I promise I’ll tire of the Adventures of Joe West soon. Eventually. Maybe.

But admit it: You thought President Richard Nixon resigned, didn’t you?

While one can hardly blame French-Canadian elements for cultivating some hostility toward our fair game, why take it out on the poor semi-pro Ottawa Fat Cats and their awesome team name?

What am I talking about? This:

Read the rest of this entry »

We already that Delmon Young is to outfield defense what someone who can’t do something very well is to that thing that he or she cannot do very well. But now that Mr. Young has spent the offseason repeatedly lifting heavy objects over his head and growing large beach muscles, will his glovecraft reach new depths? Maybe!

On the other hand, Young actually shed pounds last offseason, and one might wonder whether that helped his fly-catching in 2010. With the answer — and the quote of the day — is Young’s manager, Ron Gardenhire:

“We thought that he was running faster, but that just meant that he was chasing the balls he missed faster.”

Thou hast been zinged!

While the Washington Nationals are trending upward these days, there’s no disputing that the franchise plucked from the wilds of Canada and dropped in the capital of the Milky Way has endured some fits and starts. Part of the problem has been some rather ham-fisted marketing initiatives. Fortunately, for the Nationals and their discontents, we’re here to help.

There’s really only one thing that needs to be done to make this into a model franchise. Better scouting and development? Higher payrolls? Louder rock music between innings? Change the nickname to “Nationalz”? No. Cooler uniforms? Yea, verily.

The Nats have yoked themselves to the evocative powers of the dead president, which is wise, because everyone loves every U.S. president without exception. However, the relationship between baseball and the great landowning Episcopalians of history needs to be strengthened just a bit. First, the Nationals’ new road uniforms will have this image — ideally by way of iron-on decal — emblazoned upon the jersey:

Clearly, that’s an un-doctored photograph taken from some authoritative history text. As you can also clearly see, that’s Lincoln and Washington, each a chest-haired colt of a man, in the throes of a vigorous, manly, virile, potent, sinewy, and rippled presidential wrestling match that will end with someone’s Viking funeral. Who wins? All of us, but especially the Nationals.

As for the Nats’ road uniforms, well, wars on foreign soil aren’t for the spineless among us, so the Nats need to project an image of ruthless and terrible confidence. The jersey image that follows has graced these pages before, and now it’s time to make it a part of baseball’s tapestry forevermore …

Not only is Teddy Roosevelt slaying the foreign Bigfoot hordes in this un-doctored photograph taken from some authoritative history text, but he’s also stout-hearted enough to offer up his belt buckle as a fallout shelter. But besides Bigfoot’s encroachments, what’s he upset about? Probably his baseball humiliations. This is precisely the kind of terrifying presence to which the Nationals should aspire, especially when far from the comforts of home.

Finally, in a nod to the last remaining president whose actual giant, stone disembodied head sits atop Mt. Rushmore …

Some of you might be thinking, “Hey, that’s one of those creepy droid things from ‘Dr. Who.'” No, it isn’t. That’s a board-certified photograph of Robot Thomas Jefferson, and I see no reason why every Nats player shouldn’t wear this exact cumbersome robot suit on the field of play (along with, of course, the appropriate jersey design concocted above).

Do these things, Nationals Baseball Club, and the Republic’s precious discretionary lucre will all be yours. Promise. And please let Mr. Roosevelt win a race before he commits even more justifiable homicides.

Brewers ender of ballgames John Axford wants you to help him choose his entrance music. As we all know, a closer’s entrance music is as vital to his success as his fastball and his morning muesli followed by a round of deep knee bends. That Axford is leaving such an important matter up to the will of the people demonstrates that, a, he is of, for and by those very people, and, b, Nickelback is just awful.

Anyhow, you’d think Axford, based on his winsome and gentlemanly mustache, would prefer whatever parlor music is favored by accomplished 19th-century railroad barons, but will the people give it to him? No, they will not. That’s because whenever the question involves music, the answer is always, always, eternally and without fail, “Motorhead backed by an orchestra” …

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=801CketNy1Y

Or: Why NotGraphs is Nerdier than FanGraphs

The idea of the baseball nerd is pretty well ingrained in those who follow the sport: crazy acronyms, unintelligible formulas, and spreadsheets (oh, the spreadsheets!). In that sense, FanGraphs encompasses this entire definition – just read anything by me or the rest of our staff or, in particular, any of our big-time chart-and-graph gurus like Albert Lyu or Dave Allen (NERDS!). The kind of nerditry (similar to punditry) that we see on our parent blog is hardly matched around the internet, at least by this definition.

However, I think solely looking at the analysis blog here and claiming “This is the ultimate in baseball nerd-dom” completely misses the point of what it means to be a nerd. Although the FanGraphs analysis blog (and similar places) embodies perhaps the most mocked part of being a baseball nerd, it misses the true meaning: heart, soul, humor, with, and other characteristics of real-life, actual human beings. Thinking deeply about something and producing well-thought, well-reasoned, and intelligent analysis (whether or not that analysis discusses player performance, the history of the game, or Michael Young slash fanfiction) is what nerds do. It’s not what nerds are; it doesn’t show the human substance that resides within us all.

This past weekend, nearly 20 employees of this fine website descended upon the strip-mall infested wasteland described by maps and road signs as “Arizona.” The nearly immediate synergy between such a large group of people with assumed social ineptness was tangible from the beginning. Perhaps we partially cheated. Some of us knew each other from last year’s event, and some of us hail from the same city, such as Carson and I in Madison, WI and Joe Pawlikowski and Mike Axisa in New York City (although I believe Pawlikowski is in Jersey now, and we all send our condolences). Still, a majority of the connections that resulted from the trip were previously nonexistent outside of a few Twitter clients and a company message board.

However, we all have something in common, and that’s a deep bond with the game of baseball. Our knowledge of the game is similarly deep. That may appear to be a brag, but it’s not. It’s just something that we’ve devoted an insane amount of time to, and as many people acquire hobbies and skills and know them backwards and forwards, we’ve done a similar thing with the game of baseball.

It was a weekend full of laughter and fantastic times. Sure, the events with front office members from Cleveland, Seattle, and Chicago headlined the trip and may have been the “official” reasons we were there. Of course, the events were engaging, thought-provoking, and entertaining, but they merely served as the opening band for the headliner of really getting our nerd on.

Getting our nerd on is seeing 25-year-old AA “prospect” Charlie Blackmon and nearly pissing ourselves. Getting our nerd on is working the phrase “Extra 2%” into conversation at every possible junction (sorry, Jonah). Getting our nerd on is making jokes about career bench players and getting huge laughs from the entire room. Getting our nerd on is a group of 10 people from across the country polishing off a 30-pack of PBR and a 30-pack of Tecate over eight hours of ottoneu fantasy drafting and barely filling out starting lineups, much less finishing the draft. Getting our nerd on is taking pictures of Dayton Moore’s Escalade. And, obviously, getting our nerd on is writing this piece at 6:00 AM Eastern Time (the time zone I’m flying to) entirely for my own enjoyment, with the thoughts and concerns of the reader out of sight and out of mind. Tenuous relationships to actual baseball be damned, this is NotGraphs!

As Carson noted this weekend, even in a large metropolitan era it’s unlikely that “one of us” knows too many colleagues or peers in baseball nerdosity. So, when we meet others with like minds and similar investments in being a baseball nerd, the results can be magical. Magical like an “oh, like Gregor, Henry, and Andres Blanco” joke in reference to a “blanco” dish at a restaurant. Magical like multiple people (not even projection systems!) acknowledging Zelous Wheeler’s existence. Magical like a .gif of Matt Daley’s pre-windup butt wiggle or Aaron Rowand shaking his bat like a certain part of the male anatomy in the batter’s box(anything more than two shakes and you’re just playing with yourself, Aaron). Magical like waving at Dayton Moore as he drives past you in a club car.

None of those things will make any goddamn sense if you don’t have the kind of investment in baseball that we have. Whatever; if you don’t, that doesn’t make you a bad person by any means. In fact, you’ve probably accomplished far more than I while I was busy memorizing the entirety of Cot’s Contracts. But this is where the heart, soul, and humanity of the nerd begins. Naturally, part of it is the pursuit of intellectualism and analysis in sport and the almost inevitable social alienation brought upon us by that process (seriously, try talking about WAR at a sports bar). And we clearly embrace that part of being a nerd and we like to believe that it serves people; that it makes people at least partially as happy as it makes us. But at the same time, this is such a huge part of our lives that it not only manifests itself as analysis but as humor and history and simply as excellent stories free of acronyms and formulae.

And this is where NotGraphs crosses that (somewhat blurred) line between intellectual and truly nerdy. The analysis produced at FanGraphs takes an inner nerd to produce, but what is on the computer screen is not in itself nerdy. Throw 10 jocks in a room and force them to play Dungeons & Dragons and the resulting scene won’t be nerdy. It’s the incredible dedication required to memorize a monster manual and other ridiculous details of the game that create the nerd society of a D&D campaign. That dedication, that memorization and exploration of such minutiae and obscurities is the true essence of nerddom. I hope that, as either fellow nerds or simply one with a curiosity for the most minor of detail, that you continue to join us down our exploration of baseball and our own nerdhood. Such is the true joy of my pouring so much of myself into the sport, and when I’m able to share in this joy with other people, it becomes even sweeter (I mean, seriously, I got a picture of Ned Yost’s parking spot in Surpise, Arizona with another person?! Really?!).

Hopefully, we here at NotGraphs can share even a fraction of the joy we shared with each other through our nerdition over this past weekend. Come, let’s embrace the nerd within, together.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrMqn6xC-Bw

But be careful, this is nearly blue in its indecency. NSFW but not really, you know what I mean?

Scouts might say he’s got long levers and a big load.

H/T: Albert Lyu and Carson Cistulli

Steve Jobs + baseball = magic.

Things have improved for fans looking to stream MLB.tv on their televisions: On Wednesday Apple TV added support for the service.

MLB.tv streaming is already available on lots of electronic things; a full list is here. But for those who aren’t satisfied watching on smart phones, computers, or tablet computers — for those who prefer to watch sports from a slight distance, sprawled on softly yielding couches — the options haven’t been great.

Yeah, I can hook my laptop up to my TV, but that’s fiddly and monopolizes my laptop during games. I could invest in a Blu-ray player or game console that supports MLB.tv streaming, but that’s expensive. The iPad 2 has an HDMI out, but sadly I don’t have an iPad 2. Until this week, the Roku video player was the only option for a $100 or cheaper device designed to put MLB.tv on my television. The $99 Apple TV is a welcome addition to this category.

In closing, since some percentage of this post constitutes free advertising for MLB.tv, here’s an obligatory: Fix the blackouts, you guys.

See that above? That’s a snapshot of a graphical box score available at Back to Baseball, which is a computer Web site that is fast becoming very beautiful to me. How beautiful? Cheryl Tiegs, make room at the front of the line!

The Revolution smiles upon this because you can see the play-by-play of any game going back to 1950. Once more, for maximum emphasis: You can see the play-by-play of any game going back to 1950. Now who among us can best let the burdens and obligations of adulthood wither on the vine while we toy around with this thing?

(Lingering embrace: BBTF)

Today’s feast-day celebration is three, three, three feasts in one!

The Feast of Dick Allen is actually a three-day long celebration — this year, beginning on Wednesday, March 9 and continuing through sundown on Friday, March 11 — and marks the transition from the offseason and its attendant horrors to the optimism that mid-March brings, with its promise of spring and baseball and magic numbers in the mid-hundreds.

The feast is recognized (by those who can make it) in the form of a ritual pilgrimage to the desert — which, of course, explains the timing for Team FanGraphs’ descent upon Phoenix, Arizona (and accounts for the absence of a Feast Day post yesterday, when the author was in transit to same arid city).

Of those who’re unable to perform said pilgrimage, understanding is requested for the lack of content at the Amalgamated Blogs of Team FanGraphs.

Life: NotGraphs is committed to remembering the life of Dick Allen.

Spiritual Exercise: Use the three days of Dick Allen’s feast as an opportunity to shed the previous year of baseball and to prepare yourself — mentally, physically, mentally again — for the season ahead. Time permitting, learn how to juggle and smoke at the same time.

A Prayer for Dick Allen

Dick Allen!
For most of
your career
you were
misunderstood —
like me when
I’m trying
to place
an order
at the drive thru
and the guy
on the other end
can’t hear
because he
hates my being

or when I ask
if the tequila
is 100% agave
and it turns out
to be only, like,
95% agave
or something.

I read somewhere
for example
that the media
characterized you
as selfish,
even as you were
starting a charity
that helped
inner-city kids
get all the
cigarettes
they needed
that’s unfair.

For me,
Whatever the color
of your beanbag
or religion
of your domestic
employees,
everyone needs
to learn
cooperation —

like that one
episode of
Punky Brewster
where everyone
gets stuck in a
different
refrigerator
and then learns
cooperation.