The surprise success stories of the early portion of this baseball season have been Eric Thames, a slugger for the Milwaukee Brewers, and Jim Brockmire, an in-stadium play-by-play announcer for the Morristown (Pa.) Frackers.
Thames last played in the major leagues in 2012. He was in the minors in 2013, and then spent three seasons smashing home runs in Korea.
Brockmire was a play-by-play legend in Kansas City until 2007, when he came home unexpectedly and found his beloved wife, Lucy, in a comprising situation with neighbor Bob Greenwald and other individuals.
Brockmire's rant about Lucy's unfaithfulness on the ensuing broadcast led to his firing. He spent much of the next decade in the Philippines, where he gained fame starring in a bootleg version of the TV series "Hart vs. Hart."
Major League Baseball seemed suspicious about what exotic potion Thames might have discovered in Korea and, according to the player, administered extra drug tests early in the season.
There is no such mystery with Brockmire: He loves his drugs, washed down with alcohol.
Brockmire is a character that comes from the imagination of Hank Azaria. The actor worked on a story line for several years with Joel Church-Cooper, a writer and improv comedian.
Church-Cooper wrote a "Brockmire" movie script that almost found backing, then it was developed and sold to IFC as a TV series. The first season winds up with Episode 8 on Wednesday night.
