Home Run Derby

As your HRD participant of Hellenic descent, I am introducing a new weekly feature to the HRD front page – Gyros Thursday. Why you ask? Well to quote John Blutarski: “Why not?” The intent is to have a little fun, sharing some rantings on baseball in general, this contest, and even some of its participants. Of course, the participants piece will have to wait until there is a little more transparency in the team names/hitters picked/team owner.

So anyway, how does Gyros Thursday work? Well think about the last time you were in a Greek diner. What was the atmosphere? smoke billowing out of the kitchen (from the cook’s cigarette, not a fire), three or four Greek immigrants yelling (and I mean yelling) at each other about something that you can’t understand, the cook banging on the service bell, and the server sharing random thoughts on anything while you try to order your Gryos with extra tzatziki. So, expect a lot of one or two sentence thoughts, probably with broken english/grammar issues, each separated by a Ding (a double entendre: the ding of the service bell and the ding to represent a homer).

DING: Gyros is pronounced YEAR-rho, not JEYE-row. And confuse it with Matsusaka’s Gyro-ball. Speaking of Matsuaka…is anyone else already tired of the Dice-K moniker. The dude is 26…I don’t think I will be able to stand another 14 years of this Dice-K stuff.

DING: Grady Sizemore of the Milwaukee/Cleveland Indians just hit #4. No wonder Ozzie thinks he is the best player in the AL. The 24 participants that did not select the man will be sorry, because they will have no chance to win group E. No truth to the rumor that we will start referring to Sizemore as Gra-DING.

DING: Richie, when is that Hall of Fame coming on line that you promised 3 months ago. I want to get my plaque done already.

DING:  The Senators…er, Nationals are worse than I thought.  They should be 0-9 instead of 1-8, and will easly hit 50 losses before 10 wins.

Ding: The Komodos are the only entrant not to select either Ryan Howard, David Oritz or Albert Pujols with their 3 Group A selections.  That couple with the selection of Mike Piazza in Group E  leads to me to say “Thanks for the Donation!”

Ding: Speaking of noises heard in Greek Diner…there is no truth to the rumor that Barry Bonds was greeted in a Greektown establishment with the following phrase: “You lika da juice?” of “da juice is good, eh!”

Ding: Travis Hafner aka Pronk, just hit his first homer of the year, making the Komodos respond “Greek, keep talking trash about our team…it may get them to hit more homers”

Until the next time…..OOOOPAA!