It’s no secret that base-ballists everywhere are quite fond of the refreshing taste of 7UP. In the case of Mike Schmidt, the fire in the belly for 7UP became so strong — so fiery — that he installed beneath home plate a subterranean robot tasked with delivering ambrosial, restorative 7UP during the middle of a plate appearance. Bear mute witness:

You may have also noticed that Bruce Sutter knows, when it comes to highly acidic, carbonated beverages, there is a time for sipping and a time for painful guzzling. You may have also noticed that Dave Parker, quite understandably, prefers the taste of ambrosial, restorative 7UP to recording outs on foul pop-ups.

In short, nothing screws up a game of baseball quite like 7UP.

A.J. Burnett got rocked. Again. By the Baltimore Orioles, no less.

Burnett’s August numbers are straight ghoulish. He’s allowed 30 runs in 22.2 innings, and 44 hits. Forty-four. So long, WHIP! August opponents — Baltimore, Minnesota, Kansas City, Los Angeles, and Chicago — have teed off of A.J., to the tune of a .415 batting average.

While the New York Yankees remain a lock for the postseason, Burnett’s teammates have had just about enough. In the second inning of Friday night’s game in Baltimore, NotGraphs’ omnipresent Investigative Reporting Investigation Team overheard the following conversation between Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez:

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Unlike Dayn Perry, I’ve never impregnated even one of the Ladies of America. When I do, however, I hope my issue grows up to look and act and be exactly like this kid, spotted at Thursday night’s Red Sox-Rangers game playing Nintendo DS or whatever with cartoonishly large headphones.

It’s becoming increasingly clear that Lenny Dykstra quite simply does not have (and possibly never has had) control over his actions. He is a degenerate sociopath with a history of compulsive behavior. In other words, he lacks any shred of a moral compass.

As I noted back in June when the news broke that in addition to his outstanding federal bankruptcy fraud charges Dykstra would face 25 new charges in Los Angeles, including grand theft auto, identity theft, and possession of a controlled substance, despite my childhood admiration of him, Nails’s slew of legal troubles has not been hard for me to take. Quoth I:

…Dykstra’s long, sad descent into ignominy has not shattered my world in any way. I know what sociopathy and degeneracy are now, and while I understand that we are presumed innocent until proven guilty in this country, I recognize that both labels could aptly be applied to Lenny. But for anyone who, like me, became a fan in 1993 and looked up to Dykstra and has been affected by this news, try to look on the bright side. Yes, he’s being charged on 23 felony counts, but think of all the things he isn’t being charged with: assault with a deadly weapon; murder; child molestation; torture; planning, initiating, and waging wars of aggression; crimes against humanity; and so much more.

Well, today we can scratch off another despicable offense from the list of things he hasn’t been charged with. The Chicago Tribune reports on the latest sleazy charge:

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Tuesday’s 5.8 magnitude Virginia earthquake sent no one to the grave, thankfully, and minorly injured only a handful of people. It caused an estimated $100 million in damages. Chump change.

I felt it, up in Toronto. It was honestly a bit thrilling; a party in my cubicle. And after watching the video below, one that you may or may not have seen elsewhere along your travels, I’ve come to the conclusion that the earthquake was, in fact, a gift. Witness:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2hiyLID1sY

My favorite quotes, in chronological order:

Hang on.

What’s shakin’?

Holy shit.

Is there a building shaking?

Should we … go somewhere?

This is it. This is what an earthquake is, guys.

Did you know that most of Manhattan is built on landfill, not on granite, and if there were like an 8.0 earthquake then parts of Manhattan would just disintegrate. Did you know that?

I did. I’d like to … not be worried about that right now.

Priceless. The whole thing. But especially Jeremy Brisiel’s loosening of his tie, and repeated clicking of his pen. And shout-out to Corey Schwartz: He never broke character. At a time of great fear and confusion, he continued to do what he does: Drop knowledge. What a man.

I don’t know about you, but I’m all for another minor earthquake. Maybe a few minor earthquakes. Mostly because I want to see how Brisiel, Schwartz, and Mike Siano Nando DiFino — Thanks, Paul, from the comments — are going to react the second time around. Godspeed, gentlemen.

Moments after NotGraphs reader, and future Nobel laureate, Ethan S. let us know about the very special video above, I followed him on Twitter. You should probably do the same. And, last but certainly not least: Thank you, too, Deadspin. For all that you do.

As you may have heard, The Captain is now available for freelance love-making. And so to celebrate both love lost and the forthcoming tide of wild oats that will shame any earthquake or hurricane, here is an obscenely large photo of Derek Jeter and Minka Kelly locked in captive embrace and Frenching like teenage thunder …

Seriously, click to embiggen: This thing is huge!

Those amongst the readership who’re both (a) comfortable with advanced metrics and (b) facile with the Twitters, are perhaps aware that Buster Olney is not entirely convinced of the Power and Glory of WAR. While our Full-Time Cancer Destroyer, Dave Cameron, addressed some of Olney’s concerns back in the beginning of August, Olney dedicated some portion of his AM on Friday to WAR-related handwringing.

While I don’t claim to understand the urgency behind Olney’s Inquisition-in-Miniature, I’m also positive that there’s more than one way to skin the cat called Being a Fine Person — a cat that Olney appears to skin more often than not. For let us not forget, reader, that even though Olney cares little for our particular brand of nerdery, that he is also not above sustaining reasonably-toned dialogues with people who have willingly (one expects) adopted the Twitter handle Sex Cauldron. This represents a sort of benevolence of which the present author is largely incapable — and I, as you will know, am neither (a) on TV nor (b) an expert in anything beyond my own personal weaknesses.

In the last #2/#7 battle of the tournament, Sparky Lyle triumphed. His ‘stache was not trash, and it overcame Don Mattingly’s strange over-sized comic-strip-backed entry into the competition. Twirl those ends!

And so we move to the #3/#6 battles. If the tourney seeding committee, comprised of me, has seeded these things well, the voting will be tight. This week, both cards come from the same set, but the players are found at very different points of their career.

1989 Topps Andre Dawson
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Tonight’s Daguerreotype of the Evening required alarmingly little deliberation on my part. After this sentence concludes, I think you’ll understand why …

The fact that the framers were fond of drawing celebrities of the day as ducks — every time Hamilton droned on and on about this or that, Jefferson would doodle Vivaldi as a giggling mallard, for instance — to this day informs originalist interpretations of the Constitution. So in some ways, a bewinged and bebilled Jim Edmonds fulfills Madison’s fondest hopes. Stated another way, if Jim Edmonds had never been rendered as a duck, then you’d be quartering soldiers in your home under threat of the hoosegow.

But all of this is obvious, of course.

Please believe me, reader, when I say, first of all, that I’m nowhere near as old as — and considerably less bedraggled than — my colleague Dayn Perry. Please believe me also, though, when I say that, as a 31-year-old man, I’ve learned some things in this life — some things that I’d like very much to pass on, just as men Dayn’s age, before their respective and uniformly disturbing deaths, have passed on to me.

It’s for this reason that it warmed the cockles of my heart today to receive a tweet from Will, a UTK freshman and (it would seem) Pieter Bruegel enthusiast. Will is looking for an explanation as regards the image you see embedded above. Let’s see if Uncle Carson can’t satisfy Will’s curiosity!

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