Kuzul

Cincinnati Reds starting pitcher Johnny Cueto lasted only 3.1 innings against the Pittsburgh Pirates in the NL Wild Card Round game Tuesday and gave up four runs, two of which were solo homers, including one to Russell Martin, which can be seen below.

While the uncharacteristically poor outing may have been just postseason jitters, another possible theory is that the Pirates fans’ chants of “Cue-to” throughout the start of the game got to Cueto. The taunting can be heard in the Martin video.

Those chants brought back memories of another famous taunt, which came at the expense of New York Mets great Darryl Strawberry.

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Even Mariano Rivera can’t make the save in this situation.

There was mass chaos before the New York Yankees’ game against the Tampa Bay Rays on Tuesday night, as the team was holding a bobblehead giveaway in honor of its retiring closer. The only problem was, the bobbleheads didn’t actually show up before the game.

UPDATE: Tuesday, Sept. 24, at 8:38 p.m. ET by Joseph Zucker

Have no fear, the bobbleheads are here. Well, at least they’re on their way, according to Daniel Barbarisi of The Wall Street Journal:

While the bobbleheads may have arrived in the third inning, the chaos did not subside, according to Rob Powers of New York City’s WABC-TV Channel 7:

The sheer mass of people appears to be overwhelming, as you can see in this photo from @amazingjr87:

—End of update—

Instead, as MLB.com’s Bryan Hoch reported, the first 18,000 fans in attendance received vouchers:

That led to The Newark Star-Ledger‘s Andy McCullough dubbing the promotion “Mariano Rivera Voucher Night”:

This is the message that awaited fans as they entered the stadium, courtesy of Mark Feinsand:

Here’s what the voucher looked like. If you close your eyes, it looks exactly like a bobblehead, via @IsaYankeeDiva:   

Plus, wouldn’t you rather carry around a little ticket than a bulky box? Perhaps the Yankees thought they were just putting the fans first here.

In all seriousness, bobbleheads are generally the most popular promotion during the season. When you combine that with Rivera’s impending retirement, you get what were some crazy lines of fans dying to get their hands on the freebie before the game.

When looking at the images outside the ballpark, you can only imagine how upset people were to receive the voucher instead of the real thing.

There was a massive swell of humanity waiting to get through the gates, via @Zellyanks:

Here’s another look at the crowd waiting to enter Yankee Stadium, per YES Network:

Fans wanting a bobblehead needed to get in line pretty early by the looks of this photo, courtesy of the Albany Times Union‘s Mike Gwizdala:

The Yankees hopefully learned a very valuable lesson Tuesday night: Make sure you physically have the bobbleheads before announcing a Bobblehead Night, especially for one of the most revered players in franchise history.

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Toronto Blue Jays center fielder Colby Rasmus was forced to leave Friday’s game against the Red Sox after an errant throw hit him in the head while jogging out to center field. 

The full clip of the incident can be seen below.

Thanks to MLB.com for the video. 

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Safe to say Jose Romero is excited to see the Los Angles Dodgers in the playoffs. His new ink goes well with the Oakland Raiders tattoo on the top of his head. 

Thanks to Cut4 for the find. 

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The Los Angeles Dodgers celebrated their National League West title by jumping in the pool at Chase Field. Unsurprisingly, this upset the Arizona Diamondbacks and many of their fans. 

ESPN’s Mark Saxon quoted a couple of key figures on the matter:

Diamondbacks president and CEO Derrick Hall said in a statement to the Arizona Republic, “I could call it disrespectful and classless, but they don’t have a beautiful pool at their old park and must have really wanted to see what one was like.”

[…]

“I think it’s tired and disrespectful,” (Diamondbacks utility player Willie) Bloomquist said. “It’s surprising, because they have a lot of veteran guys on that team that I thought were classier than that.”

Even the non-sports community was getting into the discussion. Arizona Senator John McCain also was not fond of the act:

Dodgers relief pitcher Brian Wilson responded to McCain’s criticism with a jab of his own:

ESPN’s Skip Bayless also had to insert his opinion in the matter:

Of course, there weren’t any pools located in the outfield of major league ballparks when Sandy Koufax was playing. 

On the other hand, not everyone took issue with the act. The always entertaining Arizona starting pitcher Brandon McCarthy did not see a problem with it, despite being on the losing end. He tweeted this encouraging statement for the future:

The controversial celebration followed a 7-6 road win by the Los Angeles Dodgers on Thursday. This mathematically eliminated the Diamondbacks from the division race, and secured the Dodgers their first National League West title since 2009.

After a relatively awful start to the season for The Boys in Blue, the turnaround into division champs was impressive.

However, Saxon reports that the team had been asked by the Diamondbacks to not celebrate on the field. The players responded by jumping into the pool, which was captured by Fox Sports:

Arash Markazi of ESPN also provided this picture on his Instagram account:

However, not everyone thought it was funny. 

This type of celebration started in 2011 when the Diamondbacks clinched the NL West and celebrated in front of their home fans. Still, it’s clear that the squad doesn’t feel that the pool is open for just anyone to use.

Follow Rob Goldberg on Twitter for the latest breaking news and analysis.

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Now this is how you haze rookies. Veteran reliever Javier Lopez dressed up San Francisco Giants rookies as Times Square’s famous “Naked Cowboy.” The results were stunning.

Hat tip to Giants reliever George Kontos for the photos.

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In the bottom of the first inning against Houston, Cincinnati Reds second baseman Brandon Phillips pulled a cruel, cruel trick on Astros shortstop Jonathan Villar when he forced him to slide directly into his butt while protecting second base.

As if his head placement wasn’t embarrassing enough, Villar was called out on the play.

Hat tip to SB Nation for the GIF. 

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My eyes will never be the same after watching this.

During Monday’s 7-1 win over the Cleveland Indians, a Royals fan celebrated Lorenzo Cain’s sixth-inning triple with a belly-shaking dance.

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Put simply, things got weird during Monday night’s matchup between the Tampa Bay Rays and the Texas Rangers. 

A man in tighty whities (who has since been outed as Florida native and YouTube [RossCreations] prankster Charles Ross) charged the field, attempted to steal second base and was tackled in a cloud of dirt—all while Dick Vitale watched in rapt attention, live-tweeting the action.

The field rusher was—wait a minute.

Let’s not gloss over that whole part where a legendary college basketball announcer provided the Internet with coverage of a half-naked man being mowed down by security at Tropicana Field.

Sitting in his usual seats by the third base dugout, the 74-year-old sportscaster looked on as a young man jumped down onto the field and attempted to pry out the second base pad.

Vitale‘s tweet about the occasion was spotted by RaysIndex.com—and yes, he reacted exactly how you’d imagine he would react.

Oh my God. You could spread that tweet on crackers. It’s awesome, baby.

Judging by the image in the tweet, Vitale grabbed one of the on-field photographers and demanded to see if he had any cool pictures of the field-rusher. It was a fine gesture, considering he likely knew broadcasters weren’t showing the streaker’s goodies to viewers at home (GIF courtesy of Rodger Sherman of SB Nation).

Luckily for us, images of the event have surfaced.

Here, the security guards appear to be forming some kind of tumbling stunt and/or human pyramid with Captain Tighty. 

As you can see, the man was arrested and escorted from the field. Also, notice the near total coverage of the body in dirt. This man didn’t skimp on the dry-rub with these chicken thighs.

A consummate newscaster, Vitale signed off from the strange night with a rundown of the box score.

The Rays might have won the game, but it feels like Dickie V and the Internet pulled out the “W” Monday night.

Join me on Twitter because it’s awesome, baby.

Follow @Dr__Carson

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A very determined adult Pittsburgh Pirates fan went through a child for a baseball during Thursday night’s Pirates-Cubs game. 

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