Fun With Photoshop: Yankees Right Field DoucheFan In Iconic Andy Samberg SNL Situations

If you haven’t seen Robinson Cano’s second-inning home run in Tuesday night’s Yankees loss to Texas, you missed a formal introduction to this guy:

WATCH THE PLAY AT MLB.COM

Normally, we’d make this our Call of the Day, and point out the fact that both the TBS crew and the Texas Rangers radio crew made mention of the potential fan interference almost immediately while Yankees radio broadcaster John Sterling was far too busy with his “Robbie Cano, a don’tcha know” home run call before Suzyn Waldman had to excuse the fact that it was hard to see from the booth. Don’tcha know, indeed.

Anyway, this post would normally be about that. But this guy was just SCREAMING for a few Photoshops. During the play, the Twitterati said he looks like he’s an extra on Jersey Shore, which is just to say “he looks like a New York Italian.” Too easy. My first thought, with how the guy looks and his comical exchange with either Nelson Cruz or the umpire on the field…I cannot wait until Andy Samberg makesREAD MORE

DL458: Cliff Lee, AJ Burnett, Cole Hamels, Wayne Rooney, Sepp Blatter, Dexter Morgan & Don Draper

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The show starts like this:

Me: “The world belongs to Clifton Pfieffer Lee.”

Nick: (groaning sound).

It’s not that we don’t like Lee, and that we aren’t grateful for his time in Philadelphia, but we both have a serious case of Lee Fatigue, so much so that we’ve been rooting FOR the Yankees. Seriously, this is for no other reason than the Phillies fans hammering home how terrible it was to let Lee go. The man has done nothing wrong, but other fans have ruined him for us. It’s an odd feeling, but we don’t think we’re alone.

We preview the games today, including the crazy idea that AJ Burnett still might pitch game four and if Joe Girardi’s name swirling around the Cubs job may have something to do with his decision. There really is no pressure on Girardi right now, so maybe he does go with Burnett. Crazy.

SPECULATION STATION, SOCCER EDITION:

Jon Tannenwald from Philly.com’s The Goalkeeper joins the show to talk about Americans invading the EPL and if the English fans will everREAD MORE

If News Corp Won’t Sign With Cablevision, Can They Trade Fox to Verizon For Draft Picks?

People who have Cablevision in New York didn’t see Saturday night’s NLCS game between Roy Halladay and Tim Lincecum. More importantly for most in that region, they didn’t see the Giants game on Sunday.

Perhaps most importantly, if the negotiations between News Corp and Cablevision don’t become more amicable soon, they may not get to see Glee.

That is when the real panicking starts.

Per the NYT:

About three million households in the New York metropolitan area were left without Fox programming on Saturday and Sunday, preventing sports fans from watching a Phillies game on Saturday night and a Giants game on Sunday afternoon. After months of negotiations, the two companies cannot agree on a price for retransmission of the Fox network.

Cablevision and the News Corporation talked for only a few hours on Sunday, and Fox said they were still far apart. By Sunday evening, television analysts who had predicted a resolution by the kick-off of the Giants game wondered aloud whether the two media giants could drag out the fight until the start of the World Series, which Fox is toREAD MORE

DL457: Playoff Baseball, College & Pro Football, Injuries, BCS & Soccer Scandals

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This is a Monday where we can’t get to half the stories we want. We talk about this:

• MLB playoffs, including the Phillies win over the Giants, fans over-reacting to Ryan Howard going to the Eagles game, Cole Hamels being the best Phillies pitcher in the last few months & if the Yankees will really start AJ Burnett in game four if they lose tonight.

• NFL, including the quarterback controversy in Philadelphia and if one of them should get traded. We also talk about the injuries around the league which leads to the awful news that Rutgers defensive lineman Eric LeGrand was paralyzed from the neck down this weekend. Is there anything to stop this from happening in football? With that happening on Saturday, we still saw a ton of helmet hits on Sunday. Players can’t stop themselves. Is the protection — helmets, pads, etc — too good? Do players now think they are actually invincible? Whatever the answer, it’s awful.

• We somehow spin that to more college football, includingREAD MORE

DL456: Yahoo’s Jeff Passan on Death To The BCS, MLB Playoffs, Absinthe & The Best Roast Pork In Philly

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Usually when we have a guest like Jeff Passan — inexplicably his first time on the show, by the way — I like to write an enormous recap of every single thing we discussed. That won’t be this recap. Instead, spend that time reading an excerpt of Death to the BCS, the new book Passan co-authored with Dan Wetzel and Josh Peter.

We talk about Wetzel’s intimidation factor and, for lack of a better term, aggressive style of writing and reporting and how that translated into this book.

We discuss the fascinating financials involved in just how much money the bowls make, yet the teams going to those bowls lose, in the current system. We discuss the book’s model for a viable playoff system and why some coaches may be against that idea. It seems illogical for anyone to be against a playoff that, as Passan explains, could be worth 530 million dollars more in TV revenue than the current bowl system. But if everyone agreed, there wouldn’t be a book, would there?

ThereREAD MORE

DL455: Craig Calcaterra From NBC’s Hardball Talk Previews the LCS

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Lots of baseball talk today with Craig Calcaterra from NBC’s Hardball Talk. We cover a lot, so here’s a quick recap of most of it.

We talk about the Josh Hamilton Ginger Ale bath and wonder if the Rangers will remove all the alcohol should they beat the Yankees. It was a great gesture to use soda for a recovering addict, but why not remove the alcohol altogether? Has the beer and champagne become THAT synonymous with winning in baseball…and if so, what does that say about the sport?

Of course, it all comes down to sponsorships as Budweiser is all over those locker room celebrations. Calcaterra points out that once they get a Ginger Ale company to throw in some cash, maybe they’ll lose the alcohol.

That all said, will Texas see another celebration anyway? Can they beat the Yankees in a seven-game series? We try to break down the possibility, which seems to hinge on CC Sabathia. Even though the Yankees SAY AJ Burnett is starting game four, does that mean they’llREAD MORE

DL452: Baseball Playoffs, College and NFL Football, Gambling, Other Stuff

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It’s 11am and the show still isn’t up. A college game program I’m working on has to get to the printer ASAP and my hard drive is full. Do you really need a recap? Here: Nick and I high five about the Phillies, talk about the Eagles ratings in comparison to what the Phils will get then high five some more about the Phillies.

We break down the rest of the MLB playoffs, which includes a huge apology to Jimmy Traina for doubting the Yankees “tank to succeed” plan. Then we talk about football, Kolb, Favre, and gambling.

Hope to have posts later today. You win this round, computer.

DL449: Kevin Kaduk of Big League Stew Previews the MLB Playoffs

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Kevin Kaduk of Yahoo’s Big League Stew joins the show to preview the MLB playoffs which FINALLY start today.

Kaduk and I go league by league and series by series to try and guess which teams will come out of the LDS round. After all that prognosticating, we eventually get into a conversation about how stupid prognostications are and how nobody should hold us to any of our picks.

(Except one pick, maybe. Image via Phillies Twitter feed)

That being said, I think I’m going with the Yankees only because I picked them at the beginning of the season and I want to be right. I think I actually “feel” like the Twins are the better team, and with home field, will win the series. So I’m on the fence. Kaduk is not, as he’s going with the Twins.

Neither of us give the Rangers much chance after Cliff Lee, who has to go against the Rays ace David Price.

In the NL, we talk about the Phillies and Reds and whether or not the youngREAD MORE

Does Anyone Want Home Field In the American League?

Is it possible Minnesota clinched their division too soon? Look, I know Justin Morneau is concussed and Joe Mauer is just coming back from being out with a knee injury, but Minnesota went 16-4 in the 20 games from September 1 until September 22nd and since that game they’re 1-6 in their last seven games, including being swept by the Tigers and losing two out of three to the Royals.

Thursday night, with a chance to tie both the Yankees and Rays (more on them in a minute) for the best record in the American League, the Twins got smoked by Jose Bautista and the Blue Jays, 13-2. With three games left in the season, Minnesota is one game behind both AL East teams in the race for the best record in the American League.

Minnesota will host the Wild Card winner — more aptly named, the AL East loser — in the first round while the AL East winner will host Texas. If looking just at the ALDS, there isn’t anything the Twins can do toREAD MORE

DL443: Phillies Clinch, Yanks Can’t Pitch & Extemporaneous Thought On Vick, Ben, Dexter, Mad Men, More

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Another show where the headline explains the show. We wanted to start on baseball but we spent some time talking about the MNF game before randomly happening into more about the Michael Vick (and Ben Roethlisberger) situations. We discuss the same conversation we’ve had before (with a different perspective now that Vick is really really good and, with regard to Ben, Pittsburgh is really really good without him).

Does perception change that much because of wins? It’s not that Vick has paid his debt and blah blah blah. It’s whether fans would be making an issue out of it if he were terrible, but excuse it because he’s good.

We neglected to laud the people at Dexter on yesterday’s show (during our brief recap) for the scene in which Dexter talks to the funeral director who, in wonderful fashion, is EXACTLY like Michael C. Hall’s character on Six Feet Under. A wonderfully crafted scene.

BASEBALL TALK:

The Phillies are National League East champs again. Deal with our glee. We talk about the run forREAD MORE