I'm not really sure why, but I've been thinking about this scenario for a couple weeks now and I figured I should just blog about it already.
Would you kneel at home plate, act as a hitting tee and let Tony Gwynn hit an apple off your head with a bat?
I've been thinking about it in terms of William Tell's apple-shot, where Tell failed to bow in front of a monarch and was forced to shoot an apple off his own son's head as punishment.
I'm not sure what reason would put you in such a predicament, since the punishment would also involve Gwynn. Maybe Padres Owner Jeff Moorad catches Gwynn feeding information to Anthony Gwynn Jr. and the Dodgers while you are his accomplice. Moorad threatens to go public and ruin Gwynn's reputation or he'll let him take the apple-shot off your head for his own twisted form of enjoyment.
I just know that if I had to choose a player to hit an apple off my head it would be Tony Gwynn. He is a huge proponent of hitting off of a tee and probably would have been a great Tee Ball player if he didn't play professional baseball. He seldom swung and missed and also didn't hit for a lot of power. Is there any player that you'd rather take the apple-shot instead of Gwynn?
If I was acting as the tee, I think I'd prefer to face towards the outfield, so if he did miss he would swat me in the back of the head instead of my face. Then I could still do some male modeling on the side.
Here's an invention for infielders.
You set up a mechanism that randomly shoots ground balls around the infield. Attached to it is a track from home to first base. When the ball is shot a rabbit sprints down the track like at a dog race. It simulates the speed of a Major League base runner so that the infielders can better judge the type of throw they'll need to make. You can adjust the speed of the rabbit on a scale from Adrian Gonzalez to Mickey Mantle.
Somebody make the prototype and we'll sell it door to door.
Star Wars Backpacks
The Padres bullpen veterans have been hazing the rookies by making them wear Star Wars backpacks for the past couple of years. I think it started in 2010 when David Eckstein was on the team. His lovely wife voices the character of Snips in the Clone Wars cartoon. Not surprisingly it was more fun last year when the Padres were winning.
In any case it's become common place to see Padres players wearing these goofy backpacks around the ballpark. As a Padres fan who was never that titillated by the Star Wars theme it's kind of annoying that the National Media still seems to find so much enjoyment from commenting on the pictures. Big League Stew actually has some clever lines in their latest post, but Deadspin's was boring.
Admittedly the Yoda backpack works well since Yoda really did ride around on Luke's back in the movies. Same goes for the rarely seen C3PO backpack that Chewbacca wore in Empire. The rest of the backpacks don't make much sense. Unfortunately it will probably take a Heath Bell trade to stop this weird tradition in San Diego since he seems to love it.
If you need proof that this weird Star Wars craze in baseball has jumped the shark you can attend San Francisco Giants' Star Wars Day and get a "collectible" Brian Wilson Frozen in Carbonite give-away. Ugh.