Picture of the day: Stereograph of men and women playing baseball
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Tag Archives: baseball
German ballplayer Donald Lutz made history last night
Last night, during the Reds-Cardinals game, history was made: Donald Lutz made his debut, grounding out in his lone pinch-hit AB against Adam Wainwright.
What’s so special about that, you ask? Well, Lutz, in making his Reds debut, became the first German Major League Baseball player in history (there have been some that were born on military bases there or who came over to America as young children, but Lutz is the first player who can truly be said to be “from Germany”). Although born in Watertown, NY, he grew up and spent essentially his entire childhood with his mother in Germany, not playing baseball until his teenage years.
Who knows how long this first stint for Lutz will last (he is, after all, mainly on the roster right now as a replacement for Chris Heisey while he is on the DL), but still, it’s not every day you can say that something happened yesterday in baseball that hadn’t happened before. So congratulations to Donald Lutz, the first German MLB player in history.
Baseball Continuum Classic Story: The Biggest Stories That Haven’t Happened Yet (Originally published April 10, 2013)
In the wake of NBA Center Jason Collins “coming out of the closet” today, and becoming the first “Big Four” active player to do so, I was reminded of a post I did earlier this month: The Biggest Stories That Haven’t Happened Yet. If you want to read it, just click the link to the left, or go below the jump to read a reprint. With the exception of the deletion of a call to go below the jump to read after the first paragraph of the story, it is printed completely as it originally was, with no changes, updates or corrections.
Picture of the day: A Team of Young Glass Workers, 1908
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MVP of Yesterday: Jordan Zimmermann
Anibal Sanchez may have had 17 Ks, but Jordan Zimmermann‘s 1-hit, 1-walk complete game 1-0 shutout victory over the Reds wins the MVP of Yesterday. The reason is that- while Sanchez’s game was better, Zimmermann’s performance was more VALUABLE, allowing the Nationals to win despite only scoring one run.
So, go below the jump for the MVP standings:
Picture of the Day: Nice Catch, Jerry!
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Whoops! Looks like the GIF isn’t working. So go to this link to see a nice catch by Jerry Hairston Jr.
The Famous For Something Else Index (as of April 24, 2013)
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)
George Halas (HOF Football coach and player)
Danny Ainge (NBA player and executive)
Famous For Something Else: Scott Patterson
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.)
RANDOM THING: Ninja Baseball Batman
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.
Picture of the Day: Bubbles Hargrave
Bubbles Hargrave had a brief appearance with the Cubs before WWI before becoming a mainstay of the Cincinnati Reds in the 1920s. Here’s a picture of him with the Cubs, from the Library of Congress:
The Baseball Continuum 