One has to pull out all the stops when trying to bring people in to a baseball blog on Superbowl weekend. If this headline doesn’t work, I don’t know what will.
Brendan Ryan is phenomenal in his spot. The delivery of his lines, the spin, the face twitch– nailed it.
The Mariners spot is great as well, though Felix is secondary to the mere presence of the line “fullness and sheen”, Jarrod Washburn’s dumbfounded stare and the Mariners’ wonderful idea to use a back of the rotation starter, journeyman backup catcher and utilityman in a single scene of a commercial scheduled to air all season, only to have them shown up by someone who is actually good.
Linkage
Mariners
- Shannon Drayer offers up a must-read on the growth of Felix Hernandez the teammate and leader.
- Carson Cistulli should be in charge of Seattle Mariners promotions.
- Ryan Divish clues us in on where to get one of the coolest Mariners shirts ever. They’re sold out for now, but keep checking back.
MLB
- Nick Scott alerts us to a rule change that is causing the diameter of bats to shrink. I can’t believe we haven’t been hearing more about this.
- Larry Stone tackles the issue of parity in baseball as it compares to football.
- Dave Allen does a wonderful job discussing and illustrating where US-born ballplayers have come from throughout baseball’s history.
- Rob Neyer, the man of the hour, gives a very interesting interview to Baseball Past & Present about his transition from ESPN.com to SB Nation, writing and the meritocratic blogosphere.
- Neyer also discusses the long odds Mark Cuban faces when it comes to breaking into big league baseball.
- The Rangers look like they might actually be able to trade Michael Young. Jose Lopez could be in the deal.
- I haven’t listened to it yet, but Conor strongly recommends the arbitration discussion at the 1:24 mark of episode 35 of the Baseball Prospectus podcast.
Original Story:
http://www.proballnw.com/02-2011/must...
