Archive for December, 2011

“I Am Completely Innocent”

Any report that I ingested a performance-enhancing drug is wrong. Or at least a little wrong. Come on, let me try and defend myself.

Yes, I failed a test, but then I passed a test, so that means I was innocent all along. Right? Like a college that only counts your most recent SAT score. Sure, I got a 600 two weeks ago, but this time I got a 2350, so, hey, that first one must have been a mistake. I used the wrong kind of pencil. You wanted my urine, and I gave you some vomit mixed with orange juice, or whatever it is that I did that ended up testing positive for synthetic testosterone. Maybe there was synthetic testosterone on the toilet seat and it somehow fell into the cup. Maybe I got mixed up between the sample cup you gave me, and that sample cup of synthetic testosterone I was carrying around for a friend. Some guy in the airport gave me a cup of his urine and told me to hold it for him. The security folks only asked about strangers packing my bags, not about strangers giving me their urine, so I didn’t think to mention it. I am completely innocent. Wait, I’m not sure I know what innocent means.

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Reflections on “Ed”

“Ed” is movie about a monkey who can play baseball and the shitty pitcher who befriends him. There is a mechanical chimp in this movie. Worse, there is a Matt LeBlanc in this movie. Here is a trailer, which, you will surely find, is mortifying in its breadth:

“Ed” has a Tomatometer rating of 0%. IMDB proclaims, in Augustine of Hippo fashion, that the following is a memorable quote from “Ed“:

Jack “Duece” Cooper: I am going to spank that monkey!

He’s not talking about masturbating. He’s talking about beating a chimp with an open hand in order to impart some kind of lesson or set in motion the oft-taught cinematic lesson of regeneration through violence.

“Ed” is memorable. That one time you got hobo spit in your eyes was memorable in the same manner. And that’s apparently how the movie chooses to spell the word better known as “Deuce,” which, in the full light of its atrocities, is fine, I suppose.

It would seem that $6.288 million worth of human beings paid to suffer the afflictions of “Ed,” a movie, let us remember, about a baseball player and a chimp and the poo jokes that bind them.

Distinction withers. No one is named “Woodrow” anymore. People make movies like “Ed.” The world spins on its axis in a numbing dance. Fools like us mistake the ending for endlessness.


Baseball Players And Their Wives, Captioned

Sports Illustrated has released a photo slideshow of some athletes and their wives and/or girlfriends back in the 1990s. Despite the use of the word “athlete,” we actually see some baseball players in here as well. Here are the ones you need to see:

Steve and Heather Avery

Steve is seen here sporting what is known in some circles as a “Cosby Sweater,” after the comedian Bill Cosby and his colorful wardrobe. With the Froot Loops they buy in the cereal aisle at the grocery store, Steve receives a very different Cosby Sweater later that night.

Jeff and Cindy Conine.

Given the attire Cindy chose to wear to the racquetball court, it is understandable how Jeff could mistake her for the ball on his initial swing. Luckily, Jeff is able to recover from his misplay in time.

Chuck Knoblauch and Lisa Knoblauch.

Chuck is convinced it was Lisa’s week to bring the chess board to the park. Lisa, used to Chuck’s absent-mindedness, just doesn’t have the heart to tell him he is incorrect.

John and Kelly Olerud.

John and Kelly gaze in bewilderment as the amazingly futuristic device before them displays “32768 KB OK – – -“.

Randy and Lisa Johnson.

Randy and Lisa’s daughter Samantha discovers her father’s finger is in fact an extremely delicious hot dog.

Roger and Debbie Clemens.

Despite Debbie’s insistence that she is not actually a Pez dispenser, Roger remains convinced of the contrary.

David and Lynn Cone – Athletes and their WAGs: ’90s Edition – Photos – SI.com.

David and Lynn are just as surprised as you are that this is the most normal-looking picture in the group.

Jose and Jessica Canseco..

I don’t have anything for this one because I’m afraid Jose would hunt me down and kill me if I even remotely made a joke about his wife, regardless of how long they’ve been divorced. Please don’t hurt me.


Spotted on Wikipedia: Subtle Racist Test?

As you all undoubtedly know, I spend about half my waking hours researching my Fangraphs pieces, which means about 5 of the 20 daily hours I spend working at the computer go the sole scouring of Wikipedia, our culture’s depository for generally agreed-upon knowledge. Anyway, for reasons somewhat beyond me, I ended up recently at the Wikipedia entry for the Caribes de Anzoátegui, a top baseball team in the Venezuelan Winter League, wherein I spotted this subtle typo:

I dunno, perchance it’s just society, but I am not certain whether (1) the author merely misplaced a G, or if (2) the author — likely an ESL such person — tried to sound out “foreign” and ended up with a meng-like solution. And therein lies the quandary: Does the mere doubt make me a racist?

Yes. Probably.

I take comfort in assuming, however, that my colleague Dayn Perry — Mississippi native — would have only considered the second option, while Boss Carson Cistulli (Boss ‘Stul for short) — who spends literally half his time in France, the other half travelling to France — would not have even noticed the error in his French-addled mind.

Reader: Also take note that Dmitri Young is no longer on the Caribes. Which is sad.

🙁

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Ian Kinsler, Pre-War Scholar

While the majority of baseballers use their respective offseasons to the end of playing golf and/or impregnating females, this tweet (courtesy MLB Trade Rumors) reveals that Texas Ranger second baseman Ian Kinsler dedicates at least some of his leisure time to decidedly more scholarly pursuits — namely, lively discourses with Ranger GM Jon Daniels et al. on the subject of FDR’s revolutionary economic programs of the early 1930s.

While we’re unable to confirm the information at this time, the NotGraphs Investigative Reporting Investigation Team has reason to believe that Kinsler’s next conversation with the Rangers will concern, specifically, the Wagner Act of 1935.


Extry, Extry: 2011 Winter Meetings in Meme Form

The recent base-and-ball hootenanny provided us with several storylines. One of the most prominent, of course, is Jeffrey Loria’s success in unloading all dis gold bullion and all deez doubloons in exchange for the lives and efforts of baseball players. Which leads us to …


A Tweet By Dee Gordon, Illustrated

As part of my series of tweets illustrated literally, I take on this mysterious tweet from handsome Dee Gordon, aka “Skinny Swag 9”:


Your Move Again, Every Baseball Card

Chestnuts Cistulli has already concocted a post that, leveraging the football-card models of the past, instructs the Baseball Card-Industrial Complex on ways to improve the product and or merchandise and or deliverable. Naturally, the Internetting Gentleman is left wondering what the Garbage Pail Kids line of enthusiasms can teach Topps and their business combatants. Here is your answer:

Yea, verily: Capital. Punishment. Humor. Now.

Let us have executions. Let us have ducking stools. Let us have trials by ordeal to see whether Aaron Miles is a warlock. Let us snuff out life in the service of human amusements.


TLDR: Albert Pujols’s Consistency Problem

No, it’s not what you think. Albert Pujols is the very model of consistency as a baseball player. The man’s WAR has WAR. It’s not about Pujols deciding to spend the next decade in Anaheim either. He made the decision that he felt was best for him and his family and I wish him the best of luck.

Pujols has a different type of consistency problem, you see. The reader might recall that in 2006, when Ryan Howard won the NL MVP Award, Pujols responded like a petulant child in a press conference:

I see it this way: Someone who doesn’t take his team to the playoffs doesn’t deserve to win the MVP.

Howard’s Phillies, of course, missed the playoffs in 2006 while the Cardinals won the NL Central and, ultimately, the World Series.

Pujols probably deserved the MVP in 2006. Not, as he claimed, because his team made the playoffs, but because he was the best player in the league (his 8.5 WAR led the league and his .448 wOBA was best in the NL). Indeed, Pujols’s statement was colossally dumb for at least two reasons. First, although the Cardinals made the playoffs, they did so with an 83-78 record. The Phillies finished with a record of 85-77. Second, when in 2008 Albert Pujols won the MVP award in spite of his team missing the playoffs, he found himself in the awkward position of having to choose between (A) Rejecting the award on principle or (B) Accepting the award and admitting that he was wrong when he said what he said in 2006 lest he look like a hypocrite. But even this could be construed as a tacit admission that he was just being a sore loser in 2006.

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Young Yu Darvish

Young Yu Darvish doesn’t know what all the fuss is about.

Young Yu Darvish lost his hemp necklace that time he was caught reading some poems he wrote to Kumiko in Yoyogi Park and they had to run away from her aunt. He went back to look for it, but only found her underwear.

Young Yu Darvish once did get caught that time he was smoking cigarettes in the pachinko parlor with Keiko. But he knew that all it would take to get excused without incident were some furrowed eyebrows and a firm “Su-Me-Ma-Sen.” He’s nothing if not polite.

He’s never seen a gyroball, but he’s thrown a gyrocutter before.

Young Yu Darvish was never the same as the other kids, but that’s on them.

Young Yu Darvish’s chain says “love” in Japanese. He has one that says “hate” in Persian that he wears sometimes when he’s feeling a little different. He tells people they both say “love.”

When John Legend says “This ain’t a movie no / No fairy tale conclusion y’all,” young Yu Darvish knows what he’s saying. Like, deep down in his soul. Also, he thinks it’s a great thing to say to girls in English when he’s breaking up with them.

Young Yu Darvish has only been learning the guitar for three days but can do a great “Sunbeam” already. One time he was playing it in Harajuku and a girl just slipped him her number and ran away giggling. He plans to keep playing guitar, but worries about his fingernails. He needs them for that knuckler that he’s working on.

A teacher once told young Yu Darvish that he had an old soul. Once everyone left the room, she also gave him his first kiss.

He once played hockey, for kicks, for a couple of years. They won a county championship. Young Yu Darvish then quit because he didn’t like the way the pads chafed.

Young Yu Darvish wonders what’s out there.