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Will Ferrell ejected from minor league debut after one pitch
By 'Duk'/sports.yahoo.com

Kenny Powers wasn't anywhere to be found and he never broke into his Harry Caray impression, but Will Ferrell made his expected minor league appearance with the Round Rock Express in Texas on Thursday night. Summoned from the bullpen at the start of the sixth inning, Ferrell took the field as Billy Ray "Rojo" Johnson, a former Venezuelan pitching phenom who had just been released from jail for smuggling rare reptiles into the United States. His relief effort lasted just one brushback, but the whole bit featured a few more laughs than I expected. (I've embedded Ferrell's whole appearance below and it closes with a pretty accurate reenactment of the Nolan Ryan-Robin Ventura headlock.)

If you're wondering why Ferrell was hanging around the Triple-A affiliate of the Houston Astros, there are a couple of answers. One, he's in town raising money for his Cancer for College golf tournament. Two, the Astros might actually need Ferrell's arm this year.



I couldn't understand why Will Ferrell getting ejected from this game didn't grab more headlines. I mean when you've got one of the funniest men on the planet playing some minor league ball you would thinki that would generate more coverage. But apparently some guy named Dallas threw a perfect game last week (whatever the hell that means) and everybody got all in an uproar. I did a little more investigating and found out this guy actually played at Tech. It's true.

Unheralded Braden keeps making us believe this is his defining year
Joe Posnanski/SI.com

Maybe the most important thing to know about perfect game pitcher Dallas Braden is this: He was never a prospect. Not ever.

He was the 1,383rd player taken in the 2004 draft after he graduated from Alonzo Stagg High in Stockton, Calif. He just showed up at American River College in Sacramento -- the American River coach, Kevin Higgins, has said in interviews that he had never heard of Braden -- and he played well enough there to get a chance to play for Texas Tech. He pitched well enough at Texas Tech -- had a 4.56 ERA for the season, but had a couple of big wins -- that he was drafted in the 24th round by Oakland. Teams tend not to think all that much about guys taken in the 24th round; it's a good bet that Braden was drafted because he threw a screwball. Hey, nobody throws a screwball anymore.

All of this leads to this season, which is rapidly becoming the season of Dallas Braden.

First, he publicly challenged Alex Rodriguez, who ran across the mound during a game Braden was pitching. People had different views about how egregious the run-across really was -- some think it's an obvious baseball blasphemy, others never heard of the rule -- but in the end, the larger point probably had nothing to do with A-Rod at all. The larger point was probably about a 26-year-old pitcher with limited major league success calling out the highest-paid player in baseball for daring to tread on his mound. That's what he called it. HIS MOUND. Some people mocked it -- Derek Jeter said, "It's not like he brought it from home" -- and some people respected it, but nobody could ignore it. Yes, Alex Rodriguez had more postseason extra-base hits than Braden had career victories. Yes, Alex Rodriguez had made about 250 million more dollars than Braden in salary. But the kid was not backing down.

Second, well, that happened Sunday in Oakland.

In all seriousness it's pretty cool that there's a positive headline about Texas Tech baseball. Up until now I don't think I'd seen one since about 1999. Congrats to Dallas Braden for representing the Red Raiders well. And how about that grandmother of his? What a cougar!