Seattle Mariners shortstop Munenori Kawasaki is the new Robyn. (via Outside the Boxscore)

- Follow us on Twitter @withleather
- Follow me personally @MrBrandonStroud and Burnsy @MayorBurnsy
- Like us on Facebook.

Links

30 GIFs to Celebrate Lizzy Caplan’s 30th Birthday |UPROXX|

‘Louie’ Recap: The 7 Most Soul-Crushing Moments From ‘Something Is Wrong’ |Warming Glow|

This Week in Posters & Stills: Old Pictures of Channing Tatum Stripping |Film Drunk|

Yep, That’s An Airbrushed Skip Bayless Shirt |With Leather|

6 Overused Video Game TV Ad Templates That Need to Die |Gamma Squad|

Chris Brown Disses Drake In “I Don’t Like” Freestyle |Smoking Section|

Is The Kathy Griffin, Danny Brown & A$AP Rocky Sextape Coming Soon? |Smoking Section|

Four Things I Learned Playing DragonRaid, a Christian D&D Substitute |Gamma Squad|

What The Heck Is Brooklyn Decker Still Doing At Wimbledon? |With Leather|

Watch: “Downistie,” a sexy Dutch soap whose actors have Down Syndrome |Film Drunk|

Read the rest of this entry »

The Seattle Mariners have just finished opening Major League Baseball’s 2012 season by splitting a two-game series against the Oakland Athletics at the Tokyo Dome, and the only one of the coolest things to come out of MLB’s foray into Japan is the story of how Mariners infielder Brendan Ryan took his girlfriend up to the sky deck on the 90th floor of Mori Tower under the ruse of a nicely-dressed tour and proposed to her.

Ryan’s comments on the event, via MLB.com with a hat tip to Sportress:

“I had this planned for quite a while,” said Ryan. “Once I heard we were going to Japan, I figured it was a pretty cool opportunity. Then MLB heard about it and stepped in and rolled out the red carpet for us and it was just awesome.

“We got up there at sunset so it was starting to get dark and you could see the lights of the city and the Tokyo Tower was lit up,” he said. “It was perfect.”

You can check out a video with a few additional comments after the jump, but be warned: while I don’t think you’d have a reason to already, you may never be able to hate Brendan Ryan again.

Read the rest of this entry »

Logan Morrison’s Twitter bio reads

To know me is to Tweet with me! Miami Marlins LF. Twittaholic. All around good guy (with just a pinch of dangerous sexuality)!

… so you’d think that when he’s the guy breaking a story, baseball reporters and major news outlets would go, “heh, logan morrison is trolling twitter” and wait an hour for the punchline. Unfortunately, not everyone in the sports world checks sources thoroughly or is interested in doing their job well. Case in point:

And the real joke, by way of Big League Stew:

Of course that didn’t stop some media outlets, such as WGN Radio in Chicago — flagship station of the Chicago Cubs — from going to the air with the news, while not directly acknowledging the tweets. Sports anchor and Chicago Cubs postgame host David Kaplan reportedly told listeners a deal with Seattle was near just moments after the original tweet, and that the Cubs were likely to miss out on the best free agent left.

Everyone else (well, not everyone else, but almost everyone else) waited an hour for the punchline.

Read the rest of this entry »

Sometimes a situation is just too f**ked for a clever headline. From HuffPost Sports:

THE HAGUE, Netherlands — Seattle Mariners outfielder Greg Halman was stabbed to death early Monday and his brother was arrested as a suspect, Dutch police said.

Rotterdam Police spokeswoman Patricia Wessels said police were called to a home in the port city in the early hours of the morning and found the 24-year-old Dutch player bleeding from a stab wound.

The worst part of the story — at least aside from the death of a man who was essentially still a kid — is that the suspect arrested and taken in for questioning in connection with the murder is Halman’s 22-year-old brother. There isn’t a lot of information beyond that other than tribute quotes from the people who knew him and a weird, lingering sadness. Halman had been a member of the Seattle organization since he was 16-years old, hit .230 in 35 games and made starts at all three outfield positions for the Mariners in 2011. That’s where his story ends. I don’t know what happened between the brothers that would lead to this and obviously I didn’t know Greg Halman personally, but from a sports perspective, the only perspective I’m awarded, there is a strong, resonant sadness to “he hit .230 in 34 games, and then” without anything following.

Mariners Chairman Howard Lincoln, President Chuck Armstrong and general manager Jack Zduriencik paid tribute to Halman on behalf of the club.

“Greg was a part of our organization since he was 16 and we saw him grow into a passionate young man and talented baseball player,” they said in a statement. “He had an infectious smile that would greet you in the clubhouse, and he was a tremendous teammate. Our thoughts and prayers go out to Greg’s family.”

He’s got our thoughts and prayers as well. I don’t know how good they’ll do him, but they’re his.

Sports

Carlos Beltran To The Giants - Hopefully by “Giants” they mean “Cleveland Indians”. Jason Fry (as always) said it best, via his Twitter: “Watching Beltran’s final #Mets AB. Hope #sfgiants fans appreciate him more than WFAN morons did. Those of us with a clue will miss him”. [Yardbarker]

Camp Ryan is Back in Business - It’s sort of like a Dugout, but about football and they get to curse as much as they want. Okay, so it’s not really about football. [Kissing Suzy Kolber]

Submission Namesakes: Five Fighters And The Holds That Bear Their Name - Is the LeBell Lock on this list? What about the Scorpion Deathlock? Urgh, I need to learn more about MMA. [Cage Potato]

If Brett Favre Doesn’t Return, The NFL Shouldn’t Bother To Come Back At All - The best thing about Brett Favre since Michael Vick thought “Brett Farve” should come to Philadelphia and be his back-up. I’ll take it one step further — if Dan Marino doesn’t come out of retirement and give me a football player to like, the NFL should fold completely. [SBN]

With Leather

Poor Little Guys: The Seattle Mariners Losing Streak As Told By Sad Dogs - I’d like to think we single-handedly willed them back into baseball existence. If you haven’t check this out since yesterday, we added an extra dog to reflect Wednesday’s game. [With Leather]

The Dugout by Charles Bukowski - The second in our Celebrity Guest Writers series tackles the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, and was written before they no-hit the Indians. Today’s Dugout is just a picture of me scowling with the words F**K YOU ANGELS underneath in scrolling letters. [The Dugout]

The Best and Worst of Raw 7/25 - It’s Thursday and the comments are still surging, discussing whether CM Punk’s return to the show was “rushed” or just part of the plan. Be sure to check out the comments to these things, because (at least right now) it’s the most sane, peaceful collection of wrestling fans ever. And so many of them think John Cena is gay, I don’t know. [With Leather]

Pine Tree Loses Its Nuts - Want to watch a bear convince a kid he should be a bad sport and kick a tree in the balls? Of course you do. Watch this video. [With Leather]

Not Sports

The Whitest White People Movie In History - New Year’s Eve is the sequel (basically) to Valentine’s Day and features your 60 least favorite white actors and Ludacris. Ludacris is the new Ice Cube, and should give up rapping and just be the wacky uncle on somebody’s terrible sitcom. Can’t turn a ho into a housewife! Hoes don’t act right! [Film Drunk]

Funny, Sexy and Awesome Cosplay Of The Week - I legitimately don’t care about cosplaying women, I’m sharing this because of the people that dressed up like Ice Climbers. Extra points if they have a polar bear wearing sunglasses. [Gamma Squad]

Jon Stewart Turns on President Obama - And I’m not just linking this because he mentions our WONDERFUL FREE FANTASY BASEBALL WITH DRAFTSTREET in the first paragraph. At this point Obama needs to just say “welp” and turn over the country to literally anyone else. You seem like a nice guy, but sh** or get off the pot for God’s sake. [UPROXX]

Summers Eve “Hail To The V” - I don’t want to type “smdh” every day, but I am shaking my damn head so hard at how even our douche commercials have to be irreverent. They’re DOUCHE COMMERCIALS. Not everything has to be the f**king Old Spice Guy. [Smoking Section]

On July 5, in the 10th inning of a 2-2 game against the Oakland Athletics, Franklin Gutierrez and Brendan Ryan scored to give the Seattle Mariners a 4-2 victory and a .500 record. Normally that kind of story wouldn’t be worth telling, but it was also the last time that Seattle has won a game. Since that night in Oakland, the Mariners have lost 17 games in a row. The American League record is 21 (1988 Baltimore Orioles) and the Major League Baseball record is 23 (1961 Philadelphia Phillies). After last night’s 4-1 one-hit loss to C.C. Sabathia and the New York Yankees, it’s looking like a record could be on the cold, rainy Emerald City horizon.

As a St. Louis Cardinals fan, I’m generally regarded as one of the most intelligent, classy and, in this case, sympathetic fans in sports. Seattle fans are a good, knowledgeable and loyal bunch, but they’re never really regarded in the same conversations as the other heartbroken fan bases in sports, like those of the Pittsburgh Pirates or the Cleveland Anythings. After losing the Supersonics to Oklahoma City and Super Bowl XL to the Pittsburgh Steelers, the fans of Seattle sports really only have the Mariners to hang their hopes on (with all due respect to Charlie Whitehurst and your 2011 Seahawks).

That’s why this losing streak is just so sad. Sad enough that I thought we could take a look back at the games, with the help of some really sad pooches. Oh, and for full appreciation of a Mariners fan’s sorrow, play this song in another window.

Special Breaking Score Update: There’s been a new dog added to reflect today’s Yankees-Mariners outcome.

Read the rest of this entry »