Pitchers and Catchers Have Reported!

With camps opening this week, I thought it was a good time to relive the best moment in the history of spring training: Randy Johnson destroying an unsuspecting bird with a pitched ball, circa 2001. I can’t stop laughing out loud at this every time I see this, and its some 6 years later! View the footage!

I don’t even know how this happened when you consider the following?

1. The pitch was thrown somewhere in the neighborhood of 95 MPH. That’s a standard Big Unit pitch.
2. The bird (known as Larry from here on out) is flying at, what, 30 mph? 35? I have no idea how fast a bird files.
3. A baseball has a circumference of 9 inches. Not very big.
4. Put yourself in Larry’s feathers 3 seconds before impact. There’s plenty of air space he could use. Considering it was a head on collision, if his path is different by a mere 5 inches up or down, he doesn’t get hit.
5. If Larry starts his flight about 0.1 seconds earlier or later than it actually occurred, disaster avoided.

Taking all this into consideration, how the hell did this happen? The mathematical probability of this must be staggering.

You really need to break down the tape, Ron Jawarski style. I don’t know what’s the best part? Is it:

• Randy Johnson is a goon. Look at that guy…its like Brad Lohaus on the mound!
• The cloud of feathers exploding on impact. Looks like Daffy Duck when he’s shot by Elmer Fudd.
• Larry actually bouncing off the ground, sans feathers, dead as a doornail.
• The catcher trying to look the ball all the way into his mitt.
• The umpire, he doesn’t know what to do. “Is this a ball? A do-over? Are there mulligans in baseball?”
• Check out red ass Randy. This film cuts it off but I remember him just walking away like it happens every other inning or something. Did he learn to pitch by hunting grouse with baseballs? He also wasn’t amused after the game: “I didn’t think it was that funny” was his actual quote. Lighten up Unit, you just performed the most random act in the history of mankind.

Good times! That clip will NEVER get old.