The Dugout: Joel Zumaya's Hazard Suit

Here is what we know so far about the most exciting news story of the summer: Detroit Tigers relief pitcher Joel Zumaya felt a "slight pop" in his shoulder following his one inning of Farnsworthian-quality pitching that lost the lead for Detroit and gave a victory to the Yankees. I would've already expected a Facebook status update and at least half a dozen Tweets about this by now, but we at The Dugout promise to stay on top of the media-unsaturated story until we find out it was caused by "anxiety" and not RBI Baseball '92 or whatever, and everyone forgets about it.

Tonight's Dugout is after the jump. Don't hurt yourself.

The Dugout

	ZumayaMyLord: /sits in waiting room, melodramatically touches shoulder
	DirtKnapp: oh great, what is it this time, Guitar Hero? Guitar Hero 2? Guitar Hero: Goo Goo Dolls, with "Guitar Hero Gently Rocks the Late '90s" expansion pack?
	ZumayaMyLord: come on, Rick, nobody plays Guitar Hero anymore, it's all about Rock Band now
	DirtKnapp: so you hurt yourself playing Rock Band
	ZumayaMyLord: you can't hurt yourself playing Rock Band, it's barely a game, to win all you have to do is look at the screen, and they have an "easy" mode where you don't even have to do that
	ZumayaMyLord: the buttons are just for show, they don't do anything. and they're so soft you might as well be jamming over Paramore with a baby's ass
	DirtKnapp: so what happened? Hurt yourself playing one of those Mare-io games on the Wii? I know you gotta shake the... /makes shaking gesture
	DirtKnapp: heh, my wife loves the Wii, she thinks Carnival Games is the greatest game ever made, she loves, she loves playing the skee ball by /makes additional shaking gesture
	ZumayaMyLord: no, it's nothing like that. On Friday night I gave up three runs to the Yankees and we lost the game
	ZumayaMyLord: later that night, I was playing through Half-Life 2 and you know that part where you have to jump the boat into the tunnel
	DirtKnapp: no
	ZumayaMyLord: well I tried to hit "go" and "jump" at the same time and I heard a slight little pop in my shoulder, so now I'm just going to spend the rest of the season in the hospital
	DirtKnapp: doing what
	ZumayaMyLord: playing Half-Life
	DirtKnapp: well, I'm supposed to check you out and see if your injury is bad enough to need an MRI, because we could really use your arm
	ZumayaMyLord: Why? Don't you have Rick Porcello? He isn't old enough to know you're supposed to say you're hurt in May so you can get hundreds of millions of dollars for absolutely nothing
	ZumayaMyLord: lol, look at him, trying hard at baseball
	DirtKnapp: Porcello is a great pitcher, but he makes for a really subpar orchestra
	DirtKnapp: we already demoted you from starter to reliever. We're Detroit, the only place we have to send you lower than "reliever" is the insane asylum
	MeTrain: /wears butt-less robe, finger paints
	ZumayaMyLord: the insane asylum doesn't sound bad, you just take pills and sleep all day, right?
	DirtKnapp: no, you're getting the insane asylum mixed up with Jim Leyland
	DirtKnapp: I'm going to ask you some preliminary questions, but first things first, when did you start looking like Bad News Brown?
	DirtKnapp: Secondly, we are trying to stay on top of the AL Central, could you just pitch please
	ZumayaMyLord: look, don't get preachy with me, okay?
	ZumayaMyLord: I am a supernaturally gifted athlete. Some radar guns have me pitching as high as 132 miles per hour. I'm one of the lucky who get to play professional American baseball.
	ZumayaMyLord: one of the perks of doing that in 2009 is that I can stump my toe and use that as an excuse to take up to 12 months off, whether I need to use that toe or not
	ZumayaMyLord: think of me like a luxury automobile... you might drive a 1979 Toyota Corolla until the wheels fall off, but if your Rolls Royce gets a bug on the windshield you gotta STOP EVERYTHING and remove that bug
	DirtKnapp: I didn't know you knew so much about cars
	ZumayaMyLord: do you even know how many Gran Turismo games there are
	Online Host MrRobertsonsNeighborhood has entered the chatroom with a sad look on his face.
	ZumayaMyLord: hey Nate, what's the matter?
	MrRobertsonsNeighborhood: the doctors found four masses growing in my arm... if something went wrong they could destroy the nerves in my arm and I could never pitch again
	ZumayaMyLord: oh, that's cool, I felt a "slight pop" in my arm
	MrRobertsonsNeighborhood: oh
	ZumayaMyLord: yeah, "my arm made a noise when I moved it" is an awesome excuse for crappy pitching
	MrRobertsonsNeighborhood: Oh. Okay, well, I'm going to go home and pray for the future welfare of my family
	ZumayaMyLord: that's cool, I'm gonna go play some Portal, talk to you later
	MrRobertsonsNeighborhood: bye
	ZumayaMyLord: bye
	Online Host MrRobertsonsNeighborhood has left the chatroom.
	DirtKnapp: /shakes head
	ZumayaMyLord: What?
	DirtKnapp: sigh, nothing. I've had enough of this, I'm going to go coach for the Indians.
	DirtKnapp: /puts gun in mouth

Photos link to player info. (Photo Credit: Getty Images) WordUpThome.com

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

7-20-2009 @ 10:05AM

thetrutheh said...

zumaya has more pop than tiger bats. what an embarrassment to watch the tigers get swept by the yankees this past weekend. the yankees are not a better team, its the tigers are intimidated by good teams. the tigers days of being in first place are numbered.