Sources: Confirmation of Paul Konerko's Rumored Mobility

We have news this week from the U.S. Geological Survey that confirms that on the evening of Wednesday, May 14th in Anaheim, California, formerly assumed static body Paul Konerko of the Chicago White Sox moved an estimated 90 feet from his previously recorded marker point, roughly the 1st base bag at Angels Stadium.

"This is an amazing discovery of epic proportions," stated Dr. Rodney Carew, faculty president of the geosciences department at the University of California-Los Angeles. "Konerko's movement is practically unprecedented. In a possible set of 1465 qualifying events, such movement has been recorded only 6 times."

As objects such as Paul Konerko's husky body increase in age and stability, they are even less likely to exhibit such movement, which makes Wednesday's geological event even more significant. An alarming trend could be ensuing, as other notable immobile national features such as Aramis Ramirez, Carlos Lee, and Jim Thome also showed evidence of having moved similar distances recently.

Scientists and policy makers believe there may be cause for concern. "Clearly Konerko's solid frozen quadriceps are thawing by rising global temperatures that is causing a climate change. This shift is then killing the mature roots growing under his feet. This inexplicable 90 foot movement is clearly due to the rapid increase in greenhouse gasses," former Vice President and Senator Al Gore said at a conference for the Earth awareness advocacy group OMGWGTD (Oh My God, We're Going to Die) in New York. "At this rate, your grandchildren will all be moving at the speed of Kenyans by 2045. And there's a good chance that the Earth will catch us ALL stealing," he finished cryptically. "Did you get that? It's a metaphor. It means you're going to boil in your skin and die."

"Wait. What?"

Despite the worries about rising global temperatures and their effect on very slow men, some remain skeptical. "This is a natural part of the Earth's cycle. Global temperatures shift constantly as part of the ebb and flow in various geological periods," reported Zebekiah Manly of the thinktank QAQ (Quit Asking Questions). "There's enough borderline scientific evidence that we made up or exaggerated that suggests that given enough time, Paul Konerko will just naturally return to first base on his own."

Whatever occurred, men who should have witnessed it remain dumbfounded. Angels' Catcher Mike Napoli seemed just confused. "I think I noticed because something in my peripheral vision wasn't blocking the view of sections 120-126 anymore. And then I look up and there's that big goofy grin standing 90 feet away," he reported on the record. "I think the warming ice cap thingie whathaveyou sounds good to me. Otherwise, I have to believe that Paul Konerko stole a base on me. And I mean, geez. That's embarrassing. He's Molina slow."

Analysis of Nutritional Intake's Impact on Baseball Results

Hank Steinbrenner knows something we here on the radio don't. Actually, Hank knows a lot of things we don't, like what it's like to have discretionary income. And own a yacht. Also, he runs a Major League Baseball team. But most importantly, Hank knows that a team in need of sustenance is going to be able to defeat a nutritionally sound franchise, unless the fatties with adequate food play "smarter and harder."

Hank Steinbrenner: Yankees must play hungrier.

"No question, the Rays are a hungry team," said Steinbrenner, the Yankees' co-chairman. "That's what our team has to get back."

Not pleased with early results from manager Joe Girardi to make the Yankees peckish by taking away junk food from the clubhouse, Steinbrenner's remarks hinted that an involuntary hunger strike may be in order if the Yankees are to sniff the playoffs and steal the division away from their famished southern rivals.

Consider the following:

Average Tampa Bay Rays Player Salary: 1,784,000
Average New York Yankees Player Salary: 8,344,000

Anyone following the fluctuating price of food and transportation knows that it is almost impossible to be adequately nourished on 1.8 million if you live in a space station for a year and have all your food delivered via satellite and have your orbit maintained artificially. Otherwise, I've heard the Tampa cost of living index is pretty good, so that can't be the entire answer.

Is it possible that Hank could just be an obnoxious blowhard in need of constant attention to fulfill some sort of as yet undiscovered insecurity gene passed on from father to son? Absolutely not. The Yankees are clearly overeating.

The Hungricity Scale

A basic breakdown of "Satiation vs. Baseball Ability" shows that despite medical evidence to the contrary, muscles and reflexes and concentration improve if food becomes scarce or is denied (citation needed). This could mean the Rays lead is in jeopardy as we head into the warmer summer months, a dangerous minefield of potential nutritional indiscretions known as "picnic season."

It's also been brought to the attention of columnists and fans around the country that many Major League parks are hawking all manner of food items, in every section, at all times. I think we here at Gritty & Clutch(and all sensible thinking persons past, present, and future) agree that this is a significant attempt to undermine the efforts of the warriors of the diamond and distract them from what it means to be an athlete - and how to do things the right way, with heart, and without sustenance.

The Yankees need to humble themselves and draw inspiration from those who have come before. The Yankees rise to real prominence in the 1920s and 1930s coincides almost exactly with the tutelage and struggle for Indian independence from Great Britain by one Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. And from what this radio host remembers from that one World History class that I attended as a sophomore in high school, Gandhi was hungry a lot. The Yankees can't ignore their role in destiny and the undeniable, non-tenuous connection this makes. Hunger is a part of their past, it must be a part of their future. Gandhi's hunger strike tactics worked so well that he posted a blistering line of .406/.553/.735 in 1941 (editor's note: this may have been Ted Williams).

What's next for these pampered crybabies? Water? You know how when the ground dries out because it hasn't rained in a while, completely free of the needs and weight of the most common substance on the planet, and it becomes airborne and creates a cloud of blue collar pride? Yes, my friends, that is Grit. And Grit with water is just mud. Think about it.

It Had to Happen Eventually

Dusty Baker has Corey Patterson batting leadoff for the Cincinnati Reds.


Corey currently has a .286 OBP. Last year with the Orioles he had a .304 before being released. His career mark is .297. I think we can rest assured these basepaths will remain clear of clogging.

No More Heroes

Apparently Albert Pujols isn't that interesting.

A-Rod hasn't earned hero status yet. The Yankees average start doesn't have every single one of us glued to our sets. None of this compares to our angelic heroes of the late nineties and early aughts of Bonds, McGuire, and Clemens.

At least that's what Mike Celizic suggests in his latest of innocent baseball musings.

First he waxes nostalgic about the Wonder Years when Kevin Bonds Arnold & Winnie McGuire Cooper were hitting those heroic and clutch-tastic home runs that had us all wondering when Kev's older brother Wayne Clemens would hopefully come in and charge the batter rather than the other way around. Moments we didn't want to miss indeed! Oh yeah, he almost forgot to mention that they "might" have had a 'roid issue.

Good ol' Mike spends the rest of his time realizing his grievous error of ignoring today's gritalicious and clutcherific stories. He does his best to apologize and acknowledge-if-we-have-to: Cliff Lee doing his best Cy Young impersonation, Brandon Webb is getting an 8-and-O-K start I guess, and there might be decent batting going on with some cat named Pujols and his whole getting-on-base-every-other-at-bat thing.

You see, this silly sport just isn't worth watching without our juiced up heroes. Fifty home runs is ho-hum and sitting through a boring complete game shut out is booooooring. Our modern great pitchers can't strike out 20 per game, Mike? Really? The other three times it happened in baseball history must've really impressed you.

And Grandma Maddux is sitting on 250 wins. That's pretty good for an old guy. Wait...you mean THREE HUNDRED FIFTY, right? Right. Blame the fact-checker, I say. We have heroes to worship!

Because Good Teams Form Voltron

And 137 million doesn't buy heart.

Following a 3-2 loss to the Kansas City Royals in the Heartland tonight, every radio show host in the country (or at least the six or seven following two teams struggling below .500 in markets ESPN couldn't give two shits about) came to the same sensible conclusion: The Detroit Tigers don't have any heart, and they don't know the meaning of the word team.

To paraphrase Hall of Fame broadcaster Denny Matthews, it looked like the Tigers were playing as nine individuals out there. Optimists point out this is a huge improvement over playing as say, eight individuals, without a left fielder (though the exhumed corpse of Gary Sheffield isn't exactly one complete one), kinda like the scenes in Necessary Roughness where that dumb slow linebacker who acts as the antagonist keeps sacking a 110 year old Scott Bakula because they insist on playing without a left guard. Also, playing as 10 individuals makes rule sticklers, such as the umpires and the opposing team, throw a tantrum.

I think what we all know is that good teams with good players form into one huge cohesive unit, and all insist on entering the batter's box and heading atop the pitching mound together. These statpadders have clearly not read the rule changes from 2003 that negate home runs that aren't done in the spirit of winning as a team. Fucking Tigers. I bet they'd like to score those runs for the other team if they weren't alienating the scoreboard guys in the clubhouse all the time.

Post game chatter mostly involved pining for one Brandon Inge, or as we like to call him, Mr. .304 Career OBP. Clearly putting a tubby Miguel Cabrera (career .385 OBP, .922 OPS) or a non-glue sticky Carlos Guillen (career .359, .808 OPS) taking these atbats is killing this team from the inside, as these players spend far too much time getting on base to look at pictures of their teammates' kids. The Tigers strategy could have been a good one, with Inge now no longer having to interrupt his stories and goodwill chemistry type gritty leadership making to say, step in the ondeck circle and then ground into quick outs.

Of course, the problem is that since Inge no longer touches the field, he needs to find ways to get closer to the people who really need to be exposed to his clutchiness. Maybe they should make him the bullpen catcher. Then, perhaps Verlander's hurt elbow will learn what it means to be part of a cohesive unit. Perhaps he and Kenny Rogers can take a stroll around the park after the game, and Kenny will forget that he is 75 years old and being watched closely by the boys in blue. Because this unit is lost without a mentor, and these wounded pitching ligaments don't know how to play the game the right way. This team is one Brandon Inge seminar away from having that 5.03 team ERA, 1.52 team WHIP plummet I tell you.

(Also: I just noticed that Miguel Cabrera's Baseball Reference page is sponsored by LeanBodyFitness.com. I love America.)

Remember When? A Look Back at 4 Days Ago

In light of not being able to consider a better way to start the show, I'd like to make a set of dedications in the style of rap album liner notes.

Perhaps the topsoil is no longer suitable for things like "growing food" or "sustainable living", but it still makes some mighty fine grit. I'm happy about this. Without grit, we only have 50% of a show, at least until manual transmissions disappear, and then we have nothing.

Much love to the roughly 39 bazillion sports journalists out there with absolutely nothing better to do than take pictures of Matt Leinart in a hot tub or be forced to listen to Ozzie Guillen press conferences. I feel your pain. I really do.

Props to Robert Downey Jr., despite the fact that I went to see your movie hoping it was a heart wrenching tale about playing both sides of the ball in a much gritter time and all you did was wear a mustard and ketchup colored metal suit.

To that one guy who accidentally accessed this page by random, here's a glass tip to you. It gets better. And then you can brag to all your friends about how you were there first, even though they will be wearing the intentionally distressed Gritty & Clutch logo T-shirt and saying they were there with us all the way back to 06, even though I didn't meet Gritty until almost 2 years later. My advice is to leave a particularly incendiary or foolish comment so that you can achieve a sort of boring form of immortality.

Of course, here's to God and his love of 24 hour sports coverage. He has gotten lazy in His later years, preferring professional bowling and poker coverage to plagues and famines. It's kind of a wash, if you think about it.

Enjoy the show. Tip your waitresses.

What is Gritty & Clutch?

Gritty & Clutch is a radio program in the finest tradition of AM discourse intended for only the most discerning of sports afficionados. These are two young voices that understand the value of pompous vitriol, wild exaggeration, arrogant posturing, and wacky sound bites. It airs from 1:00-3:00 AM in Dodge City, KS, Portland, MS, and Celebration, FL.