Gregg Zaun vs. Greggzaun.com
Can the man measure up against his own insanely great website?
Sometimes the things we create take on a life of their own and threaten to fully supplant the creator's identify, especially if the creation is as totally awesome as Milwaukee Brewers catcher Gregg Zaun's website. So how does the Z-man measure up against his unbelievable URL? The A.V. Club compared the two point-by-point to get a better idea of who has the upper hand: actual Gregg Zaun or his virtual representation.
The introduction
Greggzaun.com: A mysterious Zorro-like figure appears in a cloud of mist, draws his sword, and slashes a "Z" shape through the computer screen, revealing Gregg Zaun’s chest protector, at which time Rush’s “Limelight” starts up amidst several written cues to “Bring Your Z-Game,” along with images of Zaun and flying baseballs.
Gregg Zaun: Coming out to the same Rush song, Gregg Zaun appears much less nimble than the swashbuckler featured on his site. Crunchy knees and achy bones from 39 years of life (15 spent squatting behind the plate) may be to blame, but that shouldn’t stop him from doing that Z thing with his bat.
Advantage: Greggzaun.com
The look
Greggzaun.com: Designed with the Toronto Blue Jays colors in mind, the website features lots of tasteful black-and-white images and video of Gregg Zaun throwing out runners and watching as his hits soar into the field. The easy-to-find menu has pop-ups that make cool swishing noises, and the whole page is tied together by the action-pose Zaun cutout bobbing up and down in the corner.
Gregg Zaun: Recent haircut notwithstanding, Gregg Zaun looks like a man who has just about given up on grooming. His gnarly goatee and smudgy eye black up the burliness factor, making former catcher Jason Kendall look like Casey McGehee by comparison.
Advantage: Greggzaun.com
The performance
Greggzaun.com: Selecting options from the menu bar can be a little dodgy (sometimes requiring multiple clicks) and the Z-tunes music player only has two songs: of course, “Limelight” by Rush and “BYOB” by System Of A Down. Not bad, but surely the Z-Man has more than two songs on his iPod Mini. Plus, it looks bad when the career highlights haven’t been updated since 2006.
Gregg Zaun: It’s pretty rare that a catcher will provide any real speed on the bags, and Zaun is not an exception. But the tenacious little fellow sure does hustle and throws pretty well when he’s not suffering from Mackey Sasseritis. Also, he shows a great deal of patience behind the plate and in the face of super-shitty Bob And Brian interview questions.
Advantage: Gregg Zaun
The stats
Greggzaun.com: According to Alexa.com, Greggzaun.com comes in at 13,317,926 for traffic rating, which is measured by combining visitors and page views. This essentially means that nearly no one visits this site, which is crazy because it is much more incredible than the world’s No. 1 site, super-boring-looking Google.com.
Gregg Zaun: After a start rivaling that of Brad Nelson’s 0-21 whiff-fest last year, Zaun has steadily improved his numbers, bringing his batting average up to .258 and knocking in a respectable 13 RBIs, which is pretty good for a guy closing in on his first annual prostate exam.
Advantage: Gregg Zaun
Overall
Like a perfect marriage, it seems that Gregg Zaun and Greggzaun.com have a great symbiotic relationship, with each one compensating for the other's shortcomings. Now if only somebody could get work on jazzing up Jeff Suppan’s restaurant’s website.
