This Week In GIFs: That’s what you get for standing up

Hi, y’all, and welcome to THIS WEEK IN GIFs! After a monthlong absence to make way for GIF TOURNAMENT IV, we resume with Week 50. By this point, we’ve deliberated on over 350 animated GIFs, and by this point it’s clear to me that sports failure is an infinite resource.

Voting, as usual, will remain open until Sunday at 11 p.m. Eastern. Enjoy!

(Via Guyism, submitted by @RAKohn22)

So this week I’ve been working on a TOP SECRET GIF PROJECT, the details of which I hope to be able to share with y’all within the next week or two. One thing I can tell you is that it’s involved reviewing a lot of “baseball player falls down” GIFs. There are tons. In other sports, players hit the ground for actual reasons, whether incidental (i.e. being tackled) or calculated (i.e. flopping). If you see an athlete stumble and fall for no real good reason, you’re probably watching a baseball game. Why are you doing that? Midnight Cowboy’s on Netflix. So is The Messenger. So are Star Trek: The Next Generation, The Wonder Years, and tons of 30 for 30 docs. I don’t know why you’re doing that. You want someone to call you an ambulance or something? Everything OK?

hey let’s check in and see what’s going on in the world of motorsports

(Via @bubbaprog, submitted by @Devon2012)

thank you for that report on the world of motorsports

(Via @CuriousBigDaddy)

The Yankees are really starting to emerge as a GIF power. Consider the immortal YANKEE ENTHUSIASTS, DOINK!, and YANKEES INFIELD. Just a giant, lumbering caravan of smugness and ineptitude.

I’m not completely certain of what’s going on here, but I believe the ball caroms off Jason Nix and into Andy Pettitte’s chest. Actually, yes: given the exit trajectory of the ball, this is what happened. This means that Pettitte managed to bean himself with the baseball. I don’t believe I’ve ever seen anyone do that. As a wizened old man, he’ll go poking through his dusty attic with his grandson, tenderly open a jewelry box, and find a tarnished old medal. “Where did you get that, Grandfather?” his grandson will ask, and with his eyes welling with tears, he will answer, “I hit myself with a baseball.”

This actually isn’t that bad, but I feel compelled to share any instance of Astros-related failure I come across.

(Via Kevin McCauley)

Mr. Luiz deflects that ball at just about the exact angle he needed to clear the goal. I continue to be astonished by the idea that a soccer player’s leg can be an instrument any more precise than a switch that toggles between KICK and OFF.

Also, if you view this GIF incorrectly, you think there are three teams playing. That’s pretty fun.

(Via Bill Hanstock)

Mr. Hanstock suggested we assemble some sort of “baseball fan Hall of Fame.” Catching a foul ball/home run is an athletic endeavor, there’s a goal, and there are opponents (typically, everyone else around you). It’s a sport, really, and their feats are especially impressive because they have to step outside the bounds of civilian life with about 0.5 seconds’ notice, whether they’re holding a glove or a beer.

This guy made an amazing grab, but he is also a grown man wearing a glove in the stands. These two cancel out, and on the coolness scale, he’s the equivalent of a guy standing there doing nothing.

(Via Reddit)

Your first thought might be, “well, this is happening on a college campus, so that explains the dumb college-age kid,” but you know that isn’t so, because this concerns the Aaron Hernandez case. Pretty sure this is happening in front of a courthouse. This kid is just bumming around in front of a courthouse, which seems like an especially inadvisable place to just bum around, but maybe there’s a sort of BASE jumping equivalent for loitering. This kid’s going for it. He is the loiter king.

VOTE!