Steam rose from the iron cauldron as the warlock finished the incantations. Soot and smog gathered overhead, blotting the sun out and forcing him to work under a dull orange haze. The warlock looked down at the dingy, brown lump of flesh he was trying to reanimate. The incantation must have failed. He prepared to start anew.Wait, there! Movement! It was coming back to life, this miasma of death and rot. It twisted, looked up, and then coughed. The warlock stepped back. He knew that whatever was in that breath would kill him, whether by science or sorcery. But as quickly as the creation came to life, that life expired in a puff of grey mist.
The room smelled like a dead whale, rotting and dormant. The mass of flesh quivered in a death rattle before expiring. The warlock then put it between a steamed bun and charged $5 for it at various concession stands throughout Dodger Stadium.
Seriously, look at that thing. How can we not be on the side of good in this mortal struggle? The second you start to think, "Hey, it’s just sports, baby. Cool it with the good and evil talk. We’re all on the same spinning rock that we call Earth, man," look at that picture again. How can you not know that the Dodgers are intrinsically evil? They sell those. And how can you tell that Dodger Dogs are evil? Why, by the little handlebar mustache, of course. And if your Dodger Dog doesn’t have a mustache, well, then you must not be eating a Dodger Dog.
Kidding aside: those things will make you sterile.
"That’s all you got, Gnats fan! Making fun of the concessions?" said the Dodgers fan, probably while stuck in traffic.
Ha ha. No. The Dodgers have gone 19-27 in the second half of the season. They traded away for deadline reinforcements, only to watch the team crater. They were swept by a surging Giants team, putting them eight games back in the division just as August started. They gave Manny Ramirez away just to be rid of him.
My word. Just typing that made my fingers tingle. They should charge you to type that sentence in the parking lot of a rave.
The Dodgers have gone 19-27 in the second half of the season. They traded away for deadline reinforcements, only to watch the team crater. They were swept by a surging Giants team, putting them eight games back in the division just as August started. They gave Manny Ramirez away just to be rid of him.
Hoo. I need a cigarette.
Of course, that doesn’t mean anything. That’s the beauty of the rivalry. No matter how poorly your team is doing, no matter how out of the race your team is, you can still feel pure baseball-related joy just by winning a series against the other team. Overconfidence is for fools. Even if the Dodgers were a 110-loss team, I’d still have an uneasy feeling going into a Dodgers series. That’s how it should be.
Hitter to watch:
Not Manny Ramirez! No, they just gave him away. "Here, you can have him, Chicago. We’ll just take the acres of Manny wigs and bury them in the desert somewhere, next to the plot with the Atari 2600 E.T. cartridges. Apparently..." and they whispered this part.. "...he’s kind of a pain in the ass. I just didn’t want you to feel like we weren’t being honest here."
No, give me Rafael Furcal, who is probably coming back from an injury tonight. He’s already hitting .477/.558/.795 against the Giants for the season, so you can’t possibly blame me for a "Hitter to Watch" jinx. I suggest that the Giants get him out this series, just for yuks.
Pitcher to watch:
Charlie Haeger. What do you mean he isn’t starting this series? He’s awesome. Fine, then, give me Chad Billingsley, who has a .83 ERA this year against the Giants. Gee, that high? He hasn’t been blowing the Giants away, though, with a K/BB ratio of 11/6 in 21 innings. The Giants are due for a little luck against him, which of course means that they’ll have even less luck. This is known as the "Clayton Richard Principle."
Prediction
At least one -- no, two -- users commenting in a GameThread will use profanity to describe in-game events that favor the Dodgers.