Jacoby Ellsbury has been suffering from an “aggravated groin” (Fenway West). The other night at the ballpark, my friend asked me, “An aggravated groin? What’s an aggravated groin? How did he get an aggravated groin?” I replied, “I’ll have to get on that.” What I meant, was, I’ll have to figure that out. Badump-CHING! Tacoby Bellsbury should be back in the lineup tonight.

With Noah Lowry on the DL and Barry Zito headed to the pen, talk of a six-man rotation in San Francisco has died down. This pleases me, because six-man rotations are one of the stupidest things I’ve ever heard of. Teams already have a tough enough time finding five decent starters, and as it is, the fifth slot on most teams is something of a revolving door. And the idea of a 25-man roster consisting of perhaps 13 pitchers is equally disgusting. But as Giants Win notes, the larger concern for the San Fran squad may be their utter and complete lack of offense—on pace to score fewer runs than a dead ball era team. Oh my God.

I, like many, thought Phil Hughes’ “oblique strain” was code for “needs to go work out his suckage in the minors.” But now they’re saying it’s a stress fracture in one of his ribs. Hughes says he has “no idea” how he got it. But how do you fracture a rib and not realize it? Given that he also suffered a strained hamstring and a sprained ankle last year, NYY fans have to be hoping this is nothing more than a run of bad luck. But on Bronx Banter, it sounds like hope (not to mention patience) is running out.

Lone Star Ball gives Mindy McCready’s dad an Inigo Montoya Award. Any cross-pollination between baseball and The Princess Bride is always appreciated.

I like the Brewers. I have three of them on my fantasy team. I picked them to upset the Cubs for the NL Central title. But I don’t see how they’re going to do that without Ben Sheets. His first three starts filled me with hope. His subsequent triceps strain, despair. Now I don’t know what to think. Fortunately, I have the Hardball Times and pitch FX to tell me what’s what. Unfortunately, they also think the triceps tightness could be related to a rotator cuff issue. Nooooooooooooooo…..

Did you see Frank Thomas hit that triple a few days back? Did you wonder, whoah, when does Frank Thomas hit a triple? So did MopUpDuty. My favorite nugget from this post: Mark McGwire had only 6 triples in his entire career.

This week’s Metro column, on why the Rays are for real, but the other April surprise in the AL East, the Orioles, are not.

And finally, the Nats have a song. So Bugs and Cranks came up with hilarious ditties for all the other teams, too! I will now joyfully sing along to the new, awesome, Red Sox fan song:

We’re rawkous (raucous!) for the Red Sox!
We’re rawkous for the Red Sox!
We’re crazy and we’re awesome, brah!
We’re rawkous for the Red Sox!

Sully and Fitzy and Paddy Go Bragh
We’ll cut yer fuckin’ face if you look at us wrong!
So let’s go Nation of Red Sox fans!
Let’s throw some pizza in the stands!

Let’s go Red Sox!

As the lyrics of Jonathan Papelbon’s warm-up song (that *Dropkick Murphys tune from The Departed) sort of sound to me like, “I’m a sailor BRAAAAAH! And I lost my BRAAAAAH!”, I’m happy to see the emphatic syllable making the rounds in other Sox-related shanties.

*The lyrics were actually penned by Woody Guthrie. The real lyrics are, “I’m a sailor peg and I lost my leg.” The leg part, I get—but peg? Is that like, “I’m a sailor, Peg” (as if to his girlfriend, Peggy)? Inquiring minds want to know.

When you think about it, there are a lot of spiffy things about the Fukuoka Softbank Hawks of the Nippon Pro Baseball League.

Their manager is living legend Sadaharu Oh. They play at a beautiful location on the shore of the ocean in a park that looks like the Terrordrome. They are one of Japan’s richest teams, and are perennial postseason contenders.

Not to mention, they also produced major leaguers Kenji Johjima and Tadahito Iguchi. And helped the great Tony Batista find a home away from home last season. And being from Fukuoka, of course they have the hottest fans.

But perhaps the coolest thing about the Hawks is their awesome fight song:

sb-hawks-new.mp3

It turns out that all Japanese teams have a team fight song. Most of these songs are patterned after old prewar Japanese military marches, and have extremely militaristic lyrics. The Hawks song actually refers to the team as a gundan, or “war group,” which is literally the same term the Japanese Imperial Army used to use to refer to its main armies.

Japan may have become a pacifist country since World War II, but you wouldn’t know it when you see 30,000 fanatical fans belting out these war songs at the top of their lungs in the echo chamber that is the Fukuoka Yahoo! Dome.

Here is my English translation of the the amazing lyrics to this amazing song:

In the salty wind of the broad unfathomable sea,
mighty wings are forged,
which, like a squall, fearlessly
striving for glory, soar!
Let’s go, you invincible battalion of young hawks!
Let’s go, you fiery battalion of young hawks!
Our, yes our Softbank Hawks!

In the grand pennant race,
fighting spirit aflame, striking down the enemy,
each pitch, each hit a streak of fire,
the ball calls forth a passionate storm!
Let’s go, you invincible battalion of young hawks!
Let’s go, you fiery battalion of young hawks!
Our, yes our Softbank Hawks!

Give a victory shout!
Give a victory shout!

If we fight to the limits of strength
victory will always reside here,
and in the shining sky, the deeply emotional
championship banner will flutter.
Let’s go, you invincible battalion of young hawks!
Let’s go, you fiery battalion of young hawks!
Our, yes our Softbank Hawks!

If only the Royals had a fight song like this! A fight song about being an invincible battalion, and striking down the enemy with a fighting spirit aflame in order to capture the deeply emotional American League pennant. They’d never lose!

And powerful and passionate free agents like Tony Batista might sign with them, instead of running off to Japan.

We know that famous athletes often get to have special songs associated with them. Back in the day, they used to compose special songs for players like Willie Mays (”Say What? Say who? Say Willie!“) or Jackie Robinson (”Did you see Jackie Robinson hit that ball?“). Joe DiMaggio was immortalized in “Mrs. Robinson” by Simon and Garfunkel. Even today, really great closers get to lay claim to popular songs they use as their theme music when they enter from the pen.

But one ballplayer who almost certainly never expected to have a special song, let alone a special song composed specifically for him which mentions him by name, is Andy Sheets.

Those of you who have really good memories will recall Andy Sheets as a journeyman utility infielder who hit for a .216 batting average and 19 home runs in parts of 7 seasons with the Mariners, Padres, Angels, Red Sox, and Devil Rays.

Yes, that Andy Sheets, the guy at least one blog has called “a poor man’s Mike Benjamin.” Ouch.

But now Sheets is playing in the Nippon Professional Baseball league, serving as the everyday first baseman for the Hanshin Tigers, who are Japan’s answer to the Boston Red Sox in a number of ways.

One of the ways the Tigers resemble the Sox is their hyper-emotional fans, who are the most fanatical of all the Japanese teams. They insist on writing a special song, not just for the stars, but for every player on the team, and belt out that player’s song at the top of their lungs, not just in crucial situations, but every time he comes to bat for the entire season.

And thus Andy Sheets finds himself with his own song, named after him, and dedicated to his glory:

http://tigers-hm.net/03sheets.html

(Even if you can’t read Japanese, all you have to do is click on the play button in the middle of the screen)

Not that Sheets isn’t at least somewhat deserving of his own song. In four seasons in Japan he’s compiled a .299 batting average and blasted 86 homers.

And just in case you are curious as to what it all means, this is my English translation of the glorious lyrics of the glorious Andy Sheets Song!

Andy! Andy!

Let’s start a contact-hitting revolution!
Hero for a new generation, Andy Sheets!
Here’s a chance! It’s a hit!
Here we go!
Oh, Andy! Here we go!

Andy! Andy!

By the way, if this demo version intended to help fans learn the song doesn’t sound all that impressive, you’ll just have to imagine a packed house at Koshien Stadium, shaking the place to its foundations, and screaming this at the top of their lungs. Also, imagine about 50 more drums, hundreds more horns, and thousands more whistles.

I don’t think “awe-inspiring” is too strong a word.

Because game time is upon us. Because great musical compositions deserve an audience. Because … well, we don’t need a reason to bring you what is, without a doubt, the most fantastic song a relief pitcher has ever chosen to accompany him as he enters a game.In case you haven’t been paying attention, Red Sox reliever Hideki Okajima recently debuted this little ditty, called Okajima Okie-Dokie.

If you haven’t already, give it a listen.
Okajima Okie-Dokie.

And you might want to check this out, too. Just because.

Baseball teams in Japan have awesome theme songs that get the fans rocking out and all juiced up to root on the home team.

It seems that the New York Mets decided they needed an official team song this year as well.  But what the came up with was, well…how do I put this? Let’s just say that in the whole of the world, only the exact people who came up with this song could come up with a song as awful as this, and they were born to do it.

Apparently, earlier this season the song was played often during games to rile up the fans, but was banished to the pregame this month after repeated fan complaints and several online petitions.