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.

THE PIRATES WERE WHITE HOT

PIRATES 5, BRAVES 0

BRAVES 8, PIRATES 1

Leave it to the Pirates to have a six-game winning streak (their longest in nearly four years, pathetic as that sounds) when next to no one in the city is paying attention. Proof? Even John Smoltz is more interested in the Penguins and their fans.

Yes, the rain sent Smoltz, Tom Glavine and Chipper Jones to the luxury box confines of Mellon Arena on Sunday, but the schedule-makers said they eventually had to make up their lost work today. So the Buccos and Tomahawk Choppers took to the PNC Park diamond for a doubleheader on Monday.

In Game One, Zach Duke, Damaso Marte, and Sean Burnett combined on an eight-hit shutout in a 5-0 victory that pulled the Pirates to 18-19, just one off of the hallowed ground of .500. Freddy Sanchez doubled and knocked in three, raising his average to .255, and Adam LaRoche hit his fourth homer of the season, driving in two. On the flip side, hockey fan Chipper Jones had three more hits, raising his 2008 average to a Ted Williams-esque .410 in the process.

Before the nightcap, the Pirates had a team meeting and decided that their reaching .500 while the Penguins were simultaneously blowing the doors off of the rest of the NHL would be simply too much for the city to handle. So for the good of Pittsburgh, they dropped the second game by an 8-1 count.

The Pirates were brought back down to Earth by two men: Atlanta's Tim Hudson, who limited the Buccos to two hits and one run over seven innings, and their own John Van Benschoten, who allowed nine hits and seven runs in four innings, good enough for a postgame demotion to Indianapolis.

The Pirate offense wasn't nearly as prevalent in the second nine-inning affair, as the limited output came from a Doug Mientkiewicz double and an assortment platter of four singles. They whiffed a total of nine times. The Bravos broke it open with a three run ding-dong from catcher Brian McCann in the fifth, which was more than enough offense on this day.

So the 18-20 Pirates take to the field once again on Tuesday night at St. Louis (23-16). It's Paul Maholm (2-3, 4.79) against Kyle Lohse (3-2, 4.87), which, at least on paper, looks like a pretty even matchup. Unfortunately, there's the minor detail of a little thing called "Game Three", so I doubt many people will notice.

Adam LaRoche's Hunting Video

When Dan Steinberg of the Washington Post's D.C. Sports Bog emailed me with this, I couldn't believe it was true. The unintentional comedy scale could possibly go off the charts once this project comes to fruition. Let's go over the ingredients of what he is reporting:

1. Adam LaRoche, .216-hitting first baseman of the Pittsburgh Pirates

2. Willie Robertson, the current leader of the famed Duck Commander clan and dead ringer for former WWF rassler Hillbilly Jim

3. A video featuring Adam LaRoche and Willie Robertson.

Yes, it's true.

Willie Robertson, the current leader of the famed Duck Commander clan of Louisiana waterfowl hunting icons, was in D.C. for three days, conducting business and also hanging out with Pirates first baseman Adam LaRoche and Nats outfielder Ryan Langerhans. He left behind several autographed copies of "Duck Commander: For a Few Ducks More," the company's latest duck-hunting DVD.

That DVD has a 10-minute trailer for next year's "Buck Commander," the first in what's scheduled to be a series of deer-hunting videos that will likely feature, among others, Todd Helton, David Dellucci, Chipper Jones, Mike DeJean, Brad Hawpe, Aaron Cook, Langerhans, LaRoche and several more Major Leaguers. Which is noteworthy.

Wow. I think my head just exploded. Video of Adam LaRoche deer hunting?

Independently, LaRoche had called Duck Commander HQ and requested a hat; the Duck Commander guys had never heard of him, although it would seem that everyone's heard of the Duckmen, who are famous for their huge beards and wild look.

Well, I guess that would explain LaRoche's big, red beard.

"They're kind of the big leagues of duck hunting; any water fowler knows the 'Duck Commander' series," LaRoche agreed.

(For the record, LaRoche has a duck-hunting icon tattooed on his right arm. It's the image of a Drake, which is also the name of his son.)

OK, that's mildly disturbing. Even more...

So Robertson reached out to LaRoche to discuss this deer-hunting project, and the family of players kept growing; the Buck Commander folks have also been in touch with J.D. Drew and Jon Lieber and Aaron Fultz and Roy Oswalt; "pretty much everybody who hunts in the Major Leagues, we've contacted," Robertson told me. They launched the company in the fall and had thoughts of putting out the first feature-length DVD this spring, but decided it would be best to tease it now and come strong in 2008, after a full offseason of taping.

"It's got a chance to be a pretty big deal, and the best part is, the guys that are in it have a passion for hunting," LaRoche said. "Baseball's so short. Later on, [hunting's] something we'll have to play around with."

At his current pace, LaRoche could have plenty of free days for hunting coming up.

Baseball Players are Buck Commanders [D.C. Sports Bog]

Buck Commander (with video not for the faint of heart) [Buckcommander.com]