Monday, March 31, 2008
Oh general baseball population Opening Day! Look at this schedule I'm working on here, kids:
8 am- 1 pm: class
1 pm: Tigers/Royals (RotT post up)
4 pm: Giants/Dodgers (expected mentions of Barry Bonds despite the fact that Barry Bonds is no longer on the team: 1,093)
somewhere in here: a bit of Cubs/Brewers (Gabe Kapler!)
7 pm: Angels/Twins (Torii Hunter returns to Minnesota OH THE DRAMA OH THE HUMANITY!)
10 pm: Astros/Padres (um... baseball!)
You know how when a dog finds something that smells really good to them they'll roll around in it? Just seriously go to town, rolling back and forth in a crazed canine ecstasy? That's basically what I'm doing with this Opening Day schedule. WALLOWING IN BASEBALL. If I could literally roll around in it, I would.
Also making me smile: I went to a bunch of Michigan baseball games this weekend, including a double header on Saturday with rain expected on Sunday. That means they put the tarp on the field after the game, and since it was a college baseball game, the team had to put the tarp on the field.
Kevin Cislo makes a friend.
Alan Oaks frolicks.
There are very, very few things in the world funnier than watching college baseball players do the groundskeeping.
A few more photographic highlights:
Kenny Fellows, fastfastfast.
I'm always excited when I manage to get an in-focus shot of the outfielders (Derek VanBuskirk, in this case) in action.
Zach Putnam makes a combination of the :D and :P faces.
The rest of the photos from the game are right here. Lotsa shots, since it was a double header and I was enjoying the heady feeling that comes from shooting a double header with a camera that (unlike the camera I had last year) does not make me worry about a) battery drain or b) how many photos are on my card.
Hope you lot are all enjoying the general baseball population Opening Day as thoroughly as I am.Labels: baseball, MLB, NCAA, opening day, photoblog, Wolverines
3:15 PM
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Here was my favorite thing about the Japan series.
I set my alarm for 5:30 in the morning so that I would be mostly conscious by the time the game started. I made coffee and got waffles (frozen) and maple syrup (local). I turned on the TV at a low volume so it wouldn't wake my roommate up. I grabbed a pillow so that I could beat it up when the game got too tense and/or awesome for self containment.
I looked at the completely sunless sky outside and wanted to die. Because it was so fucking early. But it did not even cross my mind, not for a MOMENT, to sleep more, because BASEBALL.
That's not my favorite thing about the Japan series. Nor is it Manny with a bat making friends with thousands of Japanese fans all at once, although that ALSO happened and was in fact magnificent. Seriously. Pretty much the entire baseball-loving population of Japan is now one giant collective Manny Ramirez fan. This is a sign of some deep rightness in the world.
My favorite thing about the Japan series is also not the way Boston fans all over the eastern time zone staggered around like zombies all day, downing coffee and giving each other sympathetic looks. I am not even kidding. I must have exchanged the tired face with at least 4 different kids in Red Sox hats during and immediately after that series, and that's all the way out in Michigan.
No, my favorite thing about the Japan series was the fact that, as I sat there trying to get coffee fumes into my sinuses, with the sky doggedly NOT lightening with sunrise, not even out of my pajamas yet (my pajama pants are Red Sox patterned; it was appropriate, dammit!), I thought to myself, "You know what? This is early, and I am tired, but at least I'm not a California-based Oakland fan. Those poor bastards have to be up at 3 am on a weeknight if they want to watch this live."
I felt a lot better after that.
It helped that there was baseball.Labels: baseball, Japan, lolcats, MLB, Red Sox
11:11 PM
Monday, March 17, 2008
It has been a long time. I know! The excuses behind this are many and varied and good, but I will not bore you with them. Imagine that I've been extremely busy flying fighter jets or something.
But I return. BCRS returns. It is high time. Why, you may ask, is NOW the time? Well, like the caribou and warblers and humpback whales making their rounds of the globe, I have noted a seasonal sign, and it has told me to Get A Bloody Move On Already. It is not the changing of the weather (it's snowing right now in Michigan). It is not the length of the days. No, this is a far more tangible and marvelous sign indeed.
NEW ROSTER PHOTOS ARE OUT!!
Fun with Roster Photos is a tradition here at BCRS. Like most traditions, it is beautiful and it brings people together. We make fun of how horrible baseball players look in their roster photos, and how harassed/bad the roster photographers are. It's humanitarian magic.
Usual disclaimer: these images are linked directly from the MLB pages, so they'll change when MLB changes them. If you're viewing this archived, the photos in the post may no longer correspond to the commentary. I leave it this way because a) it lends a surreal aspect to the whole exercise, and b) I'm lazy. I'm going off the active roster as of March 17-18, 2008.
Fun with Roster Photos! Boston Red Sox, 2008
Pitching!
 David Aardsma
I'm clearly guilty of wishful projection here, but I still think this glorious big-eared, squinty-eyed photo makes him look a little bit like an aardvark.
 Josh Beckett
Josh Beckett is not amused by photo day. Josh Beckett is also apparently a firm believer in two-tiered mini goatees, which isn't really something I ever needed to know. Ever.
 Craig Breslow
Excellent, we only needed to wait 'til #3 for my first real-life LOL. What is wrong with Craig Breslow here? He looks like he's making a donkey braying noise deep in his throat at the exact moment when this photo was taken. That's what's wrong with him.
 Clay Buchholz
Murderous living doll Clay Buchholz leaves his ventriloquist trunk only at night, armed with a really fucking big steak knife, and you know it's true. We have photographic proof.
 Bryan Corey
What can you even say? WHAT CAN YOU EVEN SAY? How could a photographer look Bryan Corey in the eye after taking this photo?
 Manny Delcarmen
Oh, that's where the rest of Beckett's facial hair went.
 Craig Hansen
He looks high here, which is nothing new for Craig Hansen. The really curious thing is that he also looks like he recently had a chin implant and the scar hasn't quite healed yet.
 Jon Lester
Oh Jon Lester. I just wanna reach into that photo and unfold that right ear. Like with a puppy. Awww, puppies.
 Javier Lopez
What in the god damned hell that doesn't even look like Javier Lopez. Who the hell IS that? Holy fuck, it's like parallel universe Javier Lopez, who never went into professional baseball and instead got his degree in neurology from Virginia and published a couple of obscure papers and that was the highlight of his life.
 Daisuke Matsuzaka
"Hey Dice-K! BADGERTOES!" "Uh... what?" "BADGERTOES!" "Uh...ha ha, er..... what?" *camera flash*
 Hideki Okajima
Every year. Every goddamn year there's someone who can't make it to photo day and they use a wax model in his place and hope no one will notice.
 Jonathan Papelbon
Look at him rearing back like that. Like in another second he's going to shoot forward and bite you.
 Kyle Snyder
Someone needs to get this man some sunscreen and a smack on the ass to wipe that smug smile off his face.
 Julian Tavarez
So happy, so content as his head slowly melts into his neck.
 Mike Timlin
Probably the first roster photo so far that hasn't been just awful. Washed out? Yes. Potentially dubious goatee grooming choices? Yes. Laugh out loud terror? Not quite. Good job, photographers/Timlin.
 Tim Wakefield
Wake's roster photo looks like his roster photo from last year, and the one before that, and probably every roster photo of his since like 1996. There's a Dorian Grey-esque painting of a ravaged, elderly Tim Wakefield somewhere in the bowels of Fenway.
 Curt Schilling
This is a special treat, since he's not on the active roster right now. But look at that expression and tell me it doesn't make you think of muppets.
Catchers!
 Dusty Brown
Another puppy who needs his wittle ear untucked.
 Geoge Kottaras
Wow, it's a teenage baseball player as envisioned by the people who animated The Triplets of Belleville. That was unexpected.
 Jason Varitek
Grrr, me Tek! You fan! You fan, me Tek! Hurr! Base Ball! *ineffective concentrating noises*
Infielders!
 Chris Carter
How many hungover college boys do we really need on this team?
 Sean Casey
What the hell did they tell him to do, cock his head to the side like a kitten? Be adorrrrrable, Sean! He looks like he's got a strained muscle in his neck.
 Alex Cora
That is one creepy-ass smile, there. Like he's smiling that smile at the same time he's trying to grab your ass in a crowded bar.
 Mike Lowell
NOOOO WHAT DID THEY DO TO MAKE MIKE LOWELL SO SAD NOOOOOOO
 Julio Lugo
The face of a man who has never actually seen a camera before and is completely confused about what he's doing in front of one.
 Dustin Pedroia
Oh photo-induced lazy eye, you never fail to appear on photo day.
 Kevin Youkilis
Holy cats. Holy FREAKING cats. He's actually growing his goatee to match his pubic hair in density, shape, everything. I need to know in what universe he thinks this is a good thing.
Outfielders!
 Coco Crisp
He looks 10 years old here. I don't know. His head is too big for his neck and the bits of his hair you can see makes it look like he's got tiny pigtails. He needs a bag lunch, a Lisa Frank pencil case, and possibly a pony.
 JD Drew
JD Drew or.... THE MOLEMAN??
 Jacoby Ellsbury
OK, it's pretty hard to mess up a photo of Jacoby Ellsbury. He just looks so uncomfortable here. Like he's not actually wearing any pants and he's really painfully embarrassed but he has to sit still because the photographer's only gonna be here another 20 minutes so he can just suck it up and put his pants on after.
 Brandon Moss
We have a leprechaun on the team who isn't Bobby Kielty?
 Manny Ramirez
I feel like this is last year's shot, or the year before, because Manny never shows up for these things. Can someone confirm or deny this?
the DH!
 David Ortiz
His goatee/chin looks like the Wu Tang Clan symbol and I can't stop thinking that. That's all I can see when I look at this photo. I'm sorry.
Ah, it's nice to be back. I've missed this space.Labels: baseball, fun with roster photos, Red Sox
11:26 PM
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