It’s October! The fall is finally here (except on the West Coast) and the sports sure are heating up. Playoff baseball has begun and nearly a third of the 2012 NFL season is in the books. To make matters even more sports, the NBA season is about to begin and hockey is just around the corner and that’s the only sports there are!
The Week in Worst: Hats off to Larry
A living legend leaves us with a lasting memory and a fat guy looks bewildered. Such is the nature of the worst plays of the week.
Jason O. Watson - Getty Images
Bill Hanstock is a writer, author and Emmy Award-winning producer. He began writing for SB Nation in 2011.
If you wanted to see some GIFs of athletes failing at things, I believe you’ve come to the right place. Whether your favorite team is eliminated, doing well in the playoffs, undefeated in football or maybe even just the New York Jets, there’s something here for everyone.
Here are the worst plays in Major League Baseball and the NFL for the week of Oct. 1 - Oct. 8!
Worst Pitch (Location)
Pitcher: Santiago Casilla
Date: Oct. 6
Location: 49.45 inches from center of plate
Holy moly this is a pretty bad pitch. It's a bad pitch for an Astros game on a weekday in late August and it's a horrible pitch for a late-inning NLDS playoff game with runners on base. But what really takes this to the next level is Buster Posey and his MAD HOPS while the ball -- and his 2012 postseason -- entirely eludes him. Better luck next time, Giants. Try to not do this as much in 2013. Or, you know, whatever you want to do.
You really, really need to click here to view the slow-mo version of this pitch, because WOW WEE WOW WOW.
Honorable Mention: Andrew Taylor, Oct. 3, 60.48 inches from center of plate. (Click here to view.) The best part is not how awful the pitch is, but the home plate umpire grabbing his head like Alpha-5 and presumably yelling "AY-YI-YI-YIII!" at how violently out of the strike zone this pitch was.
Honorable Mention: Tom Milone, Oct. 7. 55.76 inches from center of plate. (Click here to view.) This is the only angle that the broadcast showed, because the people who are actually in charge of putting baseball on television have absolutely zero percent idea what people like about baseball or its presentation. "People love behind-the-umpire angles and Joe Buck, right? Let's put it all in a caulking gun and fire it down their throats!"
Honorable Mention: R.A. Dickey, Oct. 2. 47.64 inches from center of plate. (Click here to view.) Sometimes even the best pitcher in the National League throws an awful pitch. Pitching is hard. But when you're playing the second-to-last game of the season and both teams have been long eliminated, that goes a long way toward making these sort of pitches look not-horribly-embarrassing. Mostly because nobody's watching.
Worst Pitch (Result)
Pitcher: Matt Cain
Batter: Jay Bruce
Date: Oct. 6
Result: 112.3 mph home run (speed off bat)
A tip for pitchers: home runs are pretty much the opposite of what you want. Hope this helps.
Worst Swing
Batter: Prince Fielder
Date: Oct. 7
Location: 28.56 inches from center of plate
This entire GIF is one massive optical illusion. Look at the catcher’s arm shoot up! It looks like Fielder fouls the ball straight up off the end of the bat. He doesn’t! He misses! And look through the glass behind home plate. Right after he swings, a white thing just disappears off the screen. This is totally insane. This is the Paranormal Activity of baseball GIFs, or at the very least, the ParaNorman (because Prince Fielder looks like a dude named Norman). I have watched this loop at least a hundred times and it freaks me out every time. Now I share it with you all, because you should all be as uncomfortable as I am.
Oh, and it was a terrible swing to strike out right after a two-run error. Look how confused he is after he swings, like a cat that was going berserk but then you suddenly turned off the laser pointer. I bet right after they cut away, Fielder began cleaning himself with his tongue like nothing out of the ordinary just happened.
Honorable Mention: Chris Johnson, Oct. 2. (Click here to view.) Boy, this one has a lot going on in it. Johnson makes a really terrible, super-slow swing, then immediately goes to the time-tested "look at my bat" recovery. "Oh hey, I sure missed that one. Wonder what's wrong with ol' Sluggo here he usually hits those base balls I swing at. Hrm. Odd. Maybe should get a new one. Well ... I'll think about it, anyway."
Honorable Mention: Chad Tracy, Oct. 2. (Click here to view.) DYAWWW NERTS I'M LOUSY AT BASEBALLS
Worst Defensive Play
Player: Chipper Jones
Date: Oct. 5
Oh, Larry. You gave us so very much over your long and illustrious Hall of Fame career. Unfortunately, you had possibly the most costly error of the 437 committed by the Atlanta Braves in their single-game elimination at the hands of the St. Louis Cardinals. Probably not the last memory you wanted to give everyone. But please enjoy your retirement GIF. I made it with the utmost respect. Then I put it in a column called "The Week in Worst." With the utmost respect. Only the best make it in here! In a way.
Worst Kick
Team: Green Bay Packers
Date: Oct. 7
The Packers could have tied the game up on this kick. Instead, they opted to oversteer and hook the ball about half the width of the field wide left of the goalpost. Well, I guess Luck wasn’t on their side this time. Perhaps the kicker was under the weather. Maybe he had a Colt.
They only get two puns because that’s all they deserve this week.
Worst Pass
Player: Ryan Fitzpatrick
Date: Oct. 7
The Buffalo Bills appear to have mastered what they probably call the "punt-pass," where a wobbly and ill-advised throw hangs in the air for defenders while the intended receivers overrun it. The Bills have also mastered "losing," but that's less impressive.
Worst Missed Tackle
Player: Chris Prosinski
Date: Oct. 7
In many ways, this was one of the best plays of the week. If you're a Chicago Bears fan, I mean. But if you're a fan of the Jacksonville Jaguars, or if you look at literally anything in this GIF besides the leap, this is a picture of terrible atrociousness. The worst part, of course, is Prosinski just straight-up whiffing on a tackle and allowing himself to be football-posterized in the process, but another Jaguars player ALSO whiffs on a tackle ON A GUY IN MID-AIR TRAVELING IN A STRAIGHT LINE. He kinda gets the elbow out there, trying for the rare "try to pinwheel a guy because whoops" but it doesn't really work out for him.
The Jacksonville Jaguars: it doesn't really work out for them.
