Who’s the real Aqua Velva Man, Steve Garvey or Pete Rose?

Is it more Aqua Velva Manly to call time out at the plate because you’re not finished talking about your cologne and then, upon homering, vaguely insult the Brooklyn-born catcher’s ways with the ladies?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXVwzpd99Mc&playnext=1&list=PL745CA8E459F589D0

Or is it more Aqua Velva Manly to quite possibly make Aqua Velva-smelling love to the media just after taking a few cuts?

Only you, readers, can decide who wins this Aqua Velva Men Showdown.

Francoeur is as Francoeur does.

The informed reader will no doubt have learned by now that the Royals have extended Perpetual Sabermetric Talking-Point Jeff Francoeur for two more years. The news has sent ripples of self-righteous pleasure through the baseballing nerdosphere, nor is such a reaction wholly unjustified: despite his decent 2011, Francoeur probably isn’t even an average major leaguer. To their credit, the Royals aren’t really paying him like one, either: the reported contract of two years and $13.5 million suggests something like a 1.5-win player — something that Francoeur is probably capable of being.

For the present, though, we’ll put aside contractual matters and turn our attention to another thing for which Francoeur is known. For it was in a May 2009 piece by ESPN’s Jerry Crasnick regarding plate discipline that Francoeur famously asked the question “If on-base percentage is so important, then why don’t they put it up on the scoreboard?”

Some pointed out at the time (and rightfully so) that it’s not really the responsibility of a club’s scoreboard department to paint a precise portrait of a player’s value. Others — like Craig Calcaterra, for example — noted that OBP actually is on the scoreboard.

What if we took Francoeur’s comment literally, though? If we were to use importance as the only criteria of what should appear on a stadium’s scoreboard, what information would most likely appear there?

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In last night’s Royals-Yankees tilt, there was a bit of controversy surrounding a home run hit by the Royals’ Billy Butler which shouldn’t have been a home run (it hit a padded railing which is in play. Or something). Of course, demonstrating such technicalities is best used with the use of the telestrator, perhaps the greatest piece of modern broadcasting technology. And oh, did they use it well in Kansas City last night.

I would describe what is going on here, but luckily Answer Man Dave Brown (who originally uploaded the picture, thanks Dave!) already did us this solid:

PHOTO: KC broadcast uses telestrator for disputed Butler HR, makes it appear guy w/ beer is peeing blue: http://t.co/5DgW7ym #juvenile

He’s peeing! And it’s blue! On TV! Ha ha! And I must say that’s quite a stream he has going. Don’t even act like you’re not impressed. A big time salute to whoever in the Royals’ booth was operating that telestrator. I know I speak for all of us when I say we couldn’t do it (i.e. life) without you.

Dude I’ve got great tickets for the game tonight.
Sweet! When are you picking me up.
Well, uh…
Dude. You are NOT bringing Nick. He doesn’t even like baseball.
Yeah, well, you like it a little much.
Whatever. What time are you picking me up.
I was thinking about asking Jen.
She’ll hate you for it.
Fine. I’ll get you at six. Be out front.
Thanks dude. You won’t regret it.
I already do.
…
Look, I can see the pitches man. Right down the pipe.
What are you taking out of your – No. Put that away.
Steeerike one.

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Out of the chaos of the convention floor comes your list of nominees, whittled down by the Maximum Exchequer and a certain oversexed sergeant-at-arms. Who — who! — should be named forevermore “Frog in the Pot”? (As always, please refrain from voting unless you’re a property-owning Episcopalian.)

Conflicted? By all means, read over the convention minutes and let the delegates persuade you with their Hot Parliamentary Action!

I am a Cardinals fan. Our own Jack Moore is a Brewers fan. These are well and good facts and signifiers of a healthy Republic. Still, these allegiances have put us at cross purposes this season, despite the NotGraphs ties — sexy, buckled latex ties — that bind.

Generalissimo Cistulli is fond of calling Mr. Moore “America’s Kid Brother,” but of late I sense a darker side to Jackie Hazelnuts — a side that will be laid bare by the following exchange of Twitter Tweets. I present this unfortunate brannigan with a touch of formality that will call to mind either an Ionesco playscript or Atticus Finch cross-examination of titillating righteousness …

@daynperry Does anyone really doubt that the Brewers will win tonight?

@jh_moore Suck it, Perry. RT @daynperry: Does anyone really doubt that the Brewers will win tonight?

@daynperry @jh_moore I vaguely compliment your team’s hot streak, and that’s the thanks I get?

@jh_moore @daynperry Apparently.

@daynperry @jh_moore You just cost the Brewers the vastly more lucrative People’s Championship.

@jh_moore @daynperry I thought Nyjer Morgan did that a long time ago.

If you know nothing else about our traffic-contriving strategies here at NotGraphs, please know that a Call-to-Action Poll is forthcoming forthwith …

It’s the little things that make baseball, to these eyes, the best damn game on the planet. Like Peter Bourjos catching a fly ball he has no business — none, whatsoever — getting to, one that his teammate, right-fielder Torii Hunter, dove for and missed. Or back-to-back nights of triple plays on the diamond, one a 4-6-3-2 effort, the other an amazing 5-4-3 number. Baseball, man, isn’t she great?

Tuesday night, I was up late on the east coast, watching the Blue Jays play the Mariners in Seattle, and I was struck by more of baseball’s little things. Like the taking over of Safeco Field by Blue Jays faithful from Vancouver, and other parts of beautiful British Columbia. The boisterous — but extremely polite — Canadians got Mike Carp’s attention Monday night:

We were talking about it in the dugout. I mean, it was getting annoying. This is our ballpark.

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You may not have been alive back in 1991.  Or perhaps you were, but you weren’t of the age where you came home from school to eat macaroni and cheese and watch Disney Afternoon on syndicated television.  But if you were, and you had parents who bought you Nintendo games for Christmas and didn’t consult with you about them first, you may have once before opened up an instruction booklet to read these words:

At last it can be told. How, at the turn of the 24th Century
the game of baseball was changed forever. It happened in Cape
Codpiece, Florida during the annual winter meetings. On the
aluminum paneled walls of the posh hotel’s Presidential Room
hung stirring portraits of baseball’s all-time greats. Legends
like Cecil “Rooftop” Shingleton, Travis “Tee” O’ Justice, and Tip
“Rude” Wayter. Around the huge conference table sat a group of
sour, seething executives collectively known as the baseball
team owners. The issue before them-astronomical player salaries.
(A Solar League official had just ordered one of the weakest
franchises to shell out $2.4 billion a year to Gomer “Go Homer”
Gomez, a lifetime .250 hitter.)

For hours the owners debated their options. Until suddenly
Irving Flopilidopolous, owner of the Boston Banshees, leaped from
his chair and slammed his fist on the table.

“Robots!” he exclaimed. The other owners looked blankly
at each other. Then smiles slowly crept across their faces as they
realized they had found the solution-replace the players with
mechanical men. No more salary demands. Better yet, no more salaries!
Just obedient automatons pre-programmed for action.

The now inspired owners worked feverishly that weekend
to refine their new sport which they christened Base Wars. The
public was quickly captivated by this bizarre combination of
baseball and gladiatorial combat played by an army of armor clad
cybernetic swingers. They especially loved the one-on-one battle
royales for base possession, the loser of which is retired to the
scrap yard. It wasn’t long before Base Wars became the new
intergalactic pastime.

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The reader might have found himself under the impression of late that, owing to how Charlie Blackmon recently injured himself, that the present author would be looking to use his white-hot prose skills to eulogize some other sort of baseballing PYT.

Allow me to inform the reader immediately that such an impression is decidedly false. How the reader ever found himself under it is a great mystery — and he (i.e. the reader) would do well to begin finding himself astride, athwart, or any other preposition as regards said impression.

In fact, Mr. Blackmon has found some other outlets for his conspicuous Talent — namely, in the different-but-kinda-the-same arts of beard-growing and tweeting.

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Our ongoing quest, in the manner of the noble knight-errant, is to assign players to cool nicknames rather than indulge in the tired, shopworn paradigm of assigning nicknames to cool players.

First, though, a brief jaunt through our Nickname Seeks Player Vaulted Halls of Honor:

“Bad Miracle” – Wily Mo Peña
“Captain Black Tobacco” – John Danks
“$45 Couch” – Yuniesky Betancourt
“Liván Hernández” – Liván Hernández

The nickname up for grabs in this episode? It’s “Frog in the Pot”!

“Frog in the Pot” comes to us by way of the most excellent Don Malcolm, who coined it, in passing, over in this BBTF thread. Frog in the damn pot!

Denotations, Connotations, Implications, Intimations, and Incriminations:

Mr. Malcolm used it to refer to James Loney, who is like a Frog in the Pot because he’s “slowly fried to death as his decline (the increasing water temperature) proceeds by increments.” So the “slow boil of failure” is one possible defining characteristic of the “Frog in the Pot.”

It could also be a player who looks or sounds funny because “Frog in a Pot” is funny. At least until the burner gets fired up.

As well, if Arnold Lobel’s “Frog and Toad” series is any guide — and it is — then the frog is a stabilizing, clear-headed entity. So think of a team leader who slowly boils to death.

Failing any of that, think of a player who embodies what we talk about when talk about frogs.

Prototypes from Baseball’s Gauzy Past:

If Bill Pulsipher didn’t slowly boil to death, then I don’t know who did. Don Mossi kind of looked like a frog. So did Wally Moon. And Benjie Molina is pretty clearly what we talk about when we talk about frogs.

Guiding, Determinative Query:

Which current major-league player should be nicknamed “Frog in the Pot”?

The convention floor, which is covered in freshly steam-cleaned Oasis Blue shag carpeting, is hereby open for nominations …