This is like the hidden ball trick, only with no practical application:

I wonder how many times Yuni and Adrian practiced that.

The goggles!  They do nothing!

Neither does a Yuniesky Betancourt home run.  Yuni broke up the Detroit Tigers’ demolition of Jarrod Washburn’s fastballs with a line drive homer off Kenny Rogers (video here).  That halved the M’s deficit at 2-1, but the Tigers scored a bunch more runs the next inning, and that was that.  Isn’t baseball fun?

Actually… I think it is.  Yes, the Mariners season is lost, but there are still fun things to watch.  R.A. Dickey’s knuckleball will be replacing Cha Seung Baek’s grimace.  The weather’s getting better.  The team will be giving away cool hats in July.  August 8th will be a Yuniesky-opalyse.  And, though the team is consistently spanked (right now they’re losing 9-2), there are still moments to revel.   Like that five-hour loss against Texas.  Or their four-run ninth inning rally on Tuesday that halved their margin of defeat from 8 to 4.  There was a small chance that the game was going to be awesome.

Mariners fans live in potentially great, but greatly squandered times.

Here are some pictures from the Mariners’ second game of the season 4/1/08, which was the first Felix Day of this already-finished season.

Step 1: Felix pitches…

Step 2: Kenji catches…

Step 3: Cotton candy for everyone!

The Safeco Field roof closed at about the same speed as the Mariners’ hopes of making the playoffs.

All these photos were taken by my girlfriend/personal photographer. She’s not the hugest baseball fan, so she often turned away from the game and got great pictures of stuff like the Safeco Field sign.

I think this sign is among the most photogenic stadium signs in baseball. The outside of Wrigley Field is probably the most photographed, but a lot of big stadiums don’t have great signage like Safeco.

It’s not the most creative pizza combination, but “The Yuniesky” sure is delicious. I really like that Yuni felt that he had to add “and cheese” to his pizza order.

Yuni singled in this at bat, driving in Vidro from third. Once upon a time Yuni was a clutch hitter, and Vidro got on base.

Strangely, there’s no photographic evidence of Josh Hamilton’s two-run homer off of J.J. Putz. Did that bomb doom the Mariners’ chances for the game, despite a late-game double by Yuni?

Yu Betcha.

I made up a lame statistic to highlight Yuniesky Betancourt’s inconsistent effort at shortstop, but the guy can play. Evidence from Monday night’s game:

That 6-4-3 must’ve been Yuni’s way of celebrating Cinco De Mayo. Wait… he’s Cuban? But I thought he had a Mexican passport…

I think no one should ever boo Yuniesky Betancourt or some of his teammates on the Mariners. For instance, how could anyone muster the energy to boo Cha Seung Baek? That said, it is physically possible for you (but not me) to boo Yuni.
Heckler’s Prospectus (a great guide for booing baseball teams, including the Angels and the A’s) offers one way to boo Yuni (alongside booing recipes for all his teammates) (NOTE: this is all sorts of PG-13):

Betancourt, Yuniesky - Another Cuban defector, he was illegally smuggled into the U.S. way back in 2003. Spend much of the game contemplating how large his smuggler’s asshole must have been to fit Betancourt inside of it. Close by asking him if he’s been able to get the stench off yet.

Communist regimes (that are less lucrative to ballplayers) are hilarious, maybe. Of course, you could also heckle Betancourt with Adrian Beltre’s prescribed heckle. Not that you should heckle either of them. (I sure won’t.) (NOTE: More Red Dawn-grade language):

Beltré, Adrián - In order to help his defensive range, Beltré (me: and Yuni) has decided to forgo wearing a protective cup because he finds them uncomfortable and they affect his running. Luckily, and this is something you should point out, he doesn’t need one. Because he doesn’t have a penis.

That barb goes right for the junk.
And, while it doesn’t apply at all to Yuniesky, I think the entry for Brad Wilkerson, who… yeah, I could see why you’d heckle) is the best of the bunch:

Wilkerson, Brad - While he has never been married, Wilkerson has two daughters. Inquire throughout the entire game about how this can be because, for the life of you, you can’t figure out how two children can come into existence except through the love and devotion of a happily married couple. Unless it’s one of those strange Biblical miracles. And, if that’s the case, are one of his two girls the Second Coming? Is the other one jealous?

Children out of wedlock? Zing.
Again, don’t ever use any of these in a game situation (except that Wilkerson one), if only because they might get you kicked out of Safeco Field.

In major league baseball, merchandising is everything profitable.

At the Mariners’ website there’s plenty of stuff you can buy with Yuniesky’s last name on it. Here are two examples, one cheap, one that’d also get you most of a Nintendo Wii.

Can you tell which costs $200?

But anyone can get an officially-licensed jersey. That’s boring. A true Yuniesky fan (who has a spare $250 not going toward a Wii) can show their support with an officially-licensed robe.

One word: class.

Now for the imaginary uniforms: If Yuniesky was on the Brazilian national soccer team, this might be his jersey.

Gooooal Yunialdo!

And, if Rikimbili played basketball, this probably wouldn’t be his jersey.

Swish!

(Hat tip to Deadspin for the SportsRobe and BrazilName links. My Brazilian soccer name? Brio Santos.)

On ESPN.com, Jim Caple wrote a Seattle-centric article on Alex Rodriguez called “If you don’t want A-Rod, you’re nuts,” where he said

So who would Mariners fans honestly rather have at third base now? A-Rod or Adrian Beltre? Or at shortstop: A-Rod or Yuniesky Betancourt?

Caple’s right: A-Rod is a better player than Yuniesky. There’s no statistic where Yuni is better than A-Rod, except maybe smiles. Still, while I can posit that A-Rod is a better ballplayer, as a fan I’m pretty content that my team has no chance of signing him.
And if Yuni was being compared to Andruw Jones last week, and A-Rod this week, by the end of the year Rob Neyer will be pointing out that Jesus has had a bigger impact on the world than Yuni. And he’ll be right.

Also, I created a page for Yuniesky over on Facebook. As far as I can tell, I haven’t duplicated anyone else’s efforts, though Ryan Theriot does have a MySpace tribute page that highlights that
“The Riot” sells slightly more jerseys than Yuni. I’ve got some work to do…

Buried in the story about how the Mariners gave Jose Guillen half a million dollars (it was probably his bonus for not yelling at too many people in the clubhouse) is news that Larry Bowa, who I decided I like, will join Joe Torre in Los Angeles (even in leaving the Yankees, Torre messes with the M’s). John McLaren had something bland to say about it:

“He’s a friend of mine… It didn’t work out.”

Insightful! My only question is who will berate Jose Lopez and Willie Bloomquist now? Besides the blogs? According to the article, the team is close to announcing a replacement. Yuniesky waits…