In something you probably will never see in a Major League Baseball game but probably would love to, Texas Ranger Yorvit Torrealba (who has been playing winter ball in his home country of Venezuela, has been handed a 66-game suspension for letting his hand get in the way of an umpire’s face. Or hitting him, whichever description you’re semantically inclined to adopt.
If you are bad at math, or do not know how long a season of Venezuelan winter baseball lasts, this will keep him from playing for about a season and a half. This also means he will be well rested and possibly gentler with the umpires when he comes back to Texas. According to ESPNDallas.com, Rangers GM Jon Daniels and staff will go over the details of the incident before deciding what if anything they will do about it. Penalties from Venezuelan winter ball (or Honduran, Colombian, Antartican, Panamanian, Arctic, Djiboutian or any other country’s winter ball) do not carry over to the MLB.
Let’s not pretend anyone is doing a lick of work now. Game 2 in the ALCS is going on, and Derek Holland and his mustache are on the mound. Predictions? Who is going to the World Series? C’mon, waste some time here.
A mole at Channel 8 sent us the video of the alleged and so-called quote-unquote assault perpetrated on Brett Shipp by John Wiley Price. We can’t show you the video. It’s protected by copyright. So we created this reenactment of the confrontation, wherein Price “uses his arm and the heel of his hand to physically remove Shipp from his office” while threatening to “split his throat.” Standing in for Brett Shipp is Rangers radio broadcaster Eric Nadel.
If you follow DMN baseball writer Evan Grant (Evan_P_Grant) on Twitter, you already know about his hashtag-gate. After the Rangers’ bullpen blew last night’’s game in Seattle, Grant innocently wrote:
Now Rangers’ going to 40-year-old interim closer in tie game with 0 outs in eighth and go-ahead runner on third. #bullpenisamess
He told me he didn’t do it on purpose. He didn’t realize the “brilliance” of the tweet until the tweet was posted. Needless to say, it’s rocketing through the Internet.
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Rangers sideline reporter Jim Knox, for sports bloggers, pays off like a broken slot machine. (While watching the game, Tim and I had a text back-and-forth, unprintable here, based around this idea.) So the clip below (h/t: Deadspin) will likely be the first of many, and he will feature more heavily in the ones to follow. Anyway, the segment I saw him do after the game was probably more insane, but this will do.
D Magazine food photographer Kevin Marple went to LA to shoot pictures of an In-N-Out burger. His life will never be the same.
This video was shot last Wednesday night when it seemed more than apparent that Michael Young would not be playing for the Rangers again. I admit I felt just like this kid last Wednesday. I’m just glad someone didn’t have a video camera.
I know Mayor Pro Tem Dwaine Caraway made his statement yesterday, admitted he lied to the DMN about why cops were called to his house, and said, “That’s the end of all of this with me. That’s my statement. There’s not going to be anything else. No more questions, no more nothing.” But I have a question. How do you diagram the following sentence, which came from his statement?
“Those of you in this audience that are married, those of you that are listening that are married, if you’ve not always wanted eggs and bacon and some of you may have wanted something else, but you didn’t get it and that’s just what marriage is all about.”
That’s the way marriage go?
What do you have to say about that, Tim McCarver? Did Neftali Feliz deserve that award?
I think, in Neftali Perez, the Texas Rangers have found themselves an outstanding relief pitcher, a pitcher who can come in at the end of a game, when relief pitchers normally come into games, in the eighth inning or the ninth, or even, sometimes, the tenth inning, and get batters out, which is what you want from a pitcher, specifically a relief pitcher, which is what Neftali Perez is. They call that “closing out games,” which is why some people would refer to Perez as a “closer.”
(Sorry. This guy does that shtick wayyyy better than me.)
Dear San Francisco Giants,
Take your ugly bearded mugs and go home. You broke my heart—you are pros at stealing hearts. However, there is one special moment you can’t touch. Sweetest moment of the year.
It’s been everywhere on the internet this morning, and now, because why not, it’s here, too.
One more thing to get you fired up for the game now less than two hours away. Passed on to me by Twitter pal Chris Ebbesen. CLAW! ANTLERS! JUMP!
I’ve never really heard of San Francisco magazine, and we get pretty much every city/regional magazine extant, which we then ridicule, out of either professional jealousy or actual necessity. ANYWAY, I found it because, as Dallas’ city magazine, we need an opposite number to make a World Series bet against and, based on a cursory Google search, it will have to be them.
Here is what we are willing to put on the line:
•Twelve (12) complimentary copies of our 35th anniversary issue
•One (1) free round at The Old Monk (limit: four staff members)
•Solemn promise that we will never allow Tim Rogers to so much as apply for a job at your shop
•Five (5) minutes to say anything you want — political statement, promotion, etc. — at our regular Monday morning staff meeting, in person or via conference call
•One (1) blog post, no longer than 300 words, that we promise to read at least half of
•One (1) guided tour of the Sixth Floor Museum, or whatever other stereotypical “Dallas” thing you want to do
So what say you, San Francisco magazine?