When we last talked on Friday, we were discussing the intricacies of foul ball etiquette, juxtaposed with infant mentality in adult sports fans and subsequent child entitlement. Or we were talking about dicks who steal foul balls from kids, but that first one sounds fancier. Either way, it all started with the story of 12-year old Arizona Diamondbacks fan Ian McMillan, who was praised for his selflessness and generosity after he gave a ball tossed into the stands by Rickie Weeks to a kid who cried his eyes out after he dropped it.

As we discussed, McMillan appeared to have been urged by a stadium attendant to give the ball to the other kid, but it’s old news now, because the D-Backs don’t care. They think McMillan is pretty cool, and they rightfully rewarded the hell out of him. Before Friday night’s game against the Colorado Rockies, McMillan was presented his very own team jersey by manager Kirk Gibson in a special press conference. Then he even got to throw out the first pitch. Meanwhile, that other kid probably cried.

McMillan’s thoughts and awesomeness after the jump.

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Site note: The Dugout should be back today. Restocking new computers with programs necessary to create an esoteric baseball webcomic is harder than you’d think.

Sports

The Best and Worst of the Milwaukee Brewers First Half - Miller Park Drunk apes the Best and Worst of Raw format without my permission and makes me wonder if my sports news would be best reported this way. I’m not sure I could do this about the Indians. My Best would be “everything” and my Worst would be “nothing, shut up”. [Miller Park Drunk]

The Ridiculous Argument About What Is Or Isn’t A Sport - I thought this argument ended when you left high school and didn’t have to hear teen girls defend cheerleading. Apparently somebody thinks soccer isn’t a sport because they don’t like it, which is seriously a great qualifier for adults who use words. I don’t like celery, so celery isn’t a food! It’s a mineral! [A Slice of Bacon]

The Rock Responds to John Cena - CM Punk called some people in Australia “homos” and it necessitated an apology and a formal statement of regret from WWE. A major Hollywood Disney movie star cuts a 15 minute promo about how John Cena deepthroated a bunch of dudes in college (that is also transphobic, hateful toward fat people and the abstinent, and sort of racist) and nobody gives a crap. Because he’s cool! Yay the Rock! [The Wrestling Blog]

Kevin Love & Blake Griffin Square Off in an Intense Jenga Series - I am fairly confident that I could beat both of these guys at Jenga. And “Last Word”, if they know what that is. Oh, and Scattergories. [Smoking Section]

With Leather

@Storytime with Gilbert Arenas - A free Slurpee promotion from 7/11 becomes a call for racial equality. Did you know that if you live near a bunch of other races you can’t be racist? Did you know that athletes should probably not have Twitter accounts? [With Leather]

The 82nd MLB All-Star Game in Pictures - In case you missed it (and chances are, you did) relive the majesty and wonder of a mid-season baseball game that barely matters. The pictures are really cool, at least. [With Leather]

Whoops - Watch the biggest boob moment at Fenway Park since Roger Clemens retired. [With Leather]

A Look at Tour De France Crashes - Nothing makes French bike riding more awesome than dumping the riders into a ditch and slashing them mercilessly with barbed wire. Also, please view this gallery and see what cycling does to human legs so you will NEVER CYCLE EVER. [With Leather]

Not Sports

Diablo Cody is Polishing the Evil Dead Remake Script - I’m sure this won’t end with a teen girl pretending to be Buffy the Vampire Slayer against a bunch of rapist trees at all. Chances of a “barking up the wrong tree” joke have risen to 100%. Why are we letting Suicide Girls make movies, again? [Gamma Squad]

Real Housewives of the Bible - Slightly less sacrilegious than an episode of “Superbook”. At least this one doesn’t suggest that Original Sin could’ve been prevented if a boy from the future had just properly winded his Christianity robot. [Warming Glow]

The Kid in the Clover Grill - The companion piece to any of those stories where athletes are suddenly concerned about gay marriage, Jason Fry writes about the beauty of being able to change your mind. [Jason Fry]

Tom Green Invented Planking in 1994 - … you know, in case you need any more evidence to prove what you’re doing is dumb. Ten years from now some jerk on the Internet is going to put his ass on a Swedish guy and post it online like he made it up. [Uproxx]

It's Tribe Time Now (in 1989)

After missing two consecutive Mondays due to an extended hospital stay, I’ve returned to cover the only thing more boring than potassium pills and intestinal blockage: Major League Baseball! Things happen over the weekend, and I’m here to bundle up the important stories and sort of pool the one-to-zero comments we’d get per baseball article into one mega gallery with six-to-zero comments.

The Indians are Still in First Place

They’ve lost three straight and had a game postponed, but we’re 21 games into the season and the Cleveland Indians are still sitting atop the AL Central. I refuse to believe this is an April streak anomaly, and will continue to explain how this is simply the coming-together of young, blossoming talent and healed up veterans looking to recapture the spotlight. It’s about guts, people, and I’m positive the 141 or so more games in the season will prove me right. Who cares if our most marketable star is named “Jeanmar?” Who cares if Fausto Carmona finishes the season 1-22? The Indians are winning the World Series, and I don’t care if me and manager Lou Brown are the only ones who believe it.

The Tribe heads back home on Tuesday to start a three game series against Upstart Nobody Flukes the Kansas City Royals. Monster ace and carnival showman Jeanmar Gomez gets his next start on Saturday against something called the “Detroit Tigers.”

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At 1:05 pm ET today, the Philadelphia Phillies will take the first step toward a future of human enslavement at the metal hands of our robot overlords. Engineers from the University of Pennsylvania constructed a one-armed robot that can pitch a baseball, and it will throw out the first pitch at today’s matchup between the Phillies and the Milwaukee Brewers. And after that ceremonial pitch? You guessed it – humans being used as batteries.

PhillieBot is made out of a recycled Segue, with a pneumatic cylinder added. The robot’s computer brain can adjust the pitch velocity and trajectory. Its fastball can hardly be described as killer: The Philadelphia Inquirer reports a practice pitch appeared to be going no more than 40 miles per hour. The Phillies say that’s on purpose, as a safety precaution. (Via Today’s THV)

Only 40 mph? That’s not so bad. It’s like fighting off an army of Tim Wakefields. Someone get Aaron Boone on the phone. Tell him his country needs him.

He wasn’t, but if you asked me to name 900 reasons why Zack Greinke would be starting his first season as a Milwaukee Brewer on the DL with a fractured rib, “attacked by Charlie Sheen” might be on there, but “grabbed a rebound in a game of street hoops” wouldn’t. But that’s exactly what happened; Greinke (who is 6’2″ and deserving of an SB Nation-style “who is the whitest player in the history of baseball” discussion) went up for the board and came down somewhere near the bottom of the NL Central.

The best part is Greinke’s reaction.

“Everyone always told me not to do it because I was going to get hurt,” Greinke said. “It finally caught up to me.”

That is the most baller response ever. So when Greinke isn’t control pitching, he’s out roaming the city streets, escaping his handlers, looking for the next game of illegal pick-up street ball. You know he wears shorts that stop at his ankles and a big baggy like, silver metallic tank top and a bunch of headbands. He’s that white guy they always insert into park basketball games in TV shows and movies to make them not look racist.

In a related story, David Eckstein just injured himself trying to outrun a train in his Toyota Supra Turbo.

You name it, whatever the Sklar Brothers touch invariably turns to crap. Cheap Seats? Bru-tal. That web series Back on Topps? Horrendous. That Thai prostitute in the trunk of Randy’s car? Stinky.

So it should come as no surprise that Randy and Jason have laid their accursed touch upon one of the more whimsical traditions in Major League Baseball: the Klement’s Sausage Race at Miller Park in Milwaukee, where Brett Wurst, Stosh, Guido, Frankie Furter and Cinco race around the park before the bottom of the sixth inning of every Brewers game. They are not actual sausages, mind you. That would be ridiculous. The sausages are actually grown men wearing oversized foam costumes.

That is where the Sklar Brothers unfortunately enter the story. Last Saturday, Joe Sports Fan detailed the exploits of Brett Wurst and Stosh and what happened to them during a game last week. Brett Wurst pulled up lame and Stosh stopped competing and heroically came to the assistance of his ground-meat-encased brother. It was a touching moment to watch (video after the jump), but we have now sadly discovered that what appeared to be a selfless act by a grown man wearing a sausage costume, was instead an ill-conceived act of self promotion by those dang Sklar Brothers. Read the rest of this entry »