Texas Rangers pitcher Derek Holland, whose twitter name is Dutch_Oven45 (let’s just leave it), posted this tweet last week:
fantasy football can deff make u very frustrated at times, few guys had awesome days today on my bench , so happy
My interpretation of these fine words is above, the first in what will be a series of me taking things literally on paper.
Halloween is less than three weeks away, NotGraphers. Have you chosen a costume yet? If not, you are in luck. We’re here to advise you.
Vampires, witches, zombies, ghosts, mummies, and sexy nurses are all so passé, you see. It’s time to add some pizazz to your All Hallows’ Eve getup by going as your favorite MLB personality.
I have saved you the trouble of going out of your way (to that seedy seasonal Halloween store in the bombed out shopping center in the building where the Blockbuster Video used to be with that cashier with his forehead pierced) by listing the necessary components for each respective costume along with links to online stores from which they can be purchased. Mindful of our tough economic times, these costumes are carefully constructed to cost you no more than $100 (before shipping).
We weren’t all born as beautiful as Gabe Kapler. But we were born better looking than the ugly ones, so we can get a little happiness from the downward social comparison that is picking the All Ugly Team.
Also, let’s be clear. Your faithful correspondent is placing himself as the bench coach of this team. Ugly enough to belong, but not ugly enough to lead the team. Plus, we know that God Loves Ugly, so there’s that. And! I’ve never played a second of organized ball for a dime, so they have all got something on me, and most of you I presume.
But we can still have a little fun with this, can’t we?
In case you haven’t heard about it, there’s been quite a bit of hubbub over chicken in Boston lately. Also, video games and beer. How anybody could think about blaming anything on these triumphs of humanity is beyond me, but what Dan Schaughnessy wants, he gets.
Meanwhile, one football writer in the area, Greg Bedard of the Boston Globe, really grabbed this one and ran with it:
I get jokes!
Unfortunately for others in the Boston football media, like Ian Rapoport of the Boston Herald, such jokes often attract some very dense questions.
Maybe he was just hungry. Or maybe Hernandez is simply becoming the next vessel of a chicken-demon haunting Boston sports since October. I simply don’t think any reporter worth his salt can dismiss such a quality.
Or maybe he was just hungry.
As you may have heard, certain sinister Boston layabouts spent much of the 2011 season acting like doobage enthusiasts sans doobage. Well, America’s Worst Sports SectionTM is back on the case like a maggot on a leach on a lamprey, and they have a gallery that invites you to decide, with gentle nudging from America’s Worst Sports SectionTM, whether certain key members of the Red Sox got fat as the season deepened and the KFC boxes and cans emptied of shitty beer mounted. Here’s one representative photo of the previously un-indicted Clay Buchholz:
If you’re like me, then so moved were you by the implications of the photo above that you began scampering around on all fours, rooting at the floors, sprouting cloven hooves, and making your finest and most bellowing hog-to-the-slaughter noises. Look, will you, at that indolent sworper of a man in the second photo! The Caligulan excesses! The betrayal of The Nation! Fack!
By all means, peruse the entire gallery. It’s striking how lighting and angles can reveal before God and all The Fat and The Lazy.
So shape up, Sox, or that guy in Globe mail room who knows Photoshop will give you all piggy snouts.
(A piece of fried chicken shared like the strand of pasta in “Lady and the Tramp”: HBT)
“You’re out of your depth.”
Okay, so I may have called the Moneyball movie “boring.” Perhaps it could have been spiced-up a bit by adopting Bradley Woodrum’s excellent suggestions. But I may need to revise my opinion now that I have happened across one of the many revisions of the script. This particular reivision was done by noted directory Paul Thomas Anderson. One unfilmed scene from Anderson’s script between Brad Pitt’s Billy Beane and Anderson-favorite Philip Seymour Hoffman Art Howe really stood out to me.
—————————–
INT. A’s OFFICES – THAT MOMENT
BILLY BEANE and PETER BRAND emerge from Billy’s office and walk done the hallway…. PETER’s eyes widen and he ducks into the video room… BILLY keeps walking…. ARTIE H. approaches…
ARTIE H.: Hey, Billy.
BILLY: Artie, hey, what’s up, man?
ARTIE H.: Freaking lost again, y’know, right?
BILLY: Four in row.
ARTIE H.: Right. Hey, did you see my new lineup for tonight’s game?
BILLY: You have a new lineup?
ARTIE H.: Yeah, you wanna see?
BILLY: Sure.
Two points for every “yes” response.
Have you ever…
1. Been in a fantasy league?
2. …more than five in a season?
3. …more than ten?
4. Done a mock draft, just for fun?
5. …even when they stopped being fun?
6. …even while you had other things you knew you should have been doing, and the idea of practicing for a fake thing by doing an even more fake thing made you feel like the most useless person in the world, yet you couldn’t resist?
7. Owned a copy of Ron Shandler’s Baseball Forecaster?
8. …an autographed copy?
9. Told a major league player that he was on your team?
10. …asked him to steal more bases?
Read the rest of this entry »
NotGraphs, of course, has a lengthy and proud history of using animal GIFs and or action-video footage as stand-ins for baseball happenings. Unbelievably enough, we have not yet decided to stop doing this. And so courtesy of the lovely and talented Crashburn Alley comes the forthcoming bit of wonderment. Please and thank you click!
Now that you have sufficiently absorbed the image in question, we are compelled to ask:
Thank you for voting, and may the ungovernable berserker-sheep among us grant you safe passage.
Briefly, between pitches, please take note:
Now, fans of baseball, back to the game, as the urgent breaking update suggests.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3V9kJw-kWQ8
I don’t technically need a reason to post the video above. It stands alone, and the test of time, as you certainly know by now. That’s the beauty of NotGraphs; under Chairman Cistulli, we roam free. But I actually have one. A reason, I mean: The New York Times wrote about the Milwaukee Brewers’ famed sausage race:
And just past first base, it was the chorizo, the one in the sombrero, who broke the orange tape as the victor.
How’s that for a sentence about a sausage race? The Times makes it so easy to visualize the race, to picture the sausages running for glory. In my mind’s eye, I can see the chorizo crossing the finish line, arms raised in triumph, ending with whatever the hell it is a victorious Usain Bolt does at the end of one of his races.
Obviously, no article about Milwaukee’s sausage race is complete without the details of what occurred at Miller Park on July 9, 2003. With one swing of the bat, history was altered. Pittsburgh Pirates then-first baseman Randall Simon’s life would never be the same. Nor would Mandy Block’s. Not after Simon struck poor Block, only 19-years-old at the time of her assualt, an innocent Italian Sausage running her first and last sausage race, with a bat to her head.
Our lives, too, were changed. We — society — knew that we would never, ever see or hear three people talking as seriously about a sausage race again.
The police report of the incident, which ESPN’s Page 2 were the first to get their hands on, was damning:
