Playa Hatin’

Today is the day – the only relevant day in what has become one of the hardest sport of the “Big 4″ to watch. Outside of the All-Star Game and the Playoffs, Major League Baseball has got to be the most unattractive sport to follow. That Is the normal day to day of it all. But, every so often we have a few gems that keep our eyes going back to the field. More recently, the dude barfing all over visiting fans at a Phillies game was great. And then on Sunday at a Mets game, this classy act took place in the stands….

I don’t know how much better It gets than this! Some middle aged jack ass decides to reach out and snag a ball that was tossed into the stands by the New York Mets, David Wright. The ball was clearly thrown to a young boy with his mitt open and ready for the souvenir from one of his hero’s. As the ball is in flight, old jack-ass reaches out and steals the ball mid flight from the un-expecting youngster. Then, if it wasn’t bad enough to embarrass himself, the dude turned and gave it to his own child. Nice lesson for your kid to learn!

Baseball is reaching more and more to the level of Nascar, Hockey & WWE…. Next Stop, sweet Ed Hardy Bedazzled shirts and MMA / UFC.

video courtesy of brooklynmutt / via youtube

Ok, so it’s not really anything to do with Roger Clemens… It is a video of one of our heroes here at Playahatin.com that I saw today while watching HBO’s amazing show, East Bound & Down. If you haven’t seen this Will Ferrell production, starring Danny McBride as Kenny Powers. We suggest, recommend and completely endorse this production. Be on the lookout for Season 2 in early 2011.

After the numerous hours spent seeing the biggest blunder in umpiring history, that cost young Armando Galarraga the 21st perfect game in Major League Baseball history, all I could think of was a few streak items I thought our readers should know of, take part in or follow.

Don’t be like umpire, Jim Joyce and cry yourself to sleep for blowing it. Check out my 5 favorite streak’s that we all can have a part in.

1) ESPN’s Streak for the cash: This is a great pick em’ game offered to any sports fan through the ESPN website. Simply click the link above, choose from the 15-20 picks that the crack staff at ESPN puts together and see if you can end up with the longest streak at the end of each month to claim the $100,000.00 monthly prize. iPhone even has an app for it that you want to be sure to download.

2) MLB’s Beat the streak: Another fan friendly fantasy game. This one requires you to pick a batter everyday that will get a hit. The first person to reach a 57 game hit streak, using different players daily or riding the same hot bat as long as you want, takes home a meager, $3,000,000.00 – All this for sitting at home on your ass and clicking the mouse. They’re paying us to do what we do all day anyway. Go ahead… pick Kendry Morales!

3) MLB 2K10’s Perfect game challenge: 24 Year old Wade McGilberry of Alabama became the first nerd to pitch a perfect game and claimed his 15 minutes of fame, and a nice $1,000,000.00 for playing a video game and recording himself doing it. Thanks 2K10 for advocating nerds around the globe to justify their non stop mastery of being a gamer!

4) Florida International’s Garrett Wittles: This sophomore baseball sensation who hasn’t cut his hair since hit #1 has ran his hit streak to 54. The all-time record is held by well known ex-Major Leaguer, Robin Ventura. Robin set the all time record at 58 with Oklahoma State, way back in 1987. Wittles will take his hit streak into the college baseball playoffs, which is a double elimination tournament, giving Wittles the opportunity to push his streak to 56, just short of Ventura’s record. Although Wittles is only a super soph, he will most likely be leaving school after he’s drafted this weekend by a Major League ball club. Here’s hoping Wittles and FIU get at least 4 games, if not 5 to tie or break Ventura’s record!

5) Playahatin.com’s Professional Sports Streakers: Our favorite streak around the playahatin campus is the Pro Sports Streaker. The out of shape dude, shaking off security guards and stealing the game ball. Or, the hot chick with her jugs out who wants to give Beckham a kiss or the dude who wants to race Barbaro to the finish line. A great way to wrap up your Friday, and a salute to you Mr. and Mrs. streaker extraordinaire!

While we’re at it – let’s throw up some videos of “pitch invaders” jumping onto the field, knowing they’re going to take a beating, and knocking the ball around! Gotta love em’

Video’s and pictures courtesy of AP, Youtube

Recently we saw Kendry Morales of the Anaheim Angels hit a walk off grand slam to win a big one for his team last Saturday. We then saw a most comical (and very unfortunate) incident roll before our eyes as he strode past third base on cloud nine and saw his teammates standing there behind home plate with open arms, and warm greetings. As he jumped onto home plate he broke his leg, and his fellow Angels smothered him in the merriment. With this celebration and the horror that ensued, Morales likely has ended his year. The Angels Nation is devastated, and all of baseball is half jokingly celebrating the recent rash of walk off’s with sarcastic and very tame celebrations. However, it does bring up a good topic of great interest in the world of sports: The Celebration Injury.

We LOVE celebrations! We wish there were more of them! They’re a great way to end a perfect run, goal, kick, or shot. But what we love even more is the rare tragedy that ensues after the celebration. It’s not that we hate the player or the team or the sport… We just find a bit of pleasantry in how the universe works! Irony at its greatest. Morales isn’t the only one to have suffered an injury due to a celebration. We’ve dug up some of our favorite celebratory injuries that brought back fond memories and affectionate smiles that made us think to ourselves what Bill said to Beatrix Kiddo in Kill Bill vol. 1: “Do you find me sadistic?” Bill, we know exactly how you feel.

Bill Gramatica / Arizona Cardinals: Wow. This has to be the best one ever. After kicking a 42 yard dinger in the first half of a football game, he jumped up in celebration when his team, the Arizona Cardinals, went up 3-0 and tore his ACL which left him sidelined for the rest of the season. Whoops.

Fabian Espindola / Real Salt Lake: Clearly offside’s in the run of play he headed a ball in the net and celebrated with an Argentine back flip. When he landed, he landed wrong and was out for the rest of the game and played minimal minutes for the rest of the year.  “I’m embarrassed,” said Espindola, who celebrated goals with a flip his entire life in Argentina. “I’m never going to do that again. I don’t know what happened. I’ve done it a million times. If I would have known I never would have done it.”

Good one Fabi.

John Smoltz/ Atlanta Braves: Apparently the Atlanta Braves pitcher scalded himself with a piping hot iron while ironing the very shirt he was wearing. Very Kramer-esk.

Ken Griffey Jr / Cincinnati Reds: Missed a game because he apparently pinched one of his, ahem, fuzzy boys with his protective cup. Ken, reverse psychology doesn’t work with those things…

Plaxico Burress / New York Giants: Decides to go Cheddar Bob from 8 mile and shot himself in the leg at a local night club. Burress turned out to have been carrying the gun illegally and was convicted on 3 counts. He accepted a plea deal, hired a prison consultant?, and got busy learning how to do time.

So, we know we missed a few. What are your favorite celebration injuries? No holds barred, but please no jumping up and down…

All pictures courtesy of Getty images, RSL.com, aol images.

Email the author: Taylor Fugate, smackdowntay@hotmail.com

Ken Griffey woke up today and realized that he is 40 years old.  He has more in-game naps than he has dingers this year, and he is batting a cool .184.  He may have hung on a year or two too many, but he is a sure fire Hall of Famer and had one of the sweetest swings in the Bigs.  Some will say that he was too fragile.  I say that he was hurt more often because he wasn’t all hopped up on HGH or stabbing himself with some steroids.  Either way, it is the end of an era and he leaves with 630 homeruns for his career.  His next career move may be heading to the old man softball league.

 Have you been following this? Stephen Strasburg is the new hot topic in Major League Baseball. Strasburg’s a young pitcher who has already made his mark for the Washington Nationals, and he hasn’t even pitched a single ball in the regular season yet. The Nationals signed this kid for $15.1 million in August 2009 (Yeah, he’s that good). Currently he’s playing AAA ball for the Syracuse Chiefs, and now, the Nationals think he’s ready to be called up. Strasburg will make his professional debut on June 8 against the Pittsburgh Pirates. The Nationals nation have so much confidence in this kid, the game is already sold out (That’s 41,546 seats folks)

Is this just media hype, or is this kid THAT good? He has thrown up some huge stats. For one, he throws a ridiculous fast ball that is clocked between 95-100 mph. While pitching for SDSU, Strasburg struck out 23 batters against the University of Utah. On his debut for Syracuse, he pitched six scoreless innings, and struck out six batters while allowing one hit and one walk.  Secondly, the kid throws 85% fastballs, but posesses what scouts call, “the nastiest curve in the minors” Pretty impressive stuff.

Will his first appearance in Major League Baseball be an epic fail, a huge success, or just an average game? This blogger is calling it to be an average game. There’s too much hype, a wonder game for this kid would be too good to be true, and would be a dream come true. He’s got the talent, but we may be seeing him riding the pine by the end of the season. What are your thoughts?

Picture courtesy of Washington Post.

email: Taylor Fugate  playahatin.com writer and contributor

I step away from the TV for one day and feel like I missed one of the greatest days of sports.  Roy Halladay tosses a perfect game and barely get the 1-0 victory.  He picked up his 7th win and lowered his ERA to under 2.0.  He is just lucky he doesn’t play the Red Sox again this year.  It was the 20th perfect game game in league history and the first by a guy that looks like he starred in The Burbs.
Then the true highlight of the night came when Kendry Morales went from walk-off grand slam to the DL with a broken leg.  Dude went a little far on the celebration and broke his leg on the jump on home plate.  Congratulations, you can hit a ball 400 feet, but can jump one foot in the air without getting hurt.
The Lakers continue to haunt my life and finished off the Suns.  They just about squandered an 18 point lead, but Kobe went Kobe and finished them off.  They now will take on the Celtics starting next Thursday.
All that, and I guess there was some soccer game, and the hockey finals started.

Click on the link to check out the “Top 50 Badass Moments” of all time in sports at one of my favorite sites. What was your favorite “Badass” moment of all time? Do you think the guys over at complex missed any great moments.

Check out what the boys over at Complex are doing.

NLCS: Dodgers vs. Phillies

Enough said….Or should I keep going? This video gives me goosebumps watching it. One of the greatest moments in Baseball history.

Dodgers: So Manny is the modern Kirk Gibson & Kershaw is the modern Fernando Valenzuela. Dodger mania is back and the boys in blue are looking to make their 1st return trip to the World Series in 21 Years. Go figure they got stuck with playing the reigning champs in this years NLCS. The same team that knocked them out of the NLCS in 5 games last year. Game 1 should be a phenomenal pitchers matchup as 21 Yr. old Clayton Kershaw is pitching against last years world series MVP – Cole Hamels. Kershaw will be the 3rd youngest game 1 starter in postseason history, so watch how he maintains his composure in tight sittuations.  The Dodgers strength is their bullpen. Hong Chih Kuo, George Sherrill & Jonathan Broxton comprise a filthy back end and won’t blow leads down the stretch like Huston (Batting Practice) Street and the rest of the Rockies did for the Phillies. The Dodgers starters have to go 5,6 possibly 7 innings to get the ball in the hands of the aforementioned bullpen for this system to work. The Dodgers can’t afford to have Randy Wolf-esque performances from their starters (6 Hits / 5 Walks in 3 awful innings of NLDS game 1) if they expect to contain the highest scoring offense in the bigs. The rest of the rotation should consist of surprising Vincente Padilla for game 2. Padilla threw 7 shutout innings against the Cards but is still an unknown commodity for the Dodgers. Hiroki Kuroda will get the rock in game 3 while it looks as if Torre will get Wolf throwing peanuts and let Billingsley throw in game 4.

The Dodger offense is explosive and can take advantage of the Phills rotation. Andre Ethier is having a career year in nearly every statistical category and has brought his magical bat to the postseason, leading them to a sweep of the Cards. On a side note, nice drop to close out game 2  Matt Holliday, errrrrr…  Anyway, Ethier has knocked 5 of his 6 hits this postseason far enough for him to get extra bases while sporting a playoff best 1.333 slugging percentage which is astounding. Ethier is also responsible for plenty of fantasizing by the female Dodger fans. Ethier had 5 of the 13 Dodger runs against the Cards. And, oh yeah… He was the only guy to get a run (Dinger) off of Adam Wainwright who was throwing like Nolan Ryan in the Advil commercials.Although Ethier has been hot, a few other big bats for LA have been inconspicuous by their absence. Matt Kemp started off game 1 nice by hitting a rocket over the wall, but had only 1 other hit in 13 at bats throughout the remainder of the series. Manny stumbled his way through a less than stellar game 1 & 2 where he hit 1-8, but did come back with a nice 3-4 with 2 RBI’s in game 3 to help seal the series.

Phillies: The Phillies are an interesting team – Yes, they’re the defending champs. Yes, they’re throwing out the reigning World Series MVP, Cole Hamels in game 1. Yes they led the majors in runs at 5 per game. But they’re shooting to be the first back-to-back champs since Joe Torre’s Yankees did it in 1998-2000. Charlie Manuel does remind me a great deal of Huckleberry Hound & the offense seemed to prefer to sleep through the majority of the first 7 innings against the Rockies in the NLDS and catch up late. Huston Street & the Rockies bullpen was very generous to the Phills in that regard. They definitely are going to have problems if they follow the same blueprint against the powerful Dodger bullpen. Cole Hamels (10-11) this season may not have the numbers you’d expect from an Ace, but he is a big game pitcher and a fierce competitor. In last years title run, Hamels rolled up a (4-0) record to go with his minimal 1.80 ERA in 5 starts (Thanks Lidge for blowing that save) While Hamels is as good as it gets in game 1, the rest of the series is a toss up. Reports have 38 year old Pedro Martinez who has never thrown an NL postseason game going in game 2. Martinez may be old & unknown & possibly a huge risk in such a pivotal game, but he does have some magic that not a lot of pitchers possess. Much like Hamels, Martinez shows big in the postseason spotlight. Game 3 will most likely be Cliff Lee who I think is the best stretch run pick up in recent memory. The Indians are idiots for giving this guy up – 1 run given up in his last 15 innings is pretty special. He is nails and could prove huge for the Phills. The real wild card here is what Brad Lidge will show up? Will it be the Lidge who was for the most part, un-touchable last postseason, or will the Lidge from the 09′ regular season show up? In the 09′ regular season, Lidge had 8 losses, 11 blown saves & a 7.21 ERA. That should scare Huckleberry Hound and the rest of the Phills everytime he walks out of that giant padded door. Knowing Manny, he will take the first 8 innings off and wait for Lidge to show his ugly mug. Speaking of Manny, can’t wait to see the Manny v Pedro meeting.

Offensively, there is no question that the Phills are the best in the bigs this season. Jimmy Rollins, Shane Victorino, Raul Ibanez, Chase Utley & Ryan Howard are freaks. They have a good mix of speed, power & baseball smarts in manufacturing runs when needed. The problem for the Phillies is their bench and their pitchers swinging sticks. In the NLDS, the Phillies bench didn’t notch a hit in 8 plate appearances – Is Matt Stairs really worthy of a roster spot?The Phillies pitchers haven’t mustered much more – 1 hit in 7 appearances. So do you let a horrible batting pitcher take a crack or wheel out Matt Stairs? Might cause some trouble for the Phills. The Phillies really need to step on the gas from the get go and not rely on their late inning heroics or have to call on their bench to win games.

So the question now is – Who do i pick to win the series…Based on the factors listed below, here’s what i think:

Starting Pitching – Phillies (Cole Hamels & Cliff Lee are all world and the Dodgers have Randy Wolf)

Bullpen – Dodgers (Broxton, Kuo & Sherrill are as good as it gets while Lidge is a ticking time bomb without much help)

Bats – Tie (I think any other series you’d say that this is all Phills all day, but the Dodgers are hot. Without Manny for 50 games and they still put up 780 runs this year to the Phillies league leading 820)

Manager – Dodgers (Sorry Huckleberry Hound, Joe Torre is a god. This is what he gets paid to do)

Big Time Players Make Big Plays In Big Games Factor – Dodgers (Manny & Broxton will be huge- Game over)

My prediction is Dodgers in 6 to play the Yankees as Joe Torre looks to stop the empire due to the Phillies lack of urgency to put runs on the board any time in the first 8 innings.