Items from newspapers, magazines, or other publications that are issued periodically.
Today’s edition of “Slylock Fox and Comics for Kids”:
It is possible to be “vacationing in Kansas” and take a quick side trip to Missouri to go to a Royals game. It’s not that far away, as we know.
Of course, The Comics Curmudgeon had the best possible, and most obvious, response to this strip: “Ha ha, it’s a trick question! There’s no such thing as ‘valuable’ Kansas City Royals memorabilia.” However, I would like to know whose dentures those are on the bottom of the display case.
From yesterday’s Wall Street Journal: trying to keep pace with the Phillies in the late-’70s mascot race, the Yankees ended up with a mascot named Dandy. There are a number of reasons why no one remembers this.
Well, about as current as one can be in a comic strip. 
This is the “Doonesbury” strip for today, Friday, May 21, referencing an event that occurred on Sunday, May 9, twelve days earlier. Back in my younger days when I had dreams of becoming a nationally syndicated cartoonist (i.e., the early-to-mid-1980s), the rule of thumb in every book about becoming a nationally syndicated cartoonist was that daily comic strips needed to be done 8 weeks in advance — or maybe you could push it as little
as 6 weeks — and Sunday strips needed a 10-to-12-week lead time. Obviously, that is no longer the case, thanks to technology. At least for daily strips. Sunday strips need more time, although I believe it’s gone down from 10 to 12 weeks to half that. And, thanks to technology, the Sunday strips look better on the page than they ever have before; the production and printing techniques are allowing, for example, gradients that are actually gradations, and reproduce correctly in perfect registration and don’t rub off on your hands. It’s just too bad they’re printed so small that no one can tell. Okay, my periodic rant about comic strips over. I hope we’ll have some exciting news about baseball-related program activities to share soon. (Exciting for me and probably Levi, at least.)
On the occasion of today’s Dodgers home opener — their 53rd in Los Angeles, if I am counting correctly — the L.A. Times printed an op-ed piece about why their interlocking “LA” logo is awesome.
Speaking of awesome, @raysjoemaddon has been quiet on Twitter so far this season. Fortunately, there is @cubshaiku to pick up the baseball-related slack, summing up each Cubs game succinctly and poetically.
First there is a lead
Then there is no lead because
One run not enough
That’s the haiku summary of Sunday’s 3-1 loss to the Reds.
{Photo of an Ichiro mouse on a kleenex box in Japan taken by rocketlass.} From a New York Times article about Ichiro’s nine straight 200-hit seasons comes this quote:
“Chicks who dig home runs aren’t the ones who appeal to me,†he said. “I think there’s sexiness in infield hits because they require technique. I’d rather impress the chicks with my technique than with my brute strength. Then, every now and then, just to show I can do that, too, I might flirt a little by hitting one out.â€
Two questions: 1. How can anyone not love Ichiro? 2. What on
earth must it be like to be his translator?
Courtesy of my father, here’s the last half-inning of Vin Scully calling Sandy Koufax’s perfect game on September 9, 1965. I’ve heard a bit of him on the radio during both Dodgers division series games so far, and he still sounds pretty much the same, 43 years later.
During the regular season, for the games he broadcasts (everything but away games east of the Rockies), Vin does the entire game on TV, with the first three innings simulcast on the
radio; Charley Steiner and Rick Monday do the rest of the game on the radio. For the playoffs, with no local TV, Vin is doing the first three and last three innings on the radio, which means he gets to take three innings off. In his L.A. Times column today, T.J. Simers suggested that he uses the time to take an extended bathroom break, but I prefer to imagine him going over to the WGN booth to try to distract Pat Hughes and Ron Santo. (Yes, I know he’s too much of a professional to actually do that.)
I’m not sure if merely making the playoffs is worthy of doing the front page as a full-page photo, but that’s what the St. Petersburg Times did today.
The Skip Caray anecdote in this David O’Brien column from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution made me laugh embarrassingly loudly at my desk this afternoon, even after Craig Calcaterra of Shysterball warned his readers how good it was–and pointed out that it was most likely Chip Caray’s finest hour as well.
Enjoy, folks. And rest in peace, Skip.
Here’s the cover of the May 26 issue of Sports Illustrated…
At first, I thought I was looking at some major mistakes in the artwork, but then I realized, no, the action depicted is taking place in Bizarro World. (That was a little less clear on my subscription copy, which has the address label printed over the bizarro advertising in the lower right corner.)
