Listen, bespectacled reader, we don’t need to discuss the specific course of events that have led me to watch the above footage — from a June 2011 baseball game between the Cardinals and Giants — this footage of Maikel Cleto striking out Nate Schierholtz over and over and over again on a frigid Wisconsin night. Let’s just all agree that it’s the sort of thing that’d happen to anyone who happens to find himself with a digestif in one hand and a computer mouse in the other.

In any case, please take this opportunity to welcome both Maikel Cleto and what is probably his 92 mph two-seam fastball into your world. And your pants, too. If you’re into that sort of thing.

As noted earlier in these pages, managing editor Dave Cameron made his second — and probably final, because he’s a weirdo’s weird — appearance on MLB Network program Clubhouse Confidential, hosted by the vigorously coiffed Brian Kenny.

For the busy executives among us, a brief account of the footage above (kindly made available by MLB.com):

Coy Smile: 0:21

Nervous Swallow: 0:57, 1:29, 2:04

Frog Mouth: 2:05

Blinks: N/A*

Crack Analysis: Whole Thing

*At least so far as I can tell from a single viewing. Seriously, I’m not gonna spend my whole night watching this, people.

Casey McGehee or Sterling Honorheart?

Both are there for those with nowhere left to turn. Both stand when a lady enters the room. Both would prefer not to fight but will if pressed. Both eat their vegetables and have firm handshakes. Both begin each morning with deep knee bends and prayer. Both shall take back the streets.

I must ask again: Casey McGehee or Sterling Honorheart?

(Bang and a boom: Lifetime Topps)

As someone who hangs on NotGraphs’ every word and doesn’t read any other websites and won’t ever leave me otherwise you-know-what will happen, you’ll remember the footage embedded here of managing editor Dave Cameron’s inaugural appearance on last Monday’s edition of MLB Network’s Clubhouse Confidential.

While interested parties have noted many flaws with Cameron’s appearance (like, for example, the whole face part of his body), a great deal of attention has been focused on the frequency with which Cameron blinks — which is to say, “almost never.”

The present author counts two of them (i.e. blinks) — one at the 0:37 mark, and another at 2:30 — plus a nose scratch at 0:23 that maybe is or is not accompanied by a third blink.

In any case, this important information is relevant to your life insofar as Dave Cameron is making another appearance on Clubhouse Confidential tonight — one that we can scrutinize in ways that ultimately contribute to Cameron’s burgeoning body dysmorphia.

The show airs at 5:30pm ET, again at 7:30pm ET, and then a third time in a fever dream you’re gonna have tonight.

Last week Bill James gave to the internets this gift: a list of the 100 best pitchers’ duels of 2011.  Today I give to the internets my own small trinket of affection – the 5 worst pitchers’ duels of 2011.   Grantland touted James’ piece as ‘A totally, utterly, insanely completist list from the godfather of baseball stats’; none of those words have any business here.

James offers four criteria of a pitchers’ duel: low-scoring game, quality pitchers on the mound, pitchers pitch well, and something is at stake.  I offer only one criteria of a bad pitchers’ duel – a lot of runs are scored.  The more the better.

1.  May 16th, Cleveland at Kansas City.

Royals’ starter Kyle Davies stuck around long enough to get just one out, giving up two runs.  Nate Adcock took the game to the third inning, giving up only one run.  Vin Mazzaro pitched two and 1/3, giving up 14 runs, which is, literally, the worst pitching performance in baseball history.  Mazzaro after the game:  “It’s tough.  It was a tough game.”  Yes.  Indians win 19-1.

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Last week, the Baltimore Orioles hired long time Oriole outfielder, one-time Oriole home-run phenom Brady Anderson to a Special Assistant role with the club. Outside of bringing the wisdom surprise 50 home run seasons to the Orioles front office, Anderson also brings the majesty of 90s sideburns.

Here is a memo Anderson sent out this morning to every Orioles player and front office staff member:

Let us now imagine what the 2012 Orioles roster will look like once this new iron fist of velcro cheeks has his druthers.
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Dear Arbitrators:

As you know, there are six criteria that may be considered during a salary arbitration hearing:

1. The contribution of the player during the previous season
2. The length and consistency of the player’s career
3. The record of the player’s previous compensation
4. The performance of the player’s club during the previous season
5. Any physical or mental defects the player may have
6. Comparable baseball salaries

Source: The Sports Economist Blog

In this hearing, we would like to focus specifically on element #5. The player in question has the following mental and physical defects that we believe indicate he should be awarded our submitted figure of $480,000, and not the player’s submitted figure of $11,000,002. Apologies for the length of our list.

1. Player’s right arm is three millimeters shorter than his left.
2. Severe seasonal allergies.
3. Lactose intolerance. Read the rest of this entry »

What we do is assign cool nicknames to players rather than perpetuate the tired, lamewad practice of assigning cool players nicknames. Last time out, Nyjer Morgan laid authoritative claim to the nickname “Dionysus with Rabies“. So Mr. Morgan has been added to our Hall of Honouur, which is so stately, so regal, so much itself a celebration of the Norman Conquest, that an extra British-English unstressed “u” is required for proper spelling …

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Perhaps it is because I’ll turn 40 this week. Perhaps it is because Carson and I recently discussed Rob Wilfong. Perhaps it is because it is the offseason, and one does what one must in order to abide it. Or perhaps it is because I live close enough to Wisconsin that occasionally the Dairy State’s aesthetic courses through me unannounced and untrammeled. Whatever the reasons, the author chose to costume himself in an actual, real-live mustache for a period of roughly 24 hours. If not for his wife’s plenary powers over such affairs, he might still have it. Still and yet, for a time — for a fugitive, halcyon time — we were kings, you and I …

This is the offseason, and I grew a mustache.

One imagines that having something in the vicinity of half-a-billion dollars has its advantages — like, for example, being able to send one’s children to boarding school the very minute they’re born.

We who do not own the means of production have this advantage, however: never once, while sitting in the 300-level of Miami’s American Airlines Arena, has anyone been almost concussed-or-worse by the fastest, giantest living human.

Link courtesy Juan C. Rodriguez of the Sun-Sentinel.