who have been drinking for most of the day (it’s Columbus Day and some will have been off, after all) begin to rush the field. NYPD and stadium security is hapless as anarchy descends upon CitiField. Bartolo Colon throws a trident. One player is caught on camera knocking out a drunk with one punch. Mr. Met’s head inexplicably ends up on eBay.

When the dust finally settles, the game is called and the Mets forfeit Game 3, leading to outright soccer-style rioting outside of the stadium that eventually leads to the Mets also forfeiting Game 4 and thus the series. The entire incident goes down in history as the ugliest fan moment in baseball history since at least Disco Demolition Night.

 

So, yeah, this could ugly.

The Best Unofficial Baseball Shirts for Postseason Teams!

Last month’s look at unofficial and unlicensed baseball shirts was a big hit, even being picked up by SI.com’s Extra Mustard. So, since I’m never the type to quit while I’m ahead, I’ll do another. So, with the postseason starting tomorrow, here are the best unofficial and/or unlicensed (or, in extreme circumstances, just plain cool) t-shirts for those teams. Click the links to be brought to the stores that are selling them.

(Note: Some of these are not technically unofficial, but are rather licensed by individual players or the Hall of Fame. You’ll see, for example, a HOF Reggie Jackson shirt that conspicuously doesn’t have any Yankees logos on it.)

(GO BELOW THE JUMP FOR MORE)

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SATURDAY: BREAKING OOTP brings MARIO to the MARINERS

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On Saturday at 1:30 PM Eastern, a new BREAKING OOTP will go up.

What is it about this week?

Well, put simply, it is a simulation of a world where the Nintendo-owned Seattle Mariners were able to use Nintendo characters in their lineup, each given attributes derived from the Mario baseball games.

While it doesn’t break OOTP, it certainly is fun. So make sure to read it when it goes up!

The Greatness and Legacy of Yogi Berra

We may know Yogi Berra by his quotes. That’s how I paid tribute to him on Twitter this morning (I woke up inexplicably briefly at like 4:00 this morning before falling back to sleep, explaining how early some of these tweets are):

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But then there is what comes after:

 

Those final facts are often the ones forgotten. Lost amongst the legend of his “Yogi-isms” is the fact that he was one of the greatest catchers of all time, as well as a an esteemed coach and manager (three of his WS titles came not as a player, but as a coach with the Mets and Yankees, and he was the manager of the 1964 Yankees team and 1973 Mets teams that lost their World Series).

He was a Forrest Gump of Baseball, seemingly involved in countless major events connected to baseball from the end of WWII (where Yogi served as a gunner’s mate on a navy ship, including during the D-Day invasion) until his death. He was the soul of Casey Stengel’s Yankees. Jackie Robinson played against him and had perhaps his signature moment- the steal of home in the World Series- off of him (to the end, Yogi claimed Jackie was out). When Don Larson had his perfect game, it was famously Yogi who leaped into his arm, leading Larson to say “Damn, Yogi, you’re heavy.” When Bill Mazeroski hit his walk-off home run, it was Yogi who watched it fly over the left-field fence. When Roger Maris broke Babe Ruth’s record, Yogi was on deck. The “Miracle Mets’ had Yogi Berra as a coach.

And, perhaps above all, he was a hell of a player. As Tom Verducci pointed out in his article on Yogi, he never struck out more than 40 times in a season. He and Joe DiMaggio are the only players in history to have 350 home runs or more with fewer than 500 strikeouts. He was by most accounts a defensive catcher and pitch-caller of fine quality- at one point he held the record for consecutive games behind the plate without an error. One does not become a All-Star so many times being merely average.

In the end, perhaps Casey Stengel summed up Berra the best (it’s included in Yogi’s obituary), even though it was 1949 when he said it, very early in Yogi’s career:

“Mr. Berra,” Casey Stengel said, “is a very strange fellow of very remarkable abilities.”

 

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World Baseball Classic News for 9-17-2015: Qualifier Pools Announced!

Well, I told you that more news was probably coming, and today it was confirmed, as the World Baseball Classic qualifying pools have been announced! They are (all qualifiers in 2016):

 

Qualifier 1 (Sydney, Australia on February 11-14th):

Australia

New Zealand

Philippines

South Africa

Qualifier 2 (Mexicali, Mexico on March 17-20th):

Mexico

Czech Republic

Germany

Nicaragua

Qualifier 3 (Panama City on March 17-20th):

Colombia

France

Panama

Spain

Qualifier 4 (Brooklyn on Sept. 22-25th):

Brazil

Great Britain

Israel

Pakistan

As you can see, they’ve mixed up the locations (only Panama is a return qualifying host), the pools (no pool has more than two teams that were in the same individual pool last time), and also teams (Pakistan has replaced Thailand). Some things to note here:

  • MLB players will be able to participate in Qualifiers 1-3, but not Qualifier 4.
  • It is again a modified double-elimination, meaning it’s double elimination until there are only two, at which point it’s a winner-take-all championship game. I’ve always had a problem with this format and feel a straight-up double-elimination would be better, but I understand how the organizers would like the drama of a winner-take-all game.
  • Qualifier 4, in Brooklyn, is clearly meant to be a pool of teams that don’t have pro-worthy stadiums in their countries. It’s likely Brooklyn was picked due to New York’s diverse nature, with MLB and the other WBC organizers no doubt hoping that the city’s large Jewish population will turn up for Israel games.
  • Looking at this right now, I’d say that Qualifier 2 will probably have the highest level of talent, Qualifier 3 will be the hardest for any one team to get out of, and Qualifier 4 will be the hardest to predict. Qualifier 1, by contrast, looks like it should be a fairly easy draw for Australia.
  • I’m somewhat surprised that the Philippines is in Qualifier 1. I had a feeling they might make it an All-Commonwealth pool and have the Philippines be in New York City. At least, that’s what I thought after reading Jon Paul Morosi’s original post before it was official.

 

So, look in the coming days and no doubt more news will come out and I’ll take a look at some of the teams and other aspects of the qualifying tournament- like Pakistan’s baseball program.

 

The Best Unlicensed/Unofficial Baseball Posters on the Internet

First, there were the T-Shirts. And one day, I will return to those. But today, we are going to look at fan-designed unofficial and unlicensed posters. What type of posters? Well, go below the jump to see:

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Random Video: English baseball player gets hat and sunglasses knocked off by a bad throw… but nothing else

We go the North of England, where the Sheffield Bladerunners of the British Baseball Federation are playing catch between innings:

Didn’t see it? Let’s look at the slo-mo version:

That’s Josh Taylor of the Bladerunners getting his cap and his sunglasses knocked off by a throw…. and nothing else. You’d think you’d at least break your nose or something, but the pitcher (Nestor Martinez) was able to somehow accidentally “William Tell” him and take off everything on his head without actually hitting or hurting Taylor.

What were the odds of that?

Bizarre Baseball Culture: Popeye and “The Twisker Pitcher”

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 we have a cartoon from 1937 starring Popeye the Sailor Man. It’s called The Twisker Pitcher, and it’s dark as hell. Seriously, this cartoon has…

A) Rampant steroid use (the spinach)

B) Violence, both on the field and in the stands

C) A near total disregard for rules and the space-time continuum

D) A total disregard for player safety.

Oof. So, go below the jump for a summary of this, the 47th Popeye Cartoon:

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The Best Unlicensed/Unofficial Baseball T-Shirts on the Internet

If you look hard enough online (as in… google “T-Shirts”), you can find sites that sell unlicensed and unofficial t-shirts. These T-shirts feature designs created by fans and basically only are allowed to exist because they are fairly small-scale operations- the equivalent of those random guys outside of a stadium- and no company is willing to sue them to oblivion because of the bad PR that would result from going after people who in essence are their biggest fans would be… bad. In addition, a lot (but certainly nowhere near all) of the t-shirts don’t technically break any laws and don’t actually use anything trademarked or copyrighted.

So, what type of stuff are we talking about? (go below the jump to see the rest of this)

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