Brad Lesley only spent four years in the Major Leagues as a relief pitcher; three years in Cincinnati, one in Milwaukee. He only racked up six saves in those four years, and a lifetime win-loss record of 1-3. He passed away at a hospital in Marina Del Rey on Saturday night. Kidney failure. He was 54 years old.

You may not remember him from his baseball career (unless you’re a Reds fan, and even then it’s iffy), but if you’re like me and spent a chunk of your childhood growing up in the 1990s, you’ll remember his film work. Lesley appeared in a handful of baseball movies in the 90s, including a role in Tom Selleck’s Mr. Baseball and his memorable turn as John ‘Blackout’ Gatling, aka “the mean guy with the goatee” from Little Big League.

Various obits mentioned that he had a role in Space Jam as himself, a role hand-picked for him by Michael Jordan, but it’s not listed on his IMDB page and I can’t spot him anywhere on my … uh, friend’s Space Jam DVD. I can confirm his appearances on ‘Takeshi’s Castle’/'Most Extreme Elimination Challenge,’ though, which makes him amazing whether your remember his movie career or not.

Rest in peace, Animal. We won’t forget you, and I’m sorry about Perez Hilton putting watermarks on baseball cards to claim them:

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As a resident of Austin, Texas, I’m on supreme leader of North Korea Kim Jong-un’s “show America what’s up by firing missles at them” list. I’m still not 100% sure why. Washington, Los Angeles, Austin. But hey, I haven’t been missile attacked since I heard the news, so I assume I got away with my treasonous whatevers or was at least outside of the blast radius.

Now here comes College Humor with their The Adventures of Kim Jong-un animated series to ensure that the entire INTERNET gets threatened attacked, and they roped me into it by peppering an episode with Space Jam jokes. Just when I think I’m out, College Humor, you pull me back in.

I present to you now supreme leader Kim Jong-un, Yao Ming, Dennis “Denzel” Rodman and Lola Bunny (no, seriously) in The Adventures of Kim Jong-un. Watch at your own risk.

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The folks at 2K Sports set the Twitters ablaze this morning with the news that NBA 2K13 will give gamers the chance to once again play as the 1992 U.S. Olympics Men’s Basketball Team, or the Dream Team. I don’t even play video games and I’m tempted to buy it just so I can keep assigning players to guard Magic Johnson and see if they run away. Gotta make it realistic, 2K Sports.

One interesting note about the game, though, is that the Dream Team won’t include Scottie Pippen, because the guy who has had incredible money problems wouldn’t agree to 2K Sports’ terms. But at least we’ve finally stopped that whole silly debate about whether or not the Dream Team could defeat the 2012 U.S. gold medal team. Just kidding, Michael Jordan hasn’t yet begun to fight.

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This is the video for “Hit Em High” from the Space Jam soundtrack. I think it’s appropriate to post here for a couple reasons. First of all, it is a rap song about basketball, and this is a huge basketball weekend. I’ve had the NCAA Tournament on pretty much non-stop over the past two days, and this trend is showing no signs of letting up. This could be problematic in relation to my regular gig as a TV blogger, but this is one weekend where everything else in the world can go straight to hell. Daddy’s watching basketball.

The other reason I’m posting it is because this is my last day filling in here while Brandon is up to his eyeballs in South by Southwest bric-a-brac, and I like Space Jam. It is easily my favorite movie about evil cartoon aliens stealing the basketball skills from NBA players (including Muggsy Bogues and Shawn Bradley), and then using these skills to try to defeat Michael Jordan and a team of Looney Tunes in a winner-take-all game that takes place in the cosmos. Also, it features Lola Bunny, and Lola Bunny is a total babe.

Anyway, that’s my time. Enjoy the tournament.

As Eric Freeman of the excellent Ball Don’t Lie points out, there are positive and negative aspects to being 7-foot-6. On the negative side, even mundane, day-to-day activities like buying clothes, walking through doorways, sitting in cars and fitting into pre-19th century buildings become impossibilities. There are a few positives, though, like being able to make millions of dollars for a couple of years as a basketball player, and that when a Monstar steals your talent all he’s really stolen is your ability to be tall (and you’re still that, you didn’t shrink) so you’re more-or-less unharmed.

Being that tall also, as we’re learning today, makes stories about people stealing your special tall-people things super, super sad.

Last Friday, someone burglarized the barn on [former basketball star Shawn] Bradley’s property. The only item that was taken was a bicycle made specially for him in 2006.

“Whether you’re 7 feet 6 inches or normal height, stealing someone’s bike is low,” an upset Bradley said Wednesday. [...]

After Bradley retired from the NBA in 2006, the 7-foot-6 center said he needed to find a way to keep the weight off. Trek made a bicycle just for him.

A bicycle made just for him.

Ignoring the fact that Shawn Bradley has a barn to house his special bicycle like he’s Pee-wee Herman and ignoring the fact that somebody broke onto an NBA millionaire’s property and all he took was his special 8-feet-tall megacycle, how f**king sad is this. It gets even worse when you read his follow-up, which sounds exactly like a five-year old explaining why this particular stolen big wheel is the biggest deal ever — he namedrops his brother. His BROTHER.

“My brother is 6 feet 10 inches and he can’t ride it,” Bradley said.

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If you are one of the millions left without closure by the ending of 1996′s Space Jam but feel Michael Jordan is too old and looks too much like Hitler to pull off a believable second chapter in the interplanetary saga, we have good news — According to Daniel Mayberry of The Oklahoman, Oklahoma City Thunder star Kevin Durant is finalizing a deal to star in a major Warner Bros. film.

The film, which has a basketball subplot, has not yet been named, but it’s scheduled to go into production in mid-September, according to sources.

Filming location for the feature-length picture has been narrowed to Oklahoma City and Baton Rouge, La.

Neither Durant nor his representatives could be reached for comment.

Translation:

Everybody get up it’s time to slam now
We got a real jam goin’ down
Welcome to the Space Jam

And I’m going to add “here’s your chance, do your dance at the Space Jam”. Of course, there’s no confirmation that Durant will be dunking on Foghorn Leghorn (with a subplot of symbolic, racial comeuppance) but movies with a “basketball subplot” are almost exclusively bad. Hoosiers was pretty good, but for every inspirational teacher movie you get Kevin Bacon in Africa, Lil Bow Wow in a pair of magic shoes or a slam dunking Ernest. People like to go to Love and Basketball as an example of how to do it right, but that’s a pretty strong indication of how bad they can be.

No matter what happens (worst case Kevin Durant falls in love with a bebopping Julia Stiles, best case he falls in love with Lola Bunny), starring in movies is a better way to spend your lockout than cutting terrible rap albums and shilling hammers at the Home Depot.

[h/t to Tom Ziller]