April 26, 2013
Link-O-Rama
• Sunday afternoon "Gleeman and The Geek" is back on the radio for our second season on KFAN. Beginning at 4:00 you can tune into 100.3-FM or steam the show on KFAN.com to hear us live, or you can wait for the podcast like always.
• Photographs of what death row inmates choose as their final meals are predictably fascinating.
• I've often wondered how much pot could fit inside a Pac-Man arcade game.
• Yu Darvish is a helluva drug.
• What does it say about me that I grew up dreaming about getting, tried to get, and failed to get what is now deemed the worst job in America?
• One second before Oswaldo Arcia launched his first career home run approximately 1,000 feet Bert Blyleven wondered if he would be asked to bunt. So perfect.
• I would gladly have participated in Nathan Fielder's little freak-out-your-parents experiment, except my mom a) wouldn't care and b) doesn't text.
• I'm pretty obsessed with Twitter and like gaining followers, both for my ego and because it helps me get people to read my writing, but this whole thing seems pathetically shady.
• On this week's "Gleeman and The Geek" episode we had two special guests on and at one point I tried to convince everyone that Doug Mientkiewicz is one of the best-looking Twins of this era.
• One of my favorite musicians, Richie Havens, passed away at age 72. My annual Opening Day tradition here involves ending my Twins season preview with a video of his great live version of "Here Comes The Sun" from 1971:
RIP, one of the best.
• It turns out that Tom Cruise does most of his acting standing on an apple crate.
• Try to find another MLB closer who engages idiots on Twitter between doubleheader games.
• Last week I ranked my top 10 baseball movies of all time at HardballTalk and tried to convince everyone that "The Sandlot" is underrated, so naturally Wendy Peffercorn showed up on "Mad Men" a few days later.
• Even better, the Twins and FOX Sports North announced that they'll be showing "The Sandlot" on the Target Field jumbotron after the Twins-Red Sox game on May 19.
• Stand-up comedian Rob Delaney is singing the National Anthem at the Dodgers-Brewers game tonight, and the recap of how that came to be is pretty funny.
• Netflix now has more American subscribers than HBO.
• It has nothing to do with anything, but this is my favorite GIF from "Mad Men" this week.
• Nate Sandell of 1500ESPN.com wrote a very good article about new Gophers basketball coach Richard Pitino getting into statistical analysis.
• In which Paul Allen suggests we go on a double-date at a Twins game.
• Of course A.J. Pierzynski was involved in this somehow.
• After years of playing through injuries and taking painkillers former Vikings quarterback Brad Johnson is struggling just to live life at age 44.
• Earlier this week I named Hannibal Buress as one of my five favorite stand-up comedians and he also does a nice job acting in this short film.
Fortunately that did not happen when I saw him at Acme Comedy Company a few months ago.
• Anyone who likes Elisabeth Moss on "Mad Men" (or liked her on "The West Wing") should check out the mini-series "Top Of The Lake" on Netflix for a really well done, slow burn mystery/drama co-starring Peter Mullan and Holly Hunter.
• IFC put the pilot episode of Marc Maron's new television show on YouTube.
• Wanna buy all of Bret Saberhagen's old baseball stuff?
• My favorite part of this week's Carson Cistulli-Dayn Perry podcast was 36 minutes in, when Perry tells Cistulli that he thinks podcasts are terrible and Cistulli tries to convince Perry otherwise by saying: "Aaron Gleeman listens to podcasts all day." (Spoiler alert: It did not work.)
• I enjoyed this video from the Sloan Conference panel about basketball analytics featuring Stan Van Gundy, R.C. Buford, and Zach Lowe. SVG in particular was really impressive/funny.
• Kelly Dwyer of Yahoo! Sports examined whether Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson are the best-shooting backcourt in NBA history.
• I answered a bunch of mailbag questions from Twitter. I'd like to figure out a way to make the mailbag posts a regular thing here without having to specifically ask for questions each time, so let me know any suggestions.
• We made some changes to the comments section and might have a few wrinkles to iron out, so check it out, be patient, and let me know any issues.
• Some of this week's weird and random search engine queries that brought people here:
- "Is Aaron Gleeman a mensch?"
- "What to do if you're a 30-year-old kid"
- "T-ball lineup card"
- "Gordon Ramsay and George Michael"
- "Denzel Washington baseball"
- "How long should you fry wing sections?"
- "Sabermetics approach to dating"
- "Does Aaron Gleeman blog with his pants off?"
- "What synagogue does Jeselnik go to?"
- "Luis Rivas baseball"
• Finally, this week's AG.com-approved music video is Havens singing "Freedom" at Woodstock:
This week's blog content is sponsored by "Hank Greenberg: The Hero of Heroes" author John Rosengren's upcoming appearance at the Minneapolis Sabes JCC on May 5. Please support him for supporting AG.com.