Twitter Baseball

I admit it:  I am a guilty Tweeter.  I feel slightly guilty when I use Twitter.  I generally think that Twitter is a bunch of people that are sort of using the internet as a dumping ground of verbal/textual diarrhea.  Of course, one could say the same for Facebook, and I am quite a diligent Facebooker.  (But Facebook is way more about social networking, photos, videos, etc. whereas Twitter is just endless status updates of "Time to walk my dog.")

I use Twitter mainly as a way to avoid annoying my Facebook friends with my incessant rantings/gushings about the Braves.  And then I realized, "Oh my... there are baseball players on Twitter.  Lots of them."

Today, Gaby Sanchez, first baseman of the Florida Marlins, joined Twitter.  Lauren and I, by the way, LOOOOOOOOOOVE Gaby Sanchez.  I feel guilty about it, like I'm secretly cheating on the Braves.  But come on.  The guy's a beast.  Seriously.  I told him as much, too.
Update:  I also told him to be nice to his new teammates, Omar Infante and Mike Dunn.  HE ACTUALLY RESPONDED!!!  It was short.  But I don't care.  I'm taking him at his word.  He promised he would be nice to our lovvies!!  In return, I'll be nice to Dan Uggla, too.  (Not that I was mean to him since he became a Brave....)

And here's the thing.  There are SO many pro baseball players with Twitter.  SO MANY.  And I'm all like, "Dang it!!  Where are all the Braves tweeters?"  There are three known ones for the Braves.  And as much as I love J-Hey and Fweddie, and as much as I am very very amused by Moylo, their tweets are boring.  BORING.  And as much as I adore and respect DOB and Mark Bowman (*retch*  *gags self with spoon*), they're not the players!

Examples--

Fweddie:  "On my way to church."

J-Hey:  "Cereal.  [insert picture of his breakfast]"  or  "Keep the faith.  [insert link or RT to a Rev Run tweet.]  Follow my boy Fweddie and Moylo."

Moylo:  "misspellings of every kind.  grammatical errors galore.  misplaced punctuation.  not funny.  hey guys here's a blog post including all of the above, but with more funny.  [insert link].  PS I love Ski he's my boy so glad we signed him whoo."

Official Braves:  "Hey, check out J-Hey!  Oh, look, there's J-Hey!  Did we mention J-Hey???  Oh, we suppose we should also mention Fweddie and Moylo." 

Don't get me wrong.  I have no problem with you telling me that you're going to church or posting pictures of your cereal or promoting your blog.  BUT YOU'RE STILL BORING.  And occasionally, they WILL post funny things... but only occasionally.  For instance, Freddie posted about waiting in line at midnight to get the new Call of Duty game.  GEEK.  Love it.

The Blue Jays tweeters, by contrast, are AWESOME, pretty much always.  [See Ian's blog, The Blue Jay Hunter for an awesome and more superior write-up about the Jays tweet-peeps.]

Travis Snider (hitherto known as "Lunchbox" on this blog):  "MEAT!  FOOD IS AWESOME!  I will discuss the intricacies of certain foods and answer fan questions about food and ask for suggestions related to restaurants.  Then, I will go into BEAST MODE and tease my fellow Blue Jays, especially VDub."

JP Arencibia:  "I'm super cute and excited about playing next year!  See this picture of me setting a good example for my nephew?  [insert disgustingly cute picture of nephew.]  It's time to go into BEAST MODE!!  [insert picture of beast mode]  MIAMI RULES!  Sometimes, I discuss food.  CUBAN FOOD IS DELICIOUS.  Stop teasing me, fellow Blue Jays!  I can't help being the most-good-looking.  The fans ask for pictures, I'm just trying to connect with them!  I misspell many things, lolz.  When I grow up, I want to be like VDubs."

Ricky Romero:  "Son, you don't know what Cuban food is until you eat it at the Romero household!  BEAST MODE!!  Time to work out!  Excited about next season!  Bring it AL EAST.  I ain't skurred!  VDubs is slow on this Twitter thing, let's make fun of him, boys!  Hey, JP, you post too many pictures of yourself."

Brett Cecil:  "I love my wife.  I love my kid.  I'm going to clean the entire house now.  Then, I will go into BEAST MODE!!  Can't wait for Spring!!  My kid is cute, did I mention that?  My wife is awesome.  How cute am I?  PS I like hunting."

Jesse Litsch:  "Dude, I just ran into [insert celebrity name] at this charity dinner for [insert awesome cause].  I'm kind of starstruck.  BEAST MODE!!  Occasionally, I talk about food, too.  Toronto is awesome!  So much good food.  Our fans are the best."

Vernon Wells:  "I might be old compared to you young kids, but I ain't that old yet!  I'm still capable of BEAST MODE!!!  AL East is boasting 2 All-Star teams, eh?  THAT'S JUST MOTIVATION TO KICK MORE ASSSSSSSS!!!!  Thank God for everything I have.  Now I'm going to condition and teach these kids a thing or two.  BRING IT ON BOSTON AND NEW YORK.   WE GOT THIS."

Official Blue Jays:  "Look at our awesome players with their awesome Twitter accounts!  We will actively engage our players in Twitter-conversations!  We will also talk to the fans!  We are WAY RAD!"  

UPDATE:  So, one of my favorite Jays has signed up for Twitter now.  JP apparently went on a campaign to recruit yet another Jays player to Twitter.  [Complete with on-going negotiations, deal finalization, and Ricky's stamp of approval.]  Say hello to Jose Bautista, boys and girls.  He's ready to turn on BEAST MODE in the Dominican Republic.  :D

See the difference, y'all?  I'm sayin'.  Other tweeters to mention:

Dirk Hayhurst (aka Garfoose):  "I am a bestselling author.  I am well-spoken and insightful.  I used to play for the Blue Jays.  I am, in fact, the first Jays tweeter, and look what has happened now.  And they used to make fun of me.  By the way,  I am a wonderful writer.  Feel free to check out my blog.  Hi friends on my former team!  You guys are rad.  I have BEAST MODE, too.  I have all sorts of modes.  I can't seem to turn off Dork Mode, though."

Mike Stanton:  "I do not appear to possess spelling or grammatical skills of any sort.  But that's forgiven because I'm pretty dang cute, I'm not gonna lie.  I like food, and I'm gonna talk about it.  I like partying with mermaids.  Time to go to the beach.  I'm going to condition and work out!"

John Axford:  "I have a crazy mustache and I'm Canadian.  I am also a photographer.  Trevor Hoffman is a great man."

CJ Wilson:  "I like cars.  I am straight edge.  Occasionally I will express outrage over something.  I will also post funny things.  Wanna see some pictures?  [insert link of pictures]"

Drew Storen:  "I'm a college student.  I REALLY should be studying/writing this paper... buuuuuuuut Call of Duty keeps calling to me.  Maybe I'll play just for a little bit... WHY DO I PROCRASTINATE LIKE THIS???"

Braves PR, in case you are reading this... We demand more of this.  MORE.  Thank you.

Off-Season Sundries

Yes, I know I said I was going to get the photos from Bobby's last game up.  Yes, I know I said I'd be quick about it.  I've been putting it off because it still stings a little bit.  It's as though I feel like if I do get it posted and written up... then it really is over.  :(

That being said, I wanted to make note of a few things.  Off-Season Hell is officially here.  I don't dislike the other sports.  At all.  But there's simply nothing like baseball.  With basketball, I just have a blinding hatred for all teams not the Atlanta Hawks; I don't know who is on our bench or who is on everybody else's team unless they are a superstar, and then, since they don't play for the Hawks, I despise them.  With football, I'm sort of like, "GO ATLANTA" but I have NO idea what is going on, and why there are brightly colored hankies being thrown on the field all the time, nor do I know who is on our team beyond a couple guys.  With hockey?  I only know that the Thrashers are Atlanta's team, and that the Flying V is a poor strategy to use in hockey.  Thanks for the sub-par hockey education, Disney.

Because it is now the off-season, we now have a number of free agents:  Derrek Lee, Troy Glaus, and Eric Hinske.  Our beautiful awesome badass wonderful first basemen!!!  <3 <3 <3 them all.  I know that Freddie's the "First Baseman of the Future," but... I've grown very fond of D-Lee, T-Roy, and most of all, Ske.  So Frank Wren... on the off-chance you are reading this, PLEASE please please bring back Eric Hinske.  We need him.  I'll miss the other boys, but Ske MUST be in Atlanta in March.  He's too good, and too great of a clubhouse guy to lose.... !

Also, as BravesJennifer of the Tomahawk Team pointed out, a certain Braves player has already gotten bored with the off-season:  Peter Moylan.  It seems that Pete has created himself a blog, a Facebook fan page, and a Twitter account.  AWESOME.

And now this is when I go:  Congratulations San Francisco Giants.  I'm glad Timmy did so well.  I'm glad that Edgar Renteria (former Brave!) won it.

But I'm mad that there is no more baseball.  There could have been 2 more games.  TWO MORE.  Anything to delay off-season hell... but no, the SF Giants clearly didn't get the memo.  THANKS A LOT YOU JERKS.  What am I going to do for the next FOUR months????????????????????   (Y'all still did good.  I'm just mad.)

And poor Cliff Lee.  Cliff Lee with his beautiful sad eyes, rosin-y, sweaty cap, sweeping long lashes (fanning us as he blinks) and his insanely awesome pitching.  Outdone by the Giants?  How could this be?  Craiggie said, "Perhaps he's human after all."  Yes.  But... seriously?  The Giants?  I still can't believe it.

Okay.  Enough of all that.  I really will post those photos soon.  Along with all the other things I plan on posting.  Soon.  Really.  Promise.

For now, though, I'll leave you with this:

You're welcome.  ;D

EDIT:  This just in.  Travis Snider has also joined Twitter fairly recently.  And it is pretty much one of the most hilarious things I've ever read.  Case in point:

Lunchboxhero45:  I cannot confirm that I can take down a 67oz Roast. I want to say the largest steak I have ever ordered and eaten was roughly 48oz

 That's Mr. Meats-Don't-Clash for you.  Check out Blue Jay Hunter's blog if you don't know what I'm talking about (link on sidebar).

<3

Fantasy Baseball... Take One

(Originally started 16 April 2010)
I have a fantasy baseball team, named "Misfit Love" after the Queens of the Stone Age song. (It's a good song, you should check it out.) The hope is that I will CRUSH everybody in my league, but I severely doubt this will happen. Because the league I play in usually (I'm not sure if this is the same with the rest of the leagues out there) focuses on offense, I have a hard time picking players because I tend to focus on defense. Plus, I just want to staff my entire team with Braves, Jays, ex-Braves, and ex-Jays. And also, Ichiro and Podsednik. (It is because of Scott Podsednik that I managed to even score any points for Monday... ugh. That horrific, horrific day.)
I'm allowed to have 16 "players" (one or more of which can be a pitching staff), and currently on my team, I have:

1. Atlanta Braves (P)-- I also had the Blue Jays, and dropped them in the first week. Am beginning to wish I had kept them... but let's face it... I wasn't going to trade in the Braves pitching staff for the Jays pitching staff, like... ever.
2. Brian McCann (C)--He's BMac. 'Nuff said.
3. Martin Prado (1B/2B/3B)--2nd in the league as far as AVG goes. Consistent offensively, and excellent defensively... can't sing enough praises
4. Yunel Escobar (SS)--All right, so his OBP isn't that great at the moment (not bad, just not great)... but this guy is AWESOME.
5. Jason Heyward (OF)--Haha, that's right! Read it and weep. (Of course, I accidentally forgot to put him on the starting lineup in time for Opening Day... ::sob::)
6. Matt Diaz (OF)--he was amazing last season, but platooning this season... I may actually have to bite the bullet and find an everyday player?
7. Omar Infante (2B/3B/SS/OF)--Utility player extraordinaire
8. Troy Glaus (1B/3B)--3-RUN HOMER LAST NIGHT WHAT A STUD
9. Aaron Hill (2B)--Currently injured, but normally a great player
10. Travis Snider (OF)--Please start hitting before I drop you kthx; never mind, you caught things, you stud, amazing.... and also hit things. I love you again.
11. Jeff Francoeur (OF)--His batting average is the fifth highest in the league
12. Casey Kotchman (1B)--maybe not a power bat, but... (See what I mean, when I say I focus on defense in a very offense driven game)
13. Scott Podsednik (OF)--He alone brought in 11 of the 15 points I scored on Monday... what a BA. 6 stolen bases already, and the season has only just started.
14. Skip Shumaker (2B/OF)--Don't know much about him, except that he was a free agent... probably gonna drop him, now that I think about it.
15. Andy LaRoche (3B)--I might drop him, too... Couldn't get Chipper... grumble
16. Jose Guillen (OF)--was a free agent, and was evidently on fire for the last 2 weeks... I dropped David Ross for him.

I think I need to find Eric Hinske... plans, ideas... grumble.


And since we're on the topic of "fantasy baseball," I cannot wait for Jordan Schafer's wrist to heal thoroughly and return to full strength so that he can come back to the majors. He's a center fielder, but we can put him in left field... just needs to get his act back together, don't play hurt, etc. I'm not ready to write off my birthday-buddy just yet. (Jordan and I have the same birthday... and he's gorgeous to boot. Lemme at'im!)