A Catskills resort where comedy team Jerry Remy and Don Orsillo probably killed.

What a lot of people — including probably even their own families — don’t know about Boston Red Sox television broadcasters Don Orsillo and Jerry Remy is that they are not actually trained broadcasters but rather a famous Borscht Belt comedy team from the 1930s.

While the pair has ably concealed their true and respective identities for years, they accidentally slipped into an old bit last night (called “Mittens and Gloves”) that used to get huge laughs at the Concord Hotel, I’m telling you.

Said bit is transcribed below (and available in Technicolor video).

DON: [Holding up gloved hands] How ’bout the mittens?

JERRY: Nice. [Beat] They’re gloves.

DON: They’re mittens!

JERRY: They’re gloves!

DON: They’re mittens!

JERRY: Mittens? Mittens don’t have fingers. [Pauses, looks incredulous] Mittens do not have fingers.

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Look at Stan Hack. Just look at him. The hacks are necessarily drawn to him, but ol’ Stan smiles anyway. Bless that Stan Hack and his Job- and Frodo-like burdens.

This has been “Stan Hack Surrounded by Hacks.” This has been your Daguerreotype of the Evening.

Recently, this unfortunate series appeared in my Twitter feed:

On the eve of April 24th, all of the above mentioned young pitchers threw some phenomenal innings. I had intended to point the attentions of my Twitter followers toward these budding stars’ performances; now, however, I fear that I might have actually suggested them as victims for a Count Canseco feeding frenzy. (I’m sure they are all delectable.)

It should be noted that being biten by vampire José Canseco does not result in death, vampirism, or even severe blood loss — any or all of which might be preferable to the actual consequences of said: dramatic increase in synthetic testosterone levels and, thus, unofficial blacklisting from Major League Baseball and/or general respectability — not to mention accompanying issues with sexual performance, anger management, etc.

It’s entirely possible that the baseball careers and personal lives of Milone, Bundy, and Taillon will be ruined in short order.

I blame myself.

The following image, snapped and developed inside the camera itself by a Hollywood Polaroid at the Coachella music festival, which sounds just awful, contains truths. Foremost among these truths is that the Baltimore Orioles are the team of the those with big studio contracts at RKO Radio Pictures:

What does a young starlet need besides lifeless eyes and the love of a misunderstood Morrissey-Vampire? She needs for Hollywood’s hometown nine, the Hollywood Orioles, to win that base-and-ball match.

The Orioles name is surely on the list, won’t you check again? The foul line is really a healthy dusting of cocaine, and the Orioles will have some in the bathroom like now.

The Orioles just touched home plate, and home plate is Buddy Ebsen Karate Movie.

Numbers represent averaged wOBAs of all qualifying hitters born in that state/country. Labels represent regional wOBA leaders. Click to embiggen.

Detail from Francesco Traini’s Triumph of Death, an inspiration for Totentanz.

While there are surely a number of factors to consider when assessing the degree to which a musical work might serve as an effective closer entrance song, the most important of these (i.e. these factors) is surely the degree to which the music in question gives an opposing team’s batters the sense that some manner of gross physical discomfort is about to be visited upon their respective persons.

It has recently come to the attention of this author that the opening minute-plus of composer Franz Liszt’s Totentanz — or, in English, Dance of the Dead — ably fulfills this most important of criteria.*

Note: the author is aware that Liszt’s piece is not technically a “song.” I’m merely using the term colloquially.

Liszt, who himself was known to visit hospitals and asylums as a recreational activity, never formally described the piece as “the soundtrack to an impromptu and forcible colorectal exam performed by the Devil himself” — although one assumes, while listening to the work, that this was his intention.

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I did not expect the deluge of e-mail I received following my Miguel Batista piece on Tuesday. (Okay, it was one e-mail.)

Jon Daly of the excellent Designated Sitter blog linked me to his post about Batista, which reminded me that Batista is a writer– of a novel (with two excellent Amazon reviews), and a book of poetry (currently unavailable). And perhaps more, which we might know about if Batista had renewed the registration on his website domain. Millions of dollars in career earnings and he can’t throw GoDaddy $10 (often even less with a coupon code!).

Here’s an interview with Batista that includes a poem, his first in English, written in the Braves bullpen in 1998. Here’s the first stanza:

Do you remember?

The quiet nights under the moon
The holding hands in late September
The prettiest days of my childhood
I ask myself do you remember?

More on Batista’s writing from the Wall Street Journal last month. And he tweets. But, unfortunately, not very often.

Impressive, although Carson is far more qualified to actually pass critical judgment on the poem than I would be. I’m mostly just impressed by the mere production of writing from someone who is also a professional baseball player. I wish I could be in a writing group with Miguel Batista, Fernando Perez, and R.A. Dickey.

(And, yes, all you need to do to get me to mention your blog on NotGraphs is send me an e-mail.)

MUAHAHAHA
HAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!

DAMN THE RULES
IMA ROLL BACK HOME!!!!!! Read the rest of this entry »

#Rays Maddon on “minimalist” road trip to Texas: 1 pair jeans, 3 shirts, some socks, “those who wear underwear bring underwear”

— Marc Topkin (@TBTimes_Rays) April 25, 2012

Neither. Because, let’s face it, you always wondered.

We know too much, my friends. We know too much.

H/T: @AnswerDave.

Here’s something you may not know: these unused Topps master slides from 1978-1983 inspired many of our finest authors and works of literature. Proof? Proof:

Richie Zisk

“He allowed himself to be swayed by his conviction that human beings are not born once and for all on the day their mothers give birth to them, but that life obliges them over and over again to give birth to themselves.” -Gabriel Garcí­a Márquez

George Hendrick

“I took a deep breath and listened to the old brag of my heart. I am, I am, I am.” -Sylvia Plath
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