Deadspin: roy oswalt

The NL's Best Pitchers Hunt And Hit College Bars Together

Leitch — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 16:00:05 EST

When we were the sports editor at the Daily Illini, Illinois head coach Lou Henson and his wife Mary invited us into their home, and we drank hot tea and ate chocolate on their porch while we discussed Jerry Hester, Kiwane Garris and next year's team. We are realizing today that we were sports editor of the Daily Illini in 1953, and after edit board meetings, we'd head down to the pond to go fishin' with Opie and the gang, or maybe take in a movie for a quarter.

Because now sports reporters at college newspapers take drunk athlete photos and post them to their blogs.

The scene: The DI Sports Bar Crawl is underway at Joe's Brewery and things are just starting to get exciting on the poles. Then, a phone call was received from a friend of a friend of DI on-air reporter, Jon Stiffler in fact, who said Jake Peavy, Roy Oswalt and Brad Penny — three of the National League's most dominant pitchers (Peavy, my favorite player/hero being the 2007 NL Cy Young winner) — were at KAM's fraternizing with the UI student body.

We don't see anything wrong with this, of course — Peavy and company don't look particularly drunk (though they can find the ladies!), and it's mostly a breathless Holy Crap Look Who's At Kam's! — but it does seem to make some sort of shift, somehow, we're not sure how.

Oh, and we love the first sentence of the piece: "The DI Sports Bar Crawl is underway at Joe's Brewery and things are just starting to get exciting on the poles." Christ. College. Nothing like it.

I Met Jake Peavy At Kam's [Daily Illini Blogs]

Roy Oswalt, Ditch Digger

Leitch — Tue, 20 Dec 2005 09:00:02 EST

The night Roy Oswalt dominated the Cardinals and took a metaphorical bulldozer to Busch Stadium. Apparently, that night, Astros owner Drayton McLane promised he would, if he beat the Cardinals, buy Oswalt a Caterpillar D6N XL bulldozer. Well, Oswalt, as you might remember, kicked ass that night.

And yesterday, Oswalt got his bulldozer. Not metaphorically this time; like, for real.

"Each year, with our players, I ask them what their goals are," McLane said. "I said, 'Roy, what is one of your goals?' He said, 'To own a bulldozer.' That kind of took me back a little bit. I had never heard that before."

To be fair, Roger Clemens did once request to be called for a "Ditch Witch", though we think he meant a goatee trimmer.

Roy Oswalt, You Do Make Me Laugh [High And Tight]

Liftoff In Houston

Leitch — Thu, 20 Oct 2005 09:08:45 EDT

We congratulate the Houston Astros on their first-ever trip to the World Series; we're happy for Craig Biggio and Jeff Bagwell and all the fans who have suffered through some truly heartbreaking moments. You're going to the Series, and if you ask anyone other than a Cardinals fan, they'll tell you that's a very cool thing. Once again, it's as if some baseball deity is stopping by "cursed" franchises and relieving them, one by one, each year.

And yes, for the second consecutive year, a franchise has ended decades of frustration at Busch Stadium. At least they're gonna tear the place down before the Cubs could do it. About half the Cardinals fans at Busch stayed long after the game was over to watch a video tribute and say goodbye to the old stadium, which is going to be busted up in about a fortnight. The loss was disappointing, obviously, but Cardinals fans just wanted to give Busch a proper burial. Roy Oswalt certainly took care of that.

And us? Well, we watched the game with some friends, and, as much as we tried to pretend otherwise, it was pretty clear pretty early that this wasn't going to be the Cardinals' night. Mulder was sloppy, the hitters were still jumpy and Oswalt was Oswalt, just an absolute terror. But every time we looked at the television, we saw Busch one more time. No matter what was happening, we were looking at Busch Stadium. That was all we had asked for. And that was all we got.

The Dugout
Fans Say Goodbye To Busch [St. Louis Post-Dispatch]
Disastros [Slate]