Fun Baseball Armadillo Facts:

* Armadillos are members of the same family as anteaters and sloths. As is the case with most members of that superorder, they have low body temperatures and a slow metabolism. That helps them get through doubleheaders without needing a snack in between.

* Armadillos have poor vision, but large eyes. This makes them excellent candidates for umpiring once their playing careers are over.

* Armadillos are covered in relatively small, overlapping epidermal scales called “scutes”, composed of bone with a covering of horn. In most species, rigid shields cover the shoulders and hips, with a number of bands separated by flexible skin cover the back and flanks. Basically, catchers.

* The North American nine-banded armadillo often jumps straight up into the air when surprised, which can then send them straight into the bottom of your car. Kinda like when a slugger is trying to avoid the tight fastball and brings his hands right into the pitch.

* Armadillos are solitary animals that do not share their burrows with other adults. So don’t go try to hang out with him down there at the end of the bench.

* Armadillos have been consistently expanding their range in North America over the last century due to a lack of natural predators, and have been found as far north as southern Illinois and Indiana. Bandwagon fan.

* There’s a Pink Fairy Armadillo. It is pink, but not very fairy like, so he can startle. Sorta like when I showed my wife a picture of Corey Hart.

Presented with limited commercial interruption:

It’s pretty obvious that Mo Rivera is a straight-up classy dude. He’s also aged well, beginning as a novice starter, and morphing into an established closer, if you know what I mean. And this picture oozes machismo, no?  Power khakis, power belt, power polo. Wind-up wrist watch. Oh-bay-bee.

So Mariano, I know your voice isn’t working so well. You had that surgery, and we’re all so happy you’re doing well. Allow me to play wing man here.

Any ladies want a dance with the relief Romeo? Step right up.

Pictured above is a fish with a baseball in its mouth. Was it put there to silence his entreaties and complaints? Or is this how the fish catches the baseball?

Or was the ball placed in the fish’s mouth in order to provide a brief amusement — an amusement designed to make someone forget, for a fugitive moment, that he, like the fish, will one day die and that what lies beyond is as unknowable as it is unavoidable and that a nothingness that spans the black balance of forever might constitute … the best for which we can hope?

The fish with a baseball in its mouth is dead. And so we all shall be, probably sooner than we dare to contemplate. Is there meaning to be found in the inexorable misery that is as much a part of us as blood, bones, viscera, and dreams reduced to momentary consolations? It scarcely matters.

This has been your Daguerreotype of the Evening.

Reader Dawson Bergmann utilized his Twitter machine this afternoon to alert the present author to an image he’s (i.e. Bergmann’s) created using some combination of Photoshop and his imagination.

An image very similar to — although, I suppose, not precisely like — this (clicken to embiggen):

Might it be the start of a meme? Survey says “Possibly.” (Note: that the survey included a sample of only one person — that one person being the author — is immaterial.)

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Hey, every baseball card, please make note of former NFL center Jim Langer’s 1979 Topps card:

From BillRipken.com via Coudal.

I’m going to go ahead and file this one in my ‘utopia’ folder, because while I would love to live in a world where baseball cards and rap lyrics are allowed to mingle freely without fear of prosecution, I realize that it’s just not a practical idea. With that said, I salute you, 1999 Skybox Thunder, for refusing to let anything get in the way of your vision, for laughing at tradition, for daring to include not just stats or ‘fun facts’ on the back of your baseball cards, but also carefully crafted player-specific rap lyrics. They aimed for the moon and missed, but, contrary to what the poster said in my middle-school gymnasium, they did not land among the stars, mostly because the raps just flat out suck. You can read a much more thorough account from a superior writer here, or you can bear with me for like thirty more seconds.

There are over three hundred of these cards, and while I’m sure that each one is literally the best thing ever, I’m only going to give you one for the road: #H8, a special Mark McGwire ‘Hip-No-Tized’ Insert, which can be had for only six American dollars.

Here it is written out, so you don’t have to strain your pretty little eyes (because it’s all for you reader): Popeye… King of Swing… Big Mac… Does it really matter what we call you? It’s all good, ’cause we think you’re the greatest home run hitter of all time. More dingers per at-bat than anyone in history. Even The Babe can’t touch that stat. True that. True that.

I can’t knock the ‘hustle’, but I absolutely can knock the rhyme scheme. C’mon homies, that’s a soft verse.

WHO SAID IT: Matt Cain, or Herman Cain?

1. “To be able to go nine innings was completely amazing. That was definitely a little different, going straight over to the catcher and going back to the mound to shake hands.”

2. “OK, Libya. [pause] President Obama supported the uprising, correct? President Obama called for the removal of Gadhafi. I just wanted to make sure we’re talking about the same thing before I say, ‘Yes, I agreed’ or ‘No I didn’t agree.’ I do not agree with the way he handled it for the following reason — nope, that’s a different one. [pause] I gotta go back and see. I got all this stuff twirling around in my head. Specifically, what are you asking me that I agree or not disagree with Obama?”

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You will often hear those given to bemoaning bemoan the notion that Kids Today don’t play pickup baseball with the frequency or vigor that they did back in the days of the bemoaner. But, lo, there is good news! Thanks to an enterprising Japanese astronaut, we now know that any young stripling can hone his baseball chops with nothing more than a bat, a ball and a readily available zero-gravity environment. No need for friends or neighborhood confreres! Witness, my love:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xsNFqMtNZvI&feature=player_embedded

He balked.

(HT: The Internet)

This was one Dave Gershman on October 31st, 2011, just as the Hot Stove season picked up. Sunday night, the Miami Marlins made their first major as representatives of Miami, adding Jose Reyes on a six-year, $106 million deal. Suffice to say, that makes Jose Reyes a “big free agent.”

And yet, here we are, 10:30 AM Eastern Time, and we have no proof of this kitten eating he promised the world. Make no mistake — neither myself nor NotGraphs as a whole support nor condone the act of kitten eating. This is not about some sick desire to see a fellow man ingest a kitten — a certainly poor and defenseless creature! No, this is about accountability. What good are our claims as writers, as bloggers, as so-called experts, if we do not back them up with actions?

Mr. Gershman has provided excuses; he has attempted misdirection. But we are not fooled. These claims are not taken lightly in the blogger community. When we make promises, we back them up in this community. If even one does not, it reflects poorly on all of us, and it is simply unacceptable.

With every minute that passes without proof of the completed act, Mr. Gershman’s credibility dwindles further. You are on the spot now, Mr. Gershman. Your move.

This video — apparently taken circa 1990 — of Tommy Lasorda being irascible and flipping out on a camera crew was posted to YouTube yesterday and shared by VinScullyIsMyHomeboy.com.

Here is a transcription of Lasorda’s tirade — in verse form, of course:

Hey, tell them son of a bitches up there
that if I go one more fucking time
and this thing don’t work,
I’m gonna grab their fucking asses.

I’m fucking tired of this shit.

(We’re ready).

I gotta get ready now.
I gotta get
in the right fucking frame ‘a mind.

(Think good thoughts).

Fuckin’ assholes.

A few disjointed thoughts about this clip:

1. It needs to be noted in Lasorda’s defense that he is from Philadelphia (well, Norristown, more specifically), where we are shocked that only one out of every ten words he uttered in this tirade was “fuck.”

2. Tommy Lasorda has looked the same age for the last 30 years, at least. It wasn’t so great for him when he looked 75 at the age of 60, but now that he’s 84, I guess it’s not half bad.

3. I think this has some meme potential: