Why, who is this delightful young lady and the goofy looking dude behind her?

You know, I’m not normally wont to post junk like this.  I just think Hunter looks damn goofy in this pic

For more Terrie, click here.  And, I hope it’s common sense, but the link ain’t safe for work.  In fact, you might want some alone time after clicking the link.

h/t Deadspin.

When I was five, my family rarely had the financial resources to go to baseball games.  We definitely watched our fair share on tv, and listened to Milo (back when he was coherent) on the radio.  Those were heady days for Astros fans: unlike the bandbox that is MMP, the Astrodome was a pitchers’ park extraordinaire, and the roster was shaped with that in mind.  Legendary hurlers like Nolan Ryan and Mike Scott were in their primes, backed by young goofballs like Jim Deshaies and Charlie Kerfeldt.  But I wasn’t a pitching fan back then.  I was a Jose Cruz fan.

When you look at his stats now, he’s pretty unremarkable.  He hit for average, not for power.  He was a passable but unspectacular outfielder.  His jersey is retired, but he never got any serious HoF consideration.  If Hunter Pence had less power and fewer strikeouts, that’d be the closest equivalent on our current roster.

But he was my favorite player, dammit, and on the handful of occasions during his 13 years with the ‘Stros that I got to see him play live, you couldn’t draw my attention away from him.  At the aforementioned age of five, I distinctly remember sitting the rainbow seats in the Dome (the nosebleeds) and cheering Cheo while he simply stood in left field and waited for a ball in play.  Let that sink in: I was cheering an outfielder who was just flat-out standing there.  This is why my own baseball career at the time consisted primarily of the taxonomic evaluation of dandelions.

When Cheo became the Astros first base coach, it always delighted me that he got some of the biggest cheers during the pre-game introductions.  For as many times as I’ve cursed the average baseball fan in Houston as a numbskull in search of the Almighty Longball with no sense of history or proportion, the ovations that Cruz receives always restore a little of my faith.

Naturally, when the Astros signed Jose Cruz, Jr. to a minor-league contract this offseason, I got all misty thinking about the opportunity to cheer for another Jose Cruz.  When he tore the cover off the ball in Spring Training, leap-frogging all the other candidates for the fifth outfielder role, I was even more excited.

And then the regular season started.

Cheito, you’re like a hot girl with an annoying voice.  Every fiber of my being says that I should love you, but then you start to do your thing, and it makes me want to bathe with electric eels. You’re awful as a pinch hitter, man.  Just a fucking tragedy.  Last night, when you couldn’t bring in either of the two runners who could’ve salvaged the ugliest game of the season so far, I had a moment of clarity wherein I understood why monkeys fling their feces.

So with that in mind, and his .065 average making Hunter look like freaking Ichiro, it’s time for the good of the team to come ahead of the last name.   Victor Diaz is tearing up the ball in Round Rock, and certainly couldn’t do much worse than 3 hits for the whole season.   It’s time to cut the losses and get a more reliable bat for the bench.

I’ve loved the Cruz family since 1985.  But I also loved Michael Jackson back then, and my therapist says it’s time to let that one go, too

An open letter to Hunter Pence:

Hey Hunter,

Feeling comfy?  Still pulling small pieces of glass out of your legs and arms?  Look, we need to talk.  I loved watching you last year, when you were all piss and vinegar and running into walls and stuff.  Your enthusiasm was something I hadn’t seen since Craig Biggio was still Craig Biggio, and the fact that you were shaping up to be a .300/20 kind of guy was damn fine.  There were concerns about your ability to hit a breaking ball, but I figured that you’d adapt to that just like you’ll eventually adapt to opening closed doors before going through them.

But what the hell is going on, Spaz? You’re batting .179 as of today, with ten strikeouts and no walks.  NO. WALKS.  Your plate approach right now is worse than Carl Landry’s free throw form. When the ‘Stros signed Kaz Matsui and his fissures, he was intended to be the #2 hitter, but when his butt trouble intervened, Coop tapped you for that lineup spot.  A lot of people were worried when we signed Kaz, because he’s an injury risk, and he has a massage therapist and all that, but he’s an ideal second hitter because he can hit behind a runner and move people up.  Especially since Michael Bourn is faster than a Saturn V rocket, any well-placed contact could create a scoring opporutunity.  Barring that, a walk brings up the Puma and the heart of the lineup. 

Kaz can do all of those things, Hunter.  Coop thought you could too, but now you’re flailing like the T-1000 in the molten steel, Bourn’s getting stranded on base, and the boppers are getting fewer pitches to hit.  It’s killing this supposedly potent lineup, Spaz.  At this point, Towles or Loretta would be a better fit for the two hole until the anal fissures are healed. 

But I still have some shred of faith that you’ll bring this around.  I don’t want you to stand like a statue at the plate, refusing to swing.  That’s what Morgan Ensberg did, and now he’s picking A-Rod’s dingleberries in the Bronx.   In case you haven’t figured it out, the opposing pitcher’s job is not to give you something that you can hit into the Crawford Boxes; he’s trying to get you out, preferably without giving you a chance to advance a runner or do anything productive.  Lately, you’ve made some dumb-ass pitchers look like that cheater Jake Peavy.   Hurt them before they hurt you, you lanky bastard; just remember that hurting them doesn’t mean swinging like freaking El Kabong at every opportunity.

I’ve tried logic, and I’ve tried cajoling.  If this keeps up, all I’ve got left is bribery and threats of physical harm.  Maybe if I put Marissa Miller on the other side of a sliding glass door, I could do both at once.  Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that: I don’t want to see you hurt, and Marissa’s been having such a great time in my basement.

Sincerely,

Ted Striker

Greetings from the one fan of an American League team here at WTP. [Author’s note: I would be concerned about being grossly outnumbered, but considering I am comparing the Indians to the Cardinals and Astros, I think it’s a fair matchup.]

As I write this, the Tribe just lost to the White Sox 2-1, giving the beloved politically incorrect mascot its first loss of the year. Shockingly, the juggernaut that is the Kansas City Royals looks to have another win today against the Tigers, meaning KC will be in first place all alone here in a matter of minutes. Of course, they will be mathematically eliminated from the postseason in a matter of days, so I say “bully for you, Alex Gordon.” Or something like that.

I’m rambling. Back to my point.

Simply stated, the American League is roughly 1,354,787 times greater than the National League right now. (I did the math.) Why is this? Well, according to assmasters like Joe Buck, part of the reason is that the two biggest spenders and five of the top six spenders are American League teams. Problem is, once you get past number six, the National League more than keeps pace with the American in spending, yet the AL keeps feeding its collective dick to the NL in the All Star game year after year.

Here’s where I would insert my own theory if I had one, but I don’t. Instead, I’ll open it up to comments and suggestions. Any comments that refer to last year’s ALCS, however, will cause me to mail a turd to the commenter.

In other news…I realize that I still owe the 9 of you who read this a new, fancy, baseball-related template.  I even have a couple cool pictures already picked out for the header.  But I am lazy.  Very lazy.  Amazingly lazy.  But it will come.