Good thing 50 Cent Isn't a Baseball Player

50 Cent throwing out one of the worst ceremonial first pitches in the history of baseball:

As far as first pitches go, it's hard to beat the acrobat from Cirque du Soleil:

Small Sample Size Song (and Video)

This is funny but also true. Enjoy the video:

Before you tweet anything about Matt Harvey versus the Marlins, please consult this helpful video. http://t.co/662cjNRQwr
— Jeffrey Paternostro (@jeffpaternostro) August 1, 2013

If the embedded Tweet doesn't load, you can watch the video here too:

R.A. Dickey's thoughts on Disney buying the Star Wars franchise

Just like with baseball, I can't disagree with his thoughts on this except that he seems a bit more optimistic than me:

All R.A. Dickey All The Time!

Last night New York Mets pitcher R.A. Dickey ran away with the 2012 National League Cy Young Award, becoming the first knuckleballer to do so. For all the video analysis I could find on the web, check it out right here.

MLB.com:









ESPN won't allow users to embed most of their videos but you can check out Adam Rubin conversation here and the Karl Ravech and Curt Schilling analysis here and watch the R.A. Dickey SportCenter interview here:



R.A. Dickey interview on SNY.TV:



If I find more clips, I'll update them. Until then,
E N J O Y ! ! !

"SMOKE AND CHEW "YUM YUM" TOBACCO."

Ted Berg has a great blog post about Roger Conner, the player whose career home run record Babe Ruth broke to take over first place.

The whole read is a good one (as are most of Ted's pieces) but the part that stood out for me was the advertising at the bottom of the baseball card itself that reads: SMOKE AND CHEW "YUM YUM" TOBACCO.

It really was a different time when Roger Conner made his major league debut 132 years ago tomorrow.

Gary Cohen says these are the 1984 Mets; I think they're more like 1983.

The New York Post has some great quotes from Gary Cohen about his optimism for the 2012 New York Mets:

"“Mets fans always talk about ’84. They had gone through seven straight horrible seasons and then all of a sudden there was a great young infusion of talent — (broadcast partners) Ronnie (Darling) and Keith (Hernandez) were a part of that — and they won 90 games out of nowhere and that led up to the World Series a few years later. Those are the years the Mets fans tend to relish and what they are waiting for.”"

With all due respect to Mr. Cohen, this team actually reminds me more of 1983. That team had a veteran leader (Keith Hernandez) and a rising star (Darryl Strawberry) but it also had an aging former power hitter (George Foster). Most of the players making the buzz though were yet to be major leaguers: Ron Darling, Dwight Gooden, Sid Fernandez, Lenny Dykstra. And even Strawberry and Hernandez didn't join the team until May 6th and June 15th of that year, respectively.

This year's team has a veteran leader (David Wright), a couple of rising stars (Ike Davis and Lucas Duda), and an aging power hitter (Jason Bay). But most of the buzz is still on the farm (Matt Harvey, Jeurys Familia, Zack Wheeler, Jordany Valdespin, Kirk Neiuwenhuis, Matt den Dekkar, Jenrry Mejia.)

I hope Gary Cohen is right but it seems more likely that I will be.

Broadcaster Rankings (TV): #10 – #1 | Fangraphs

Fangraphs ranked the broadcasters in Major League Baseball. The New York Mets' announcers Gary Cohen, Ron Darling, and Keith Hernandez ranked #2, behind the legendary Vin Scully.

For the record, the YES Network announcers came in at #22, which is remarkably high for them.

You can't apply on Monster.com for a job as a Major League Baseball player.

Excellent and very well written blog post by Ted Berg, which starts off with:

"There’s a pitcher who’s in Mets Major League camp that’s staying at my hotel. It doesn’t seem appropriate to say his name and it doesn’t much matter for the sake of this weird and potentially off-putting post anyway, but I can say with some confidence that he’s very unlikely to make the Mets’ roster out of Spring Training.

And nearly every evening I see this guy sitting in his car in the hotel parking lot talking on the phone, and something about it makes me sad. I don’t know what he’s saying or to whom. For all I know he just spends an inordinate amount of time ordering pizza or engaging solicitors. But I assume he’s talking to his dad or his sister or his best friend or his old coach, someone or some combination of people who care about him a whole lot and want to hear about his progress and performance in Port St. Lucie."

You will be glad you read this post about the business of baseball and the individuals that play the game, which can also be written as 'individuals that work in this field'.