Strangest But Truest Event Of 2007 (according to www.espn.com)...


• How the heck did this happen? Yankees rookie Chase Wright, a pitcher who had given up four home runs to the previous 673 hitters he'd faced (in the majors and minors), needed a mere 10 pitches to serve up four home runs in a row to the Red Sox on April 22. Naturally, the four hitters who bashed them had combined for only four homers all season before that, in 218 at-bats.


Strange But True Poster Boy Of 2007

• You can't beat Troy Percival's year, can you? On Opening Day in Anaheim, he threw out the ceremonial first pitch (on the soon-to-be-disproved theory that he'd retired). But six months later, that very same Troy Percival was the Cardinals' starting pitcher in the last game of the year. And by November, Tampa Bay had signed him to a two-year contract. Anybody see that coming?


Five All-Time Strange True-isms Of 2007

• Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain Dept.: Melvin Mora managed to get ejected during a rain delay of a June 28 Yankees-Orioles game. So what got him booted? He was arguing that the umpires should have started the delay while the Orioles were leading, instead of waiting until the Yankees took the lead. Another great moment in Bird Land.

• This Is Modern Managing Dept.: In an Aug. 21 game against the Royals, hyperactive White Sox magician Ozzie Guillen used five different pitchers -- in a span of five pitches. We kid you not. Ehren Wassermann got a fly-ball out. Mike Myers gave up a single on the next pitch. Ryan Bukvich allowed a single on the next pitch. Matt Thornton got a double play on the next pitch. Bobby Jenks started the next inning with pitch No. 5.


• Two for One Dept.: Meanwhile in Cincinnati, Brandon Phillips also made every pitch count -- by stealing two bases on one pitch Aug. 1 (while the Nationals were in The Shift on Adam Dunn). Dunn wound up flying out to center (over all those shifters) to end the inning. So did that Shift work, or not?

• No Stretching Allowed Dept.: The White Sox managed to do something on May 31 that no other team since 1900 has ever done, according to the Elias Sports Bureau -- lose a game in which the opposing team (Toronto) had no baserunners. How'd that happen? The Blue Jays got two hits -- both solo homers -- and no other hits, walks, HBPs or any other kind of event that might have caused Sox pitcher Mark Buehrle to throw a single pitch from the stretch.

• Two Days in May Dept.: On back-to-back May nights in the same ballpark, the Padres and Braves unfurled a matchup of two starting pitchers with 532 combined wins (Greg Maddux versus John Smoltz) 24 hours after a matchup of pitchers with exactly one win (Justin Germano versus Anthony Lerew).


Five October Strange True-isms Of 2007:

• Just for Starters Dept.: We should have known what kind of World Series we were in for when the first inning of Game 1 featured a leadoff homer by a fellow who hadn't hit a leadoff homer all year (Dustin Pedroia) -- off a pitcher who hadn't allowed a leadoff homer since 2004 (Jeff Francis).

• Just Getting Warmed Up Dept.: The Red Sox had a longer winning streak in the postseason (seven games) than they had at any point in the regular season (five games).

• October Sky Dept.: Even more amazingly, the Red Sox scored 11 runs or more in three straight postseason games (Games 6 and 7 of the ALCS, Game 1 of the World Series). Before that, they'd done that once in all 107 of their regular seasons combined. But heck, that's only about 16,500 games.

• No Experience Needed Dept.: When did we know the Rockies were officially out of control this October? Game 2 of the NLCS was saved by a pitcher who had never saved a big league game before (Ryan Speier). And their biggest hit of Game 4 was a two-run single by a hitter who had never driven in a big league run before (Seth Smith).

• Infield Fly Rule Dept.: After arriving in the Bronx in August, Joba Chamberl

AK-47, the very best there is. When you absolutely, positively, gotta kill every motherfucka in the room, accept no substitute.

You're always gonna have problems lifting a body in one piece. Apparently, the best thing to do...is cut up a corpse into six pieces and pile it all together.

Would someone mind telling me, who are you?

When you got your six pieces, you gotta get rid of them. It's no good leaving it in the freezer for your mum to discover. Then I hear the best thing to do is feed them to pigs.

You gotta starve the pigs for a few days...then the chopped-up body will look like curry to a pisshead.

You gotta shave the heads of your victims and pull the teeth out...for the piggies' digestion.

You could do this afterwards, of course...but you don't want to sieve through pigshit, do you?

They will go through bone like butter.

You need at least sixteen pigs to finish the job in one sitting...so be wary of any man who keeps a pig farm.

They will go through a body that weighs 200 pounds...in about eight minutes.

That means that a single pig...can consume two pounds of uncooked flesh...

...every minute.

Hence the expression..."as greedy as a pig".

Well, thank you for that. That's a great weight off me mind. Now, if you wouldn't mind telling me who the fuck you are...apart from someone who feeds people to pigs, of course.

Do you know what "nemesis" means?

"A righteous infliction of retribution...manifested by an appropriate agent."

Personified, in this case, by a horrible cunt:

Me.