Yakkin' About Baseball: Fear The Antics

David Roth: I am ready to talk about Jim Leyland singing Stylistics songs. But only about that. This is the postseason and I'm trying to focus.

David Raposa: You can really hear the nicotine in that rendition. Now my theory that most of Leyland's ejections were really heated Holland-Dozier-Holland/Gamble-Huff arguments is redeemed!

David Roth: "You have NEVER understood Billy Preston, Cowboy Joe West, and you NEVER WILL understand Billy Preston!"

David Raposa: "No, YOU better shop around, Angel Hernandez!"

David Roth: Congratulations to both of us for avoiding an Eric Gregg/"Mr. Big Stuff" joke. Up to this point.

David Raposa: Honestly, I'm just miffed that the time and effort I spent writing up all these Cardinals zingers is all for naught.

David Roth: We can just knock them out in a lightning round, if you like. "Pete Kozma is David Eckstein without the sex appeal."

David Raposa: "Lance Berkman? More like Lance JERKman!" (I've been working on these since March, by the way.)

David Roth: "Yadier Molina seems like a total dick!" Drop the mic! He totally does seem that way!

David Raposa: “Matt Holliday only calls his mother once a week, and watches Two And A Half Men unironically!”

David Roth: These are such awesome zingers I'm actually glad the Cardinals didn't make it to the World Series. Like we'd be putting them off their game with these, and I don't want to have an impact on the actual series itself, you know?

David Raposa: I think Pete Kozma got deked by that Pence liner BECAUSE I was putting my nose to that fertile zinger grindstone.

David Roth: Very nice of you to call that a liner. That was one of the strangest batted balls I've seen. "Line" is the exact wrong word to describe its movements.

David Raposa: Did you see the super slo-mo of Pence's jart/squib/phlegm grenade? Figures he'd try to bunch all his hits for the series into one at-bat.

David Roth: Hunter Pence really is a weird guy to watch play baseball. He caught a ball against his wrist in the NLCS, and generally plays like someone who has two remote control cars where his feet should be, and both cars are 1) faulty Radio Shack jobs and 2) being operated by pixie stix'ed seven-year-olds.

David Raposa: So you're saying the man's sensory deprivation tank is filled with equal parts Monster Energy, surplus Jolt Cola, and WD-40.

David Roth: But he's in the World Series, right there with all these other dudes who do not seem like players who should be on World Series teams. Delmon Young out there looking all exasperated that Urkel just burst in the door demanding cheese, mumbling darkly about cabals of Jewish bankers, still sort of oozing towards a World Series ring.

David Raposa: Every time Delmon Young starts a game, the Tampa Bay Rays front office pops another bottle of champagne. (NB: There are a lot of alcoholics in the Tampa Bay Rays front office.)

David Roth: It's great that Hunter Pence is on a baseball team. He's absolutely good enough, and baseball always has guys like that—50 years ago his name would've been, like, Tom "Crawdad" Pence.

David Raposa: Because Hunter's obviously too humdrum a name. Baseball has always been known for its colorful nicknames: Mordecai “Three Finger” Brown. Bob “Death to Flying Things’ Ferguson. Hunter “Jonathan” Pence.

David Roth: What is the accent you'd need to have so that "Hunter Pence" would just sound like "Underpants?" It's already very close. But do people from, like, New Hampshire just say "Underpants" when they mean to say his name?

David Raposa: I didn't know there was a big Swedish contingent up there.

David Roth: "The Giants got a lot more out of Underpants than I expected, that's for sure."

David Raposa: The poop jokes, they write themselves.

David Raposa: I'd like to say, for the record, that I'm just sick of Brian Sabean skating by with these NL West titles and these World Series appearances, because it makes it that much harder to prove that his teams suck. Someone needs to tell him that acquiring hitters BEFORE THE SEASON STARTS is totally legal. (Editor’s Note: This chat occurred before Game 1 and The Kung Fu Panda Laser Show, because of course the Giants would want to make us look bad.)

David Roth: Sabean is a troll, but his is a long troll. We won't fully understand what he's doing for decades. It's baffling. I guess it helps that he's got money to spend.

David Raposa: But on what? Dude spends all off-season stockpiling Huffs and Blancos, then scrambles when, to his (and only his) surprise, his awesome pitching staff is getting no support from the Huffs and Blancos of the world. Then he runs down to the Ocean State Waiver Wire Lot for some human spackle, and voila! Pennant fever in the Bay Area!

David Roth: You laugh at the guy who's like, "Yeah, Pat Burrell is going to play in left field, every day. We're getting a motorized scooter for him, it'll be fine." You laugh and you think of Pat Burrell trying to run, which is like a car trying to drive with four of those traffic violation boots on it, and then you laugh again.

David Raposa: Sabean must have a thing for outfielders that chase after balls like Alvin Ailey dropouts.

David Roth: And then the next thing you know Pat Burrell just won the 2010 World Series and he and Juan Uribe are like "Yay, this always made sense!"

David Raposa: And Ned Coletti goes, "I WANT SOME OF THAT," and throws some parking lot money at Shane Loux, just because.

David Roth: Do you have a rooting interest, here? I think I'm going to ride with the Tigers.

David Raposa: For obvious reasons.

David Roth: I don't know how I feel about a World Series champion that gets sub-zero WAR from three spots in the batting order, but I'm ready to find out.

David Raposa: I guess, if I squint and wish really really hard, Delmon Young can kinda look like Carlos Beltran, so there's that.

David Roth: Delmon Young, if you squint and wish really hard, mostly just looks like Tyler Perry. I think you have to close your eyes and suffer some sort of brain injury for him to resemble Beltran in any way.

David Raposa: I've done much worse for a lot less. Anyway, with all due respect to Detroit's Finest (Small Sample Size Division), who DOESN'T want to see Brian Wilson get another ring?

David Roth: Oh man. The ANTICS. We are going to get so many antics. I'm worried about the antics, David. Fox is going to be all about the antics.

David Raposa: I liked Wilson's drumming style in that GIF I saw. Taps right into the "guy drumming and singing along to awful Rush song to sell something" zeitgeist. Perfect MLB Fan Cave material.

David Roth: Lord it's going to happen. Wilson's going to have some headset buried in that beard, doing blink-free interviews from the dugout and trying out new catchphrases. It's going to happen a couple times per game.

David Raposa: "I think the thing the Giants have over everyone else is HOT SAUCE MAGIC."

David Roth: "We call that one shabba-doo, Joe Buck. SHABBA-DOO. SHABBA-DOO. Shooby-dooby. We call it shooby-dooby now. Look at me, I'm a puma!"

David Roth: And McCarver's laughing, losing his shit. "Got to love that, Shabba-Doo magic. Ha ha, I wish Brian Wilson was my son."

David Raposa: And then they can go to commercial with Wilson dancing along to "Gangnam Style," dressed in a kimono. In blackface. On a riverboat.

David Roth: I guess I should give him credit on sticking with the beard? It looks like something he bought at a Halloween City that came in a bag. "The Creeper," $9.99. "Similar to human hair!"

David Raposa: #BLACKOPS will never die. So what would it take to get you to root for the Giants? I want to make this happen, for you. For us. For America.

David Roth: I like San Francisco a lot. I have friends there, friends from there. But I am not really coming up with anything. They could trade Wilson to the Diamondbacks, and then the Diamondbacks could go out of business. That would be neat, that would be a good start.

David Raposa: First of all, I'm really hoping for a return of the purple-and-antifreeze snake, so to heck with that. Secondly, getting The Real Brian Wilson would give the D-Backs two closers, which is about 20 too many.

David Roth: Oh, right, because they lost the game of Heath Bell Hot Potato in that Chris Young trade last week. That deal was very strange. Like a bunch of dudes trading recycling at the recycling center, then recycling the new cans they just got. "Okay, I'll take all those un-rinsed liter bottles of Squirt with spiders in them, and you get all these Welch's Grape cans." "Throw in Cliff Pennington." "Oh definitely, I thought that was implied."

David Raposa: Wait, the D-Backs already have two closers! They re-upped J.J. Putz to a one year deal just before getting Bell, and are now on hook for $13 million in Bell's contract!

David Roth: Holy crap. That's a lot of money to pay for a grumpy seventh-inning guy, even if he does own his own rollerblades.

David Raposa: Maybe they're planning on using Pennington as a human shield, to throw in between Bell and Gibson when things get hot and heavy?

David Roth: Like trying to ward off a panther attack with a Beanie Baby, but I guess you need to try something.

David Raposa: So Fox is totally bringing Ozzie Guillen in as a special-guest analyst, right?

David Roth: Like for the elections? Probably.

David Raposa: If MSNBC is all about the “Lean Forward,” then Ozzie on Fox News would be all about the “Slouch Slovenly.” “Obama is yo mama!” he’d yell seductively at Megyn Kelly before issuing a noxious burp and taking an ill-advised run at Charles Krauthammer.

David Roth: Would any team hire him? Why would they hire him? He and Bobby Valentine should just start a restaurant together.

David Raposa: Wrap It Up! Where the sandwiches are named after people they can't stand, the employees learn the proper way to flip the bird, and the customers are treated like the disrespectful shitheels they are. And Scott Podsednik gets his pick of what shifts he wants to work, for whatever reason.

David Roth: "I call this sandwich creation the Big Papi. It's full of garbage and stinks and it quit on me and its teammates. Comes with a bag of Cottage Fries and a translucent pickle wedge."

David Raposa: The Loria: pimento loaf, expired mayo, circus peanuts, twist ties, and broken glass, drizzled in a savory used toothpaste foam, and served in a wrap made of recycled McDonald’s packaging.

David Roth: Guillen would definitely be front of house. Greeting customers all bleary eyed and cursing. "Welcome to Wrap It Up Meatball Dugout and Vodka Grill. I'm drunk, bro, I'll be honest with you. Hey listen, let me show you to your fucking table, alright? Also, no real reason for me to say this, but you kind of have to give it up for Nursultan Nazarbayev, right? Motherfucker knows how to handle dissidents and journalists. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that. I didn't mean that. But I like Nursultan Nazarbayev. Here's your table."

David Raposa: I am amazed that the Marlins went from BUY to SELL such a short time, especially since they didn't get a World Series out of it. I'm guessing they're going to sell the homerun "statue" to a Vegas casino for pennies on the dollar (or some nosebleed Criss Angel tickets).

David Roth: They're the best. They had a couple bad months and Loria was like "I'm SO BORED. Can we just fire everyone and play Donnie Murphy every day, GOD SO BORED." Then he bought a boat.

David Raposa: The SS Trollsquint! With Jose Reyes mixing drinks and giving everyone the “Isaac from Love Boat” fingerguns.

David Roth: The Marlins make me happy, because part of my job is making fun of baseball things. But they also make me sad, because they just manifestly do not deserve to be a baseball team, and I suspect they make Jeffrey Loria richer, which is objectively a bad thing for the world.

David Raposa: I have nothing to add to that except a sad nod. Here we go, Hot Stove, here we go!