Big Lead Sports Bar

7/23/2008

LAROCHE IS SERIOUS ABOUT THIS HUNTING THING

If he were traded tomorrow, my memories of the Adam LaRoche Era in Pittsburgh would include perennial half-seasons of teetering on the Mendoza Line, at least 100 Hans Klopek references too many on my part, and LaRoche's obsession with hunting.

A reader named Patrick recently re-introduced me to the Buck Commander website, which prominently features LaRoche alongside a bevy of ballplayers past and present, including the once-flirting-with-.400 Chipper Jones, shown below.

The site includes interviews with all of the "Buckmen", including one with LaRoche where baseball is not mentioned once. There's also a link to LaRoche's "CamoSpace" page, which looks like MySpace taken over by hard-core hunters.

Yep, there's nothing like your first baseman painted in camouflage and posing with dead animals to get a fan base charged up. And by the way, for those obsessed with LaRoche's actual baseball output, he's up to .258 and is on pace for 20 HR and 79 RBI, including a .390 average and .471 OBP in July. For comparison's sake, those numbers were .163 and .247 at the end of April. And no, I can't explain it either.

1 comment:

HotDog_Zanzabar said...

Do you think LaWhiff sucks so bad in the first part of the season because he spends all of his offseason hunting and not getting ready for the season?