At the weekend, the Mexican League had its Juego de Estrellas–its All-Star Game–in Oaxaca de Juárez, the capital of the state of Oaxaca. It’s around 290 miles southeast of Mexico City where I live; six hours or so on a bus. I’ve never been to a Major League All-Star Game before, I’ve barely watched one all the way through, frankly; but I have a friend in Oaxaca, so it seemed like a good chance to see how Mexico does these things.
Special Getting Blanked correspondent Dave Burrows has an encyclopedic knowledge of baseball movies and an ax to grind with some corners of the pop culture internet world. Let him entertain you.
Grantland put out a baseball movie edition of their YouTube Hall of Fame series yesterday. Somehow, obscure movies like Long Gone and How Do You Know made it into the Hall (we’re supposed to be the hipsters, Grantland) while real effort went into not including all-timers like Bull Durham and the Natural. And having zero vids of The Sandlot in the YouTube Hall of Fame is the equivalent of not having Barry Bonds in the Baseball Hall of Fame.
Allow me, on behalfof Getting Blanked, present the REAL Baseball Movie wing of the YouTube Hall of Fame. But first one rule: No trailers. Posting a trailer is a copout and a disgrace to the Hall. The Jim Rice, we’ll call it.
The 2013 Major League Baseball Season gets officially under way today (the season doesn’t start until the first pitch in Cincinnati because that’s just how things work) and Getting Blanked is, to say the least, excited.
Predictions are a fool’s errand. Baseball and life have their ways of getting in the way of just about everybody’s best laid plans. The echoes of previously misguided predictions haunt the predictor forever. Nobody predicted the Orioles would make the playoffs last year, which means any prediction which doesn’t tap the Orioles as a playoff-bound club in 2013 receives a whole lot of “didn’t you pick them to finish last in 2012, idiot?”
In the twitter age of instant punditry, there is no worse feeling than making a somewhat bold or declarative statement and seeing a few eager trolls banging away on the “favorite” button, stashing that proclamation away for safe-keeping and posterity.
To mark the occasion and heavily hedge our bets, let me roll out a season preview full of sub-predictions. Not predictions as much as statements: nine baseballish things that we believe in enough to put in writing. Feel free to file under “what was he thinking?” for reference in six months.
It’s the start of another new year. At such time, it’s become customary to take stock of the sights, sounds and emotions that were experienced over the last 365 days. For a baseball blog like us, this translates into a look back at our writing, GIF-based page view whoring, and the immediate reactions to some of the more incredible things to happen over the past year.
While the 2012 baseball season will most likely be remembered as the first one to implement a new playoff format that made for exciting baseball throughout the month of September, the change in post season structure was only one of several individual stories that made us laugh, cringe, smile, throw stuff at the television and scrape our jaws off the floor. This is the nature of baseball, and here are a few examples of why we love the game, and why this past year was a great one for baseball and a great one for our little baseball blog.
Any poor souls caught working this lamest week of the year are to be pitied. Pitied and supported to the best of our collective abilities. While some spend the dwindling hours of 2012 lamenting our collective greed and wondering if all the new Christmas clothes still fit over our engorged bodies, others must return to whatever task keeps their lights on.
If you are the type of person who normally fritters away your work day on the internet memeing and comedy pyramiding, your need for fresh content cannot go unsated. Our interests are not dissimilar. In honor of those currently mailing in two days in December I offer a year-end baseball listicle which just might keep your attention for three or four minutes. Please to enjoy…
You Don’t Know Bo: The Legend of Bo Jackson is the final film in the latest burst of ESPN’s 30-for-30 project. The documentary debuts Saturday December 8th at 9 p.m. ET on ESPN/ESPNHD, immediately following the conclusion of the Heisman Trophy Presentation.
Director Michael Bonfiglio’s You Don’t Know Bo: The Legend of Bo Jackson makes no bones about perpetuating the mythos of its subject. This is kind of the point, though. Bo Jackson was far from a perfect baseball player; he struck out a tonne and couldn’t draw a walk to save his life… but man, could he hammer the ball and make nice plays in the outfield. Bo Jackson spurned professional football when he was selected first overall by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 1986, only to partake in an NFL career as “a hobby” when the Los Angeles Raiders came knocking in 1987. A hobby, “like fishing and hunting” Jackson told a gathering of reporters. Bonfiglio presents Jackson as a super hero, which is an embodiment reinforced by the countless former teammates, coaches, and media members interviewed throughout the film.
Hey, friends. Are you enjoying the Winter Meetings so far? No? Didn’t think so. Well, they’re about to improve, as Getting Blanked is hosting a Google+ hangout to wrap up all the moves and non-moves of this year’s Winter Meetings tomorrow, Thursday December 6th, at 11 am EST to break down the moves that will help shape the 2013 baseball season.
Join myself, Andrew Stoeten of Drunk Jays Fans, Ben Nicholson-Smith of MLB Trade Rumors (@MLBTRBen) and Jonah Keri of Grantland (@JonahKeri). You don’t need a Google+ account or anything as the event will stream live on Youtube right here on Getting Blanked.
Fire some comments to the Getting Blanked facebook page or at me on twitter. We did a Blue Jays-focused Hangout before the meetings started and it was a lot of fun. Join us, won’t you?
