It’s MLB All Star week, so we decided to cater our monster blog to one of the more exciting competitions: Home Run Derby. A sometimes forgotten but key element in the Home Run Derby is the man assigned to pitch to each participant. Sometimes they’re the player’s dad, sometimes they’re the player’s coach; what the Average Nobodies might lack in baseball skill and overall strength we make up for in creativity. That’s why we pulled out the big guns for our Home Run Derby pitchers:

Mo Vaughn

This one was kind of a no brainer for me. I see the ball better off of righties, and Mo Vaughn was the greatest hitter with a dirty man’s beard of all time. Chances are Mo won’t throw too many strikes, but I’m a bad ball hitter so it ain’t no thing. My overall fear of not knowing where Mo is going to throw the ball will help me hit the most home runs possible. Not because it will motivate me, but because I’ll be defending my body and face against insane wildness. Also, “The Hit Dog” is one of my favorite baseball nicknames of all time, and any time you can bring an old school Sox player with you to the All Star game you have to do it. If I had 10 choices for who my pitcher would be, I’d pick Mo Vaughn ten times.

-Ryan

Randy “The Big Unit” Johnson

The guy feeding me the ball would have to be my favorite pitcher of all-time, Randy Johnson. Being a big guy with a strong left arm, Randy and I can relate. Even though he’s “big” in the fact that he’s tall and I’m “big” because I eat way too much Taco Bell; and the fact that he has a strong left arm because he’s was a MLB pitcher and I have a strong left arm because…well…other things. Even with those differences i’ve always had a connection with Randy. Even my nickname on my high school swim team was “The Big Unit”! Don’t ask me how I got it, because I actually still don’t get it.  Tell me for one second that staring down the barrel of that mustache and mullet wouldn’t give me the strength to blast 100 balls into the cheap seats.

-Matt