Actor Gary Sinise has accomplished a lot in his 35-year film career — he’s shot Lennie Small in the back of the head, gone on a mission to Mars, helped the Apollo astronauts get back to Earth and dropped an atomic bomb on World War II Japan — but he’s most famous for his role as Forrest Gump’s lieutenant Dan Taylor, a depressed amputee who comes from a long line of soldiers with a dubious history of dying in combat.

So it is in “dubious history of dying” spirit I present to you this clip of Sinise throwing out the first pitch at Wednesday’s Texas Rangers/Oakland Athletics game. You know it’s bad when a guy in a horse costume has to console you.

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Back in 2010, we were introduced to a young couple at a Houston Astros game, as they became instant Internet celebrities thanks to every sports blog on the planet and eventually Daniel Tosh. In case your memory is fuzzy from all the meth, Chris Johnson hit a foul ball into the field box along the left field line, and the boyfriend took cover like a frightened toddler as his then-girlfriend was hit by the ball. Needless to say, that relationship didn’t last.

On Sunday, Brandon Inge ousted the “foul ball couple” as the Internet’s favorite fan f*ck-ups when he belted a 3-run home run off rookie Matt Moore in the third inning, and it smacked a Tampa fan right in the gooners. To make matters worse, the ball ricocheted off the Rays fan’s crotch into his lady friend’s face. Really, it’s the feel good video of the summer.

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And some dudes dig it too, don't hate.

He should be your favorite player, too. Two reasons:

1. He knows what The Dugout is and agrees with me about Brian Wilson.

2. He isn’t afraid to call out Kiss Cam homophobia:

After a game in Anaheim, the pitcher tweeted: “They put two guys on the ‘Kiss Cam’ tonight. What hilarity!! (by hilarity I mean offensive homophobia). Enough with this stupid trend.”

McCarthy considers it incongruous for MLB teams to sponsor “It Gets Better” antihate campaigns and not banish this brand of humor.

“The whole thing bugs me on a non-homophobic level, because it’s awkward,” he said. “… I just hate it.”

…

“If there are gay people who are coming to a game and seeing something like that, you can’t assume they’re comfortable with it,” he said. “If you’re even making a small group of people … feel like outcasts, then you’re going against what makes your model successful.”

How awesome is that? That’s the kind of positive human rights stance we need more of from our celebrities — less Lady Gaga-esque “GOD BLESS THE GAYS” pander-rousing from behind a podium and more sane, observant people going, “hey, it’s stupid to treat people like this, let’s stop doing that”. And if we could get rid of the Kiss Cam completely, that’d be a bonus.

Brandon McCarthy, you are awesome no matter how long it takes Oakland to provide some run support and help you stop losing games.

… Moneyball Harder.

Although I guess the idea of Moneyball is that Beane’s system found under-appreciated value in players and was able to build a team using a system nobody else knew about or understood. Moneyball 2‘s plot is just going to be Billy Beane walking into the Washington Nationals front office and saying “give me all your best young players for this one dude because you’re stupid” and Ted Lerner going “DURRRRRR SURE”. And also Jonah Hill will be there.

Via Big League Stew:

ESPN.com’s Keith Law reported via Twitter that the Washington Nationals have acquired [pitcher Gio] Gonzalez from the Oakland Athletics in exchange for four top prospects.

On their way to a future in green and gold are pitchers A.J. Cole, Brad Peacock and Tom Milone, along with catcher Derek Norris. Cole, Peacock and Norris were among the Nationals’ top 10 prospects as rated by Baseball America. And Minor League Ball’s John Sickels had Milone in his Nats top 10, as well.

I guess I’m happy that Nats GM Mike Rizzo has a talking point for his offseason, and nothing the guys who gave Jayson Werth 130 million f**king dollars should come as a surprise. Chances are they’re still going to go after Prince Fielder, too, so maybe they’re going to tie the remaining six prospects together and FedEx them to someone to thin out the competition.

Regardless, Mike Cameron should start learning the words to “The Show”.

Saturday Night Live isn’t always on the cutting edge of comedy and “baseball = steroids” isn’t the most creative joke, but I couldn’t help but enjoy this Moneyball parody from Saturday’s show. It features exaggerated muscle suits, Jay Pharoah eating a baseball and a wistful young daughter so wistful she can’t help but Wist when she hears the A’s are cheating. The only real downside is Ben Stiller still thinking “nervous, put-upon Jewish guy” and “slimy Jewish businessman” are the only two characters he can play. More Tony Perkis, less Tony Perkis Sr., Ben.

Check out the video below, courtesy of Hulu, who are proud to support the efforts of whoever:

This comes on the heels of College Humor’s “Too Much Moneyball”, at at this rate Eddie Murphy and Brett Ratner aren’t going to have anything left to parody at the Academy Awards. Who am I kidding? We could get ten more funny Moneyball parodies and Ratner would still fill the first 15 minutes of the Oscars with Murphy superimposed over Brad Pitt and yelling MONEYBALL, WHATCHOO TALKIN BOUT MONEYBALL I OUGHTA SLAP YOU to stock footage of Jonah Hill.

With Moneyball set to hit theaters tomorrow, Sony Pictures has the PR and marketing armada in full force, with the exclamation point being Brad Pitt on the cover of Sports Illustrated this week. “Moneyball,” of course, is an excellent book by Michael Lewis that tells the true story of Oakland Athletics GM Billy Beane and his (sort of) revolutionary sabermetrics system. Moneyball the movie, though, is a fictitious take on the book that stars Pitt as Beane and Jonah Hill as a character based on former A’s assistant GM Paul DePodesta, who didn’t want his name in the movie.

I share similar opinions about this film with our comrade at WWTDD, but baseball movies are still like sex with a pizza to me – it’s never bad. Either way, I was pretty disappointed with the cast of Moneyball, in that there are no current or former MLB players playing themselves. But then one listing caught my attention:

Royce Clayton as Miguel Tejada

That’s right, former MLB shortstop for 11 teams, Royce Clayton is making his acting debut as Miguel Tejada. I pray that he just has one line and he walks into the clubhouse and in a terrible accent asks if anyone has seen his vitamins. Runner-up for best casting choice goes to actor Gary “G. Thang” Johnson as Jermaine Dye. I’m strongly considering changing my nickname to B. Thang.

Also making the rounds for Moneyball is Hill, who was in Oakland yesterday to throw out the first pitch for the Athletics against the Detroit Tigers. Hill is on a first pitch parade, having tossed out the opener at the Chicago White Sox game last Wednesday as well. But Hill’s first effort came more than a year ago, when he threw out the first pitch at a Boston Red Sox game. I thought we might take a look at how his game has progressed.

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