I mean, sure, the bats have been a bit quiet of late (one local writer said of the Lads' recent road trip, "They celebrated every run like the birth of a baby"), but
outer space? Wouldn't a paper bag or a Groucho nose have done?
http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/blog/big_league_stew/post/Giants-hitting-coach-plans-trip-to-outer-space-f?urn=mlb-wp5438The Houston Astros. The Rocket. Bill "Spaceman" Lee. Blue Moon Odom.
Hensley "Bam-Bam" Meulens will join all of the above when it comes to baseball players associated with the outer limits.
Only the San Francisco Giants hitting coach will have a much stronger claim on space than just a nickname. That's because Meulens is actually going to be blasted into orbit during a space expedition that's being planned by his native Curacao.
It sounds like a joke, but it's 100 percent true. As MLB.com's Jenifer Langosch notes in a recent profile of Meulens, the outgoing former player has been selected as an inaugural "astronaut" for "Space Expedition Curacao," a commercial space tourism program the Caribbean nation is trying to launch by 2014.