The Legend Of Pat Burrell Continues To Grow

For those that have not been following the awesomeness of Brian Wilson, he has been referencing a character known as The Machine for a good part of the season. These verbal references came in a post-game interview after the NLCS and in an interview with Jim Rome. Then, The Machine literally made an appearance while Brian Wilson was being interviewed by Cheap Seats. So the big question is, who is this guy? Well, thanks to some top-notch sleuthing, meech.one of The Fightins has uncovered the answer.

After narrowing down the suspects, [Deadspin] decided that the culprit was more than likely Pat Burrell, former left-fielder for the Philadelphia Phillies and Wilson’s current teammate. Now that’s some mighty fine investigative work by the Deadspin boys, because for the last couple of years, I have been sitting on a picture of Pat Burrell in all his gimp-outiftted glory, but never ran it because the guy who gave me the picture didn’t want to get caught.

Well, that was a few years ago when Pat Burrell was a Phillie, and since he’s now with the SF Giants, and it’s basically public knowledge anyway, I’m gonna go ahead and share the picture with everyone…

I don’t really want to go into detail about how I acquired this picture, but it was taken at Pat Burrell’s house in Arizona during a Christmas party in (I believe) December of ’04 (possibly ’05). According to my picture-taking accomplice, every year during his Christmas party — which is attended by a veritable who’s who of baseballers who spend their winters out in AZ — Pat wanders upstairs and slips into his assless-chapped gimp outfit to entertain his party guests while making them feel extremely uncomfortable all at the same time.

Please excuse the bare-assedness of the following photo taken 5 years ago of The Machine.

In his post-NLCS interview linked to above, when talking about C.J. Wilson's trash talk on Twitter, Brian Wilson mentioned that "I think The Machine will say all he needs to say when he makes an appearance again," thus sort of referencing the fact that he might be a Giant. Add that on to Meech's evidence and the fact that The Machine is built like Pat Burrell, and I think it is safe to say we have a match.

Pat The Bat is The Machine. Oddly enough, I can't say I'm at all surprised.

Pat Burrell: The Legend Returns To Philadelphia

Pat Burrell is a hero to some and a legend to those who have heard about/witnessed his antics. Someone who can personally attest to Burrell's awesomeness is Aubrey Huff, currently Burrell's teammate in San Francisco. Back in college at the University of Miami, Pat Burrell and Aubrey Huff were students together. When Huff first came to Miami, he was (believe it or not), a relatively shy person. But then he met Pat The Bat. And everything changed. From The Mercury News.

"After two weeks at Miami, I wanted to go home," Huff said. "So my mom flies out, trying to convince me to stay. I was living

with two seniors, and they ragged me, too. I just didn't understand all this baseball ragging nonsense. She's in my room one night and I'm sitting on my bed and she's telling me to give it another two weeks.

"Anyway, there's a knock on the door, and before I can even get off the bed, Pat comes barging in with a six-pack in his hand, dripping wet, buck naked.

"So I jumped up and shut the door. Coming from Texas, these things didn't happen. I said, 'See what I'm dealing with here, Mom?'

"She just started laughing and said, 'Actually, Aubrey, that's pretty darn funny.'

"I thought, 'My God, if my mom can laugh at this, why can't I?' "

Pat Burrell has many great stories attached to him, but that has to be one of the best.

All funny stories about Burrell aside, he will be playing his 1st regular season game at Citizens Bank Park since the 2008 World Series. Any Phillies "fan" that is at that game and does not give Pat Burrell a standing ovation should be instantly deported to the Sahara for life.