ashbury

[ATTACH=CONFIG]3953[/ATTACH] I've been asked about my daily choice of avatar(s). That joke has pretty much run its course so I'm not going to continue it indefinitely, and I thought I should just put the lengthy explanation here as a blog entry for possible future reference. I started out without any visual embellishment to my postings. After a while I decided to try it out, after seeing others' choices. I didn't like my own photo for the purpose, and the first one I settled on, inspired indirectly I suppose by USAFChief's lovely older woman, was the equally lovely Amy Farrah Fowler. [ATTACH=CONFIG]3954[/ATTACH] Amy seems to capture the analytic tone I aim for in my posts (when I'm not being goofy). Why not Sheldon Cooper, if "analytic" is the aim? I don't know, I just find her character funnier, and I liked the incongruity of picking a female. I went back and forth with variations, such as this one. [ATTACH=CONFIG]3933[/ATTACH] Anyway, I later decided I needed an avatar to counterbalance my snark instead of amplifying it. I found this one, during a phase when TD policy was being enforced to achieve a kinder gentler forum, [ATTACH=CONFIG]3936[/ATTACH] and it felt right for the purpose and I used it for quite a while - you can say the rudest things and the sunshine just takes the edge right off. However, I went back to wanting something that said "no, I meant it that way." I settled for a while on McKayla Maroney, an internet meme after her Olympics medal ceremony went a little wrong: [ATTACH=CONFIG]3937[/ATTACH] I tried a similar one with McKayla and Obama [ATTACH=CONFIG]3948[/ATTACH] and I found one of Hrbek with the same looking frame of mind [ATTACH=CONFIG]3949[/ATTACH] I played around with a couple of other avatars of interest only to someone in my particular location: Tahoe Tessie [ATTACH=CONFIG]3945[/ATTACH] our local answer to the Loch Ness Monster, and Archie the mascot of the AAA Reno Aces [ATTACH=CONFIG]3946[/ATTACH] He's gross. I also tried this one. [ATTACH=CONFIG]3947[/ATTACH] Now, around this whole time, a TD advertiser was selling t-shirts. Bad Idea. (The company name, not a critique.) They used one model who was particularly striking, so much so that I figured it would kind of violate TD policy if it was not in an actual ad. So, naturally, I adopted her as an avatar. [ATTACH=CONFIG]3938[/ATTACH] As my project leader at my first job at Control Data would probably still say, she's a real day-brightener. (He would have been fired in the first week, nowadays, nice guy or not.) Notice the artful Twins logo I added, covering up the company blurb. To my surprise, this actually provoked a large quantity of (positive) feedback - and here I was trying to make a post-feminist statement or something. This photo was especially popular during game threads, garnering comments and making people not notice Aaron Hicks hadn't had a hit yet. It may have been due to her large bosoms, I can't quite be sure. At any rate I felt weird having her as my permanent avatar. So I hit upon the idea of using her strictly as an in-game avatar - a good luck charm. This, unfortunately, coincided with a bad few games for the Twins. So I tried mixing things around, using her as a reliever after she failed in the starter's role; she was there for Tyler Robertson's last home run, so I banished her from that role too. For a while she was the game-winning celebration avatar, where she couldn't cause the team any trouble. I still hate the idea that female members of TD would avoid the game threads on my account, though. Meanwhile, the Sunshine avatar got re-purposed for Kevin Correia - KC and the Sunshine Band, get it, get it? (Not unless you are over 40, probably.) It worked well in that role so I didn't want to change that. I also attached another internet meme, Allison Stokke [ATTACH=CONFIG]3939[/ATTACH] to Pedro Hernandez, who also did well with her as a good luck charm. (In addition to being pretty, Allison was a straight-A student in high school and got accepted at Berkeley, and set a freshman HS national record for the pole vault, prompting one wag to comment that she was the winner of the genetic lottery.) Yes, I added the tasteful TC artwork to her uniform too. I have not succeeded in finding a suitably lucky avatar for Mike Pelfrey; I tried the Free Beer one, and here's a more recent example: [ATTACH=CONFIG]3943[/ATTACH] but it did not help past the 5th inning yesterday. Worley has had mixed success with this one of a Yoga-ist [ATTACH=CONFIG]3940[/ATTACH] courtesy of Willihammer, but the Vanimal still gets the early-inning jitters so I may keep searching. I've tried this other t-shirt model for Scott Diamond [ATTACH=CONFIG]3944[/ATTACH] without resounding success for the pitcher (but plenty of positive feedback from other posters.) Oh, and here is another day-brightener who I tried as a good luck avatar but brought only bad luck (I think it was for Pelfrey again): [ATTACH=CONFIG]3950[/ATTACH] As for the bats, I have tried a change of pace for a "rally avatar" when the Twins need some runs in the late innings; I had high hopes for this one [ATTACH=CONFIG]3942[/ATTACH] but nothing materialized, and the following avatar was in place when Arcia hit a 3-run shot in the 9th [ATTACH=CONFIG]3941[/ATTACH] but it was not enough for a win, and in a more recent game it was used again but Arcia languished in the on-deck circle when no one ahead of him reached, so the jury is still out. I used the one-and-only Don Mossi one game: [ATTACH=CONFIG]3992[/ATTACH] I think that mainly covers it. I still had an idea or two for future games, but aside from that the joke is pretty much played out and I am retiring it, particularly as it is about as offensive to some as if I used photos of minstrels. But for people who want to see the Bad Idea girl in the future, well, she's blogged right here as an encore: [ATTACH=CONFIG]3938[/ATTACH] I do not however endorse this form of horndoggery.

All right, Vanimal is right, at last. Let's score some runs and make it a game.

Oh YOU'RE the one that put the curse on it.

True, but (not to put a curse on anything) Vanimal has had first inning jitters before. Last game, we noted that he delayed it to the second inning jitters; same diff. He's shown the ability to settle down and make it through 6 innings, so we can hope he holds to form here and gives his team a chance.

2-0. That didn't take long.

Batting leadoff against Verlander will tend to bring your batting average down to human proportions in a hurry.

Game avatar for Vanimal is now up, courtesy of Willihammer. Willihammer is invited to discard his current avatar for something a little less disgusting, BTW.

I've got a quick surgery scheduled this afternoon to get a broom removed from an orifice. After a week's recovery time I'll revisit this thread and see if I still feel the same way.

I agree with you 100%. It is crazy.

English is not Carlos's first language. I saw a taped interview Darin Mastroianni gave in Spanish, but I'm not qualified to judge how understandable he was; are you?

Yeah, he's better than an emergency CF. A total of about a half-season experience in his 9 years.

Thanks for provoking more or less the negative of that response.

Well, he did play CF for the Holiday Inn Express company softball team one year.

Sure, guys are available. Ones like Florimon are available via waiver. Other guys are not; Escobar so far is in that latter category. Using, as you did, Florimon as some sort of evidence that Escobar is not of value ("marginal" or whatever) is just not valid. People have been banging sticks on the ground for a while now that Escobar and Florimon are interchangeable, but the minor league record says they are not, the transactions wire says they are not, and the evidence so far this season says they are not.

In Aesop's story, the lion decided how much everyone's share was. Usually it would be 100% for himself, but here I think he'd be generous and take zero.

I happened to come back to this mid-game comment, and had to laff.

An implication that Pelf isn't tough enough or whatever just sounds crazy considering nobody's come back from TJ surgery faster. What if he already bore down the previous inning, and is simply physically exhausted? You can't just keep telling the guy "yeah, do that, *again*". Well, you can, and he'll try. But.

Agreed. OPS is a crude tool, and in most cases the conventional wisdom says it under-weights OBA significantly. However, on a team of table-setters only, I have to guess that OBA somewhat overstates the run-scoring potential; it takes 3 non-outs to score a single run most times, while even just a double can plate multiple table-setters before him. Just another example of the zen-like balance found in baseball.

Escobar > Florimon. I was fine with going with the Florimonster to start the season, just to make sure, but the two players are demonstrating who is the better one to keep on a 40-man. This is why Florimon was available on irrevocable waivers before, and why Escobar (to my knowledge) has not been.

Gardy pretty clearly has different rules/principles for young players than for established veterans. I'm not sure I would go that route every time, but I bet he could explain it to me if he had a motivation to try.

We all want this for you.

There's a lot to what you're saying here. And in the view of the long season, Gardy might still be playing the "what will it take to win the Division" game. In that case, one of the cards that has to fall into place is Pelfrey contributing. I can see that inning as "it's April, still the time to see what we've got in him." But where I disagree is that this wasn't the inning to do that. I was fine with sending him out for the additional inning, and was OK for the first batter reaching base. When the second one did, and Fielder coming up, then it is hardly second-guessing to say that this was enough for one day. The stretching out can continue in the next game; there was equal importance to having a good game (up to and including those two batters) as something to build upon.

You don't think it'd be Gene Glynn? Maybe I'm not getting the joke.

I purposely gave the name of the speaker to incite. But notice the present-tense of his statement; he must have still been a player when he said it, indicating that he was not always decrepit and out of things to say.