THE BOOK--Playing The Percentages In Baseball

Of course I forgot to mention the creepy looking physicist on the Sharp commercial.

Also, I hate the Sprint “product placement” commercial.  “I think I am in love, with a phone!”

You’ve got to be kidding me.

I like the baby and E-Trade commercial.  Pretty clever camera work.  But do we really need to see a baby throw up on TV?

Oh, and in the John Hancock text messaging commercial, can anyone figure out who is texting whom?  Are there any IM’s that say “me” or “entry?”

I believe when you say Viagra, you mean Levitra.  My brother and I love those commercials.  In our house, “in the tubs” has become the Number 1 euphemism for sex.

MGL,

I think Frank Caliendo’s impersonations are quite good. I picked up on the Trump and Shatner impersonations immediately. This guy can impersonate anybody. His Dr. Phil and Al Pacino impersonations being my favorite.

All cell-phone commercials are terrible. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a good cell-phone commercial.

That’s Creepy ASTROphysicist to you.  And yeah… they couldn’t get a less freaky scientist for their commercial?  Really?

The T-mobile Derrick-with-a-mustache is great.  So many subtleties.  He’s trying to be cool by saying “dude”, but as you note, it has the opposite effect because he misuses it.  Also love the kid’s line, “Or that lady you’re always staring at during soccer practice”.  So awkward, it’s like a line out of the Office.

I actually think that guy is a very good impressionist.  His W is great, his Dr Phil is great.  Trump leaves a bit to be desired.  I’ve never seen the show though, I keep forgetting the name of it.

PS - THERE IS ONLY ONE… OCTOBER.

PPS - Edwin Jackson… future as a reliever?  My gut is screaming at me that he could make the transition and be effective.

I think Frank Caliendo’s impersonations are quite good. I picked up on the Trump and Shatner impersonations immediately. This guy can impersonate anybody. His Dr. Phil and Al Pacino impersonations being my favorite.

I can’t quarrel too much with that.

I’m not sure why cell phone commercials should be so bad.  Maybe it is the audience they are targeting (teens and young adults).  For example, car commercials are usually decent and straightforward, and they are targeting older makes I would think.

There’s one cell phone commercial that used to be on which I thought was hilarious simply because of how ridiculous it is. Click my name for the youtube link.

I love that song by Meat Loaf. I wonder if that is his real son.  Looks like him.

Edwin Jackson?  Any bad starter is a potentially decent future reliever.  Whether Jackson is particularly suited for relief, I have no idea. He reminds me a little of - geez I can’t remember his name right now. Used to be a starter for MIN a long time ago.  Was recently a reliever for Yankees and COL.  The guy was a bad starter but decent to good reliever.  Had a very straight fastball and didn’t really know how to pitch, as a starter at least.

LaTroy Hawkins?

I think the reliever MGL is referring to is Latroy Hawkins. Hawkins was moved to the bullpen in 2000. He has a 6.11 ERA in 518 IP as a starter and a 3.41 ERA in 615 IP as a reliever. Quite a remarkable turnaround.

Speaking of Hawkins… can someone explain just what the hell happened when he went from NY to Houston? Doubled the K/9, cut the walk rate, didn’t allow a home run. How???

Arthur Rhodes is another example of a bad starter who transitioned into a good reliever. Rhodes has a 5.81 ERA in 300+ IP as a starter and a 3.53 ERA in 700+ IP as a reliever.

Octavio Dotel and Solomon Torres as well. These bad starter to good reliever transitions are more common than I had previously thought.

Another question: how the hell do you get two porcelain tubs out in the middle of nowhere? Who has two portable porcelain tubs anyway? And isn’t just sitting naked in a bathtub in public illegal?

Ryan Dempster: Bad reliever, good starter. hhhmmmm....

"And the Viagra commercials?  Well, can anyone explain how you “do the deed” in two separate porcelain tubs?”

It’s a testament to the power of these drugs - can penetrate solid porcelain.

Hawkins, yup.  I had a brain cramp.

There is a lot of selective sampling when you look at starters turned relievers or even vice versa.

If a starter is turned into a reliever it is often because he stunk as a starter (bad luck + bad talent), so that his starter numbers will be inflated by bad luck.

I’m not sure about the other way around (reliever turned into a starter, like Dempster), although that does not happen that often other than by design (young pitchers who get seasoned in the pen).  It could be that a reliever pitches so well that they want to make him a starter or that he pitches badly as a reliever and they want to try him as a starter.

I’m glad to hear you guys like those T-Mobile commercials.  I was even talking to my wife about them the other night.  I love how the daughter tries to look at the contract when the Dad says “no Derrick with mustache calls” but he doesn’t let her.  Hilarious.

I hate those Levitra commercials.

I like Frank Caliendo’s impersonations too.  I also like that they ran ads talking about how baseball kept interrupting his commercials.  I forgave TBS a bit after that.

MGL, I agree about the Brooke Shields commercials.  Very strange, and sort of offensive too.

I think Frank Caliendo is quite funny when I hear him on the radio or see him doing stand-up, but his show was absolutely awful and the commercials are extremely annoying.

Now that I think about it, his sports-related impersonations are some of his best. Madden, Charles Barkley, and Bill Walton are three of his best

I agree with mgl that his Trump and Pacino impersonations aren’t that good

Few comments…

I think Frank Caliendo is a gifted impersonator, but I also think that celebrity impersonation is just about the least interesting form of comedy.  It’s like someone who has cultivated a talent for writing about silt.  Great writer, but who cares about silt?

I don’t know what it is about Gerard Fasel (the physicist) that bothers people, but he bothers me, too.  He really bothers my poor wife, who so far has watched nearly the entire postseason with me.  She is a physicist as well and finds Fasel really off-putting.

I think the “Costume Party” Captain Morgan ad is really clever and laugh every time I see it.

I find the Viagra commercials well-made, tasteful for their subject matter, and get the point across.  But the “Viva Viagra” theme undoes all of the good, and the commercials are irritating in their frequency.

Studes, in next year’s annual can we skip the postseason section and just focus on the commercials?

If you think about it, shouldn’t Flo Max be called Flo Min?

If you think about it, shouldn’t Flo Max be called Flo Min?

I’m guessing you haven’t had prostate problems yet.  Just wait.  You’ll find that the problem is that the prostate holds back your “flow,” and you have to go many times instead of just a few to get the same result.  Extremely frustrating.

Hope I didn’t offend anybody!

Agree about Volkswagen.

I call girls “dude”.

Failed starters with good stuff make the best cheap middle relievers.  Just ask Kevin Towers.

Heck, take a failed starter who likely had some bad luck, regress his stats toward the mean (and if the guy has good stuff, that mean would be better than average), take off around a run per 9 for the transition, and viola, you usually have a pretty decent reliever!

Oops, I think we have the wrong thread, Jon.

Anyway, along the lines of medications like “Flo-max” whose names are associated with what they do, think of the possibilities for Viagra.

All of those commercials are great, but NOTHING beats the World of Warcraft and Blackberry commercials w/ Ozzy Osbourne!