A.J. Pierzynski Becomes First Player-Broadcaster

In a surprising move Sunday night, the Chicago White Sox and WCIU-TV jointly announced that in the 2011 season, catcher A.J. Pierzynski will be signed to a contract the likes of which has never been seen before in the Major Leagues: Pierzynski will serve as player-broadcaster, simultaneously calling the game from behind the plate and over the WCIU airwaves.

While the player-broadcaster is a first, baseball has seen this type of dual-occupation before. Player-managers were common in the early stages of baseball's history: players such as Cap Anson, Ty Cobb and Tris Speaker laced up their cleats while at the same time serving as their team's representative to the umpiring crew. The player-manager has been seen as recently as 1986, when Pete Rose played 72 games while managing the Cincinnati Reds.

A press release from the White Sox went into some details about this unique situation. Pierzynski will be fitted with special equipment designed to allow him to broadcast in any game situation. New catching and batting helmets will be manufactured with built-in high-quality microphones. For the pre-game show, during which time Pierzynski will be undergoing his regular pre-game routine, a tech crew will carefully follow his every move in order to allow his routine to continue uninterrupted while he participates in the pre-game broadcast, all the while doing such typical preparations as batting practice, squats, and showering.

A.J. Pierzynski will be the first player-broadcaster in history

Pierzynski will be the colour commentator to Ken "Hawk" Harrelson, play-by-play man for the White Sox since 1990. The White Sox believe this team will provide viewers with an entirely original perspective on the game, with Harrelson able to ask his partner, at any time, "what's the mood on the field right now, A.J.?" Answers to this question are expected to range from "tense" to "pressure-packed" to "basebally".

In order to audition for the job, Pierzynski called Chicago's recent series against the Los Angeles Angels. Several excerpts from Saturday's game detail the types of exchanges viewers can expect to hear over the next three years:

Bottom of the 4th, White Sox leading 2-0, Torii Hunter at bat for the Angels, one out, runner on first.
Harrelson: A.J., what can you tell me about this batter?
Pierzynski: He fucking sucks, dude. (shouting) Right Torii? You couldn't hit my big white ass mooning you from two feet away!
Muffled Voice in the Background: Shut up A.J., I'll tell you what big white ass I hit last night, your MOM's.
Harrelson: A.J., any thoughts on what (pitcher Gavin) Floyd is gonna throw here?
Pierzynski: (loudly) Well, Gavin likes to get the first-pitch fastball in there for a strike to get ahead of the hitter, so I'd be looking fastball here.
Harrelson: The pitch... a curveball in the dirt has Hunter WAY out in front, strike one.
Pierzynski: HAH, gotcha Hunter. I was callin' curve all the way man.
Muffled Voice in the Background: Fuck you, A.J.

Top of the 6th, White Sox leading 2-1, Pierzynski at the bat.
Harrelson: Okay A.J., take me through how you plan to attack this at bat.
Pierzynski: Well Hawk, (pitcher Jered) Weaver has nasty stuff, and I got no chance against him, so I plan to peek back at the catcher to see what he's gonna throw.
Harrelson: Is that something you commonly do?
Pierzynski: Oh, all the TIME dude, I couldn't hit for shit without it. He's goin' slider on the outside corner, just fyi.
Harrelson: The pitch... a slider is roped into the left-center gap by Pierzynski! Bourjos bobbles it, and A.J.'s rounding second...
Pierzynski: (puff) This is gonna be a close play Hawk (gasp) oh SHIT I'm gonna diiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiive
Harrelson: Pierzynski JUST beats the tag and is into third with a triple!

While WCIU will go with the Harrelson-Pierzynski duo for next year, they haven't ruled out shifting the broadcast even further into the dugout or on the playing field. "This is just the beginning," said WCIU Sports Director Don Trepanier, "we have a lot of ideas about player-player broadcast teams. Imagine a pitcher-catcher battery that could also call the game as it happened. Or a play-by-play man on the White Sox with a colour man on the opposing team for both perspectives. And of course we'd love to get Ozzie Guillen on the mic."

Guillen, the White Sox' manager, it turns out, was WCIU's first choice to be Hawk Harrelson's colour man in 2011, but MLB vetoed this idea based on Guillen's past controversial statements and stint in sensitivity training.

White Sox Pull Off Rare Quadruple Play

On Tuesday night, the Chicago White Sox pulled off a play that hasn't been seen in the major leagues in over 50 years.

With the bases loaded and nobody out in the top of the third inning, Kansas City Royals shortstop Yuniesky Betancourt barely got a piece of a pitch from Mark Buehrle. Off the bat, the ball bounced just a couple feet in front of catcher A.J. Pierzynski, who quickly snatched it up, stepped on home plate for the force out and immediately fired a throw down to third baseman Brent Morel, who snagged the throw ahead of a diving Wilson Betemit.

Morel then made the bold decision to go for the out at second base, a play that would normally be impossible given the sequence of events leading up to it. However, the runner on first, Kila Ka'aihue, had dived back towards the bag upon contact and was nowhere near second. Ka'aihue explained his mistake after the game.

"Buehrle is just so deceptive, man. He's crafty. Wiley, even. You never know what he's gonna do. I saw the pitch going towards the plate and I just got this sense that it was gonna turn around and come straight to first base. I didn't want to be caught leaning." Attempts to dispute this possibility based on basic physics were quickly dismissed. "Nah man, you just don't get how crafty Buehrle is. He's tricky. Cunning. Knavish, if you will."

The upshot was that the Royals' DH was out of position and easily thrown out at second base to complete the triple play. But it didn't end there. Sox second baseman Omar Vizquel made the double (or, in this case, double double) play turn and fired to first baseman Paul Konerko. When asked why, Vizquel claimed innocence in his pleasantly mild Spanish accent.

"It wasn't me. Something took over my body and made that throw for me. It was like some, eh, renegade spirit trespassed into my soul and became my essence, and the only way for it to atone for its sins that was keeping it in this world and ascend to the glorious afterlife and be reunited with its loved ones and avoid an eternity of wandering, floating through this world, utterly alone, in a state of constant torment, always regretting not taking advantage of that one chance it had been given by the ultimate power from on high, way up in that magical place to which we all strive, was to catch that ball, turn around and throw it over to Paulo."

Omar Vizquel had an out-of-body experience while turning "The Play"

The throw easily beat Betancourt to the bag, as the runner had watched the play unfold and understandably headed back towards the dugout, believing his run down to first base to now be superfluous. However, first base umpire Peter Gzowski called him out emphatically, getting down on one knee and throwing a fierce uppercut at an invisible (and presumably very short) boxing opponent while screaming "JYERIIIAAOUUUTT" in a grunge-rock falsetto.

"It was awesome", said Gzowski. "The most awesome thing I've ever seen. Just so freaking awesome. I had to call him out, because of the awesomeness of it. Man. Awesome."

After a brief conference, the umpires decided that Kansas City would start the fourth with one out. "Initially, I thought that idea was ridiculous", said crew chief Lloyd Robertson, "but Gzowski convinced us. He was right: it was friggin' awesome. I mean, who's ever seen a quadruple play? Awesome. An Awesomely Awesome play of Awesome Awesomeness."

Despite its nonsensicalness, the quadruple play has happened before. On June 8, 1953, with the bases loaded, New York Giants shortstop Alvin Dark hit a ball into the right-center gap that was bobbled by the right fielder upon retrieval. Sensing an inside-the-park home run, Dark sped around the bases following his teammates. Unfortunately, the lead runner, catcher Wes Westrum, suffered an horrific injury on the play. He tore his Anterior Cruciate Ligament (ACL) while running, and careened into foul territory, writhing in pain. Not noticing what had happened, perhaps believing the squirming figure on the ground to be the third base coach for some reason, the three other runners passed him, and were called out for their transgression. Westrum himself was called out for leaving the base-paths. The umpires hadn't noticed that four outs had been called at the time, but after coming to the realization penalized the Giants with an extra out in the next inning.

Rumours of a quintuple play in the Negro Leagues in the 1920s have circulated, but as with many alleged events in baseball's early history, the details are hazy and unconfirmed. Speculation has arisen about how such a play could occur: some have hypothesized that certain runners could have been called out more than once for multiple transgressions, that fielders could have been given "bonus outs" for particularly spectacular plays, or that the umpires were corrupt jerks.