You Hit My Baseball. Prepare To Die.

Fancy mustache and chin thing you've got there Mr. Pitcher.
Fancy indeed.

Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya Brandon Kloess. You killed hit my father baseball. Prepare to die.

Hey Brandon Kloess from the Tucson Padres,
is that it's natural color or do you dye it black?
And enough with that "angry fist" thing
you've got going on there, okay?

Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya Brandon Kloess. You killed mock my father mustache. Prepare to die.

Now you're a "hep cat" with your be-boppin'
and finger-snappin', as Maynard G. Krebs once said,
"Hey, ain't that the cat who looks like Captain Bligh?"

Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya Brandon Kloess. You killed called me a father beatnik. Prepare to die.

Try as you might, a mustache doesn't make you a great pitcher.
A great pitcher makes the mustache. Right Rollie?

Hello. My name is...yeah, yeah, yeah, we've heard it all before. Now join the Dollar Shave Club and leave the facial hair to the Hall Of Famers.

Ridiculously Photogenic Baserunner

Hey look! It's Salt Lake's Trent Oeitjen sliding safe into home against the Sky Sox during the Bees' 3-2 victory on Wednesday, June 12:

SLIDE they said! Yeah. Just you watch me slide.

In fact, Trent was so safe he managed a hella-smile for the camera as he crossed the plate and thus became the Ridiculously Photogenic Baserunner.

Look! It's the Ridiculously Photogenic Baserunner
Easin' on down the road with a smile on his face.

Too awesome Trent! Get this man a prize! Or a puppy! Or something...

Am I safe? Who cares?
All that matters is that I take a good picture.

Sacks Full Of Suck

Some days just suck. And some days are just sacks full of suck. This was one of those days. I don't like puppets. I don't like clowns. And I really don't like these guys. And Security Service Field at Mile High on this day was filled to the brim with these freaks and oddities.

Hey look! 3 rats and a cigarette.
That's pleasant. Bet the kids had fun.

It's not that I'm afraid of this crap. I just don't like it. You know, the want to push you down a flight of stairs kind of don't like it.

"Horror... Horror has a face... and you must make a friend of horror.
Horror and moral terror are your friends. If they are not,
then they are enemies to be feared. They are truly enemies!"

Towards the end of the night they were plotting against me:

The tall camera guy.
Let's kill and eat him like we do our babies.

But I survived. I survived to shoot a wedding proposal later that night:

Congrats to Jon and Holly!

And got these shots of Stefan Romero of the Tacoma Rainiers miss a catch in left but leave this ultimate series of shadows:

Reach for it!
Ooh! Cool shadow!

The ball shadow isn't in your shadow glove.

And...here's the wall...
and there goes the ball.

From here on in, no more freaks...

...oh, except for this way overexposed pic of Jon and Holly, left,
Sox the Fox, middle, and a jack-booted thug, right.

ORIGIN!

Hot damn! It's Origin time again!

State of Origin I! Tonight! (Well, 400am on Wednesday/pre-game at 330am) LIVE! On Fox Soccer (Comcast 125, DirectTV 619, Dish 390). IT! IS!! ON!!!

What is Origin?
Just the most awesome sporting event ever!

The State of Origin is the annual, best of 3 Australian National Rugby League all-star clash between players from New South Wales and Queensland, and it is about the most awesome sporting spectacle on the planet.

Imagine the best NFL players that played their high school ball in Texas and Florida leaving their teams three times a year, during the season, to play all-star games against each other that are far more intense than any rivalry, any playoff game or the Super Bowl. That just starts to scratch the surface of State of Origin. Origin is some thing special in the world of sports.

Rugby League is a hard-hitting, fast-moving game.
Football without pads, or a ton of subs (just 12 total per game).

Afraid the rules will be too weird? Rugby League is pretty easy to follow. They game is played 13 a side. Passes all have to go backwards. You can move the ball forward by running or kicking it. You get 4 points for a try (touchdown), 2 points for the conversion (extra point) and you can get 1 point for drop kicking a goal during play. Check out this page for a quick guide to the rules. For the detailed rules to the NRL for the Laws of the Game.

DVR it. Watch it live. Watch the replay on Livestream. Just watch it.

The remaining games will be in Queensland on June 26th and July 17th back in NSW. Watch it once and you'll be hooked!

Ooh Burn!

Travis d'Arnaud played there last year for the Jays
and when not injured, this year for the Mets.
Dude is Mr. Vegas.

The Wall Street Journal just burned the New York Mets AAA affiliate, Las Vegas 51's and their home, Cashman Field. Hell, it's the Mets and their douche of an owner Jeff Wilpon, so this seems like a marriage made in heaven. Go ahead. Give it a read.

Bitchin' about 'dry balls'?
Borrow the Sky Sox's humidor!
(Or stop being cheap bastards and build one yourselves)

And when Vegas comes back into town, August 26-29, we'll give them a shoulder to cry on.

 And now...some kids doing the 'Kung Fu' -

Quit yer whining and get to playing ball or I swear,
these kids will commence to kickin' and beatin' you
within an inch of your big city lives!

With the help of Kwai Chang Caine, of course.

Rock on Grasshopper!