O Canada… Oh No No No No No, Canada

Written by Ashley Burns / 02.28.13

"F*ck this, I'm outta here."

When it comes to the Canadian National Anthem, I know approximately two words and they’re both in the title. Because of that, I don’t bill myself as the kind of person who is qualified to sing the “O Canada” before sporting events, although I could offer a righteous air guitar and/or beatbox performance sans lyrics if the right lingerie football league team requested it. I’ll leave that up to them, though.

Not knowing the lyrics to “O Canada” didn’t stop singer Jeff Fuller – the tenor, not the former NFL receiver – as he showed off his pipes before yesterday’s Spring Training game between the Houston Astros and Toronto Blue Jays in majestic Dunedin, Florida. Fuller knew several more words to the official jam of America’s hat, but not enough to actually finish the song. So instead of honoring Blue Jays fans, he did a fantastic Tracy Jordan/Frank Drebin impression.

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Orioles Report: Old Lady In The Stands Has Better Hands Than Mark Reynolds

Written by Brandon Stroud / 03.28.12

fan-grabs-flying-bat-old-ladyWelcome to our newest column at With Leather, the Orioles Report! In the Report, we’ll be following along with the Birds’ 2012 season and chronicling the unique, exciting things that happen when the O’s take the field! NOTE: NO BASEBALL WILL BE FEATURED

Today’s episode, wherein an elderly woman sitting in the crowd holds a bat longer than Ryan Flaherty, from Holdout Sports:

It happened in the bottom of the second inning at the Phillies’ spring training stadium in Clearwater, Florida. Ruiz’ bat slipped out of his hands as he swung, and the bat landed just to the right of the woman, who may have been the oldest woman in that section of the park, but obviously still has enough reflexes to react and grab the bat.

(video via MLB.com)

Come for the standing ovation they give a lady for touching a bat from her seat, stay for the slow motion replay where Carlos Ruiz loses control of his bat and the section behind him does an involuntary point-wave.

Next week on the Orioles Report: the Oriole Bird accidentally hits a guy in the face with a hot dog, then eats the hot dog.

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Tim Byrdak Turns Mets Spring Training Into A With Leather Update

Written by Brandon Stroud / 02.29.12

tim-byrdak-hulk-hogan

I’ve divided this post into two helpful sections.

For Normal People: Relief pitcher (and possible Super Mario Bros. villain) Tim Byrdak decided to have a little fun at New York Mets spring training camp by putting on some underwear, growing a Fu Manchu mustache and running around flexing his muscles for the Brian Wilsonic enjoyment of all. According to Byrdak-Hogan (Hodak?), he’s got a big wrestling match with Andre the Giant and he’s gonna rip off his “freakin’ face”.

From Big League Stew:

But Byrdak couldn’t claim in good faith that he was just being an instructor because he enjoys having a bit of fun in the clubhouse. He dressed up like a football referee before a game last season and handed out penalties to teammates. He even started re-growing his Hulkster goatee before the season because he thought it’d look cool on photo day.

“I just want to let these younger guys know that it’s OK to have fun and that spring training doesn’t need to be so serious,” he said.

It does look like fun, but here’s to hoping he doesn’t have to field any grounders in those short-pants. You can check out video of the costume (and his excellent promo skills) below:

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Lance Berkman Is Here To Party

Written by Ashley Burns / 02.24.12

Sure, the big baseball news right now is all about how Milwaukee Brewers slugger and 2011 National League MVP Ryan Braun beat the system and had his 50-game suspension overturned yesterday. Everyone was all like, “Hooray, bro! He did it! He proved that MLB players can use banned substances and not get in trouble because the FedEx guy will forget to deliver the urine on time, thus rendering the findings obsolete because of the MLB’s drug-testing policies!” Or something like that. I honestly stopped paying attention to this story the moment it was announced that a Brewers player was suspended, because my natural response was, “LOL, Bud Selig won’t suspend Brewers.”

But my silly, sarcastic conspiracy theories aside, I’m happy that Braun isn’t suspended, because he seems like a good guy. The only way he could seem any cooler would be if he had a sweet mustache like my main man Lance Berkman up there. Berkman showed up to St. Louis Cardinals – the reigning World Series champions – facilities in Jupiter, Florida sporting a new and quite porn-o-rific flavor savor. St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter Derrick Goold Tweeted that he looks like Sgt. Slaughter, but I think he’s working towards something a little more manly.

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This Cubs Fan Is Just So Darn Sneaky

Written by Ashley Burns / 02.23.12

I guess if you’re a Chicago Cubs fan, you’ll look for any reason to be excited about the team’s 103rd rebuilding effort in the last 104 years, so it comes as little surprise that one North Sider is pretty proud of himself after pulling one over on the Boston Red Sox. Cubs fan Eric Engelman (above) is getting some love on the webs this week for a moral victory of sorts after he purchased the web domain JetBluePark.com for $8.

Jet Blue Park is the new $80 million home of the Boston Red Sox Spring Training in Florida, and on a whim, Engelman looked up the aforementioned domain last year and was quite surprised that it was available. So he purchased it and, according to his personal website, what happened next was just pure LULZ…

So, Last year, I purchased my first web domain. The Boston Red Sox are building a new stadium here in Fort Myers, FL and when they announced that JetBlue was getting naming rights to the building I looked online and saw the name was available. The best part? Check out where I have it forwarded to! I don’t even like the American League (see that picture above?), so I just think it’s funny.

And he linked it to the New York Yankees website.

People are making a big deal out of this – some sites are even calling him a cyber prankster and a genius troll – but I’m a little underwhelmed, to be honest. Granted, one of my other 6 jobs is in web real estate, so I see stuff like this all the time and it’s just business as usual for me. But linking it to the New York Yankees’ home page? Big deal.

Give me something I can really laugh at, like linking it to this GIF…

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Miguel Cabrera Has Court Date, Meme

Written by Ashley Burns / 02.23.11

Detroit Tigers first baseman Miguel Cabrera was arrested one week ago for suspicion of drunk driving and resisting arrest in St. Lucie County, also known as Florida’s Alabama. Miggy notably drank from a bottle of scotch whiskey in front of the arresting officers and told them that they didn’t understand his pain, as they used knee spikes to get him into the police vehicle. Cabrera’s arraignment date was set yesterday, and the perennial MVP candidate is due in St. Lucie court on March 16, according to the Washington Post, but his lawyer will probably just show up and handle the dirty work for the two misdemeanor charges.

Meanwhile, as the Tigers have started their Spring Training affairs, Cabrera has yet to report and there is no apparent timetable for his first appearance, making this a boring story for now. So I thought to myself, “Hey Burnsy, you can do 1,000 pushups, so what can we add to this story?” And the answer is a Miguel Cabrera advice meme after the jump.

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