About Last Night: Price Check
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In case you were busy swearing off s’mores forever, here’s what you missed in sports on Monday:
- David Price finished off a spectacular July by spinning another stellar 7⅓ innings of work in Tampa Bay’s 2-1 win over the Boston Red Sox. “I may be pretty good at pitching,” said Price of his accomplishments, “but I’m just like anyone else. I still call my dog Astro ‘a little munchkin baby bear, who’s a baby, who’s a little baby, you are, yes you are, good boy. Who thinks he’s people? You do. With your little people dog legs. Little fur stick legs. Who’s a little Doctor Woofingpants? Astro’s a little Doctor Woofingpants, Woofingpants to the OR, Woofingpants to the OR!’ just like anybody else.” When told that no one else called his dog any of that, Price was too busy trying to get a bite of Astro, thinking his tail was food, to respond.
- Jason Giambi at 42 years old broke Hank Aaron’s record as the oldest man in baseball history to hit a walk-off home run, as the Cleveland Indians topped the Chicago White Sox 3-2. Giambi then pressed his luck in attempting to also become the oldest man to win Camp Cuyahoga’s Chubby Bunny contest, before being rushed to the hospital after choking on marshmallow 36, leaving him three shy of Aaron’s mark, set on a getaway day in 1975. When told of Giambi’s run at his records, Aaron responded, “Whayouthinthacalmehammah?” before swallowing the half-bag of partially digested marshmallows in his mouth and repeating, “Sorry. Why do you think they call me the Hammer?”
- Pittsburgh pulled to within a half game of St. Louis in the NL Central after Pedro Alvarez and Francisco Liriano led the Pirates to a 9-2 win over the Cardinals. The win brought the Pirates’ Cool Standings playoff odds all the way up to 95.7 percent, inviting those who bet on baseball to fall victim to the sport’s second most classic gambling blunder (behind only “never bet on baseball”), which is to never bet on the Pirates when the playoffs are on the line. Ahahaha. Ahahaha. Ahahahaha [chokes on a partially digested marshmallow].
- The Baltimore Ravens re-signed fullback Vonta Leach to a two-year contract, after failing to come to terms with the Pro Bowler earlier in the offseason. “Hey, Joe, great news about Vonta, huh?” Ravens running back Ray Rice said to quarterback Joe Flacco upon being told the news. But Flacco couldn’t hear his teammate, as he was inside the personal money booth that he had set up in his locker so that he could relax after practice by having a quarter million dollars in thousand-dollar bills circulate around his body while his teammates watched. When he realized Flacco wasn’t listening, Rice shook his head and muttered “This never would have happened if 52 were still here.”
- Linebacker Joe Mays, who last season hit Matt Schaub so hard that the quarterback lost a small part of his ear, has signed with Schaub’s Houston Texans team for the upcoming season. “No hard feelings,” Schaub said of the move, “did Vincent van Gogh have hard feelings after his ear was smashed off by Paul Gaugin on a blindsight hit?” When told that the two men never saw each other again after their fight, Schaub said “Well then, I guess I’m a better man than Vincent van Gogh. Suck it, [University of Virginia art history professor Matthew] Affron.”
- U.S. men’s national team midfielder Stuart Holden’s horrible run of luck continued as the knee injury he suffered in the Gold Cup championship match was diagnosed as a torn ACL. Upon receiving the diagnosis, Holden decided to soothe himself by going for a long drive to clear his thoughts before his surgery, only to find that the battery in his Subaru had drained while he was undergoing his MRI. “No matter,” he said to himself serenely as he stood in the hospital parking lot, “this is why I’m a longstanding member of the Automobile Club.” But when he looked down at his phone to call AAA, he realized his battery had died. “Well, I’ll surely find a parking attendant shortly,” Holden said to himself, but he had lost track of time, and the garage was shuttered with him inside it. Without missing a beat, Holden put his car seat all the way back and reclined, falling into a deep and peaceful sleep, secure in the fact that no matter what future misfortunes might befall him, he was Stuart Holden, and nothing would bring him down.
- The Alex Rodriguez saga has taken another turn, as Rodriguez’s attorney has said that they are prepared to fight any suspension handed down by Major League Baseball as fallout from the Biogenesis scandal. MLB has countered by threatening to invoke commissioner’s powers to prevent a stay of any suspension, to which Rodriguez personally responded, “Oh shit, Commissioner Powers? That guy is crazy. I heard he’s the reason that Pete Rose has only one testicle.”
- Olympic champion Michael Phelps left open the possibility of appearing at the Summer Games in Rio in 2016, saying, “WhoknowIdunnobuhyoucahruetout” before swallowing a half-bag of partially digested marshmallows in his mouth and saying, “Sorry. I said, I don’t know what’s going to happen in the future, I don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow.” Phelps then added, “Man, have you had marshmallows recently? They are so good, man. So good. So so so good. What were we talking about?”
Filed Under: About Last Night, Alex Rodriguez, Baltimore Ravens, Boston Red Sox, Chicago White Sox, Cleveland Indians, Houston Texans, New York Yankees, Pittsburgh Pirates, Tampa Bay Rays
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