If my colleague Dayn Perry has taught us anything — besides that drinking in the AM isn’t a crime or anything so shut up everyone I’m not an alcoholic — it’s that everything we love will die.
Confirming that notion is this image, courtesy Google Earth and entirely embiggenable should it have been clicked, of Detroit’s Tiger Stadium as it looks today.
1. April 29, 1978. Three Rivers Stadium. Pittsburgh Pirates vs. San Francisco Giants. Bottom of the 5th. Pirates: 3; Giants: 0. 1 out. No one on base. Jim Barr pitching. 0.048 WPA. 1 RBI. Pirates win the game, 6-2.
What is not but could be if.
We could be crossing this abridged abyss
into beginning.
-Silver Jews
Mendoza, in the fourth year of his career, hits his first major league dinger. It’s worth noting here that in his four years in the Pirates’ farm system, Mendoza hit 18 homers. But still: three years in the majors have passed and Mendoza hasn’t seen that ball fly over the fences. One has to imagine that he’s been trying. It’s easy to imagine Mendoza, during his youth, Chihuahua, Mexico, swinging for the fences and watching his friends watch his home runs sail over their heads. He was almost certainly the best player on his block. Probably the neighborhood. Maybe the city. I’m not the first person to point out that the worst major league baseball player is still a very good baseball player, but have you really thought about how that must feel? To be the best at something your entire life and then suddenly, at the highest level, to have your name become synonymous with failure?
Read the rest of this entry »
Wherein I skip the Rangers and the Angels because there don’t seem to be any rappers willing to wear their chain, not because I don’t like them. I couldn’t find anything sweet enough from either team to grace the hallowed cyber-pages of NotGraphs, and I’m betting you, dear reader, can’t either. Prove me wrong, preferably in the form of a cordial comment below. 🙂
Two things worth talking about when talking about Rap in the AL West. 1, that MC Hammer was a bat boy for the Oakland A’s, and 2, that there’s this rapper from Seattle going by the moniker Macklemore and he’s pretty damn fresh.
The Part About MC Hammer
It goes like this – when Stanley Burrell (the kid on the left) was a kid growing up in Oakland he would hang around the A’s parking lot, doing his thing. He eventually caught the eye of A’s owner Charlie Finley, who made him a batboy. Reggie Jackson started calling the kid ‘Hammer’, because he looked so much like Hank Aaron, and the rest is rap history.
The Part About Macklemore
Macklemore, a rapper named Ben Haggerty from Seattle, knows what he’s doing. And the dude loves baseball. Last year he released a track called “My Oh My” in memory of longtime Mariners radio announcer Dave Niehaus. It may be the best rap song about baseball, and the video honestly brings chills. I just found it today, and I’ve probably watched it at least five times.
Every year XXL magazine compiles a list of rappers to watch called the Freshmen list. This year they’ve released a list of 50 finalists, and have opened it up to the public. Macklemore made the cut. He’s got my vote.
The child doesn’t want to sleep because of the wonderment about him. Why would one enter, of one’s own volition, that state of soft death when there is so much to absorb? The adult, in contrast, embraces the coward’s sojourn known as sleep because he realizes a consciousness-less existence — a numb, unfeeling life on ice — is in so many ways preferable to the waking one. These little tastes of the abyss ready us for the unending, unswerving one to come.
So it follows that when the human animal begins taking naps, begins looking forward to the captive embrace of suspended animation, the slide toward the grave has begun. Sleep is for those who are in on the joke and have figured out it is not funny but rather horrifying down to our decomposing bones.
And then there is Tug McGraw, who, in the face of all evidence, seemed … happy.
Tug McGraw almost certainly did not nap. Tug McGraw was like a kid out there. We miss you, Tug Damn McGraw.
So pleased was I two days prior when I beheld the glorious (and complex) visage of Rudy Pemberton on this webbed page, submitted for your approval by one Dayn Perry. Pemberton has been a favorite player of mine for the last two seasons based on his absolutely ridiculous 1996 season.
What happened in 1996 to Rudy Pemberton? you ask, predictably. I am glad that you, as I had anticipated, asked. First, he got released by the Tigers after hitting .315/.360/.580 at AAA and .300/.344/.467 in the Majors as a 25 year old in 1995. Then, he signed with Texas. The Rangers promptly traded him to Boston, who stashed him at Pawtucket (where he hit .326/.375/.616) until September.
On September 1, Pemberton was recalled from Pawtucket with Nomar Garciaparra. He played the next day and went 0-for-2, but Pemberton would finish the month at .512/.556/.780 with 21 hits in 41 at bats, 2 walks, 2 hit by pitch, 3 stolen bases, 8 doubles, 1 homer, 11 runs, and 10 RBI. Garciaparra hit .241/.272/.471, the pansy.
What follows is a non-exhaustive and only partially untrue list of facts regarding Rudy Pemberton’s incredible September, which should give you great joy: Read the rest of this entry »
Is the world ready for Bud Krampus?
Thanks to everyone for your nominations for the MLB Krampus. There were a lot of them — too many to include in a single poll, in fact. So, I pared away some potential nominees that I didn’t see fitting into the Krampus way of life. Sorry to disappoint anyone.
There were some nominees that I expected (Selig, Cobb), some that were frightening surprises (Joe West), and some dark horses that I was hoping someone would nominate (Marge Schott).
I hope you’ll all vote, and vote carefully. Remember, the crowning of the Krampus is a serious matter: he determines how your children taste when they are eaten by other children.
I’ve included photos of all of the nominees, for your viewing pleasure horror.
If you’re not a Christian from an Alpine country, you might not be familiar with the Krampus, a satyr-like (in some manifestations, “satyr-like” is a very euphemistic way of putting it) creature that, over time, became a counterpart to Jolly Olde Saint Nicholas or Santa Claus.
Hi, it’s me, the Krampus. Do you like my rumply boot-socks?
Former Yankee first baseman and current Dodger manager Don Mattingly will appear as a cross-dressing Spanish prostitute in an upcoming Pedro Almodovar film, NotGraphs has learned — or, if not learned, per se, then at least jumped to the only possible conclusion given the above-embedded GIF.
I have it. You have it. Yu has it. We all have it. “It” is Yu Fever. As you have likely heard already, yesterday it was revealed that the Texas Rangers won the right to negotiate with the Japanese-Persian phenom, Yu Darvish. If the Rangers are indeed successful in securing Darvish’s services, our collective Yu Fever will rise from a toasty but manageable 100.5 degrees all the way to an immediate-ice-bath-or-die 106 degrees.
Perhaps more importantly, punny headline writers at newspapers, websites, and other journalistic outfits will be beside themselves with excitement. For, the pitcher’s first name, “Yu,” is homophonous with the second person personal pronoun, “you,” which just creates all kinds of wonderful opportunities for them to work their lame, punny headline writing craft.
Below, please find a checklist of Yu headlines you are likely to see should Yu sign with the Texas Rangers.
Keep this post bookmarked for the 2012 season (and beyond) and be on the lookout for any of the these headlines. If you spot one, drop us a line. This post will be updated as the headlines appear.
As the Farmer’s Almanac tells us, it is not late spring, summer or early fall, which means there is no baseball here. Sure, there are posting fees, trades and signings to sustain us, but the ugly, mottled truth remains: there is no baseball here.
To remind us of this, to flagellate us for this, we present to you the following GIF, which is of Bud Selig speaking at length about something, mostly likely in oddly funereal terms. Please click to watch gloom drip out of Bud Selig’s mouth:
This has not been baseball because there is no baseball here.
