Rick Rhoden
Mustache Rating: 3.5 Fingerses
Years Active: 1974-1989
Teams Played For: Los Angeles Dodgers, Pittsburgh Pirates, New York Yankees, Houston Astros
Career Stats: 151-125, 3.59 ERA
Was He Ever a Diamond King?: Yes!
Claims to Fame:
-Billy Martin put Rhoden in as designated hitter in a June 11, 1988 Yankees/Orioles game, marking the first time a pitcher batted in an American League regular season game since the Designated Hitter Rule was enacted. Rhoden went 0-1 with a sacrifice fly, and amazingly, no one — not even Lou Pinella — has tried it since.

-Traded by the Pirates to the Yankees in the 1986-7 offseason in a six man, four mustache deal (Rhoden, Cecilio Guante and Pat Clements for Doug Drabek, Logan Easley & Brian Fisher)

-Since retiring from baseball, has become a professional golfer. He’s on Facebook for his golfing.

Lee Tunnell
Mustache Rating: 3 Fingers
Years Active: 1981-1991
Teams Played For: San Diego Padres, Oakland Athletics
Career Stats: 101-89, 3.66 ERA
Was He Ever a Diamond King?: No
Claims to Fame:

- Once played alongside Al Holland, the duo was dubbed “Holland Tunnell” on a novelty baseball card
- His post-MLB career has seen him work with teams named the Daiei Hawks, the Drillers and the Riverbats
- Had some pretty awesome glasses, and played the majority of his major league career in a painter’s cap
- Appears to be on Facebook
- Son James drafted in 2008, is part of the San Diego Padres farm system

Eric Show
Mustache Rating: 3.5 Fingers*
Years Active: 1981-1991
Teams Played For: San Diego Padres, Oakland Athletics
Career Stats: 101-89, 3.66 ERA
Was He Ever a Diamond King?: No
Claims to Fame:
-Gave up Pete Rose’s 4,192nd hit in 1985

-Hit Andre Dawson in the face in 1987

-Most Career Wins as a Padre (100)

-Jazz guitar enthusiast and member of the John Birch Society

-Died at 38 following a drug overdose

Show had a sad but fascinating life. The San Diego Union Tribune published a nice piece on him in 2008. Prior to this series, I only knew him as the guy that gave up Pete Rose’s record-breaking hit, and one of the many pitchers in the 1980s who had a mustache.

* an additional half-Finger has been awarded for how well he wears the brown-and-gold warmup jacket

It’s another cold, inhospitable evening in Brooklyn, and for the first time since 2001, there are two simultaneous professional wrestling programs airing on Monday. Each program is being hyped as the return of performers already considered old in 2001: TNA has Hulk Hogan, WWE has Bret Hart. At least one show will likely heavily involve midgets. It’s a magic way to ring in 2010, and I have decided to liveblog it.

I’ve also decided to drink a magnum of Anchor Brewing Christmas Ale that has spent the last decade in my parents’ basement before being fobbed off on me over the holidays. According to Anchor Brewing,

Properly refrigerated, the beer remains intriguing and drinkable for years, with different nuances slowly emerging as the flavor mellows slightly.

We shall see.

But lest all of this night be backwards-looking, I’m going to try this newfangled CoverItLive software tonight. Hopefully it is showing up below this message.

Kudos to Team I-Man, as both Ian and Isley correctly surmised that the last post was a description of Beowulf, aka Beaiowufu. We’re going to crank up the difficulty here a little bit, and instead of providing box copy, this one will be based on the English subtitles of the film’s pivotal scene. Check out this fiery speech given by the protagonist!

4 Cowards
You saw It
I Was Taught
should Have Told My Mom
Bing Jitti here, show them
Nowhere Else
Only The Jurks
I Can Only say
Do What I Like
I Don’t Understand You
Useless Trash
Raise Your Hands
Let’s Get Him
This Is Funny
6 Days Without shower
smell Like shits
Fuck His Dad,
Fuck Everybody, No sight
Fuck This shelter
Just Look At What We Do
Come Down, Come Down
The Champion
At this House, Take Off Clothes

Because Ian shat where he at, comments are closed. Send your guesses to chris AT cobr.as by midnight Thursday!

UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE
I omitted the opening lines of this speech, because I thought they’d make it too easy and obvious. It’s apparently very hard to guess correctly without them. Here are two additional hints:

1. This film won an Oscar.
2. The protagonist of the film is called Robby in the subtitles, but not in the film.

I’m going to switch this up a bit. For the next week or so, I’ll just post the description of films from the back of these DVDs. People are allowed to guess, but no fair if you’re one of the two people I already showed this one to. I have no idea if there will be prizes. Rules subject to change.
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Yesterday we looked at the Alpha Bootleg, and today we look at the Omega: my father last visited China a little under a year ago, and among the DVDs he brought back was a collection of Flaming Lips videos:

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My dad’s old job had him travel to China regularly, and he amassed a large collection of bootlegs in the process. When he first started bringing them home, they were a real crapshoot. Look at this cover:

Obviously that’s Robocop front and center, and I believe those are the titular Starship Troopers preparing to fire on Officer Alex Murphy. But what movie’s actually on this five inch “Laserdisc” (actually two VCDs)?

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So I am a Cablevision customer. So are my parents. None of us have any real choice in the matter, as Cablevision/Optimum hold an effective monopoly on internet/television service in our respective communities. Both of these incidents were really annoying and wasted significant chunks of my Sunday and Monday, but by Wednesday everyone in my family had their service up and running. It was still deeply annoying, made doubly annoying by the near-constant stream of condescending and misleading information pushed forth by Cablevision employees. My attempts to find an appropriate place to express my displease at these practices led to an entirely new level of frustration, though.

Cablevision is incredibly secretive about their employees’ contact information; over the past few days I’ve been told repeatedly that management have e-mail accounts available only through their intranet, or that they have phone numbers inaccessible from outside lines. Both of these things happen to be untrue.

My frustration reached its peak with a series of tech support chats last night, which inspired a couple of tumblr posts about their persistent references to legal action and the tortured syntax employed in their exchanges.

One of these posts found its way onto the screen of Jim Maiella, VP of Media Relations for Cablevision, who followed me on Twitter and offered to help resolve the issue. Jim provided me with his e-mail address, and I will respect his wishes not to offer it to the public. But I will say I was able to communicate with him without being on the Cablevision intranet, and there’s something seriously flawed with a company’s workflow when the only way to get a contact address from a massive corporation is to bitch about them on Twitter and hope that one of their vice-presidents notice. What follows is the e-mail I sent him. It’s really long. Did he help me resolve the problem?

TO BE CONTINUED
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Each year a mysterious cabal of sportswriters mash up a bunch of statistics, superstitions and bizarre grudges and decide who gets enshrined in the Hall of Fame. There are many perks to being enshrined in “The Hall”, not the least of which is getting your portrait painted by Dick Perez for the Perez-Steele Gallery. Or I guess that used to be the case, apparently they discontinued the series in 2001. Sorry, Goose Gossage!

I was bored watching the Yankees blow a lead tonight, and started looking at HOF votes and found out there have been twenty eight players who received a single vote for the Hall of Fame. In a way, this is even more amazing than getting voted in: there was one lonely sportswriter in the entire realm who looked at your career and decided, “If Phil Rizzuto can make it, why not this guy?” How does this happen? Do the players and their one supporter end up getting lunch together? Are these votes sincere, or are they equivalent of writing in “Donald Duck”? Are there people out there who just enchanted by perfect games, testicular cancer, homicidal paranoia, longevity, or financial acumen that they think their men deserve a spot in Cooperstown?

We may never know, but thirteen of these men in the One Vote Brotherhood got themselves immortalized by Dick Perez thanks to Donruss Diamond Kings. They are enshrined below:
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