"Looks like we're going to extra innings." That's what Greg Brown, the Pirates' TV broadcaster, said as soon as Russell Martin made contact on this fly ball to shallow right-center. But Brown should have known better. Because it ain't over till the Astros have finished tying all of their shoelaces together.

The gif you see here shows rightfielder Jimmy Paredes and second baseman Jake Elmore colliding, which allowed the ball to drop and the winning run to score. Elmore said the crowd was too loud (at PNC Park!) and that he couldn't hear whether Paredes had called him off. As we've seen so many times since the start of last season, this is what the Astros do. But let's back up a bit, just to set the scene fully for tonight, since comedy is always best understood in context.

Houston led this game 4-1 in the fifth. Chris Carter, who would later be replaced by Paredes, dropped a routine fly ball in the sixth that resulted in a three-base error and led to a run. Pittsburgh then tied it in the eighth when Pedro Alvarez's 462-foot homer landed in the Allegheny River on one bounce. In the ninth, the Bucs had Travis Snider on third and Andrew McCutchen on first with one out. For some reason, Pittsburgh chose not to have McCutchen try to steal second. When Brandon Inge bounced meekly back to pitcher Edgar Gonzalez, Snider wisely didn't break for home. But when Gonzalez turned toward second to start the double play, he dropped the ball. Everybody safe. Bases loaded. Still one out.

Gonzalez got Neil Walker looking for the second out. Up came Martin. He worked the count full before popping that ball into the Pittsburgh sky somewhere between Elmore and Paredes. It would land like an anvil falling on Wile E. Coyote. The Astros are now 20 games under .500.

[Full video at MLB | gif via @rtjr]

Thank you for your continued support of Deadspin. Weekend's here. Your weekend crew will be, too. Hope yours is swell.

BREAKING: Wind.

h/t to Huge Ma

The Titus Young story has officially gone from funny to sad to worse.

The Press-Enterprise of Riverside (Calif.) is reporting that Young's ex-girlfriend obtained a restraining order against him last week. The order, which was granted May 8 by a judge in Riverside County, requires the former Detroit Lions receiver to stay at least 100 yards away from the woman, who is also the mother of Young's 8-month-old son, Titus Jr.

“He would say things like, ‘I understand why O.J. killed his wife.’ He says, ‘We’re always gonna be a family and I’m always going to be his,’” the restraining order request states. “He got mad and yelled at my neighbors and tried to fight multiple people that he doesn’t even know.”

[...]

Young’s ex-girlfriend said she called police because Young would repeatedly wait outside her Moreno Valley home, and that he threatened and harassed her.

“Titus Young Sr. has been clinically diagnosed with a mental disorder and I am afraid of what he is capable of doing,” she wrote in the restraining order request. “He also has been in a mental help facility more than once and still believes that he does not have a problem.”

The woman also said in her request for the restraining order that Young frequently talks to himself and goes for long walks without coming back. And while it's been widely reported that Young was arrested three times in a week, a fourth arrest has now been confirmed. A few hours before his DUI and first burglary arrests, Young allegedly tried twice to rob a gas station some 55 miles away in Laguna Hills. The Detroit Free Press says Young attempted to steal candy, cigars, and a bottle of water. His ex says that during those thefts Young was holding his son, whom he had taken without telling her.

[Press-Enterprise | Detroit Free Press | Larry Brown Sports]

Somebody took the time to make an infographic of every uniform and hat combination the Pirates wore in 1979, their last World Series championship season. It's black and yellow and yellow and black and black and yellow all over. [@AnthraxJones]

h/t to WHYGAVS

Thank you for your continued support of Deadspin. Enjoy your evening.

[Reddit, via Bob's Blitz]

This video of Viktor Troicki's meltdown at the Italian Open goes on for four minutes, but be sure to watch it from beginning to end. It just keeps getting better and better.

Troicki had already lost 6-1 in the first set of his second-round match against Ernests Gulbis. He faces a break point at the end of the first game of the second set when the umpire rules his backhand bounced out of bounds. And away we go.

What begins with an argument quickly escalates when the umpire bounds off his chair to run over and point to the spot in the clay where he says Troicki's ball landed. Troicki disagrees. He doesn't curse, and he doesn't throw anything, but Troicki does spend the next three minutes basically telling the umpire he's "wrong" and threatening to quit the match before finally enlisting the cameraman to walk over and film the spot where Troicki says the ball bounced. A replay at the very end of the video shows that Troicki seems to be correct. His protest gets him nowhere, but who cares? It's the anger that counts.

Eventually, the match resumes. Troicki winds up losing 6-1, 6-1. This time, anyway, he couldn't blame the ball boy.

[Busted Racquet]

Jeremy Affeldt admits it: In 2010, he literally was an overpaid relief pitcher for the San Francisco Giants.

Henry Schulman of the San Francisco Chronicle took the time to read the book Affeldt had published last month. In it, Schulman found a story about a two-year, $10 million contract extension Affeldt signed before the 2010 season. Affeldt's previous deal called for him to make $4 million in '10. But when the extension was drawn up, the Giants made a clerical error that noted he was to get $4.5 million. Both he and the team signed it without noticing.

Affeldt got three opinions saying the contract was ironclad and he could keep the extra $500,000, from the Players Association, agent Michael Moye and even Giants assistant general manager Bobby Evans.

Affeldt recalled Moye telling him, "You know what? As your agent I've got to tell you that legally you can keep it. As a man who represents integrity, I'm saying you should give it back."

And that's what Affeldt said he did, redoing the contract with the $500,000 excised.

This past offseason, Affeldt and the Giants agreed to a three-year, $18 million deal. Affeldt believes he got that contract in part because he had been straight with the team three years ago. See! Honesty does pay!

[San Francisco Chronicle]

Photo credit: Associated Press

Here's something positive for you: A 21-month-old western Pennsylvania boy is likely still alive because of some quick thinking by a group of college baseball players who went for a late-night food run.

The Millersville (Pa.) Marauders, a Division II team, were in Johnstown, Pa., last week for their conference tournament. Sometime after midnight, as Tuesday night became Wednesday morning, seven players walked to a local convenience store for some snacks. It was raining. As they neared the store, a car pulled up. The vehicle's occupants were screaming. A man got out. He was holding a small child. The child looked "limp," according to Zach Stone, Millersville's third baseman.

Dave Pine, 20, a catcher, said, "He was screaming and yelling, 'My son is choking! He's having a seizure! Somebody help!' "

The man was Shane Norman. The woman he was with was his wife, Megan, who is eight months pregnant. The child was their son, Braydin, a toddler. The Normans, who live in Johnstown, which is about 65 miles east of Pittsburgh, were rushing Braydin to the hospital because he had a temperature of 104.3. Along the way, the child had a seizure. He became unresponsive.

“He was real stiff, taking a seizure,” the mother said. “He ended up vomiting and choking on it. … His head was thrown back and his eyes were in the back of his head. He had gone limp and quit breathing.”

Megan Norman said that she started to dial 9-1-1, but in her haste to help her son, she dropped her phone and never completed the call.

Megan Norman started giving Braydin CPR on the ground outside the car. The players came over to help. Tyler McDonald, a redshirt sophomore third baseman, had learned CPR in high school. He told Shane Norman to remove his jacket and to place it under Braydin's head to open his airway. He also instructed Megan to move Braydin's tongue so it wouldn't prevent him from breathing. Stone grabbed the boy's arm to check for a pulse and to see if Braydin could squeeze it. Pine called 911.

The other players—Evan King, Tyler Orris, Dan Stoltzfus, Tyler Thomas—huddled around to keep the rain from falling on the mother and child. Within minutes, Braydin opened his eyes. Megan would say later the players' assistance "made all the difference in the world."

Shane and Megan Norman said they had learned CPR a long time ago, but that in their panic they had forgotten some of the details. The players stuck around with the family until an ambulance arrived, doing what they could to distract Braydin to keep him calm. Just before Braydin was loaded onto the ambulance, Thomas slipped a Millersville baseball bracelet onto the child's wrist. It was the only clue that later allowed the family to remember who the players were.

The doctors were able to get Braydin's condition under control. They told Shane and Megan a virus had caused his temperature to spike so suddenly. On Friday, the family went to the ballpark. A few of the Millersville players saw them standing near a fence along the first-base line. The players came over to greet them. Photos were taken. Braydin would later be given a signed baseball.

Millersville's coach, Jon Shehan, had not been told what happened until he saw all the fuss.

"I said, 'Who are you getting your picture taken with?' " said Jon Shehan, of Ephrata, who is the father of two small children, including a son about Braydin's age. "I don't think they understood what they did, and how significant it's going to be for that little boy's life. They were surprisingly humble and nonchalant."

[Johnstown Tribune-Democrat | Lancaster Online]

The Cardinals' dugout had just greeted Matt Carpenter after he scored on Matt Holliday's double in the bottom of the first. Yeah. We know as much about this as Pete Kozma does.

h/t to Patrick S.

At a press conference today for the Cincinnati media, new Bengals linebacker James Harrison showed us he's more than just an angry, headhunting sociopath who sucks at dodgeball.

In a video of the presser that appears on the Bengals' website, Harrison was his usual taciturn self when asked his view of Andy Dalton: "I don't have a view. Next question." He also denied that he's mad when he plays. But Harrison actually smiled and joked about being the youngest of 14 children, and he even revealed that he spends anywhere from $400,000 to $600,000 a year taking care of his body. Because don't we all?

The 2008 NFL defensive MVP has been known to tweet images from his frequent acupuncture sessions. But today he detailed just how extensive his body work can get. It's a glimpse into just how much repair is required to make up for the wear and tear on a 35-year-old NFL body:

“As far as training, I have a hyperbaric chamber. I rent a hyperbaric chamber when I’m in Arizona. I have massages and I bring people in from New York, Arizona to where I’m at. There’s that cost. Like I said, I get body work almost every single day except Saturday and Sunday. I have a homeopathic doctor and I do a lot of homeopathic things. It’s just a lot, supplements, so on and so forth.

A question about whether his routine is any different from when he was much younger prompted this response, part of which was not included in the transcript on the Bengals' site:

"I didn’t know what a massage was. I take it back. I was getting a lot of massages. I’ve always been what everybody’d like to call me—excuse my English—is massage whore. I can’t think of nothing else. They done called me it so long I’m starting to believe it."

Harrison said he's tried out as many as 150 masseuses, but that he's down to six.

[Cincinnati Bengals, via PFT]

Photo credit: Associated Press

Eagles running back LeSean McCoy is being sued by a woman who claims McCoy and his bodyguard assaulted her on a party bus before abandoning her somewhere along the New Jersey Turnpike last December.

TMZ reported that the plaintiff, identified in court documents as "Mary Roe," said she was one of 15 women who accompanied McCoy on a Dec. 18 bus trip from Philly to go clubbing in New York City. On the ride back, the suit says, McCoy, his bodyguard (ID'd as Big John), and a few other guys began spraying the women with water.

Here's Courthouse News, quoting directly from the lawsuit:

"When plaintiff protested, McCoy directed Big John to 'get her.' Big John and/or McCoy then struck plaintiff in the face, causing her to fall to the ground, physically restrained her while she was lying on the ground, poured a beverage onto her hair, clothes, and body, and forcibly dragged and pushed her. McCoy ordered the driver to stop on the side of the highway, and after the driver did so, both Big John and McCoy then forcibly ejected plaintiff from the bus.

"After some of the guests complained about the ejection of plaintiff from the bus, Big John and McCoy forcibly placed her back into the bus and pushed her into a seat. When the bus stopped at a service area ... plaintiff told McCoy the she had called the police. The party bus resumed its trip, leaving the plaintiff stranded at the rest stop. After reporting the assault to New Jersey State police, plaintiff needed to take two trains back to Philadelphia."

The suit also names Big John and the bus company as defendants. It seeks $50,000 in compensatory and punitive damages.

RE: TMZ LeSean McCoy report, source close to RB said he does not dispute kicking woman off bus, but that rest of allegations are false.

— Jeff McLane (@Jeff_McLane) May 14, 2013

Update (4:52 p.m.): Through his attorney, McCoy has denied the allegations.

[TMZ | Courthouse News]

Photo credit: Associated Press

Dude in the red backpack seemed to have a terrific spot to watch the riders cruise right on by during today's 10th stage of the Giro d'Italia. But then dude in the red backpack was gone.

h/t to Tim H.

Chuck Muncie, the terrific former Saints and Chargers running back who always wore glasses or goggles, has died. He was 60. [PFT]

Police in Newark, Del., have arrested a man in connection with the stabbing of University of Delaware quarterback Trevor Sasek early Sunday morning, according to the News-Journal of Wilmington, Del.

Michael J. Creed, 25, has been charged with first-degree assault and possession of a deadly weapon during a felony. He allegedly stabbed Sasek, 22, three times in the chest and abdomen during an argument in a parking lot around 1:20 a.m. Sunday. Sasek will be a fifth-year senior in the fall. He underwent surgery and remains in stable condition.

[News-Journal]

Photo via

Posterizing. All the cool kids are doing it.

[All Ball]

And we have the gory photos from the scene thanks to Patrick Willis, who posted them to Facebook. The 49ers linebacker looks pretty pleased with with himself for successfully protecting his home from the scourge of that nonvenomous gopher snake.

[Facebook, via Next Impulse Sports]

This video from the Indian Premier League is about a month old. We never saw it coming. We're showing it to you now as a belated heads up.

[Busted Coverage]