Fantasic Baseball Hair

Fantastic is not strong enough a word.

Prolific is better.

Mike Piazza


That man holds the all time record for home runs hit by a catcher. He was also the dead last pick in the draft. Picked purely for his prolific hair.

Sal Fasano

Odd Ballplayer Beliefs part 2

Darren "Dutch" Dalton

Darren Daulton was a major league catcher from 1983 until 1997. I personally remember him from early childhood when he played in the 1993 World Series as a member of the Phillie's.

"Dutch" was a solid catcher. 137 career home runs, a World Series title with the Marlins, and an all-star game appearance is nothing to laugh at.

That's why it is not his baseball career that people laugh at.

To quote Wikipedia Daulton has become notorious in the baseball community for "his unusual theories regarding human existence and time travel."

That is putting it nicely.

Daulton has claimed, essentially, that he has time traveled and is in tune to the vibrational energies that underlie the entire universe. On December 21, 2012, himself, other people in tune to the energies of the universe, and a bunch of Mayan architecture will "ascend into a new plane of existence."

Presumably one without DUI laws and the Toronto Blue Jays.

He also claims that his 2001 DUI arrest spawns from a errand he was running for the White House and FBI.

It's hard to believe that a guy would not report any odd experiences or beliefs when he has spent a significant portion of time hanging around with guys like this.



Here's a video interview from an ESPN report.

Seriously. Watch the video.

The thing that makes this bizarre is who this guy is to baseball fans that remember him. Darren Daulton was a HARDASS. He was a member of "Macho Row" with his "hard-playing-hard-living" teammates Lenny Dykstra and John Friggin' Kruk.

Odd Ballplayer Beliefs

In baseball success is often hard to come by. In fact a good batting average indicates a success rate of 30%. As such ballplayers are a superstitious breed and often times creatures of habit. I sported a magic wood bat and ALWAYS made sure I rubbed dirt on the barrel before each plate appearance. Otherwise God only knows what would happen.

This post is not about that however. This post concerns ballplayers with beliefs
which are at the very least...eye opening.

Carl Everett



Carl Everett does not believe in DINOSAURS.

No joke.

Carl Everett on Dinosaurs:

"Didn't exist. God created the sun, the stars, the heavens and the earth, and then made Adam and Eve. You can't say there were dinosaurs when you never saw them. Someone actually saw Adam and Eve. No one ever saw a Tyrannosaurus rex."

"Biblically, there’s no mention of dinosaurs. According to the word of the Bible, Adam had dominion over all animals; according to man, dinosaurs ruled the Earth. So either Gods a liar, or…well, I don’t believe that Gods a liar."

"You can make bones in the lab nowadays. And every year they come out with a different dinosaur movie, so does that mean that that dinosaurs existed?"

He also doesn't believe in "gay". Whatever that means.

Dog Day Afternoon

Sometimes Bank Robbers are polite. Too polite for their own good.

I recently viewed, for the first time, the fantastic film Dog Day Afternoon starring Al Pacino, John Cazale, Brian Dunning and a wonderful patchwork cast of peripheral characters.

The 1975 film recounts the actual attempted robbery of the East Third Street New York, NY branch of the Chase Manhattan bank by John Wojowicz and Salvatore Naturille on August 22, 1972. When the robbery was compromised, Wojowicz and Naturille held seven employees hostage for 14 hours.

The film is very dynamic and I felt like I was in the bank myself. It was one of those films where I become so enveloped in the film that two hours seems to stretch forever upon first viewing, but forever in a good way, not a boring way. In that way where passage of time becomes ambiguous.

The fantastic aspect of the film is how many different dynamics come to light about the main characters. Chris Sarandon plays the main characters pre-op transexual wife who was actully committed to a mental institution prior to being procured by police for negotiation methods. That really happened.

Robberies aren't as interesting as they used to be. The hostages warmed up to Wojowicz. And not in a Patty Hearst syndrome kind of way.

Believe it or not the situation was actually complicated by the fact that within a few hours of the police standoff it was clear that Wojowicz would never have considered harming any of the hostages in any way. His partner however, was nervous, had recently been to prison, and was a very unpredictable man if the situation would have gotten intensified.

Excellent film.

Players For The Planet

Here's something nice.

Reds outfielder Chris Dickerson has a passion which he devotes himself to on a daily basis. Improving our environment and using his position as a proffesional athlete to raise overall environmental awareness.



His main concern is waste generated by professional sports teams, not suprisingly.

In the minor leagues Dickerson started a recycling campaign amoungst the teams he played for in which he convinced all players to start recycling plastic bottles.

He and pitcher Jack Cassel in the Cleveland Indians organization have come together and founded an organization a website devoted to environmental causes associated with sports, and the world in general.

That organization, Players for the Planet, has had athletes from several sports sign on to the cause, including Phillies second baseman Chase Utley and Green Pay Packers linebacker A.J. Hawk.

Gump Running

I have a few scenes in film that resonate with me for fairly personal reasons.

I would like to share them. Not the reasons, but the scenes.

The first one that always gives me a very good feeling is the running segment from Forrest Gump. I love when he is describing this period to Jenny at the end of the film.

"I just felt like Running." Another aspect of this scene is where people start following Forrest. It's not unlike when people dress like their favorite musicians or celebrities, or attempt to write like their favorite journalist instead of finding their own niche in life and being comfortable with what they are. People are always looking outside of themselves for an answer that will fill the void.

Forrest ran for himself. He thought as he ran. He didn't run from his problems, he ran as a method of resolving the inner turmoil he was feeling over the loss of his mother and Jenny's back and forth appearances in his life.



My other scene is the end of the Shawshank Redemption where the camera is panning over the Pacific Ocean as Red and Andy meet again.

Andy: ANDY: Tell you where I'd go. Zihuatanejo.
RED: Zihuatanejo?
ANDY: Mexico. Little place right on the Pacific. You know what the Mexicans say about the Pacific? They say it has no memory. That's where I'd like to finish out my life, A warm place with no memory

Be a Simple Kind of Man

I mean really simple. Like Forrest Gump simple.

It's not a moral thing. It's not a return to simpler times thing. It's not a romantic view of rural America thing.

It's an easily amused kind of thing, like the Nirvana song.



I'm fairly exited and entertained by Christmas lights. I would also love it do death if I could get my hands on some neon signs. Such things would leave me highly contented with life. Once my pitchers mound is completed I will have two of the three things on my life-checklist. Not of goals necessarily, but more on a lifestyle level.

I think Vegas would leave me in a trance. I could care less about the gambling. Think of all the lights! NEON! COLORED! FLASHING! ALL THREE IN ONE!!!!!


One of the things to see in the world in my opinion the Neon Boneyard, in Las Vegas.