Kansas City Royals Commercials: FEEL THE DEPRESSION/HILARITY

While it's the postseason, and thats important to everyone, I feel a need to discuss Kansas City. I've been there once! Buck O'Neil tragically died today, before he got elected to the hall as an ambassador to the game as he rightfully deserved to be. So, I decided I have to talk about something regarding the Royals.

Here is why I love the Royals.

What I could do as a Mets fan (before this year) with Extra Innings was watch bad teams--astonishingly bad teams--and that would in turn make me feel better about how poor my team played. While doing this, I caught on to the Royals because a) they have their own sports network and b) they have really been the class of dreadful over the past 15 years or so.

Anyway, I was looking through some old dugouts and found a link to the Royals commercials. I already knew about them, RSTN is seriously one of my favorite networks ever. You can feel the depression oozing out of their announcers. But I'm so glad to see them on the internet that I figured they deserved a BREAKDOWN

*SZZHHWHEHEHWLQUWLWLWLY*


IM SEAN SALIBSURY AND I HATE YOU BALD WHITE MAN!


AHHH! AHHHHH! AHHHHHHHHHH!

Wait wrong show.

Celebrity Commercial - Depression Score: 7.5
Commercial starts out with Mark Teahen and Royals legend George Brett arguing over what Kansas City is. Unfortunately for Mark, his injuries may have also included brain damage, because George Brett is not a city. Kansas City is also apparently golfing with generic white guy if you are a manager. The Negro Leagues had a home base in Kansas City. Home run champion Mike Sweeney talks next to recently dead Buck O'Neil. Notice the key theme of these commercials is that the baseball is secondary. Theres a reason for that.

The rain at the end is very telling. Well, this is Kansas City.

This Is Kansas City 1 - Depression Score: 3.0
I mean, we basically could use the same jokes over and over again, but lets talk about how much money the old black lady had to pay to be in the commercial instead. Remember, RSTN, on their web site, actually gives you INFORMATION on how to get in touch to be a sponsor of the Royals. Thats how desperate they are. With this in mind, I can't imagine it was more than $20. I'm sure Mark Redman happily accepted it. What saves this commercial from being depressing? Slugger running around on a race track. Slugger is easily the second least depressing member of the Royals organization.

This Is Kansas City II - Depression Score: 6.0
What saves this from being even further down is Angel Berroa's amazing performance at the end, and the emphasis on showing us a giant shuttlecock as if that's something that people want to see. Look, even Slugger can't save a scene from being depressing when you act like you are proud because Sprint is housed there.

Wishing Well - Depression Score: 30.0
I showed this video to a friend of mine who barely knows baseball, and despite this, she said it was the most depressing thing she'd seen in months. That is some powerful depression.

Bloopers - Depression Score: -13.0
Angel Berroa has a spot on my team any day as long as he keeps being in commercials and screaming like a monkey.

Get Ready 1 - Depression Score: 6.0/-6.0
I can't decide whether putting a box of donuts on the infield dirt in order to make people want to come to games is one of the saddest things I've ever seen or the funniest things I've ever seen. Therefore, you get an in-between rating.

Get Ready 2 - Depression Score: -10.0
The fat kid fingering the hot dog like it's a saxaphone kills me every time. I had to view this commercial about 10 times before I could relax. Also, come on. The shirts say ketchup, mustard, and relish. Great promotion idea.

Furthermore, I'd like to say that if someone made a .gif of that closeup with Slugger tying his shoe and it slowly zooms out to his hollow creepy face, it would be a popular internet icon.

Get Ready 3 - Depression Score: who cares
I just want a Slugger growth chart really bad.

Baseball around the World, 9/31/06

MLB

Two new pennant winners guaranteed as Astros hand division crown to 83-78 Cardinals - Perhaps Roger Clemens should have started on one days rest. EVERYONE KNOWS HE'S ON THE ROIDS AFTER ALL.

Tigers roll over, hand division to Twins, 1st pick to Devil Rays - There may be a day when a team gets back-to-back #1 overall picks, but not this year. A squad that consisted of David DeJesus batting third and Emil Brown hitting cleanup dropped four on Fernando Rodney in the eight and two on Kenny Rogers in the twelfth to allow the Royals to finish at exactly 100 losses.

Padres win division crown, set playoff date with St. Louis for second consecutive year - Brandon Webb was lit up for seven runs in four innings as the Padres took home the NL West crown for a second consecutive year, both with under 90 wins. Trevor Hoffman tried really hard to blow it by allowing 2 homers in the ninth, but with the aid of a questionable call at second, got his 46th save.

Playoff Matchups:
AL
Tigers @ Yankees G1 Tuesday 8 ET
Athletics @ Twins G1 Tuesday 1 ET

NL
Dodgers @ Mets G1 Wednesday 4 ET
Cardinals @ Padres G1 Tuesday 4 ET

Nippon Central League

Chunichi @ Hanshin - After a 7-1 win to bring the Chunichi Dragons lead back to 3 games yesterday, today's game was rained out. The Dragons magic number is 7.

Yakult 9, Yokohama 4 - Takumi Nasuno (3-8) got blown up, allowing the Swallows to romp to an easy win. The lone homer in the contest was by veteran SS Noriykui Shiroishi, it was his 21st career in over 10 seasons.

Hiroshima 3, Yomiuri 0 - A group effort by Hiroshimas pen after a spot start by Saitou (1-0), four other relivers combined on the six hit shutout. Yomiuri's promising young Chiang (3-2) went 8, allowing only 1 earned run, to take the loss. WBC Hero S Y Lee was held to a 1-4 by the Carp, dropping him to a tie for second in the batting race at .319 (well, it's not much of a race, Fukudome is batting .357).

Dutch Series

Pioneers scored one in the first, but Kinheim has turned this game into a laugher with two innings to play by dropping four in the second and six more in the third. Roger Kops is sure to take the loss after allowing six runs in two plus innings. Check it out live here.

Update: Despite lack of scoreboard updates, Kinheim has won the game 13-5 and are the Dutch League Champions. Congratulations, Dirk Van't Klooster!

Baseball around the World, 9/29/06

MLB:
Roger Clemens shits bed, Astros playoff hopes, and all but mathematically eliminates the Reds - Is Clemens the A-Rod of pitchers? The only World Series win he took part in, he threw a bat at Mike Piazza. He also has failed to win games despite his ERA, yet fans make excuses for him. Not that I think wins matter, I'm just interested as to the big difference in vitrol between the two of them. The Reds will need the Cardinals to lose the last three games and they'll need to win their last two to tie them.

Philadelphia rapes Brian Moehler to keep Phillies mathematically alive for wild card - Time to go back to sandpaper. Fun fact: Brian Moehler is the second highest paid player on the Marlins this season.

Poker legend Paul Phillips, Emil Brown, come up with clutch win to keep the race for #1 pick interesting - With two games left, the Royals hold only a one game lead on the Devil Rays, who managed a "shocking" 2-1 loss when Seth McClung "accidentally" walked in Jhonny Peralta with 1 out in the ninth. The Royals still have the clear advantage as they are playing a team with incentive to win, but this could come down to the wire with the Rays starting Jae Seo and Jason Hammel for the last two days of the season.

Japanese League:
Buffaloes linked with Terry Collins - After having respected manager Akira Ogi die before the the season and going in with replacement Katsuhiro Nakamura, the Orix Buffaloes are now looking to bring in former Astros and Angels manager Terry Collins to the club. Collins would join Marines manager Bobby Valentine and Nippon manager Trey Hillman as the lone foreign managers in the twelve team league. Anyone actually wanting to hire Terry Collins should take a look at this September game log from 1996.

Tigers win ninth straight, move within 2 of Dragons - This is a huge series at Koshien for the home-standing Tigers, who have a chance to completely tie up the Central League with about two weeks to play. They took game one behind the efforts of Makoto Imaoka, who had his first hit since June be a pinch-hit three-run double that broke the game open. The CL winner wins an automatic berth to the Japan Series against the winner of the PL's playoffs. On an unrelated note, try to see how much sexual innuendo Jim Allen can fit into one column.

Dutch League:

DOOR Neptunus' Raily Legito, who won the MVP after hitting .366, won't be playing.

Game 4 of the best-of-5 Holland Series will be played this Saturday, with Konica Minolta Pioneers (25-17) playing host to Corendon Kinheim (33-7-2). Pioneers lead the series 2-1. Kinheim sends stopper Patrick Beljaards (12-2, 1.76) up against the Pioneers Richard Orman (6-4, 3.55), a rematch of the game two starters, where Beljaards threw a CG and gave up just one earned to get Kinheim's one win. Pioneers seem to be a team of destiny this year though, especially after knocking off DOOR Neptunus, which had won the last eight Holland Series. In other Dutch league news, Instant Holland Almere 90 (14-26-1) earned the right to stay in the league with a 3-0 sweep in the promotion/relegation series with RCH-Pinguins.

Apparently, this guy will be putting up a live play-by-play. You'll have to suffer through the Dutch, but it's exciting baseball!

Mexican League:
The season is long over, I just wanted to point out that the Mexican league has perhaps the dumbest playoff structure ever. There are 16 teams, 12 make it, and the 2 "best losers" get to play in the second round too. Just in case you thought the NBA was bad.