Spring Training is in full swing and baseball’s regular season is right around the corner. This is maybe my favorite type of year, with baseball starting up and the NCAA conference tourneys going strong.
One of the things that’s fun about a new season of baseball is a whole new crop of rookies. Is Heyward going to hit 30 home runs? Can Strasburg dominate at this level? And, of course, what ridiculous outfits will the rookies wear this year as a part of their hazing? Check out some of the funnier ones below in a gallery of rookie hazing.
Now obviously I don’t expect Omar Minaya to address the elephant in the room, but I do love his dancing around the issue.
Doctors detected an abnormality during his physical, and Reyes was taken out of the lineup March 4 for additional medical tests. Reyes was told not to raise his heart rate and to refrain from eating seafood, which has iodine. He will be tested weekly.
Minaya and Greenberg said the thyroid should return to normal with rest and diet.
“There is no medication for this,” Minaya said.
The cause of the elevated thyroid wasn’t clear.
“We heard it could be something that could have been dietary or it could have been a virus,” Minaya said.
The Mets and medicine just don’t mix. And when your star player is going to be missing time due to a health condition, as the GM you should probably educate yourself as to what’s causing him to miss time. None of this “we heard it could be” bullshit. Your fans deserve better than that.
And really? Dietary or a virus? Can a virus cause a hyperactive thyroid? That’s nuts. And if you’re going to throw out ridiculous potential causes for Reyes’ condition and not mention HGH, at least have some fun with it. Why not an alien virus? Maybe Reyes’ thyroid gland was transplanted from a baboon.
The best is that since this is the Mets, it’ll turn out that Reyes has got an ingrown toenail that was misdiagnosed.
[ESPN.com]
Kevin Youkilis was gifted with the ability to grow mean facial hair. Now he’s giving that gift back to those less fortunate.
FORT MYERS, Fla. — Kevin Youkilis is making his Opening Day facial hair a matter of public choice. Fans who donate at least $1 to his “Hits for Kids” charitable foundation can weigh in on whether he should sport a goatee, mustache, fu manchu or clean shaven look on April 3.
I’m pretty sure Youk is already rockin’ the fu manchu, which is really pretty overhyped in my opinion. Anyway, it’s cool that Youkilis cares so little about his looks that he’s willing to let fans decide just how he should wear his facial hair. I guess when you’re as ugly as Youk, it doesn’t really matter what’s growing on your face.
And not to undermine his charitable contribution – because it really is a cool thing he’s doing – but isn’t he playing it kind of safe? A mustache? A goatee? If you really want to get people interested and donating money to the charity, you’ve got to up the ante a bit and give them options they can get excited about. How about letting them vote for either Wolverine sideburns, a Hitler mustache, or one of those old-timey mustaches that connect to the sideburns? THAT would get people involved.
Of all the drugs to accuse her husband of abusing, Chantel Kendall picks adderall??
The latest salvo fired by Chantel Kendall, aside from the allegations of emotional and physical abuse, could impact more than Kendall’s ability to raise his children, but could also have an impact on the game of baseball itself. Chantel says Jason Kendall is abusing the prescription drug Adderall.
Adderall is a drug that is commonly prescribed to those who are diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder, and it is an amphetamine. The purpose of the drug is to help a patient increase their alertness, concentration, libido and overall cognitive skills.
Really? Adderall? You know, being that Kendall plays baseball, if Chantel really wanted to get under his skin, she’d simply accuse of him taking steroids or HGH. That’s probably do the trick.
As for adderall, well, let’s hope that MLB doesn’t start getting its panties in a bunch over this substance, too, for the very simple fact that it’s pretty tough to “abuse” adderall. I was snorting orange lines the length of pool tables when I was in school, and I turned out just fine. In fact, anyone who’s ever studied hard for a test or needed a quick pick-me-up before a night of drinking has undoubtedly popped a pill or two. It’s just not a big deal, so her accusation is the same as if she accused him of abusing coffee.
You really dropped the ball on this one, Chantel.
In order to make their newest edition of baseball cards seem all up-to-date, Topps has photoshopped some players so that they’re wearing the jerseys of their new teams, despite not having actually played in those jerseys yet. Apparently it’s something Topps has been doing for quite some time, and I guess it makes sense since nobody’s going to want a “new” card of a guy on his old team.
David Brown at Yahoo! points out, though, that Topps missed a spot when photoshopping Cliff Lee. Specifically, they forgot to photoshop out the “HK” patch on his jersey, which was a tribute to the late Harry Kalas. Oops.
The thing is, does anybody still collect baseball cards? Anyone? I mean, we all used to, but once the big three (Donruss, Fleer, and Topps) were crowded in the market with other brands – LOTS of other brands – everything felt watered-down and the hobby lost a lot of its appeal. Looking back, though, what was the point? Statistics can be found online, as can images of every player. I imagine there’s very little resale value, too.
A few years ago – I think it was on a Derek Jeter card – Topps photoshopped Bush in the crowd of Yankees fans. It was a nice photoshop job and it was pretty funny. My proposition is that Topps simply release an entire set of cards with weird or random photoshopped images to raise interest in their cards. I mean, I’ve seen Chase Utley field a ground ball 500 times, so if that’s what he’s doing on a card, I won’t care. If he’s somehow riding a surfboard with Billy from Predator, then I’m interested. Make this happen, Topps, I assure you you’ll sell a lot more cards.
Here’s Sammy Sosa on Univision and, uh, he’s a white guy now.
The 3rd installment of pre-season Baseball Award Predictions, today we will get bold and predict the Rookie of the Year award winners for 2010. Here are Unathletic’s predictions…..
If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, right? Unless you’re the Mets, in which case you try to break it right from the get-go.
If Jerry Manuel’s plan of batting Jose Reyes third in the lineup is to succeed, the Mets manager will need either Matthews or Angel Pagan to emerge as a reliable leadoff hitter. Manuel seems committed to batting Luis Castillo second and Reyes third, at least until Carlos Beltran returns to action.
Matthews reached on an error, walked and stole a base in yesterday’s intersquad scrimmage. Pagan was the leadoff hitter for the opposition and finished 1-for-2.
Now I generally don’t put too much weight into lineups unless it’s something egregious (like Pujols batting 8th), but what the fuck is Jerry Manuel doing? It’s not like Reyes distracts pitchers when he’s on base, right? Taking him out of the leadoff spot and batting him third must seem like a real vote of confidence for David Wright, too, but he should be fine after hitting like two home runs all of last year.
What’s worst of all isn’t that Reyes is out of the leadoff spot, it’s that Gary Matthews, Jr. might be the new top-of-the-order guy. Good luck with that – replacing one of the best leadoff hitters in the game with a guy nobody wanted and who had a frigid .336 OBP last season. I guess if the medical staff isn’t going to destroy the players, the Mets have to figure out different reasons to suck. Manuel’s definitely onto something.
How long until Manuel is fired? I give it until July. That’s gangsta.
[NY Post]
