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It's Friday! Hooray Friday! Let's click on some links to celebrate.
The Complicated Serenity of Being On-Deck
We know about Hunter Pence's bizarre warm-up motion in the on deck circle, and this article goes into the reasons why. Well, kind of. The article speculates - with evidence, mind you, but still - about why, because Pence gives a stock answer when he's asked about it. One of the sneakiest fun things about Pence is how out of his way he'll go to not talk about himself. I can't imagine any situation where he would.
"Hunter, you just saved 14 children from that burning orphanage!"
"Yeah, but the fire department's response time was FANTASTIC!"
The MLB Lone-Star Game
A few days ago, Michael Schur (AKA Fire Joe Morgan's Ken Tremendous) started a discussion on Twitter about the worst All-Stars that got on the roster solely because every team has to have a representative. There are aging legends (Ripken, Griffey), the overrated (Womack, Bichette), and just the pure obligatory (Redman, Mike Williams). The only Giants representative is Jeffrey Leonard in 1987, which clearly must be a mistake, since NLCS MVP THEREFORE HE WAS GREAT WOOOOOOO.
Despite Tim Lincecum's no-hitter, Giants still struggling
Sports Illustrated takes a look at the Giants' struggles this year, and points fingers at the rotation. I have mixed feelings on this; certainly, they have been the underperformers during the bad streak the Giants are one, so in that sense it's appropriate, but pointing is very rude. Not only that, it's dangerous! You could put someone's eye out. Don't point, people. If you must blame the Giants rotation for something, please do it through some sort of head movement and/or dirty look.
The [Your Team Name Here] Way Power Rankings
When Bill Neukom took over the Giants, we heard a lot about the "Giants Way" that he wanted instilled in every player in the organization. Well it turns out, almost every team has its own Way. So let's rank them. By "let's" I of course mean that Sam Miller will rank them and the rest of us will read it and react. This isn't really a communal exercise, but by using the first-person plural I am trying to get you more interested. I have no idea if this works, but it is a rhetorical style that I find it easy to slip into, and here we are.
It's a good article though.
A baseball being crushed
Over the years, if you've watched many baseball games, you've seen a lot of balls being walloped. But the ball in this link gets literally destroyed. This is the kind of obliteration you rarely see, and when it's done there basically isn't even a baseball anymore. I have never seen a ball get crushed - literally crushed - like this one.
Rock Simulator 2014 is real, on Steam Greenlight
Video games are so complex nowadays.