Yes, definitely Chewbacca, although R2-D2 is not too shabby either. Whatever you choose, this is a perfect over-priced holiday present for Star Wars fans or people you really hate. [High Snobiety via The Jailbreak]

Baseball King Balls are specially designed polyethylene baseballs from Japan. By making adjustments to that band in the center of each ball, you can alter their aerodynamics, thereby throwing a sinker, curveball, knuckleball, riser, or screwball at will (no special training required!). The catch? There is no catch! Well...other than the obvious fact that these puppies aren't regulation.

But I'm sure that millions of fans and countless MLB officials won't even notice you holding the Baseball King on the cover of Sports Illustrated. [Japan Trend Shop via OhGizmo!]

Here are a few choice excerpts from Regretsy (NSFW); just a taste, mind you, no substitute for a visit. Be careful, though, because the amazing site is not always safe for work. Looking over the entries makes me wish it were as fictitious as Kasper Hauser's brilliant—but mercifully fake—SkyMaul.

Regarding the lovely lady and her cheese-grater clock, Regretsy says: Oh sure, it's not perfect, but you try cleaning a cheese grater with a cigarette.

Regretsy says: Whenever I hear "Michael Jackson", I immediately think "baseball". Well technically, I think "Little League", but you know what I'm saying. [Link]

Regretsy says: Usually I just use the guest towels when we're out of toilet paper. [Link]

Regretsy says: You know what goats like? They like grass. They don't like having leopard outfits strapped to their sagging haunches like Kim Cattrall. [Link]

Regretsy says: Santo trompas de Falopio! Who wouldn't want to curl up with the stuffed reproductive organs of Mexico's most famous bisexual surrealist? [Link]

It goes without saying "Santo trompas de Falopio!" is my new favorite expression of surprise. Hit the site for way more where this came from. [Regretsy (NSFW)]

It happened during a Pirates-Brewers game in the 8th inning to a hapless photographer who didn't even try to make a grab. Instead, he just watched as the ball pegged the computer, sending the space bar flying. Oof. Hey, maybe the laptop is a collectable now? You never know. [Macenstein]

Only problem is, you have to be a subscriber of the paid MLB.tv service, which would cost $35 for the remainder of the 2009 season. But if you're already streaming ballgames on your computer, the Roku box would make a very inexpensive and portable way to get on-demand and live baseball on your TV. MLB.tv says the picture is high-definition quality, which probably means something like 480i or 480p (like Netflix's streams), but that'll still look pretty decent on the TV. [MLB on Roku]

Developed by the University of Tokyo, two baseball robots, a pitcher and a batter, play head to head in near perfection.

The pitching robot uses an arm from MIT and a three-fingered hand developed in-house (that's so nimble it can open and close 10 times per second) to release a strike zone pitch 90% of the time. Meanwhile the batting robot offers intense competition by wielding a 1000fps camera that can track the pitch in realtime, connecting with the ball almost every time it flies in the strike zone.

But before you get too excited, know that the pitching bot only throws the ball at 24mph. So it's likely that a classic batting cage bot could strike out more MLBers than anything coming out of the labs...for now. Researchers hope to increase pitch speed to 93mph soon and work curve balls and sliders into the mix. We'll see how well the batting robot (and puny humans) can keep up then. [Mainichi via Pink Tentacle via CrunchGear]

The Vector O bat features three little air vents just above the handle to decrease both weight and air resistance, although it seems to us that a bat is rotated while swung and would thus render the aerodynamic benefits null. It's made of some kind of alloy, so even without any topical sarcasm about baseball, it can't be used in the pros—but at $280, you'd have to take your stickball at least a little seriously to buy it. [Reebok via Boing Boing Gadgets]

The ball shot out at 70MPH, striking Anderson in the skull. He wasn't knocked completely unconscious and was surprised to discover his head swelling in instead of out. This was because he had multiple skull fractures that were causing blood to collect in his brain. Bad news.

Surgeons had to relieve the pressure in his skull to keep blood from entering more parts of his brain. Because seven areas of his brain had collapsed, there was a fear that permanent brain damage could result.

Now, 7 years later, Mitchell is one of the top players on his high school baseball team, batting a .455 with a .714 on-base percentage.

An impressive recovery and comeback to be sure, but he's got to know that somewhere out there is a pitching machine that wants to finish the job. Watch your back, Anderson. [News Journal Online]

Machines Behaving Deadly: A week exploring the sometimes difficult relationship between man and technology.

Actually, every single TV at Citi Field was made by Sharp—except, ironically, the monitors in the control room—which is why they wanted to show us the whole stadium, to make sure we saw every single TV. It's really nice! It almost makes me want to be a Mets fan, especially if I could hang out in a luxury suite and have Shackburgers delivered to me.

So why watch the game on TV at home, when you could pay a lot of money to watch it live on TV at the stadium? You don't have 850 TVs, after all.

Here's what he says specifically:

If there were a heaven and it came out in midseason, maybe we offer a game or two a day and that way we don't drop the price for At Bat. We would love to do live games on the iPhone. I think people would watch. A whole game? Probably not. But ten minutes?

Beyond that, MLB.TV is about to crush everyone's expectations of what live web video should be: More than 2,000 games in HD, which you can watch four of simultaneously with a mosaic picture-in-picture, multiple audio tracks to pick from and full DVR features like pause and rewind. They're also working on finally allowing in-market web streaming, so you can watch your local team online if you feel like it, not just on your TV.

If I actually liked baseball, I'd pretty hyped right about now. But I wonder if their pay model would be able to be applied anywhere else—would people pay for network programming (Hulu) if it had this kind of functionality? Or just go to torrents?[Alley Insider, MLB.TV]

The video ends with a "Hatfield engineer" looking into the distance and musing about how nuclear power might be in the future for the launcher: "We've talked about rocket-propelled hot dogs, we've said, you know, is nuclear power an option? We'd have to play with it a little bit..." It's pretty much the best mockumentary I've seen since Summer Heights High. Thank you, Hatfield, for extending my Philly pride six minutes further. [Grill the Goodness via Boing Boing Gadgets]

The crew trekked down to Cambodia to use the military's equipment. At first, the Cambodian military didn't want to use a tank, so instead they taped a baseball to a rocket. This, obviously, didn't show how well the baseball would travel at such speeds, as it just blew everything up, as you can see above.

Then, after changing their minds, the Cambodians allowed a baseball to be loaded into one of their tanks using some super-secret method that was blurred out like the undergroomed nether regions of a Japanese porn star. This was much more successful, with the tank launching a baseball at about 203mph. The aiming, however, could have been better.

So simple, so ridiculous, so satisfying. Thanks, Japan! [Japan Probe]

Maybe this baseball bat is what you needed to complete your video entry for the Go Miniman Go contest? Then get one as soon as possible because the end of the month deadline is quickly approaching. If you want to participate, check the contest rules here and send your video now. [Brothers Brick via Brickarms]

In the arms race to squeeze more pundits with more laptops into a single stage, CNN has always held the lead. They're for keeping an up-to-the-second finger on the blogosphere's pulse, receiving sordid tips from 21st-century Deep Throats, yes? Tell that to CNN's legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin—what you up to on that screen there, Jeff?

Yeah, just watchin' a little pitch-by-pitch playoff baseball. Despite being from NYC, looks like Toobin had to keep watch of the Cubs action last night as they continued their epic choke, dropping to 0-2 against the Dodgers at home. But I can't say I blame him—being part of CNN's pundit brigade is probably doable while half in the bag on 45 minutes of sleep. Just ask James Carville. [Thanks Mark for the pic! And Nihal and Alex too]

[Sean Kenney via Craziest Gadgets via Coolbuzz]

The differences I noticed between American baseball and Japanese baseball being that everyone chants a different song for each batter in complete synchronicity, the stadium food includes fried shrimp, when you hit a homerun you get a stuffed animal, and Tiger fans cosplay as Tigers. That's about it. The dome itself had no conspicuous technology, which confused me. I expect the oldest tech I'd find in such a prominent structure to come from the year 2020, no older. Time for a retrofit, I thought, until Lisa pointed out that everyone was watching highlights and listening to commentary on seg 1 digital tuners on cellphones. The Dome has a lot of wireless infrastructure so that tons of people can use their phones without bogging down the network. (Basically, more antennas.)

I took the above shots with a Nikon D700, program mode, vivid color profile, with a 24-120mm lens. I could have used longer glass, but shots were fine. Given the lightning, I did have to tweak exposure a bit when the stadium lights overwhelmed the AI's ability to weight exposure towards whatever subjects were focused on. The shot at the top of this post is terrible, but I love the composition and the sign message: Do not take your eyes off the ball!

[TokyoMango]

Just click here or call 718-507-8499 to grab your tickets. If you want to get there earlier, Astroland, the Coney Island amusement park with the famous Cyclone roller coaster is within walking distance.

We'll probably go out for beers after the game at Peggy O'Neills, so look for us in the stands during the game or parking lot afterwards or just meet us there. We'll set up a twitter with details as to where we are during the game closer to the event itself.

Are you too cool for that? Does the idea of someone wanting to be placed inside something Star-Trek-themed for all of eternity give you a serious urge to give someone a wedgie? Well, Eternal Image, the company behind the Star Trek urn, has something for you too, my fratty friend: Major League Baseball urns and caskets. They also make a Cat Fanciers' Association production urn, but I think that might go too far into the realm of the depressingly pathetic for me to investigate and make fun of with a clear conscience. [Product Page via BusinessWire]