Tim gets the Munchies

Every time I think Tim Lincecum can't get any more awesome, he somehow goes out there and shows me that, YES HE CAN. According to MLB.com beat writer extraordinaire (I'm sure) John Schlegel, "Giants Ace Tim Lincecum is Chewing up Hitters, Food at a Hefty Pace" (yuk yuk yuk).

The two cool points: apparently Tim has topped out at a bulky 168 lbs., and his typical order from In and Out Burger (his favorite eatery after a Spring Training start) is as follows:

Three double-doubles, two orders of fries and a half-chocolate, half-strawberry shake.

When questioned about the nutritional validity of that diet, Tim responds, "That's probably not the best form of nutrients but I've always kind of just eaten what I've wanted to and worried about it later...Nothing's affected me now, so I'll stick to it."

Which is, of course, exactly the kind of thing that a 26-year old stoner says. Go get 'em, Tim!

The Best Way to Start Your Week: Baseball Rap!

Sometimes, I just don't know what to say. The long-time reader of my blog will remember when I posted last year about Scott Stapp writing a 'song' about the Florida Marlins. When I showed it to a number of my friends, many of them made the comment that they thought it was a joke or a well-done parody of some kind. I knew better - it was so perfectly Scott Stapp and so perfectly bad that it had to be real.

And then something like this comes along:

What is that? What the fuck is that?

I mean - that has to be a joke, right? No one would rap that poorly about a baseball team with as short a history and as poor a fan base as the Florida (soon to be Miami) Marlins and make a video of it in real life, right? Why would anyone produce this video? Who is this guy? And my biggest question - why do the Florida Marlins have not one, but TWO completely retarded and poorly made, cliche-ridden songs made about them?

My guess is that the Marlins must have some twenty-something ironic hipster Public Relations guy who hires these no-talent assclowns to produce these crappy videos so that he can post them on YouTube under the guise of being a 'promotional video' when in reality he's just laughing his ass off confusing the hell out of guys like me.

(kudos to Kresh on the video find)

It Takes Two

My boy Ryan 'Heartbreaker' Adams continued his solid Spring Training for the Orioles last night, crushing a two-run homer off Pirates' closer Joel Hanrahan. He did not Go Easy, rather he hit a Firecracker that rung Hanrahan's Answering Bell.

I think it's time to start the Ryan Adams watch - I'll try to keep his stats updated as we go through the season. He'll probably spend most of the year at AAA, so this will be a labor of love. Just remember Love is Hell.

Living in the Future

Holy crap.

As if the times that we are living in aren't crazy enough technology-wise, the Japanese apparently have developed a technology that will allow holographic representations of sports games to be able to be shown in front of fans live in stadiums. I mean - that is freaking AWesome.

Seriously? We've already arrived at the watching-sports-via-holodeck phase? What's next? Holographic chess games with Wookies?

Steroids - Simple, Right?

One of the things that I both love and hate about the world is that nothing is ever as simple or as complex as it seems. Nothing is black and white. Personalities, leaders, and politicians love to reduce issues to black and white, as they become much easier to deal with at that level, but simply casting aside facts or ignoring findings in order to reach a conclusion is not a stance that enhances the human condition - it just get things done.

Steroids are a perfect example. Journalists and talking heads love to throw down a hard line about steroids - immediately scapegoating anyone unlucky enough to have been associated with them. But it's stories like this that make it impossible for me to take such a stance.

Basically, the story makes the case that people (including athletes) have been known to test positive for the steroid clanbuterol after eating beef from cows that have been injected with the substance. This is a fairly common practice in places like China, Mexico, and most of South America. So maybe some of the Latin players who have tested positive in the past actually didn't knowingly inject steroids. Really.

Sure, the guy probably actually did take steroids. But it's stories like this that have to at least put the seed of some doubt in any rational head. It wouldn't be fair to punish a player who tested positive if they had a false positive from eating the wrong steak. Would it?

I'm sure some people will say that yes, it is fair. You have to draw the line somewhere, and the person that tested positive is on the wrong side. That's not a line I'm going to be responsible for drawing.

Lulz

I just have to say - I'm not sure how I got so lucky, but goddamn I'm glad that the Internet has brought together so many baseball-loving twenty-something stat nerds who love the 80's, pop culture, are funny, anti-establishment, and who write well.

I mean, it's all of my favorite things, rolled into one. Thank you, Brandon Stroud (the Dugout). Thank you, FireJoeMorgan.com. Thank you, Craig Calcaterra. Thank you, people of Camden

Chat.

But these days, it's mostly thank you, Carson Cistulli and the brilliant team at NotGraphs.

Especially because of this: the Amazing Adventures of Joe West.

O's Notes, 3.7

Well. Let me just say, in the immortal words of Mr. Buck O'Neill - baseball.

It was back last night on the TV, the Orioles taking on the Yankees in an evening Spring Training exhibition game. I watched every single pitch, and even though the game was extremely uneventful, a tad anticlimactic and ended in a 0-0 tie, it was glorious. My fiancee and I enjoyed ice-cold 16oz Coors Lights and those crab-flavored crackers. After enduring what seems like one of the most dreadful winters I've ever experienced, to kick back and watch the new O's play some baseball was exactly what I needed.

All of which leads me nicely to what will become the new feature of this blog, at least for this baseball season. I'm a big fan of Craig Calcaterra and his Hardball Talk blog, and one of the best components of his page is his "...And That Happened" daily post, in which he gives a two or three sentence blurb about each game from the previous night. It's a really nice way to catch up on what happened last night in a completely non-SportsCenter type way. I'm not going to do that for all of the games throughout MLB, but I'm going to post my notes and comments from the Orioles game the night before. Or at least I'm going to try. Or try to try. For a while.

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O's Notes: March 7, 2011

Orioles 0, New York Americans 0

Zach Britton works fast - very fast. Jim Palmer and Gary Thorne simply couldn't keep up - especially in the first inning. It was like they had sheets and sheets of notes that they had been working on all off-season that they were so excited to use, but they kept getting cut off by that jerk on the mound who wanted to keep pounding strikes.

Britton: 3 first pitch strikes in the first inning. Second and Third innings? Not so much.

What in god's name is Brian Roberts doing bunting for hits? That's been one of the things I love so much about B-Rob - he has bunt-for-hits speed and smarts, but he's smart enough to use his great contact and power to drive the ball for hits and doubles - he's not Juan Pierre, damn it.

And more importantly, what is B-Rob doing sliding into first? In the first inning???! In a split-squad Spring Training game!!!!!!!!@#$!#@$!#%!@! You're not competing against anyone for a spot, Brian...I think you have it locked up IF YOU CAN JUST NOT GET INJURED BY MAKING BONEHEAD SLIDES INTO FIRST(*#&(#@*&_#(@)*)#!

Luke Scott is now sporting the backwoods goatee....in fact most of the players have some sort of facial hair they didn't have last year...maybe facial hair rules are relaxed during the Spring?

Sergio Mitre is far more intimidating in video game form.

Was Matt Wieters wearing a vintage O's batting helmet while he was catching?

My fiancée loves - loves Luke Scott's forearms. Hmph.

Jeremy Accardo has one of the most violent right hand deliveries I've ever seen - but he was effective.

This O's club will not lead the league in walks. In fact, I'm going to go ahead and say it right now - I bet we lead the league in strikeouts. By a significant margin.

Ryan 'Heartbreaker' Adams struck out - saw it a mile away. So sad - I want him to succeed simply because of his name but I just can't see it right now.

Don't you just love seeing young guys in Spring Training games when they come up to bat in the 8th and 9th innings? They look so small and wiry compared to most major leaguers, and they always make them wear those retarded double-flap batting helmets that make them look like they're in the Little League World Series or something. Love it.

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So there you have it - it will be something like that each morning after an O's game. Or something else. Or nothing at all - you'll just have to wait and see.