It was with a measure of confidence that today, in the break room, you attested: “That Rudy Pemberton. He was just a ballplayer.”

About this — in addition to your callow belief in a better tomorrow — you were horribly wrong …

Sure, the image above shows Rudy Pemberton in professional action, but what of the disembodied spectral presence, the one whose soft, Olan Mills edges suggest a man of a poet’s dimension and discontent? He hovers about our assumptions like a reproving moon.

You owe Rudy Pemberton an apology.

(Image taken from a GeoCities page called Boston.com)

Over the weekend, Tim Brown of Yahoo Sports provided some details on Albert Pujols’ contract with the Angels, noting that the first baseman will receive $3 million for his 3,000th career hit and $7 million for his 763rd career home run.

With all due respect to Mr. Brown’s reportage, he appears to have omitted some of the more peculiar elements of the 10-year pact. Fortunately for all of society, our Investigative Reporting Investigation Team has performed the diligence due such a sizable deal.

Here are some of the unreported — but totally, definitely true — particulars of the Pujols contract:

• To confirm the verity of Pujols’s reported age, the Angels requested he provide not only a long-form birth certificate, but also a startling minute-by-minute account of the birth by Colombian novelist Gabriel Garcia Marquez, who was present in Santo Domingo at the time. Early reports suggest that Pujols’ mother was not, in fact, a human woman, but the very butterfly after whom the Effect of the same name was coined.

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Wherein we rank the American League Central franchises by how fresh their logo has been repped in rap history.

5. Kansas City Royals

The absolute only instance I could find of a rapper steppin’ out with a Royals cap is this picture of Kanye West, which we can probably assume was some sort of mistake, and that the guy in his entourage who lays out his clothes was fired the next day.

And also, this:

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“Sure, he had a great year, but let’s see how he does somewhere other than the California League.”

“2014. Maybe.”

“If he can develop a third pitch, then he has ace potential, but if not, he’s a bullpen arm at best.”

“First base.”

“I saw him play three times last season, and still have no idea. His tools are obvious, but it’s a question of whether he can ever put it all together with any sort of consistency.”

“No, he was never indicted for it.”

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Young Derek Jeter’s mother dressed him in a sensible collared Le Tigre for school pictures, but Young Derek Jeter removed it in the boys’ bathroom in favor of the Georgetown sweatshirt he keeps in his locker.

Young Derek Jeter believes that no one in the entire world of Michigan loves Georgetown basketball as much as he does.

Young Derek Jeter doesn’t look for his first chest hair, he watches for his first chest hair.

Young Derek Jeter once gave Melanie Cunningham a Rubik’s Cube with his name on it as a reward for making out with him behind the TG&Y. She smiled. “What a great idea that was,” Young Derek Jeter thought.

It was four months ago that he caught his reflection in the passenger-side window of his father’s Subaru Justy. “I have the most beautiful eyes,” Young Derek Jeter said to himself. “I shall use them to my advantage.”

Young Derek Jeter has referred to hairstyles as “hats for the young man who doesn’t need a hat.”

At the “Spring Fling,” he asked Vanessa Trumbull to dance the moment he heard the opening strains of “Purple Rain.” “No thanks,” she said. “Then you won’t get a Rubik’s Cube with my name on it,” Young Derek Jeter said.

On the baseball diamond, Young Derek Jeter actually has outstanding range to his left, but he chooses not to employ it, lest everything look a little too splendid out there.

Perfection bores Young Derek Jeter, which is why sometimes at church he falls down on purpose. “See?” he says to onlooking parishioners. “Even Young Derek Jeter falls down.”

Young Derek Jeter’s mother will probably be upset about the Georgetown sweatshirt thing, but consequences bore Young Derek Jeter as much as perfection does.

When Young Derek Jeter coils to swing at a pitch, everyone bearing witness, even opposing players, whispers, “I cannot wait to see what happens.”

Young Derek Jeter can wait to see what happens because Young Derek Jeter knows exactly what’s going to happen.

(HT: Snakkle and Todd’s championship Twitter feed)

The image below depicts an actual product available for actual purchase on MLB.com’s internet shop:

This is Cubs Jenga, which is the same game as Regular Jenga, except emblazoned with CUBS all over it.

Cubs Jenga would be a very bad gift idea for Steve Bartman, if you were like a Secret Santa or family member or something where you needed a gift idea. Because, you know, the idea of him reaching out at some Cubs-related thing and seeing it implode before him as a result, that could, you know, bring back some bad memories of that time he did that very same thing to the actual Cubs.

So, guys. Don’t buy this for Steve Bartman. Okay?

“Are we doing anything on Saturday, March 17th?”

“2012, or are we talking even more than three months into the future?”

“2012.”

“Okay, I have no idea.”

“So it’s okay to schedule a fantasy baseball auction for that afternoon?”

“What time?”

“I don’t know yet. Does it matter?”

“Of course it doesn’t matter– it’s three months from now. I was trying to be funny.”

“There’s nothing funny about my fantasy baseball auction.”

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On October 28th of this year, longtime Cardinal right-hander Bob Forsch threw out the ceremonial first pitch for that team’s World Series-clinching Game Seven victory. Less than a week later, Forsch was dead, having suffered an aneurysm at his Tampa-area home. He was 61.

Though his corporeal form has passed, Forsch assuredly lives on in the memory part of the brain of the few Cardinal fans who’ve come equipped with that organ.

He also lives on for those of us who derive some pleasure from the growth and maintenance of superlative mustaches. The image which accompanies these words (courtesy Andy Gray of the SI Vault Twitter feed and clickable for ample embiggening) accounts for about a thousand of the words I would have composed on the matter.

The remaining words are these: Bob Forsch had a mustache… or did he?

To answer that question, follow these instructions:

1. Become a father.
2. Wait until such a time as your child, upon seeing fog for the first time, asks if the clouds have come down to earth.
3. Take note of your answer. It will reveal your feelings about The Forschadow.

Or, phrased differently:

Some days you wake up and the world seems a little dreary — you slept for too long, you have a sink full of dirty dishes, and the drawing you were going to post on Notgraphs today isn’t coming together… Then you remember that we live in a world where sometimes dogs wear baseball outfits. All is well!

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What follows isn’t particularly new, but, other than fresh dimensions of human misery, what really is?

If the Phillies were a nation-state in the literal sense, then what follows would surely prompt the full menu of solemn condemnations on the part of the U.N.:

As grave provocations go, this one is rather nifty. This question, however, is raised: if the Phillies owned the Mets, would they, although brimming with ill intentions and malice aforethought, provide better stewardship than the let’s-set-these-action-figures-on-fire ways of Fred Wilpon and his boy?

In any event, since this shot across the bow has gone unanswered, the New York Mets shall, from this day forward, be known as the Flushing Terms of Surrender. I say it is so; thus it is so.

(Much love: The Mets Police)