Favored first prodigies, creation’s darlings,
mountain ranges, peaks, dawn-red ridges
of all genesis, — pollen of a flowering godhead,
links of light, corridors, stairs, thrones,
spaces of being, shields of rapture, torrents
of unchecked feeling and then suddenly, singly
mirrors: scooping their outstreamed beauty
back into their peerless faces.
-Rainer Maria Rilke, from the Second Elegy
(translated by Edward Snow)

List from Score’s Baseball’s Hottest Rookies 1989-1990 Book & Card Set.
Words via Google search (“__________ is”).
Selected images chosen from the name’s GIS results.

Jim Abbott
Jim Abbott is NOT a newt.

Kent Anderson
Kent Anderson Is A Powerful Narrative Of Uncomfortable Circumstances.

Eric Anthony
Eric Anthony is no longer eating dairy.

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Sometimes a man, comprehending simultaneously both the pointlessness and abject misery of this thing we call life, is compelled by angst to unleash upon the uncaring world a cathartic, primeval scream.

Other times a man, trapped inside the satchel of the wife of a baseball writer — a wife who absolutely promised the baseball writer that said man would be unharmed during transport but who then broke the man anyway and didn’t even really seem that sorry about — sometimes that man is compelled to unleash a cathartic, primeval scream, as well.

“Yeah. I think I’m done with baseball.”

So here is Danny Ainge.

Every time I come across a reference to Ainge’s baseball career, I remember that I forgot about it. But the great 3-point shooter logged an Ichiro-an season’s worth of plate appearances (721) over a three-year MLB career — most of it played while he was still in college at Brigham Young. He holds the Blue Jays club record for youngest player to hit a homerun. He was the subject of a legal battle between the Jays and the Boston Celtics, wherein a “four-man, two-woman panel” ruled that the Celtics would have to buy his contract from the Jays, lest they be guilty of contract interference.

In basketball, he went on to become a fan favorite. In baseball, he was . . . forgettable.

We witness him in the above photo possibly trying to forget himself, or at least trying to forget that part of his life he spent playing baseball. The photo, perhaps snapped just at the end of a sigh, wistfully suggests Ainge’s brief MLB career. He would hit just one additional homerun, and post a batting average below that infamous Mendoza Line in his final season with the Blue Jays.

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According to the above photo, baseball has officially taken over the entire universe today. While MLB has yet to release a PR statement, there is all kinds of talk floating around Dallas speculating what this will mean for us, the people of Earth.

• Everyone will be drafted; not for the army, but by potential employers. For the next six years, you will work for pennies on the dollar compared to what you’re worth (unless you’re a top-250 pick), but then you’ll get to explore the market for your services. Some call it indentured servitude, but I call it progress.

• You will not be in line for a promotion if the rest of your team sucks. Guilt by association. In a few years, this sentiment will eventually go away, but until then, get used to not being praised for your accomplishments.

• All things in life will now have a three-strikes, four-balls system. If you do well on four work projects, you will receive an automatic bonus. If you screw up three times, you’re fired. No if, ands, or buts.

• Just like baseball’s three-outs systems, once you get fired from three different jobs, you are no longer allowed to work for the next two years. You will be forced to find a Sugar Momma or Daddy to support yourself, as life is now out of your hands.

I, for one, welcome our new baseball overlords and their maverick policies.

I, a Cardinals loyalist, am still formulating my basest emotions insofar as Pujols-to-the-Angels is concerned. Briefly, though, I’m not angry; I’m disappointed in the world, which, I suspect, are my factory settings. I’m frustrated by sports populism which turn high-level business decisions into personal affronts. Again, though, I’m mostly disappointed in the world, which is stupid and dumb and stupid and fart.

Or, alternatively:

(Image and related sadness courtesy of Monkey with a Halo)

In 2002, I joined the Cuban national baseball team, and I was instantly a superstar. .324, 21 home runs, 82 RBI, and I even pitched in a game. I set seven rookie records. In my second season, I hit .391. Then they banned me for talking to an agent. I didn’t talk to an agent. But once they banned me, what choice did I have? Twelve times I tried to escape to the U.S. I ended up in jail. Finally, I got to Florida, but then I needed to establish foreign residency to avoid the MLB Draft, so I went to the Dominican Republic. The Angels scouted and signed me. The Dominican Republic delayed my paperwork. Finally, I was allowed to play ball in the U.S. And so what if they thought my name was Kendry instead of Kendrys? After all I risked to come here, what does one letter of my name really matter?

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Forgive me, but this post is (largely) not very funny. Some of you might argue that my posts are never funny. Those people are wrong. Wrongity, wrongity, wrong. To quote the great Lt. Steven Hauk:

Anyway, there are a couple agitators in the comments section around here who are distraught…in every post…that Tim McCarver has won the Ford C. Frick Award. On the one hand, it’s a little understandable. Tim McCarver has been off the top of his game for quite some time now. He still has a strong handle on what a pitcher and catcher are thinking at a given moment, and especially about catcher technique, but it’s entirely reasonable for someone to conclude, based on his recent body of work, that McCarver’s selection is ridiculous.
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Danny Knobler of CBS Sports is reporting that the Detroit Tigers are close to signing veteran right-handed reliever Octavio Dotel. If and when the deal is made official, the Tigers will become Dotel’s 13th team in 14 seasons.

That’s not technically everywhere, but it’s a-bunch-of-where.

To wit:

Reno, Chicago, Fargo, Minnesota,
Buffalo, Toronto, Winslow, Sarasota,
Wichita, Tulsa, Ottawa, Oklahoma,
Tampa, Panama, Mattawa, La Paloma,
Bangor, Baltimore, Salvador, Amarillo,
Tocapillo, Baranquilla, and Perdilla.

Boston, Charleston, Dayton, Louisiana,
Washington, Houston, Kingston, Texarkana,
Monterey, Faraday, Santa Fe, Tallapoosa,
Glen Rock, Black Rock, Little Rock, Oskaloosa,
Tennessee to Tennesse Chicopee, Spirit Lake,
Grand Lake, Devils Lake, Crater Lake.

Louisville, Nashville, Knoxville, Ombabika,
Schefferville, Jacksonville, Waterville, Costa Rica,
Pittsfield, Springfield, Bakersfield, Shreveport,
Hackensack, Cadillac, Fond du Lac, Davenport,
Idaho, Jellico, Argentina, Diamantina,
Pasadena, Catalina.

Pittsburgh, Parkersburg, Gravelbourg, Colorado,
Ellensburg, Rexburg, Vicksburg, Eldorado,
Larimore, Admore, Haverstraw, Chatanika,
Chaska, Nebraska, Alaska, Opelika,
Baraboo, Waterloo, Kalamazoo, Kansas City,
Sioux City, Cedar City, Dodge City.

Credit to Baseball Reference for minor-league information.

This comes to us via Blue Jay Hunter’s perfectly lovely Twitter feed. Please enjoy:

This is from “Bring Your Kid to Work Day,” and I tell no tales when I say this contains multitudes. The younger Master Rauch looks excited, as he should be. “Bring Your Kid to Work Day” is always rousing for the tyke in question, and I imagine this is doubly so when your pops is a ballplayer or a dinosaur. The elder Rauch, however, wears quite a different countenance. While his boy can fittingly be described as “a happy young man,” Mr. Rauch, save for his sated girth, resembles one of the indigent defeated from a Walker Evans photograph.

This affirms what parents have long known: children are drought and famine.

Here’s how life works, basically:

1. Get born.

2. Meet a woman.

3. Have kids.

4. Google “yakov smirnoff” baseball.

5. Die.