Hit by a Pitch

Earlier this evening, I entertained myself by watching YouTube videos of Blake Griffin flopping. (Go here to check it out — I’m sure there are additions being made every minute.)

There are two things that are going to destroy the NBA. The first is shitty, ridiculous officiating. First of all, there is no reason “superstars” should get more favorable calls than any other player. A foul is a foul, period. Every foul should be called the same way no matter who’s on the giving end and who’s on the receiving end. And fewer fouls should be called because that shit is boring (if I wanted to sit around watching guys shoot free throws I’d — well, I’d punch myself and then get shitfaced because WTF) and it stops the flow of the game.

The second thing that’s going to destroy the NBA is the flopping. Flopping is #2 on my sports shit list, right after concussions, serious health issues, and suicide with respect to current and former NFL players. The first part of the problem with flopping is that guys do it at all. The second part of the problem is that shitty, ridiculous referees end up rewarding them by calling fouls when they see a flop. Like, oh man, dude is falling to the ground, which must mean someone hacked him. No. He’s just flopping.

Blake Griffin is an NBA superstar known for his aggro dunks. He’s also a goddamn flopping flopper, which kind of doesn’t make sense because you’d think someone so allegedly badass would be able to function like an adult instead of flopping. One time, he hit himself with his own hand and flopped. Seriously.

My favorite Blake Griffin flopping video was this one, which made me LOL.

In my short career as a baseball fan, my team has given me a no-hitter, two perfect games, and a World Series victory.

My experience watching the end of Philip Humber’s perfect game was a lot like the time I saw the end of Mark Buehrle’s perfect game: sitting in my living room, hands over my mouth with my fingers on my nose (not in an intentional I-can-affect-the-game posture — just because that’s what I do with my nervous hands when I’m really freaking out about a sporting event), feeling kind of like I’m going to be sick (not really) or cry (really). I love displays of defensive awesomeness in sports more than just about anything, and a perfect game thrown by a major-league pitcher is just about the most awesome display of defensive awesomeness there can be, if that’s not too awesome to even make sense.

I almost missed both perfect games (catching the end of the Buehrle game was sheer luck when I went home for lunch and got a text alerting me to what was happening). If you’re not a baseball fan (in which case, sorry, tl;drno1curr), you might not know about the annoyance of what Fox Sports does to you on Saturdays. Fox airs a baseball game each Saturday afternoon. All other games are blacked out, even on services like MLB.tv or MLB Extra Innings, which are expensive things you purchase to watch out-of-market games. I guess the theory is that baseball fans will watch whatever shit game is on Fox because they can’t watch any other games.

I never do that. Pro football is the only sport I’ll watch any team play. If we’re talking about baseball or basketball, I’m only watching my teams. So usually on Saturday afternoon, I listen to the radio broadcast of the White Sox game (you can do this on your MLB At Bat app, but of course if you’re a baseball fan, you already know that).

I listened to the beginning of the Sox game on Saturday afternoon until I had something else to do. Later, I checked the score and saw that it was the 8th inning, the Sox were still winning, and — wait, holy shit — the Mariners had no hits. So this is at least a no-hitter if Humber is still pitching. I fired up the audio broadcast and hit up Twitter, which as always is the best place for breaking news. I saw all the OH SHIT OH SHIT OH SHIT OH SHIT tweets from @nothawk (fake Twitter account of one of the White Sox tv guys, who is the greatest sports commentator of all time this side of John Madden, and one of the most brilliant contributions to Twitter) and I knew what was going on.

Fox finally, in the bottom of the 9th inning, switched from the stupid-ass game it was broadcasting to the Sox/Mariners game (at first on a terrible split screen). So I got to see the last three outs of Phil Humber’s perfect game. It was glorious and I almost cried. And I’m really bummed that Soren was napping when it happened. Soon, though, little guy. There will be lots of White Sox moments like this for us to share.

Today, I have an article and two videos for you, all featuring JaVale McGee, who, it turns out, I like more than I thought I would.

You can read the Sports Illustrated article by Lee Jenkins here.

Hey sports fans! It’s time once again for my annual post about the walk-up music of Colorado Rockies players. As always, I’ll update the list as I find out more and I’ll make a Grooveshark playlist ASAP. Enjoy, and comments are on for this post.

Pitchers

Matt Belisle:
Rafael Betancourt: Give Me Everything by Pitbull feat. Ne-Yo
Rex Brothers:
Jhoulys Chacin:
Tyler Chatwood:
Jeremy Guthrie: Tonight is the Night by Outasight (pitching), What Makes You Beautiful by One Direction (hitting)
Jamie Moyer:
Juan Nicasio:
Matt Reynolds:
Josh Roenicke: Imma Star by Jeremih
Esmil Rogers: Winner by Jamie Foxx feat. Justin Timberlake

Catchers

Ramon Hernandez: Ven Morena by Oscar D’Leon, Ai Se Eu Te Pego by Michel Telo
Wilin Rosario: El Cafe by Tito Swing, International Love by Pitbull feat. Chris Brown

Infielders

Jason Giambi: Wolfpack Theme by N.W.O.
Todd Helton: Springsteen by Eric Church
Jonathan Herrera: Riscate by Alexis & Fido
Chris Nelson: What’s My Name by DMX
Jordan Pacheco: Square Dance by Eminem
Marco Scutaro: Danza Kuduro (Club Mix) by Denoizer feat. Don Omar
Troy Tulowitzki: Levels by Avicii, Gotta Have It by Jay-Z and Kanye West (apparently Gotta Have It was for Opening Day only)

Outfielders

Tyler Colvin: Hold on to Black Metal by My Morning Jacket
Michael Cuddyer: Kyoto by Skrillex, I Can’t Stop by Flux Pavilion, Mind Your Manners by Chiddy Bang
Dexter Fowler: Grind 24 by Torch, Arab Money by Rick Ross
Carlos Gonzalez: Donde Estes Llegare by Alexis & Fido
Eric Young Jr.: Headlines by Drake

When you’re not religious and you live 1,000 miles away from your family and don’t travel because you’re poor and have 900 animals and are a John-Madden-level claustrophobic who’s afraid of flying, you don’t really have much opportunity for traditions and rituals. Well, we don’t, anyway. For example, we don’t have family gatherings for holidays like when I was a kid, where my parents and I hung out with my grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. Now, we tend to do whatever presents itself with friends, or nothing. Either way, it’s cool, because we’re not big holiday people.

The thing is, I’m not sure I want Soren to grow up with absolutely no holiday or holiday-like traditions. I mean, they can be really nice! When I was a kid, my spoiled only-child little heart spent weeks looking forward to Christmas at my grandparents’ house and the mountain of presents with my name on them. And my nana’s homemade noodles. Holy crap you guys the homemade noodles, drizzled with lightly browned butter — they were the most delicious thing I’ve ever eaten and I haven’t had them since well before nana died in the 80s.

We don’t have big Christmases and homemade noodles and a nana who writes your name on plastic Easter eggs with goodies inside and hides them around their sprawling ranch house in Park Ridge, IL, but maybe we should have something. Maybe the answer is to create traditions where they’re meaningful for us. And if by “meaningful for us” I mean meaningful for me (and this is my blog so of course that’s what I mean), the answer is sports.

I figure MLB Opening Day (capitalized because it’s a holiday!) is the best place to start. When you’re a sports fan, MLB Opening Day is exciting. It’s the start of so many things! It’s the start of summer, of biking to the game, of drinking beer while waiting for the sun to dip behind the Coors Field scoreboard, of missing Chicago, of laughing out loud at Ed Farmer (he’s funny!) and hearing commercials for Chicago pizza places, of waiting for Hawk Harrelson to yell “You can put it on the board . . . YES!!!” and Instagrammed pictures of baseball players nobody cares about except me and reading The Dugout (which seems to no longer exist) and watching the guys in the bullpen because the bullpen is one of my favorite things ever.

And seriously, if I can get kind of ridiculous and sappy for a minute, it’s the start of hope. Nobody makes me hope as much as the White Sox. This could be the year. Well, I mean, this probably won’t be the year what with the “R” word being thrown around and a manager who has more experience charging the mound than, well, managing, but still. With baseball, I always feel like it’s at least possible.

The question is which MLB Opening Day to celebrate. Opening Day in general? The first White Sox game? The first Rockies game? The first home game at Coors Field?

To tell you the truth I’m not a big fan of going to the first home game at Coors Field. It’s always way too crowded and they charge too much for tickets (for a while, if you wanted to buy tickets for Opening Day, you had to buy tickets for another game in that series, too — I don’t know if they still do this) and they run out of good beer (you almost don’t mind this because the lines for the good beer and the bathrooms are ridiculous). With a toddler, it’s even kind of hard to hang out anywhere around Coors Field that day — last year, I remember trying to go to Falling Rock Tap House and it was so ridiculously crowded even after the game started we gave up on the idea.

So at least for now, I’m thinking our MLB Opening Day will be a low-key event that involves watching the Sox, eating pizza, and hanging out. This year, it’ll have to happen for game 2 because we didn’t take Friday off work. But in the future, I think we should all take the day off of work or school for our Opening Day celebration. I mean, it’s fair to take holidays off, and this is our holiday. At least until Ben (the Cubs fan who, in typical Cubs fan fashion, can’t name 3 players on the active roster — love you, Cubs fans!) objects to the way I’m trying to make our kid a Sox fan.