As I’m sure the well-bred reader will concur, insolent behavior is not a thing to praised in and of itself. While, of course, there’s a time and a place for strong words and stronger deeds (after midnight and at a gentlemen’s club, respectively), it is generally best for the aristocrat to maintain a healthy respect for propriety.

Occasionally, however, the opportunity presents itself for a true and beautiful act of finely crafted insubordination. Man among men Grant Brisbee reminded the present author of just such an opportunity via a recent internet weblog post at Baseball Nation — namely, the occasion of Ichiro Suzuki’s first-ever ejection from a professional baseball game.

The footage you see here is from that same game, which took place in Toronto’s Rogers Centre back in September of 2009. After being called out looking by umpire Brian Runge, the always composed Ichiro! — rather than enter into any sort of verbal contretemps with Runge — opted instead for a bit of the Meaningful Gesture, noting with his bat the precise trajectory at which the ball traveled into the catcher’s mitt.

While Runge ejected Ichiro immediately, it’s clear who won both the battle and the war.

I make no secret of my soaring admiration for all things Jose Bautista, for whom my love is both boundless and without bound. As such I was pleased to learn that Joey Bats is as adept at Internetting as he is at smiting cowhide orbs over fencing.

If you follow Mr. Bautista on Twitter — and, oh, you should — then you’ll be familiar with his frequent use of the #beastmode hash tag. I don’t know what the mode of beasts is, but when Mr. Bautista proclaims he is in said mode, I take him at his word. However, an unfortunate lil’ buckaroo named Tyler Broderick would very much prefer that Mr. Bautista not enter beastmode ever again:

@JoeyBats19 stop using beastmode in every tweet. Only members of the SH goon squad are aloud to do so you faggot

I have no idea what the “SH goon squad” is, but my working assumption is that members in good standing can’t read Dropkick Murphys liner notes without moving their lips. Take it away, Joey Bats …

Douchemode, indeed. Back to you, Tyler!

@JoeyBats19 I didn’t spell anything wrong bro SH stands for South Hadley. My boy Ryan Horstman is gonna be striking your ass out in 4 years

At this point, the discerning observer will discerningly observe that young Tyler is being ridiculed for confusing “aloud” with “allowed,” and not for abbreviating the name of his facking hometown.

What’s next? Naturally, young Tyler, after calling Mr. Bautista an English bundle of sticks, will enter #mewlingbabykittenmode and meow about how Jose Bautista was mean to him.

At this point, I declare, in my finest Judge Lance Ito fashion, two things: One, Jose Bautista is much better at Internetting than Tyler Broderick is, and , two, Ryan Horstman will never, ever strike out Jose Bautista.

Also, despite declarations to the contrary, no, young Tyler, America does not have your back in this one.

I’ve never personally hit a home run in a major-league baseball game. However, were I to hit a home run in that type of baseball game, I’d probably make sure to do a weird, flamboyant helicopter motion thing with my left arm — like the one Dan Uggla performed, I mean, just after hitting a home run against Diamondback rookie Wade Miley on Saturday night.

The Tampa Bay Rays have not had a proper submission to the Mustache Watch archives since the days of Dale Thayer — which actually predates the Watch — so it is good to see them aim for a late-season push with quality submissions such as the above-featured John Jaso.

In the presented image, we Jaso’s mantastic face-stache displays some of its incredible flexibility, miming the governial concernedness of Nehemiah Green, Kansas’s most famous fourth governor:

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In the tradition of Dodger rookie Rubby de la Rosa, Philadelphia shortstop Jimmy Rollins left Sunday’s game with an unexpected — and slightly embarrassing — injury.

Watching him — Jacksonville Suns pitcher Graham Taylor — round third base, you knew we were in store for a grand finale. The bottom line: Safe. But yet another reminder for the National League to join us in the 21st century and embrace the designated hitter, so that the above nightmare never happens in the major leagues.

H/Ts: The Twitter feed of soon-to-be Toronto Blue Jay Logan Morrison, and ScoreBuzz.

Me too, Mr. Morrow. Me too.

The most excellent quote comes to us from Seattle’s The News Tribune, via the foul-mouthed, but always informative, Drunk Jays Fans. Here’s another:

Some of those [2011] numbers don’t look so hot, but if you look at the nerd stats, I’m having a pretty good year. I’m not always sure how they come to those conclusions, but I like them.

Again: Me too. Math is crazy. And I can’t help but wonder whether Morrow knows he scores a perfect 10 according to the most recent Pitcher NERD Leaderboards of Pleasure.

I can picture Morrow, though, almost vividly, in his downtown Toronto condo, on his laptop, perusing FanGraphs.com.

“Honey, guess whose FIP is now under 3.00, and good for sixth in the American League? Beast mode! And, whoa, my SIERA’s third in the AL, behind only Verlander and Sabathia. Double beast mode!”

Brandon Morrow is one of those guys with electric “stuff.” Now, I don’t know about you, but I love that the word “stuff,” so banal, is used to describe a pitcher who throws a baseball a remarkable number of which ways, who makes a baseball dance, who strikes out the most batters per nine innings in all of the game. But more than just his “stuff,” Morrow, as evidenced, is a highly educated man. He’s like me, like you, like us. He appreciates advanced baseball statistics. He’s a nerd. Brandon Morrow is the thinking man’s A.J. Burnett.

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For most of the season, 35-year-old Phillies journeyman bench bat Ross Gload has been nursing a bum hip which has severely limited his ability to play the game of baseball competently. He has walked in 2.4 percent of his plate appearances while striking out in 22.6 percent of them. Of his 19 hits, four of them have gone for extra bases (none of those four extra base hits were triples or homers). He currently sports a .238/.256./.288 slash line in 84 plate appearances. All of this he has done with a .311 BABIP. Yes, compared to his career norms, he has actually been a bit lucky on balls in play.

The solution would appear simple: put the aging, injured, and ineffective player out to pasture. It is something the Phillies could have (and should have) done over the last four months with precisely zero negative consequences. And yet, there he still is, on their major league roster. It is something that has puzzled me every time I’m watching a game and see him preparing to make one of his likely unsuccessful pinch hitting appearances. “Holy shit!” I exclaim. “Ross Gload is still payed paid (ed. note: derp) to play baseball for my favorite team. How can this be?”

Just yesterday, after watching Gload go 0 for 4 in a rare start at first base in place of Ryan Howard, I realized that the answer to my question has been staring me in the face all along:

Just look at those eyes! How can one possibly DFA a man who is so clearly anguished by a past of abuse and rejection? His face would not be out of place in one of those Sarah McLachlan “save the animals” commercials. If he were smart, Gload would use his sad eyes for coercive purposes. I can only conclude that Phillies General Manager Ruben Amaro, Jr. has on numerous occasions attempted to cut Gload loose, only to face a crisis of conscience upon looking him in the eyes. Here’s how I imagine the conversation going:

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First, click to embiggen and then regard and drink deeply of …

I’ve checked with the jurisdictional authorities, and you are permitted to choose one of these ladies for an evening of Chablis, board games and necking. And remember that a gentleman never does two things: use “party” as a verb or discuss the clap.

I choose them all.

As a Dodger, Ausmus would often accidentally freeze mid-swing.

Fans of the Astros might’ve have been very ready for catcher Brad Ausmus’s departure from that team. The available numbers from Ausmus’s last six seasons in Houston all point to the aging catcher as something like replacement-level.

That said, he was excellent for a number of seasons, was always highly regarded for his ability to work with pitchers, and — as you might expect from a grad of even a lesser Ivy like Dartmouth — is rather articulate.

All the reasons in that second paragraph are reasons the curious baseballing enthusiat might care to listen to Ausmus’s recent appearance on NPR’s Fresh Air. The full audio is available at the NPR website, but you can find some excerpts from the interview transcript below.

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