The Friday Link for 4/17/26

I miss baseball that's played for the fun of the game.  Don't get me wrong, I do love baseball overall, but the Major Leagues are a very serious place.  What I am talking about is the absurdity that baseball, particularly amateur/exhibition baseball, can be.

I miss the old St. Paul Saints games (TRAIN!)! I remember when their emcee for the night (a beloved Eric Webster) had all the field hands run onto the field and dance, twist, hop, blubber, and cavort for three minutes.  Afterwards, Eric said into the mic, "Ladies and Gentlemen, my dream from last night!  Just as I remember it!"

Sure, there is a baseball game, but fun is the main goal.

The Savannah Bananas baseball club has taken this to the nth degree, becoming the Harlem Globetrotters of baseball.  Their games are sold out almost immediately, and they have an annual tour that gets better attendance than most of the MLB games.

Let's start off with the walk-up songs for the Savannah Bananas! The guy doing flips at #7 is pretty good! 

They do play baseball, but it's different.  They allow trick plays. Check out the best from last year. 

The Savannah Bananas have to play a game, which means other teams, and their most common foil is The Party Animals. They themselves are pretty spectacular.  Here are some of their best moments.  A Slip and Slide for home runs would be awesome! 

Another of the teams in the league is The Firefighters. Here are some of their highlights. The Version of 'It's Raining Men' where they have men jumping off a ladder is 10 out of 10!

I so want this team in my town. Major League Baseball shouldn't become this, but they sure as heck could learn a lot from the Savannah Bananas about making their games a lot more fun.

That's it for this week.  Have a good weekend.

Please stay up to date on all of your vaccinations! 

The Friday Link for 4/10/26

Hi all! 

I'm exhausted! I was up late last night (on a school night - WHAAAA???) at the Lady Gaga concert in St. Paul, and I've been barely functioning all day.  It's going to be bedtime for me soon, but I need a Friday Link we all can enjoy!

Taking a page from last week's Ben-Hur scene, why not look at some classic movie scenes I just absolutely love! 

Let's start with the final match from the underrated movie, Searching for Boby Fischer. This is one of those movies where if I find it somewhere, I can't stop watching it. It's a great movie about the world of competition, but it's also a great movie about mentors and about family. 

Next up, the best baseball movie ever, The Natural.  I know I've posted this scene before, but it is so dang good, and with Robert Redford passing away, it feels appropriate to revisit this scene again.

And finally tonight, the final battle scenes from Avengers: Endgame. Talk about near-perfect, this ending was everything every comic book fan ever wanted in a comic book movie. Cap uses Thor's hammer to take on Thanos.  PERFECTION!

Have a great weekend, everyone.

Make sure to stay up to date on all of your vaccinations! 

The Friday Link for 4/3/26

Hi all! Happy Friday!  Let's start this week off with a bang! 

I am a Christian (my disclaimer), but you do or don't do whatever it is you do or don't want to do! This is Easter weekend, and I wanted to share some clips that are associated with the holiday, but aren't too Christian-heavy-handed.

The first clip this week is an absolute gem. Ben -Hur was from the era of absolute epic movies.  Yes, it gets really Christiany at the end, and Charlton Heston's gun worship is its own discussion, but the movie itself has a lot of wonderful all-time classic movie scenes, and the story of a betrayed man clawing himself back from condemnation (a Hollywood trope) has never been done better than when Ben-Hur returns to confront Messala.  This leads to one of the most iconic scenes in all of movie history, the chariot race scene.

I can't even imagine watching this in 1959 on a mega-wide screen. The work this one scene took is astounding, and the race builds and builds to absolute perfection.  I do recommend the original Ben-Hur movie, if you are so inclined. 

Next up is a quick video from The Peanuts 'It's The Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown.'  In my mind, it's not the holiday unless Snoopy is dancing with bunnies. 

Finally, this week, Eggs! RiffTrax has an absolute head scratcher of a short to enjoy, Courtesy a Good Eggsample! This is just about eggs.  I am not sure why it exists, but RiffTrax does it justice! 

Have a great weekend, everyone! If you are celebrating, Happy Easter!

And make sure to stay up to date on all of your vaccinations!