Monday, April 17, 2006

"Ruth! Ruth! Baby! Ruth!"

I can't think of a better way to break the seal on the 2006 Major League baseball season...let's help all those poor bums in Detroit (I'm looking at you Dumbo Albom) find a REAL nickname for the breakout star of the 2006 season, Christoper Bob Shelton. No more of this "Big Red" or "Red Pop" or "Red Bull" nonsense (hell, a soccer team already stole the Red Bull name)...

How do we properly honor a guy who has already hit 9 home runs in his team's first 13 games, is batting .471 AND is slugging an astronomical 1.216 on the young season? (and yes, let's all completely ignore the fact some guy named Pujols is pretty much doing the exact same thing in the NL, and it's so routine for him people don't even flinch). This guy has 24 hits on the season, and 17 are for extra bases. He's had 8 mult-hit games already. His OBP is a Bondsian .500 (I promise, that's my only Bonds reference for awhile, because not only is he the worst human being on the face of the Earth, but he is also KILLING my NL-only fantasy team). OK, let me take my Rob Neyer hat off...on to the nickname...

Sometime last season, long before he became some hybrid Bob Hamelin/Dave Kingman HR-hitting machine, Baseball Tonight flashed Shelton's mug on the screen, and only one image flashed in my mind...think 1985 tale of misfits, desperately searching for "One-Eyed" Willy's lost treasure in order to save their parents house...think dark, dungy basement...think Rocky Road...that's right folks, stand and applaud if you want for the 2006 AL MVP, Chunk's best friend, and GTB's Athlete of the Week, Chris "Sloth" Shelton...

"Sloth love Leyland..."

34 comments:

T.J. said...

Whit, you also owe me a case of beer, but because I still don't want to jinx the team in question, we won't discuss it until after they get that 5 seed...

Whitney said...

Sad to say, but there is no 5 seed coming to them. They had their chances, but they're looking at a 7-seed and a first round sweep.

T.J. said...

And one note on Jim Leyland...this is the guy who, when hired, said something to the effect that he didn't know anything about his own team or the American League. And yes, I know the Tigers are a surprising 7-6 to start the year, but apparently just to prove his cluelessness Skipper Magoo continues to bat Sloth 6th in the lineup (yesterday behind a guy named Alexis Gomez)...

I will give him credit for his grumpy old man post-game comments yesterday though. Someone get that man a pack of Marlboro Reds.

T.J. said...

Just for the hell of it, did you realize Sloth's real name (in the film) was Lotney Fratelli?

Whitney said...

Is "Sloth" Shelton locked in, or are we nominating other choices? I like "Helter" Shelton, "Beltin'" Shelton, "Venus On the Half" Shelton, "Whoever Smelt It" Shelton, and "Yonce."

T.J. said...

I've got him locked in as Sloth, but you are free to brand him whatever you like. I think Yonce is a great call...

Geoff said...

Seriously TJ, the guy's no Jack Wagner or anything in the looks department...but Sloth? I mean, his face is symmetrical as far as I can tell...maybe we should cut him some slack?

Whitney said...

Sounds like someone's still sensitive from being called "Chunk" for so long...

T.J. said...

From the "Well, that didn't take long" category:

ABC has announced a May Sweeps bird flu thriller entitled "Fatal Contact: Bird Flu in America".

The "stars" of this movie:
Stacy Keach, Joely Richardson and Ann Cusack (there's another Cusack?). Stacy Keach, now that's an ugly guy.

Geoff said...

I'm truffle-shuffling in my office for you as we speak, Mr. Lester.

T.J. said...

Data/Short Round works in my IT department.

Geoff said...

Nice to see TJ's lifting his material from athelticsnation.com. This place is a fraud.

rob said...

is that the okeland atheltics?

T.J. said...

As much time as I sepnd on this internet thingie, I'm not sure I've graced an Oakland A's-only blog in my tour. Interesting place...I'll get all my Milton Bradley news from them.

T.J. said...

And not surprisingly, when a guy looks that much like Sloth, other places will be all over it:

http://thepastime.net/2006/04/things-to-look-at.html

http://www.rivalfish.com/rivalroom/2006/04/out-of-his-league-weekly-awards_18.html

T.J. said...

On a completely unrelated note, I shared an elevator ride (ngs) with Larry King last night at the Kennedy Center. He's alot taller than I thought but definitely just as old and senile as I thought.

T.J. said...

The "Team who won me a case of beer for the second straight year" is one victory away from that coveted 5 seed. And the Pistons don't give a shit about this game. I like where this is headed.

Mark said...

Larry King? Nice. Was he accompanied by some teenage date when you saw him or flying solo? And yes, we're all very impressed that you went to an event at the Kennedy Center. The NAACP Image Awards I'm guessing.

T.J. said...

I figured I needed to set some sort of context for why the hell I would be in an elevator with Larry King. It was some speaker series event the lady of the house had tickets for, and King was of course the interviewer. He had two handlers with him, one of which handed him a phone to wish someone a happy birthday, and all we hear on our end is "It's Larry King, who's this? OK gotta go."

Mark said...

Awesome. King looks like a guy that needs a handler or two to get through his day, or his trip to the restroom.

Nice shout to you on deadspin yesterday.

T.J. said...

Shameless self-promotion is the only way for me to get the ball rolling on the "Blacker the Barry, Sweeter the Juice" pilot.

And who knew Sloth Shelton was such a topic of discussion on the interweb. And that the guys at Wizznutz had Popeye Jones pegged as Sloth. Man the internet is a scary place.

Mark said...

Shelton has reached phenomenon status at this point. The proliferation of opinions of him just goes to show you how idiotic those "company time wasted by the NCAA Tourney" studies are. They are done by people who actually work and thus are unaware of how little work the majority of the 20s/30s sports watching population does on a dialy basis.

T.J. said...

"Yeah, I just stare at my desk, but it looks like I'm working. I do that for probably another hour after lunch too, I'd say in a given week I probably only do about fifteen minutes of real, actual, work."

T.J. said...

Pretty soon we're gonna need to discuss the Kansas City Royals, because they have a legitimate chance to lose 120 games this year...easy.

The Drizzle said...

Regardless of where the credit goes, I want to be counted as being down with this from the jump off.

First, face symmetry be damned, I still considered it extremely apropos. Second, anything that could lead to an increased discussion of The Goonies and the hopefully inevitable Keri Green resurgence to follow gives me a reason to get out of bed in the morning.

Now I'm going to leave work early and go watch the Braves/Mets. After we, god willing, send Glavine off in embarrassment, it might well be time for me to start to address the Braves, especially with respect to the Met fondling going on at the Wheelhouse the other day.

Mark said...

The infamous Carl Everett "Burger Time" story makes it on the internet courtesy of sometime Gheorghe visitor Calvin (cfunk28). One of the greatest moments of my professional life, without a doubt.

http://msn.foxsports.com/nba/story/5513864

T.J. said...

Crazy Carl playing Burger Time...now that's a show. Maybe add Ozzie Guillen playing Paper Boy?

Mark said...

As long as I get to hear Ozzie utter the infamous words, "Pass me the wire cutters SA."

Geoff said...

I'll take Obscure Background Lines from Menace II Society, for $400...

Mark said...

Nice.

T.J. said...

Crazy Carl gets a little love from the blogosphere and ends up hitting a GW 3-run HR...and celebrates with a marathon game of BurgerTime that hasn't even ended yet.

Mark said...

That reminds me of the time in Spring Training when Carl banged two latinas one night and celebrated by banging two HRs during the next days game (True story, our interns lived in the apartment above from him). Say what you will about the man, but he sure knows how to celebrate.

Burger Time!!

T.J. said...

MySpace never ceases to amaze me:

http://www.myspace.com/suriholmescruise

T.J. said...

"No...you're a towel"