Since nobody’s interested in picking up the slugger, he’s gotta figure out new ways to occupy his time. Apparently Baroid has figured out what to do in between curls at the gym and hacks at the cages. As AJ mentioned at Deadspin, Barry’s now making cameos in music videos. Check him out around the 0:45 mark:

I’m sure you’re all more interested in the cameo by my cousin, Chris Brown, but seeing Barry in a music vid is pretty funny. Of course when it comes to athletes making music video appearances, nothing tops TJ Cummings in Missy Elliot’s Work it vid. One day we’re seeing him score 15 in a UCLA basketball game, next thing you know he’s the it thang for Missy. Weird how things work.

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Baseball pranks certainly provide tremendous entertainment and help lighten the mood especially when your team’s struggling. One of my favorites was when Jarrod Washburn brought an ostrich into the Angels’ clubhouse and scared the daylights out of Ramon Ortiz. That was tremendous. But what Ken Griffey Jr. did was also fantastic. Apparently he enjoys creating inconveniences for his teammates:

Pitcher Josh Fogg arrived at his locker Wednesday to find it stacked with 60 boxes of pennies, 2,500 pennies to a box. He immediately looked at Griffey and said, “That’s good, Griff, real funny. Kick me when I’m down.”

Griffey warned him but Fogg didn’t believe it when Griffey said he was going to pay off a $1,500 debt in pennies.

“I’m a man of my word,” said Griffey. “When you owe a man $1,500, you pay him. You can’t do a whole lot with pennies, can you? Just think, each box weighs 16 pounds so Fogg has 60 bowling balls in his locker.”

Gotta love Hal McCoy relaying the information that really matters. Like we care about Jeff Keppinger’s knee injury — this is the good stuff. Maybe it’s something about the Reds’ clubhouse. Remember Adam Dunn pranking Jay Bruce? That was pretty solid. I’m not sure which one’s better.

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You have to figure that pretty much anything is fair game when Kevin Millar’s on your team. Mr. Cowboy Up was no doubt a part of this music video the Orioles filmed to promote the team for the upcoming season. An excellent find that Jimmy at SI passes along. Check out those boys sing:

The 2008 Baltimore Orioles, featuring Kevin Millar on vocals, Adam Jones on the keyboard, George Sherrill on guitar, and Jeremy Guthrie as backup. At least they’re good at providing entertainment off the field, because they’re not too good on it (give it a few months).

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And so am I. Remember the tough time Parcells was giving Jason Taylor, according to reports? We were told that when Taylor took his break from Dancing with the Stars, he went to Miami to check in on the team. Parcells supposedly gave him the cold shoulder, just because Taylor’s more interested in his dance career than his football career. I guess Billy Boy is more amenable to his players’ involvement in horticulture instead. From Ricky:

“(Parcells) was describing the kind of player he wanted,” Williams said. “Honestly, I had doubts if I was going to be that type of player.”

Williams said that Parcells called him into his office after the team meeting and told him he was keeping him on the team to share rushing duties with Ronnie Brown.

“I was expecting him not to talk to me at all,” Williams said. “I was expecting to get a letter in the mail saying I was going to be a free agent.

“I like (Parcells) more than I thought I would,” added Williams, who had lunch with Parcells last week. “He’s really different than I expected. It seems to me his greatest joy is developing true friendships with his players, being a mentor and trying to help people, not just in football but in life.”

Maybe Parcells recognizes that Ricky’s just a calming force and wants him around the team. But I really do have to wonder about Parcells. Being such a penis towards an All-Pro like Taylor supposedly, and then so friendly towards Ricky? Quite the head-scratcher. Maybe they’re just toking up after practice together.

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He is just one of those once-in-a-generation players that we are lucky to have playing while we’re all fans. There’s nobody like him, and there probably won’t be anyone similar to him at any point in the future. From pointing to the ball to tell his teammate to get a gapper, to using the bathroom inside the Green Monster, to listening to music in the outfield on his iPod built into his customized sunglasses, Manny Being Manny may be the greatest gift to all baseball fans. And the gift that keeps on giving gave once again on Wednesday in Baltimore. Manny went deep into the left-center gap to track down a hard hit ball. He was running so fast that his momentum carried him to the wall where he did a Bo Jackson-style spiderman climb up the padding, only to high five a Red Sox as he climbed the wall. As if that wasn’t cool enough, he came back down and got the ball back into the infield in time to double up Aubrey Huff. A Manny Being Manny moment well worth your time:

Thanks to AA for the vid. I think what made that moment legendary was the fact that he got the double play after the high five. Ending the inning with a high five is cool, but the fact that he did it while the inning was still going on just makes it that much more awesome. Manny, just too funny.

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I saw this little item in Sports Illustrated a few weeks ago and thought that it might just be the perfect addition to any serious sports fan’s memorabilia collection:

Not unlike the Patriots version of the Perfectville commercial, this is what would have been had history changed its course. As Ryan Leaf told Dan Patrick, he has a personalized Colts jersey:

It’s ironic: I had some of my storage stuff from Montana shipped down to Texas, and I ran across — I forgot I even had it — an Indianapolis Colts jersey, number 16, with LEAF on the back, that I think they had ready for draft day. I’m thinking about auctioning it off for charity. There’s no reason for me to keep it.

I’m not big into collectibles, but I’d be willing to shell out some serious coin for that, not to mention this Todd Marinovich jersey. Dude, how many people you know rolling into sports bars with a Cryin Leaf Colts jersey? How money would that be? Sell it Cryin, sell it!

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