Thanks to the hirsute likes of Oscar Gamble and John Henry Johnson, baseball has a proud history when it comes to the Afro and the rocking thereof. More recently, Coco Crisp is to be praised to the heavens and back for keeping it impossibly real.
All that is well and good, but the gauntlet — a hairy, awesome gauntlet — has been thrown down at the feet of those who take seriously the fusion of baseball and Afros …
And the people say: Your move, Mr. Crisp.
In the late 1970s, a certain American new wave band asked one of life’s tough questions.
More than 30 years later, Andrew Stoeten, Dustin Parkes, and Drew Fairservice (left to right) of Canadian-based Getting Blanked have asked a similarly difficult question — this time in picture form.
The answer, if it even exists, will likely be revealed by a close reading of one of the triumvirate’s live game chats. But that’s a giant, big if, people.
I’m not going to suggest that this is the greatest lede in the history of journalism, but I will submit that this is the greatest lede in the history of journalism:
I was listening to the San Diego Chicken give a speech the other day …
It gets arguably better right about … here!
After all these years, I still get a charge when I first spot the San Diego Chicken — that same visceral reaction you get when you see a very pregnant woman walking down the sidewalk — her innie now an outtie. You poke whoever’s next to you — “Hey, look!” — as if you’re about to witness a miracle, pay attention.
I’m not quite sure whether the San Diego Chicken is like a pregnant woman or like a pregnant woman’s navel, but I find it impossible to disagree with either position.
What I do know is that anyone Googling the search terms “San Diego Chicken” + “pregnant” + “navel” will wind up first at the L.A. Times and then here. And that’s the greatest gift of all.
(Impregnation of gratitude: BBTF)
In case you haven’t read the relevant press release, let it be known, bespectacled reader, that the Phillies will be hosting a 1980s Retro Night this Friday at Citizens Bank. While that particular event promises to be awkward in all the ways one imagines it could be awkward, it’s had the tonic effect of directing the author (after some super-high intense web-surfing) to the above-embedded video from Game Five of the 1980 NLCS between Philadelphia and Nolan Ryan’s Houston Astros.
Please join me, reader, won’t you, as we experience this experience together?
0:13 — For the first time ever, Larry Bowa is caught on film expressly not gesticulating wildly at someone or -thing.
UPDATE/URGENT CALL TO ACTION: You should totally vote for John Danks.
With the confetti-strewn convention floor now closed for nominations, it’s time to cast those ballots. Hanging in the balance? The matter — a matter most vital — of which current ballplayer is to be nicknamed “Captain Black Tobacco.” That is, who will join Wily Mo “Bad Miracle” Peña as one who has been honored, beyond all hopes and estimations, by the NotGraphs hive mind?
Let us proceed immediately to the trustworthy Diebold machine …
Thank you for voting. Please enjoy this patriotic sticker.
Sometimes inspiration comes over the author like the strong but tender hands of a Belarusian massage therapist named Miroslav or Milorad or Mirobad or something else beginning with M. Other times, inspiration strikes violently, not unlike in our friend Garth Algar’s encounter with Dream Woman, Donna Dixon (skillfully GIF’d and embedded above).
In the case of the present post, the author’s experience has been one firmly in the latter camp. The idea? Composing a pantheon of sorts for the joueurs of bat-and-ball.
Below is a brief list of the most notable Greek gods (with a full list available here, courtesy Wikipedia). Which current player is MLB’s Zeus, do you think? Which’n is Dionysos, god of wine and doing it?
They’re important questions, reader. And your answers are important, too.
God/dess: Aphrodite
Associated With: Love and beauty
Defining Acts: Offered Helen of Troy to Paris. Saved Paris from dying at hands of Menelaus. Both lover and surrogate mother to Adonis — which, somehow that’s okay.
If this is how it goes down on the team bus, well, I was wrong. Very wrong:
Big ups: My childhood friend @25th_Hour. He’s good people.
Clicking and embiggening are both options here.
It’s the conviction of this author that, among its many charms, baseball’s greatest (charm, that is) is its capacity to constantly produce data. While such a claim would likely redden the face of a Real Baseball Man, let it be known that, by data, I’m not merely thinking of columns of stats; in fact, because of the frequency with which games are played and because of the intimacy which necessarily develops between players and coaches and beat writers and fans, baseball also produces narratives about masculinity and heroism and failure, etc.
The act of record-keeping is truly central to the game. Really, nothing besides politics and the weather is so thoroughly documented for the benefit of public consumption — and neither politics (which is horrifying) nor weather (which is boring) are so pleasant to discuss with strangers.
Yesterday, Mr. Dayn Perry shared the story of the irascible Billy Martin and his irascible love for Realistic Hone-Video Baseball. You may have found yourself wondering as to the identity of the second gentleman that would drive such a nice guy to such an uncharacteristic furor. That man was none other than the famous author and editor of the Paris Review, George Plimpton.
The early eighties saw a pitched battle between the Atari and the Intellivision, holding up to society a mirror for the deeper international tensions that marked the era. As in the Cold War, Plimpton and Martin waged a war of words, seeking to win the hearts and minds of the people. Billy Martin played the part of the folksy populist, seeking to win America’s heart. George Plimpton, recalling a fully-coifed Adlai Stevenson, employed logic to appeal to the minds of the citizenry.
In case you haven’t noticed, at NotGraphs we’re not into dumb things like “timeliness” or “relevance.” Hence, even though this series of outtakes from Season 1, Episode 5 of HBO’s Eastbound and Down was uploaded by YouTube user xKZ91 on September 30, 2009, it hasn’t really been seen until today — i.e. the day it was expertly embedded into a post on the present and awesome site.
The principal players in this scene are Will Ferrell as Ashley Schaeffer, Danny McBride as Kenny Powers, and Craig Robinson as Reg Mackworthy. The principal mode is transcendence. The principal feeling in your soul is completion.
