Football is dead and buried, and the grave containing the withering corpse of football is being danced upon. More specifically, it is being homered upon and then danced upon by Rickey Henderson and Jimmy Rollins, men who are as beautiful as they are multitudinous. Bear humbled witness:
We shall get through this, you and I. Baseball is coming for us. I just know it.
We have previously documented in these electronic pages managing editor Dave Cameron’s blossoming career as Official Media Personality. As part of this coverage, we’ve documented just as thoroughly Dave Cameron’s Total Aversion to Blinking.
If the above-embedded video footage of Cameron’s most recent appearance on Clubhouse Confidential is any indication — particularly the parts around the 0:21 and 0:38 marks — we will (unfortunately) be documenting less of the latter.
We’ve seen how great access, paired with the newest analytics, can be the future of blogging. Ted Berg of SNY took the newest in catcher defense research to the park with him and talked it over with Mike Nickeas, the Mets’ backup catcher. David Laurila does this every day. The two pieces Ryan Campbell wrote about Brandon McCarthy and his pitching mix were also great examples of this.
But what happens when increased access leads to stories that are less favorable to the team in question? That describes the situation in New York right now, and it looks like the independent freelance blogger/journalist is the one that loses out when David meets Goliath.
“Take it moment by moment, and you will find that we are all, as I’ve said before, bugs in amber.”
-Kurt Vonnegut
During the Super Bowl last night a commercial for Vinson Mortgage aired on St. Louis local television, which gently reminded us that life is fleeting, Pujols is a heel, and, most importantly, that interest rates will not always be this low. This commercial is below. Carpe Diem.
Thanks Jesse – the fireworks at the next Notgraphs picnic will be dedicated to you, my friend.
The Braves have a new weekend home uniform. See if you can follow this:
The initial plan is to wear it for Saturday and Sunday home games.
The Braves’ red jerseys worn for Sunday home games in recent years will be switched to Friday home games…. Traditional white home uniforms will be worn Monday through Thursday.
For road games, grey uniforms will continue to be the Braves’ primary garb, and the team will wear its navy blue alternate road jerseys when the starting pitcher chooses.
Unlike with the navy and red jerseys, the new uniform has matching pants the same color as the jersey. The Braves will wear their regular red-billed cap with the new uniforms.
“As is the case in a lot of clubhouses, if a starting pitcher really strongly feels like he wants to wear those [new uniforms for a non-weekend game], then we’ll have that discussion and if it makes sense, we will,” [Exec VP of sales and marketing] Schiller said. “But the plan is, we’ll definitely be wearing them Saturdays and Sundays.”
I’m finding it hard to imagine what that discussion might look like, and what factors might go into it making or not making sense to wear the new creme-colored uniform instead of, say, the white one.
JAIR JURRJENS: “I know it’s Wednesday, but I’d really like to wear the new creme-colored uniform today. It highlights the color of my eyes.”
DEREK SCHILLER, EXEC VP: “Jair, you know David Ross is catching today, and that new uniform reminds him of a deep childhood trauma involving egg nog.”
JURRJENS: “Oh, yeah, that new color does look like egg nog. I don’t care. David’s tough. He’ll get over it. I feel strongly. I’m trying to impress a new lady friend.”
SCHILLER: “I understand, but former President Jimmy Carter has a ticket for tonight’s game, and he specifically told me he’d be wearing his white jersey shirt. Do you want to make the former President look like he didn’t properly coordinate with the team’s uniform?”
JURRJENS: “I don’t think he’d care.”
SCHILLER: “We need to wear the white uniforms to celebrate National Glue Day.”
JURRJENS: “That’s not really a holiday, Derek.”
SCHILLER: “We forgot to do the laundry.”
JURRJENS: “Oh. Okay.”
As everyone knows, Tweets — and everything else, really — are better when context is stripped away in the manner of a bodice-ripper’s ripping a bodice. So, without any context whatsoever, here is a rather delightful recent Tweet from James G:
Indeed, who does tell a child something like this? “Do you want to go to the hellscape of America’s Worst StateTM, young, beggared spawn? Perhaps to the bloodless, soul-murdering infinitude of Orlando-based theme parks? Lovely. We’ll go once you get a got-damn retweet or reply from, let’s say, the makers of Jimmy Dean processed meats. No, wait!: The Toronto Blue Jays Baseball Club. Yes, the Blue Jays. Fair enough, jackass?”
So, much like tertiary syphilis needs a chancre, I need your wisdom. Tell me: What kind of a person tells his or her child such a thing?
News broke on Thursday that star pitching man Zack Greinke will represent himself after dismissing his agent. It certainly seems like a bold move, but it’s not entirely unprecedented.
Remember ol’ Boots Poffenberger? The secret, unofficially anointed Hero of Notgraphs? Well not only is Poffenberger a straight-superior super such, but he also has a Wikipædia entry rife with delightful tales of debauchery, war, and regrettable decisions and heart-warming life-lessons.
What the entry lacks, however, is the details of Poffenberger’s self-representation, details which the Notgraphs Investigation Team unearthed and is presently sharing with world.
In Boots’s Wik entry, it notes: “After a strong rookie season, Boots held out for more money.” What it fails to point out is that Boots, who represented himself, also required several peculiar and highly specific clauses in his contract. They are as follows:
Read the rest of this entry »
Add the following to the running list of things that will quite possibly murder you in your sleep tonight:
In addition to the trail of dead, you will know Fell and Murderous Baseball Clown by his jester’s tassles-prison jumper-jorts-FMBs (latter not pictured) ensemble and Buttcheeks of Villainy. This is the last thing you will see before you are brutalized in your nightclothes. Fell and Murderous Baseball Clown is a killing machine and thus at the mercy of his factory settings. In all other regards, the word “mercy” is lost upon him.
Tonight you shall die.
First, Karim Garcia was Baseball America’s seventh-overall prospect. Then, he played on at least 11 different teams in at least four different countries. Then he hit a single in the bottom of the eighth inning of his team (Obregon’s) Caribbean Series game against Puerto Rican club Mayaguez, and currently resides at first base on a baseball diamond in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.
There will likely be no epic poems written about the encounter between right-handed submariner Ben Grezlovski (of Puerto Rican League club Mayaguez) and Mexican Pacific League club Obregon’s shortstop Jesus Lopez — an encounter which, if you don’t already know, ended with a double by Lopez — but there will be a blog post written about it. This one, actually. Because baseball in early February is notable, jerks.