Saturday, March 25, 2006
The Boston Globe has posted an article about Mike Timlin which has struck Red Sox fans dead from pure amazement and amusement and awe and, I do think, a healthy little pinch of sheer terror. Kristen, Beth, and Red all got to it before me, but I can't just pass it by. Let me summarize it for you, although you really, really REALLY need to go read the whole thing.
-Mike Timlin, Tim Wakefield, and Matt Ginter go hunting for wild pigs.
-Timlin talks very very seriously about bows and hunting and the Globe photographer wees in his pants a little from the intensity of it all.
-Timlin shoots a feral pig with a giant fucking arrow fired from a giant fucking bow.
-And I quote:
The sow starts screaming from the brush. Loudly.
''She's not having a good day," Timlin says.
The pitcher's still whispering, but he's exhilarated and full of adrenaline.
"...She finally moved away a little bit and I drilled her. See the arrow down there. Still stuck in the sand. It's good blood. It goes right through them. Probably right above the heart. She ran about 40 yards over there. There's two pine trees. It broke her left front leg. I shot her on the right side, it went through and broke her left shoulder. She screamed for a little bit but she's probably done now. She gave a serious death squeal. She's kicking and then all of a sudden, wheeeh, and then stop."
-They go back to camp. Neither Wake nor Ginter has killed anything, though Wake saw some deer and Ginter saw a bobcat.
-Trot Nixon text messages Timlin (!!!!!) wanting to know if he's killed anything.
- Timlin remembers a special takeout request.
''David Wells asked me to bring him back some for breakfast," he says. ''And I'd like to get some sausages made up in Fort Myers. That sounds good."
- Red Sox Nation collectively says "...." and then screams and hides under the covers.
MIKE TIMLIN KILLS A GIANT WILD PIG AND TALKS EXCITEDLY ABOUT ITS DEATH SCREAMS.
I don't think I can say HOLY FREAKING CATS enough about this article. Seriously. Mike Timlin is a HARBRINGER OF AGONY AND BLOODY DEATH, and I don't mean that in the figurative 'rarr tough relief pitcher' sense, I mean that LITERALLY.
I can think of exactly one pitcher who matches up to this, and that's Ugueth Urbina, who allegedly attacked some of his workers with a machete and then set fire to them.
Also, say hello to this dude. Hee Seop Choi is now a member of the Red Sox, claimed off waivers, which is extraordinarily weird because he did (and does) have minor league options left.
Anyways. Things have been a bit mad around here lately, what with the semester ending and shows opening (two in about two months, that's a bloody lot of work to get ready and submit rightquick) and teaching in prisons, and the partner for the prison class deciding to not show up for things anymore including the actual prison workshop, leaving me to drive the hour to Jackson and to conduct the class of prisoners entirely by myself... but I won't talk about that class, I won't, because I could go on forever, and ALL I WANT TO DO IS SEE SOME BASEBALL DAMMIT.
Which, weather and workload permitting, I might get to do later this weekend.
In the meantime let me just shuttle you around to some things that you should be looking at because they are, pretty much, awesome.
Jere has a wicked good post about why we're so upset about the Bronson trade and why this makes sense even though we, one of the most informed fan bases in baseball, know in our forebrains that it's not the worst or craziest trade ever. It's in our backbrains that we react poorly to it. I like Jere's take on it and you should read it and feel better about eating that entire pint of ice cream while dabbing at your face with tissues over the fate of a guy you've never even met.
Side note on the informed fan thing: I'm overgeneralizing, of course. There are dumb, dumb, dumber-than-the-dirt-on-the-cleats-of-Johnny-Damon Red Sox fans out there. And there are, obviously, very very smart and informed fans of pretty much every team out there (behold my mighty linkbar; some of 'em are over there). What I'm saying is that while there may be small or even medium-sized pockets of dedicated fans for most teams, the Red Sox have ridiculously huge numbers of ridiculously informed fans, half of whom can and at a moment's notice will gleefully crunch as many stats as you like. We also have a huge number of idiots following the team, but at least we're balanced.
Actually, this is a chicken-and-egg kind of question for me, a fan who's too young to have seen it start out: which came first, the crazed fan base demanding the massive amounts of information, or the extensive media coverage creating the super-informed fans? Someone get on this.
As a fellow Red Sox/Tigers fan, Cat is quick to compare the hollow-thud-in-your-chest sensation of this trade to the midseason Farnsworth trade last year, reminding us all that we are not alone in our irrational pain. Or reminding just me, then.
Andrew asks you to vote in the Arquimendez Pozo Award poll for the best WBC name. Great fun. Pool B, by the way, should be and is (as of this moment) a complete runaway victory for Stubby Clapp.
Evan writes a ridiculously thorough little report on pitchers and injury, which can be found in two parts, Part I and Part II. He talks to Jon(athan) Papelbon's baby brother! He talks to Will Carroll! It's good stuff. Go, read, git your education on.
If you haven't yet heard about the Michigan blog vs. ESPN talk radio SUPER BIG INTERNET CONTROVERSY, I figure MGoBlog's coverage is as good a place as ever to find out. The moral of the story is, Michigan bloggers write funny things, and ESPN talking voiceboxes are too stupid and belligerent to acknowledge the fact that, oh yes, by the way, they blatantly stole their last segment from said blog.
Batgirl shows that Lew Ford, to complete his image of dorkitude, has a marvelous Spring Training farmer's tan. His upper arms look whiter than me, and I'm painfully white.
The Brushback has the answer for why the Sox have been trading like mad lately. It makes so much sense, it must be true.
Tommy LaSorda throws the controversial WBC umpire under the bus All subtle-like, though! Quoth the Dodger sage:
I do not want the fans in Japan, or in Mexico, to think that these calls were made because the umpire is American. The umpire that made those calls has had a reputation for many years of being controversial. In fact, he has created controversy for many American teams, and managers, including me.
Also, look everyone! It's Beauty and the Beast!
Hopefully I'll have Real Live Baseball to post about shortly. Until then, have a good weekend, and check this stuff out or you're just as bad as Matt Millen, and it'll only be a matter of time before we're burning you in effigy in the streets.Labels: baseball, hunting, Mike Timlin, MLB, random, Red Sox
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