It's Thursday...Let's Have a Little Fun!!

Boy, do those Florida Marlins have some fun. Caught the end of their thrilling comeback win over Philly last night and the on-field celebration following the final run was something typically reserved for a World Series-clinching victory. No joke. When Brett Carroll laced Brad Lidge's meatball right back up the middle for the walk-off W, almost the whole Marlins squad was charging the field before he even reached first base. Hanley Ramirez, who was on 3rd representing the winning run, actually made a banana turn to round home plate as he scored so he could then make the quickest path possible out to the gathering mob towards first base. They all came spilling out onto the field in record time, and were doing it with such vigor and enthusiasm that two of the guys got tangled up and wound up tumbling to the ground. But nobody cared. Everybody was screaming and laughing, and I'm pretty sure at one point I saw one guy giving the Marlins mascot a piggy-back ride. You would have thought they just secured a playoff spot, or won their 50th straight game. In reality, they had simply moved to within 4.5 games of Colorado for the wild card, a somewhat lofty number at this point in the season. But they just kept jumping on each other and running all over the field. You could tell Phillies first sacker Ryan Howard was none too pleased having to avoid the celebrating Marlins on his trek to the dugout after the final hit. And I venture to say things could have gotten very ugly if anybody even made the slightest contact with the big fella at that moment.

To top the whole thing off, we see Carroll now being interviewed by the TV people near the Florida dugout. And away from the action, we also see a couple of still-giddy Marlins emerging from the other end of the dugout holding a giant Gatorade jug. I thought to myself, "No way are they about to give this guy a Gatorade shower after a regular season win that brought them to within 4.5 games of a playoff spot. They usually only do that after the Super Bowl." Well that's what this game seemed to be to these guys. Sure enough, the two Fish converged on Carroll with the Gatorade in tow, and let loose with the entire 500-oz container of Lemon Lime heaven. No joke. I'm pretty sure it was the first time I had ever seen such a thing for a regular season baseball game. It really was one of the more underrated moments from this baseball season. It's a team that probably knows they have pretty little chance of making the playoffs. It's a team that routinely plays in front of maybe two or three dozen fans (including family members) when they are at home. But none of that mattered Wednesday night.

It was just pure jubilation following one of the most exciting wins in all of baseball this year (the whole 9th inning was absolute chaos). I normally reserve a pretty serious hatred for all things Marlin following their 2003 NLCS with the Cubbies, but after watching this current school of Fish have the time of their life Wednesday night, I'll be rooting for them to shock the world over these final two weeks and somehow find a spot in the dance.


The Pittsburgh Pirates got some unwanted recognition recently for setting the all-time record for consecutive losing seasons by a team in the four major sports (17). But they aren't totally alone. The Baltimore Orioles kinda slide under the "Inept Franchise" radar, but let it be known that these guys have been nothing short of awful. Aside from the perpetually putrid Buccos, the O's are the only other MLB squad to fail to record even one .500 season this century. The Orange-Birds have managed to be less than average every single season since Y2K, yet they never seem to catch any real flak for it. This was once a proud franchise that competed for championships most every year from the mid-60's on through to the mid-80's. They had Hall-of-Famers like Jim Palmer, Frank Robinson, and Cal Ripken, Jr. My, how things have changed. The '09 edition is a whopping 35 games out of first, and contains a pitching staff made up entirely of rice pilaf.

And if you think these guys are planning a big season-ending run to provide some momentum for 2010, think again. They dropped their season-high 7th straight game last night, and to make things just a litttttle bit sicker, the pitcher they lost to (Scott Richmond of TOR) was 0-6 in his last nine starts with an ERA close to infinity. But on the bright side, (ummmmmm), (still thinking)...nope, I got nothin'. That's one sad franchise.


I don't understand why the one-armed man in The Fugitive decided to murder Harrison Ford's wife with what looked to be a Magic 8-Ball. Was that the popular weapon of choice back in the early 90's?? Did the guy stop at one of those 'Gag Gift' shops on the way to the house? Why didn't he pick up a Whoopee Cushion and some Silly Putty while he was at it? And another thing. The bad guys in this movie obviously went to great lengths to hatch this whole scheme and frame the completely innocent Richard Kimble (Ford), but what was the logic behind having a guy with a prosthetic arm actually do the wet work? On the list of things that one-armed men specialize in, I wouldn't think that "cold-blooded murder" would be at the top of the list. Not to mention, if the henchmen did think there was a chance Ford would encounter this mook at some point during the chaos, wouldn't discovering that the man only had one wing narrow the possibilities immensely? Like, if Doc Kimble had to go to the cops and tell them, "Umm, yeah, he was a white guy, kinda tall...that's pretty much all I got," I can't imagine they would have been on the fast track to hunting him down. But if he reports to the Five-O that the killer in question was only working with uno brazo, I'd think they would have the guy in cuffs within the hour.

However, despite these few very minor criticisms, The Fugitive remains one of the best movies of all-time, and stands out as one of those flicks that you seem to enjoy every time you settle in like it's your first time viewing the picture. There's much more to discuss regarding this film (like why was that one female doctor so bitter at Ford when she realized he saved a kid's life...and why wasn't Ford's beard nominated for a 'Best Supporting Actor' Oscar), but we'll save those gems for another time. And if you haven't seen The Fugitive yet, well, let's just say that one of us is a complete lush...and it's not me.


What's with Placido Polanco wearing that Breathe Right nasal strip lately? Doesn't he already look enough like Mr. Potato Head? What's next, a goofy pair of sunglasses and a fake moustache?? Feel free to drop a comment on any of the aforementioned topics, or reach me by E-mail at
highsockslegend@gmail.com