Joe West wants the Internet to be free. We stand united.

SOPA: You’re outta here.

Original image credit: Salon.com.

Dan McShane won on Jeopardy four times in a row last week, where he was introduced as a professional “Baseball Game Logger,” which is 1. the coolest job ever, except for maybe “Personal Shopper” or “Rock Band,” 2. not actually his job any more, as he is currently employed by Everyday Health, 3. easily confused for baseball b-logger, which led to this story being forwarded to me by at least two people who wanted me to know that “people like me” could win Jeopardy. He accumulated $64,001 in winnings, which he plans to use for “world travel”. The weirdest thing I discovered while researching Dan McShane is that, thanks to his sweatered youthfulness, he has developed somewhat of a cult following with the teenage girls on tumblr. Examples:

dan mcshane is his name. please dominate this game show for several days so your face doesn’t have to leave my screen anytime soon.

On a completely thinspo unrelated note…
I think I’m in love with the jeopardy returning champ. Dan McShane. Also John Green’s new book was amazing. Okay, back to thinspo.
Now do some sit-ups everyone!

wow jeopardy is stepping it up. this man is gorgeous. dan mcshane needs to win a billion more times then marry me. ok thanks

We’re not all gonna go dateless.

Dan has a twitter account.

Wherein I continue to milk this gimmick for all it’s worth.  Today, rappers doing baseball stuff all things National League Central.

Houston Astros

Houston has a pretty good rap game going, but not a great picture-taking/uploading/archiving of rappers wearing Astros hat going, so you get Paul Wall in jorts.

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Thanks to the presumably fine folks at Rising Apple, I have learned of the existence of pop artist David Kushner. I surveyed his Etsy page in the manner of a man about to spend money on things his wife will neither understand nor outwardly countenance, which, it turns out, is precisely what I am. Why am I so tempted to part with U.S. currency that would be better deployed in the service of things known widely as “basic essentials”? Eyeballs awake:

And …

I loathe the Mets of the 1980s, but, as with Goya’s macabre explorations of the Inquisition, sometimes sanctioned repugnance of awful scale yields pretty pictures. So it is with all of this.

And now I shall sell whatever copper plumbing I can find in order to commission a portrait of Ted Simmons necking with Lola Falana.

Clicking = Embiggening

As a resident of Madison, Wisconsin, I’m informed with some regularity that this is what democracy looks like — where this is a group of people who’ve gathered to express their frustrations with governor Scott Walker.

I don’t care to comment on those proceedings per se — except, perhaps, to say that Wisconsinites are skilled at gathering and staying gathered. Rather, I’d like merely to suggest that democracy probably looks like a lot of other things, too — for example, Prince Fielder celebrating concurrently (a) a game-winning home run and (b) his momentary victory over death.

Over the past several weeks, we’ve received a half-dozen or so unsolicited requests from Shannon Barnett, creator of careersincriminaljustice.net (which I’m not going to link to, as I value the security of your computers almost as much as you do), which “serves as a great resource for new students looking to find all the info they need on getting an online Criminal Justice Degree.”  She would very much be interested in doing a guestpost on FanGraphs.

Obviously, she would be a great fit.  That goes without saying.  But Sharon didn’t provide much direction.  She would “be happy to write an article about any topic that you would like.  It will only be used on your website….I would certainly appreciate any opportunity to write an article. Feel free to suggest an idea, or if you prefer I can just come up with one.”

We wouldn’t want Shannon to have to put any additional thought into her piece, so it’s with great enthusiasm that I suggest the following topics for her.  Also, feel free to suggest your own in the comments.  Perhaps this can set up more democracy in the future, as we collectively decide what topic careers in criminal justice expert Shannon Barnett is best equipped to contribute on here at the *Graphs family.

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Baseball, while lonesome, is nothing like life.
Otherwise no one would play.

It doesn’t diminish you, rend you in quite the same way.
But it can diminish you.
It teaches you things about baseball, not about our vain grasps at some animal spark.
It is within a rubric of one.

The metaphors, like metaphors, do not hold.
It need not take you away from something.
It need only be something.
Which it is.
It need only take you toward something.
Which it will.

So here’s your first glove.
Smell it. That won’t change much. Pound it.
Put it in the oven if it’s too stiff.
I mean that.
Rip the ties tight with your teeth.
I remember that the best players would do that.

Keep a ball in it at night.
This is important for purposes of seasoning.
And liturgy.
One day it will feel like a dead hand.

I hope you’re better at this than I was.

SWEET MERCIFUL HEAVENS, WHY WAS I NOT
INFORMED OF THIS MAN SOONER?!

The name. The scraggly mustache. The hair, flipped out like my older sister loved to do in high school.

Not only is Pete LaCock’s family name LaCock — which is French (which he spoke) for “the cock” — but his first name is Peter, which means “rock.” Also, according to my Chrome dictionary app:

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I got a late start on everything, I think. I didn’t kiss a girl till I was 20; by the time I actually listened to an entire Pavement album, they’d broken up; I’d never heard of Bill James until I read Moneyball in the autumn of 2003; and I’d managed to make it through an entire Bachelor’s program in English (concentration in poetry) without even hearing of poets like Charles Olson or Alice Notley. I was introduced to these poets and myriad others only after taking a job at Woodland Pattern Book Center, probably the greatest poetry bookstore in the United States. It was at WPBC that I finally found Tom Clark’s Baseball — over 30 years after it was published.

I’ll cut to the quick: Baseball is a – perhaps the – must-read book for those who appreciate the NotGraphs approach to fanaticism.

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Presenting “The Adventures of Batboy!”:

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