Listed as: Lot 26: “Bay Bombers” Original Painting by Ron Lewis

Soooo. I know you’ve been trying to figure out what to get me for my birthday. And, these days it’s not even that easy for me to figure out what I want. We are no longer in the halcyon days of my youth. Those days, I just filled in the blank with the newest King’s Quest, Space Quest, or boxed set of baseball cards. Those days, I was so sure of what I wanted for the next special occasion that I pretty much had a running list in my head.

Read the rest of this entry »

Dodger rookie pitcher Rubby de la Rosa left this past Sunday’s game against the Rockies with what appeared to be some kind of hand injury. If the above report on same has any verity to it, de la Rosa possesses some anatomical curiosities that could land him in Ripley’s or the equivalent — and would certainly go some way to explaining why his stuff is so filthy.*

*Denotes joke.

Merci to our man Jeff Zimmerman, who found this guffaw-inducing news item all up on the internet.

Names, as I read once somewhere, are powerful things.  Without them, it’d be impossible to google yourself.

Ego-surfing is a basic American right, up there with drive-thrus and Words With Friends.  We deserve to know, at any moment, where each of us stands in the social order.  And yet many men, even among the celebrities who hit balls with sticks and throw balls past people with sticks, have had their identities stripped from them.  The men listed below are exceptional.  They beat the odds and became professional baseball players, only to become afterthoughts, exceeded not only in fame but in the very vocation they spent a lifetime training for.  It’s a tragedy when stories have been silenced by other, better stories.  Please take a few moments to mourn these forgotten semi-heroes through the power of hastily-wrought prose:

Randy Johnson, 3B

Search for “Randy Johnson Braves” on Google and the first site you’ll see is not poor Randall Glenn Johnson of Escondido, California, but an article about how the Braves let the other Randy Johnson get away, failing to sign him in 1982 as a fourth-round pick out of high school.  How unwanted can you make a man feel?  Randall was actually a pretty solid part-timer for the Braves in the early 80s, earning 2.3 WAR in three seasons before heading off to Japan.  Even his mustache is a strong, yet ultimately inferior, performance.

Read the rest of this entry »

Read the rest of this entry »

Behold the following documentary series which offers insight into both the inner workings of the world of baseball and the intriguing back-stories of Carl Crawford’s relationship with the Rays.

Read the rest of this entry »

In the event that you haven’t heard, allow NotGraphs to inform you that Saturday afternoon saw Toronto infielder Mike McCoy make his major-league pitching debut, throwing a perfect inning of relief in the Blue Jays’ 16-4 loss to the division-rival Boston Red Sox.

Nine of McCoy’s pitches were classified as knuckleballs — not actually because they were knuckleballs, but because, as Dan Brooks tells us, they were thrown so slowly that Pitch F/x — like most parents — just didn’t understand.

It appears as though McCoy broke more than Pitch F/x, too. Of those same 12 pitches thrown by McCoy, three received swing-and-misses — i.e. roughly three times the major-league average of 8.4%.

Here are those pitches:

1. A 1-0 pitch to Carl Crawford:

Read the rest of this entry »

Thursday night in Detroit, Miguel Olivo struck out four times, and took home the dishonourable Golden Sombrero. While batting cleanup! I know, and, unfortunately, no, I can’t tell you why Olivo was batting fourth. But about last night: Verlander and Valverde, yo. They’ll do that to a brother.

Upon learning of Olivo’s fate, I wondered: Why a Golden Sombrero? What in the hell does that have to do with striking out four times in a baseball game? I got my Google on. And the answer, as is usually the case, was pretty simple, and, well, makes sense. Witness:

The term derives from hat trick and since four is bigger than three (Editor’s note: Mathematics are a beautiful thing.) the rationale was that a four-strikeout performance should be referred to by a bigger hat, such as a sombrero. The “Olympic Rings” or platinum sombrero applies to a player striking out five times in a game, while a horn (after Sam Horn of the Baltimore Orioles, who accomplished the feat in an extra-inning game in 1991) or titanium sombrero is bestowed upon a player who strikes out six times in a single game.

Your source: Wikipedia. In all its reverence, of course.

Like I said, makes sense. And, now, what I want to actually, physically see, and perhaps even try on, is a Titanium Sombrero. I imagine it’s as funky as it sounds.

As for the Golden Sombrero, there’s a website devoted to its cause. Aptly titled, too: The Golden Sombrero. By their count, Miguel Olivo is the 38th player to be crowned in 2011.

Yet the most important questions remain: Why, and since when, and why, is Miguel Olivo batting cleanup?

Image credit: The Internet

Embedded here, please find footage of every plate appearance from a recent wiffle match-up between the Portland Gothams and Bucktown Blue Jays of the Columbia Cowlitz Wiffleball Association (CCWA), one of our country’s very strongest wiffleball associations.

The game featured two of the league’s top pitchers in the Jays’ Mike Benkoski (first among qualified starters in ERA) and Gothams’ Thomas King (fourth).

Among the many splendors you’ll find here are:
• Portland’s Joe Occi getting hit in the head and grousing about it (0:46).
• Particularly excellent pitches from King at the following marks: 0:15, 0:20, 1:33, 1:38, 2:54, 3:54, 4:49, and 4:56.
• Joe Occi diving after, and missing entirely, a batted-ball (3:35).
• Excellent pitches from Benkoski, at the following: 2:24, 3:21, 4:13, 5:13, 5:18.
• Occi addressing the heavens in frustration directly after the nasty pitch from Benkoski at 5:18.

*Bold indicates extra nasty pitches.

Steamy. Pause.

The parallels are not obvious. Roberto Clemente was Puerto Rican, Elvis was Mississippian. Clemente played baseball, Elvis played rock and roll. Clemente had 3,000 hits on the nose, Elvis more like 26 of the #1 variety. The baseball player was known for his all-around solid game and humanitarian missions to his home land. The rock star was known for his brilliant voice, terrible movies and rampant drug abuse. No, they don’t seem very similar.

But take a look at this picture, and there’s some of the same heat that you get from a young Elvis. Look at the screaming women. Look at the slightly parted lips. Look at the (feigned?) indifference. Feel the confidence exuding from Clemente’s look. Feel the fire.

Then watch this video. Is there nothing these two icons have in common other than dying young within five years of each other? Consider this diptych homage a humble argument that there is, at least superficially, something in common between the young King and the young Sweetness. Even if it is only the adoration of women everywhere.

H/T to Plumb in the Uprights

As America’s Kid Brother Jackie Moore brought to our attention yesterday in a piece on the latter’s (unwitting) walk-off double, Nyjer Morgan is the sort of man prone to losing his mind.

Some due diligence courtesy of our Investigative Reporting Investigation Team reveals another curiosity from the giant, hypothetical file folder marked “All Things Nyjer Morgan” — namely, some kind of excerpt from a real or not real music video featuring Tony Plush himself.

Regard:

Your eyes do not deceive you, reader: that’s footage of Morgan doing the robot while wearing a silver Elvis wig, set to a song that sounds a lot like “I’m Not a Player” by deceased rapper Big Pun — except for, instead of Big Pun, it’s actually Nyjer Morgan revealing the truth about his nom de champ.

There are answers to the questions you’re asking, reader. Assuredly. Whether they exist in this, or an alternate, reality is a thing we can’t say with any certainty, however.