This is the story I hoped never to write.

In the end, Icarus flew too close to the Minotaur’s groin. In this case, Icarus is Princess Sugar Pickles the moth, and the Minotaur’s groin — or was it the sun? — is Matt Holliday’s handsome ear canal.

I present to you, thanks to what must have been an elaborate series of FOIA requests on the part of FOXSports Midwest, a photo of the corpse of Princess Sugar Pickles, drained of blood and hope:

Even though Princess Sugar Pickles was already battered by her encounter with Holliday’s inhospitable malleus, incus and stapes, she managed to survive the trainers’ ham-fisted attempts to remove her. What then happened to our returning, battle-weary heroine?

The moth was eventually removed from deep in Holliday’s ear after an estimated stay of about ten minutes. When the moth emerged, it was still alive.

At this point, I phoned the Cardinal clubhouse …

And then …

The moth was later killed by someone other than Holliday and placed into a plastic bag, which the outfielder proudly displayed to members of the media Tuesday afternoon.

Woe betide the “man” who has perpetrated this! And I certainly hope “placed into a plastic bag” is shorthand for “ushered over to the other side by a solemn and well attended Viking funeral, promptly followed by a vigorous prosecution of her killer.”

There is but one consoling fact: Mr. Holliday seems to have the proper perspective …

Asked if he killed the moth as retribution, Holliday said, “No I didn’t. I just think so much wisdom was passed onto him that he died with an overflow of wisdom of being inside my head.”

Tonight, pour one out for PSP. Meanwhile, I’ll be getting the crew together for One Last Job^TM.

(Thanks to reader Yirmiyahu and his Sauron-like lidless eye, which sees all, so long as it’s on the Internet.)

What was once a fairly compelling race in the NL Central has devolved into a pants-down spanking as stripped of dramatics as it is of those pants I just mentioned. I tell no tales when I say this GIF of dogs embedded below provides a fairly accurate retelling of what’s unfolded here in the Beer Belt.

Position your cursor over the image below, and then your cursor will transform into the white-gloved hand of Jeeves or perhaps Julie Andrews. At that point you may click, and enjoy the punchline of this sprightly dispatch!

In case you were wondering, this is the moment at which the dog in pursuit gets dry-gulched by the hedgerow.

So congratulations, Brewers. You and your perfect fur the color of Julie Andrews’s gloves …

(Canine-style butt-sniffing: IHC)

To date, Phillies right fielder Hunter Pence has mostly distinguished himself for his ability to hit and catch and throw a baseball. On account of he does all these things pretty well, it would be bad form to begrudge him a lack of expertise in a second field.

And yet, it appears as though this is the exact thing upon which Mr. Pence has designs. For what other reason, I ask the reader, would CNN have cited Pence in their preliminary report on this afternoon’s earthquake along the Eastern Seaboard — an area populated by some 100 million people, many of them, no doubt, with degrees in journalism?

If you answered “No discernible one” you’re quite likely right. If you answered, “Because their early coverage of the ‘quake was strangely baseball-centric,” that might be correct, too: one of the other sources cited by CNN was Tribe Insider, the official Twitter feed of the Cleveland Indians.

Apropos rumors that the earthquake was a result of this afternoon’s giant and shocking trade between the Blue Jays and Diamondbacks, NotGraphs is unable to confirm or deny same.

H/T devoted reader, commenter, and (one imagines) spirited layabout Yirmiyahu.

The footage you see here comes to us courtesy (a) the eighth inning of Sunday’s Giants-Astros game and (b) Houston left fielder J.D. Martinez’s Arm of Wonder.

If we presume that the above represents a battle of sorts between the aforementioned Martinez and the natural force Gravity, then we must also presume that Gravity will want a rematch at some point so’s to even the proverbial score.

As I noted last week in a FanGraphs post aimed both at the heart and the head, Baseball America recently released its Best Tools issue. For those who possess an unhealthy fascination with the hairless youths that populate minor-league baseball, the Best Tools issue represents an opportunity to learn which of those youths precisely owns the best power or best defense or best fastball in each respective league — and in the major leagues, too.

The problem, of course, is that the majority of BA’s readership is concerned with things like “facts” — which (i.e. facts), while interesting for a period, eventually begin to pall.

We at NotGraphs are concerned not with facts — what legendary filmmaker and frightening dinner companion Werner Herzog refers to as the “accountant’s truth” — but rather ecstatic truth. That is, the truth that ought to be true.

Thus, we thusly present the following: a hastily assembled, and totally unsupported, list of the “tools” most relevant to the ordinary fan, just sitting at home on his couch, thinking unkempt thoughts about Sofia Vergara and liniment.

Note that all dissent will fall on deaf ears — or, at least, the one deaf ear that the author sustained during a swimming accident as a 7-year-old. The same author will gladly accept any and all notes, however — especially if it allows him (read: me) to squeeze another short post out of this thinnest of pretenses.

To the truth, in no order whatsoever:

Best Mustache/Beard Situation: Travis Snider

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With his Aruba team facing elimination down 20-0 in the fourth inning of their Little League World Series game against Taiwan, 11-year-old Vaughn Bergen danced like he hadn’t a care in the world. And frankly, why should he have a care in the world? He’s 11 years old. He’s playing in the Little League World Series. When he leaves Williamsport, he will return home to FRIGGIN’ ARUBA (not a rich country by any stretch, I should note, but seated relatively comfortably between countries like Portugal and Cyprus in the GDP per c
apita power rankings).

Bergen’s father, Luigi (also a coach for the Aruban team), credits his son’s dance moves for the team’s late surge to cut Taiwain’s lead to just 17:

“The dancing thing got everyone smiling, and they started hitting the ball in that last inning,” Luigi Bergen said.

And they kept hitting. In Monday’s consolation game, Aruba beat South Dakota, 5-0. Vaughn knocked in the first run in that one.

“I was mad because we were not going to make it to the final,” Vaughn said when asked why he started dancing in the middle of Saturday’s game.

“My dad told me to enjoy myself, and I did.”

My only advice to young Bergen would be to continue to reap the benefits of his adorability while he can, because as soon as he hits puberty, all that this behavior will get him is a 7-minute on-air scolding from Bobby Valentine about how he’s an immature clubhouse cancer. 

Matt Holliday — Handsome Matt Holliday — was forced to depart the Cardinals’ most recent dumb-ass loss because of … a moth in his ear.

Mr. Holliday was visibly distressed by having a moth in his ear, which is quite understandable. Had this been yours truly, I would’ve burst into tears, run screaming in growing concentric circles, and searched desperately for the nearest blunt object, firearm or sharpened rapier that would help me over-murder myself. Mr. Holliday was decidedly more composed, which should surprise no one. In fact, the most excellent Derrick Goold provides the pleasing conclusion to our tale:

Holliday was not available for comment after the game, and the team official was not sure if Holliday would see a doctor or a specialist to determine if the moth did any damage while wedged inside his ear. The moth was still alive when they removed it from the left fielder’s ear. Holliday was said to be feeling fine when he left the ballpark.

He took the moth with him.

He took the moth with him! A lesser man would probably take the moth with him for purposes of grim revenge. However, Mr. Holliday, moth whisperer that he is, surely took the adorable moth home to the kids. On the sprawling yet eco-friendly Holliday estate the moth, whose name is now Princess Sugar Pickles, will live a life of frolicsome delights, one marked by a permanent spot at the foot of the bed, frequent trips to the moth park and scrumptious, fair-trade moth treats on demand.

One day, the Holliday children will be told that Princess Sugar Pickles had to go to a farm in the country. This will mean that Princess Sugar Pickles has died.

New sports and culture site Grantland has a commercial on ESPN. A television commercial for a web site full of advanced analytics, popular culture criticism, and Bill Simmons screeds. This has to be some sort of milestone. Either it’s a high-water mark, that moment when the dorks of the web got so close to the mainstream that they appeared, for sixty seconds at a time, on a major cable sports network — or it’s the beginning of new possibilities for cross-platform advertising.

Either way, as the supreme navel gazers that we are here at FanGraphs, it’s time to turn inward. It’s time to storyboard the FanGraphs commercial.

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Dmitri Young is trying to make his way back into baseball. He’s lost weight and has his diabetes under control (at least, as much as one can do so with such a disease). He was seen at Monday’s Rays-Tigers game cheering on his brother and relatively new Tiger Delmon, and Da Meat Hook is looking pretty good:

Click to embiggen

An opposing fantasy team’s name once told me that Meat Falls From Dmitri. They were right.

And that’s one awesome Masters of the Universe shirt he’s rocking, too. Good for you, Dmitri. And maybe, just maybe, you can come back and improve your ranking as the 948th best hitter of all time. I’ll be rooting for you.

What follows is symptomatic of a healthy and confident gentleman:

I’m not going to go overboard and start comparing this nobleman and his velvety yet sturdy hands to Mitch “Charlemagne’s Poise” Davies, but I will say that this is the sort of plucky display that could, under the proper circumstances, lead to a night with Angie Dickinson.