Boom Stock - Volume 1

Annyong, fellow Tots!

For those of you who aren't fans of Arrested Development (the show, not the band), that means hello. You probably know me best as Uncle Jimmy, of the famous "Yanger Management" debacle of 2014. This is my first contribution to our lovely niche of the World Wide Web, so be gentle...especially you Ukrainian spies out there.

During yesterday's texting session with "The Commish" I told Lou that I had finally watched the clip of George Springer's moonshot (thanks, Chris Berman) from earlier this week. He replied something along the lines of "he used his boom stock" and quickly replied that he meant "stick" - duh. I, in turn, being the dork that I am told Lou that I decreed that Boom Stock needed to become a recurring blog post that highlighted the recent feats of strength from our MLB pawns. He concurred and went a step further and said that he would allow me the honor of running said posts, so here we are.

From time to time (I do have a new baby son on the way around 8/1, so no promises on frequency, but I am at a computer most days during work, so...) I will chime in with some thoughts, gifs, clips, etc. for you to enjoy. Since we're all at least moderately invested in this whole dynasty league and baseball in general, some of you will probably have seen some/all of the clips already, either in real time for you rich-asses who have the MLB package and watch games daily, or from YouTube, Twatter, etc. Guess what? I don't care - I'm posting them anyway because who doesn't love watching balls slugged out of the park on a never-ending loop? Anywho, here goes my first attempt; I'm thinking of just sticking to a Top 3 since Letterman already has the Top Ten and 3 is half of 8 (get it?), which is an infinity sign turned 90 degrees. Side note - my wife, Kerstynn, loves anything involving the infinity sign, and even went so far as to get me a tie-tack of one as part of my wedding gift. OK, that's enough blabber - on to the Top 3 dingers for this week, in order of coolness:

#3: George Springer vs. Taijuan Walker. 6/30/14. Boom Stock = Up.

To the windowwww, to the wall! Simply a heater right down the pooper that I probably could have hit hard (and I suck at hitting - I was a pitcher back in the day). How cool is it that they still use old Astrodome-era animation for Astros' bombs at Enron Minute Maid?!? Also, itty-bitty Altuve enjoyed this just a little bit - surprised he didn't jolt out of the dugout to try to catch up to it with as much as he's running these days. Fun fact - Louie currently rosters (it's a word) both players and has a mammoth man-crush on Jorge. He texts me almost every time a 'Springer Dinger' happens, in the same way I alert him when TMGS goes Bazinga.

#2: Mike Trout vs. Jason (Don't call me Claudio) Vargas. 6/27/14. Boom Stock = Even.

This 489' mammoth blast by Mr. Salty Pretzel Pusher himself ended up taking a bath in the fountains in center. Wonder who is in charge of retrieving balls that meet this demise - Scuba Steve (Damn you!)? Kauffmann Stadium (post-upgrades) looks like a pretty sweet place to watch a game - I always wonder how many accidents are caused by stadiums like this that are right off a major road where drivers have to be sneaking peeks as they whiz by. I love stadiums across sports that have some kind of highly unique feature like these fountains, and I'm sure I'm not the only one who not-so-secretly hopes for something cool to happen with said feature(s) any time I watch a game or see a highlight. Same concept applies to the Springer Dinger mentioned above as it sailed over the "orange"-filled choo-choo (not Shin-Soo Choo) tracks in left.

#1: Mookie Betts vs. Carlos Villanueva. 7/2/14. Boom Stock = Hopefully Up (for my sake).

As Lou says: "Mookie being Mookie." Shameless plug - with Mookie's soon-to-be-added OF eligibility, feel free to make me an offer for Yo Anus. Sorry for the crappy, short clip here, but apparently John Q. Public didn't care enough about my potential blog last night to rush to upload a better option. Seen here is one of the original awesome stadium features: The Green Monstah. I've only been to one game at Fenway in my life and sat down the right field line area, but would love to see a game from the seats/benches/stools on top of this bad boy. Two cool things about this maiden jack: a surprised A.J. Pierzynski turning around at home plate to find Mr. Betts almost in his back pocket and the story of who ended up catching the ball (a solid one-hop grab, btw). I wonder how much MLB is going to pay me for directing traffic to its site? If our foreign friends visit it, do I get paid double? Someone get me Bud's cell number, please...

Edit - breaking news that Yanger was just optioned to AAA by the Yankees. Perfect timing, MOOKIE!

Hope you enjoyed my first post - feel free to leave "constructive criticism" in the comments section below. Have a fun and safe holiday weekend; I'll be spending at least some of the time dreaming of Brad Richards running the point on the Hawks PP next year, and some of the time throwing down the contents of the boxes (yes, plural) of Snap Pops that I recently bought at Walmart.

Peace out!

Cellar Dweller