SB Nation User Blog: Two Rs and Two Ls

OTFP: All-Star Band Edition 11/03

Two Rs and Two Ls — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 15:16:59 -0000

When people ask me who my favorite band is anymore, I never have an answer. But what I have figured out is what my favorite band WOULD be, if I could make it happen. I want Fred Schneider from the B52's:

And then I want the two guys from The Proclaimers:

And then I want Sean Paul.

And I want them to sing a capella.

Say what you will about that band, but it would be just about the most vocally distinctive band ever.

OFFTOP: Will Shortz & Haiku Edition (10-23)

Two Rs and Two Ls — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 06:48:48 -0000

I'll get up early
so I can grab the paper
and start sending clues

'til then, I'll provide
some links for your enjoyment
to keep you busy

Apparently, this
was the first published crossword
in 1913.

Back in '96,
the New York Times published this
was Will Shortz' fav'rite.

And with that I leave you
I'll be back by 9 a.m.
to serve the puzzle

The birds and the bees:
What do all the women want?
I hope it's haiku

LL Softball 8/14 (THU): VENUE CHANGE

Two Rs and Two Ls — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 19:37:52 -0000

All right, so I am leaving town on the 16th for Salem to work on a Masters, but I want to get one more softball out of you guys.

Play begins at 6pm and will end when we deem that it has been completed.

CHANGED LOCATION: Thursday's games will be played at Cal Anderson Park (Corner of Pine & 11th, 6 blocks North of the Seattle U. field. map here. There is parking on 11th Ave.)

I hope y'all who didn't show up on Saturday get a chance for Thursday, we're supposed to have weather in the low 80s and sunny, not the somewhat rainy crap we had to deal with on Saturday.

Sat. Aug. 9 Recap: We were a bit short on people on Saturday, so we mostly spent time taking batting practice. We also could not use the regular softball field since the groundskeepers there must have been Team Tractor fans and dumped a load of dirt at the second base position and put other tractor-like devices on the field. That's mostly the reason for the move, we're likely to get a field we can use at Cal Anderson.

In the meantime, Luke, who posted below, absolutely beasted softballs in batting practice from the southeast corner of the field over the fence on the southwest side, into the parking lot of the Seattle U. building, as the ball rolled into the lobby of said building, roughly 320 feet away. That was probably the highlight of the day; hope to see you on Thursday!

Thu. Aug. 14 (Total: 8 + 1)

Two Rs And Two Ls
Baker
Brett
Fuzz
Wlad-o-matic
~~J.W. Pezzino (+1?)~~
Smith18
Gomez
Mariner John (+1)

LL Softball Recap: 7/20

Two Rs and Two Ls — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 21:12:04 -0000

Smegmalicious and his friends (whose names I do not remember, I am sorry) showed up a full hour early to LL Softball. I got there at 1pm and the rest of the crew slowly but surely rolled on in. When ten of us had made it there, we decided it was time to try a game, but we knew we had to adjust the rules.

Special Rules for 5v5 Softball:
1. All balls hit in the infield are outs; balls must land on the outfield grass on-the-fly to be considered hits.
2. The fielding team must furnish 4 outfielders and 1 catcher. If the ball lands in the outfield for a base hit, the fielders complete the play by throwing the ball to the catcher at home plate. All runners who are NOT standing on a base when the catcher receives the ball and steps on home plate shall be considered out.

We attempted this in the first game and got an uncharacteristically low 1-0 score for the first five innings, in favor of the Cones. After five innings, we switched from hitting softballs to hitting baseballs. Smegmalicious bombed a homerun in the bottom of the 7th inning to tie the score at 1-1 and send it into extras.

Neither team scored in the 8th inning and we went to the ninth. With two runners on, I hit a long fly ball to the wall in center that I didn't think had enough power to get over, when to my surprise, it bounced off the CF's glove and over the wall for a three-run homerun, making the score 4-1. Team Tractor would come back in the 9th and score another on a homer to make it 4-2, but they would get no more.

We tried to mess with the rules again, but it just didn't go, so we continued with the rules described above and tried another game. This time, the Cones would be the home team, and I thought to grab a digital video camera I happened to have on hand. I wasn't able to get it set up in time for the top of the first, but I did get the rest of the game.

A group started playing some softball across the way in the park, and we asked them a couple times if they wanted to join us. Finally, once they had a quorum, we got to play LL'ers versus... um, I'm not actually sure who they were. Hopefully we'll catch up to them again and we'll get the chance to play another game.

LL Softball; 7/20. This time it counts.

Two Rs and Two Ls — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 02:57:56 -0000

So we've taken one week off, and I missed getting the chance to play this weekend. Friday's Felix Bobblehead Night, Saturday's Turn Back the Clock Day (to the '80s!), and Sunday's the traditional softball day, so let's play ball!

Who: LL crew

What: LL Softball

When: Sunday, 7/20, 1pm

Where: Seattle U. Softball Field on 12th and Cherry, we'll probably jump the fence again if we have to.

Why: Because the LL Softball All-Star Break is over.

Who's in?
8 Absolutely Confirmed Humans, Likely in the neighborhood of 12+ if the questionables come through, AND ONE UNSTOPPABLE FIELDING MACHINE

Two Rs and Two Ls
Baker (~~For the last time~~ IT'S NEVER the last time!)
Brett (+1, possibly 2)
The Gomez
LantermanC
Jaejo
España
AtomicGarden (?)
Camomilk (+1?)
Smegmalicious (+2)

Gomez the Power Hitter

Two Rs and Two Ls — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 17:21:26 -0000

At LL Softball last Sunday, we switched to baseballs because there were very few softballs around to actually be had. It turns out that although Gomez hasn't historically gotten much oomph behind a softball, he can drive a baseball around. Also, if Bedard can have Burke as a personal catcher, why can't Gomez have Jaejo as a personal pitcher? It says that I'm shy of 75 words, but I think I'm going to claim youtube video immunity, especially because I had to put this together myself.

LL Softball Recap (6/29)

Two Rs and Two Ls — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 17:25:53 -0000

Thanks to everyone canceling at the last minute, there were only six of us out there to play at the Seattle U Softball Field. Also unfortunate is the fact that the field itself was locked up, so we did not have the pleasure of the dirt infield.

We also did not have a significant number of softballs, and so we just used the several hardballs that I keep in my bat bag for the event. The upside of this is that three of us hit longballs over the far fence, far enough that we felt the need to measure.

And then feel dumb for measuring.

I didn't get any (good) pictures of Gomez (or myself), but there will be a nice tasty little treat for you guys after I get home and figure out how to work my camera again.

More Baseball Card BS

Two Rs and Two Ls — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 18:30:59 -0000

So I just made a purchase of Adobe Creative Suite 3 and I'm trying to learn more about how to use it. To that end, I recreated the template for Donruss' 1991 baseball cards.

I need more projects. I do have a few other cards sitting on my desk, and I'm trying to come up with some other potential designs, but as yet I haven't had much luck. Any thoughts on the matter?

RE: Junior

Two Rs and Two Ls — Tue, 27 May 2008 11:00:51 -0000

So I was at work tonight arguing for some roster changes with one of my co-workers, and naturally, Junior came up. I've only read the "worst player in baseball" posts glancingly, but I did just look him up on bbref. They've got him at 86 for OPS+ so far this year.

I realize the sample size of about two months still isn't all that large, but does anyone know anything about him falling off a cliff? His LD is only down half a percent from last year so far ('07 OPS+ of 119).

So I leave it to you guys: Unlucky, or tipping off the edge of the cliff?

Ponies

Two Rs and Two Ls — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 04:14:30 -0000

Hey... I was trying to explain the Flesh-Eating Ponies to someone today, and I was reminded that I didn't know the whole story. Did it start as just a random USSM thing, and then evolve into "ponies ate your dumbass comments," or do I have it wrong

I did find a couple of instances where USSM used pictures of ponies (in particular, "My Little Ponies") under creative commons license, but I I don't recall any more context than that.