Wednesday, April 18, 2007

Team Mangosteen

This is a picture of the coach of the coach of China's national baseball team, which gets an automatic bid to compete for what might be the last ever gold medal in Olympic baseball. His name is Jim Lefebvre, and he wants you to become a true beliebvre. He wants you to drink Vemma.

We at the Rag don't really know what Vemma is, except it reminds us of some kind of pyramid scheme, like OmniLife and HerbaLife and all those things. Anything that involves a sales kit, keep away.

Anyhow, Jim Lefebvre is the coach of that team (on top of being a Vemma pitchman), which apart from sucking at baseball, was subject of a Wall Street Journal story yesterday, one that would be senseless to link to, since the Journal is paid content only. The basic story was, though, that baseball, like every other Tom, Dick, Harry and Bill out there, wants a piece of the massive Chinese market. There are untold numbers of people there. The economy is growing like mad. They hold half the US debt. They make a lot of steel. A lot. Their art sets records at auction. If they don't go for baseball, pandemonium will ensue.

So who to send into the breach? Who will save us now?

How about a guy with a .485 lifetime record spread over six seasons, with no playoff appearances and a reputation for taking swings at their bosses?
"Tommy said it was a sucker punch. Well, I'll tell you what, it was the sucker who got punched all right. His lip was bleeding, and it definitely wasn't bleeding Dodger blue."
-Jim Lefebvre, after decking Tommy Lasorda in a 1980 fight at an LA TV studio.
As far as I'm concerned, we all better start learning Mandarin, because with Jimmy L blazing a trail, the next Matsuzaka is in Shanghai.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Test

Chi-Wei Hu said...

I am growing increasingly despondent about the turnout and lack of enthusiasm about these late afternoon pickup games at Dahl Field. Is it the mud? Hey, I'll be there again tonight. Come on out!

Schmutz said...

As long as you don't get increasingly isolated and angry, you loner.