You might remember a complacent Mark Reynolds munching some sunflower seeds after a Red Sox homerun last year. NotGraphs’ Navin Vaswani commented upon what quickly became one of the years biggest and best baseball memes.

Wondering, though, did anyone notice that last night, as the Orioles trounced the White Sox, that Reynolds took his seed addiction to a new level? During a plate appearance in which he would record an RBI double, Reynolds went to bat holding a sack of his preferred David’s brand sunflower seeds, ranch flavored. Upon arriving at second base, Reynolds rewarded himself with a mouthful of said.

Like a sugared carrot dangling afore a donkey, so are David’s ranch flavors to Mark Reynolds.

Mark Reynolds, toting the treat that would be consumed.

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This video, by Toronto celebrity Kathy Anderson, speaks to me, man. You haven’t lived until you’ve walked drunk up the many, many ramps to the Rogers Centre’s Skydome’s 500 level.

I’m ready, too. So ready. All I want is some meaningful baseball. I’m not asking for much.

(If you’re going to comment about the shot of the wave at the end of the clip, don’t do it. I get it: everyone hates the bloody wave.)

MLB.com’s Doug Miller has written a profile of FanGraphs managing editor Dave Cameron and his contretemps with stupid leukemia.

Along with what is a decidedly touching portrait of a person (i.e. Cameron) who is respected by readers and colleagues, Miller’s article reveals some other facts that will shock and/or amaze.

To wit:

• Cameron, who is obviously funny-looking, is somehow less funny-looking now that at any other time in his life. Photo evidence confirms this.

• When a 14-year-old Cameron asked Derek Zumsteg (his future USS Mariner co-editor) to remove David Pease from the alt.sports.baseball.sea-mariners newsgroup because he (i.e. Pease) was a “moron,” Zumsteg replied thusly: “[I]f we had a ‘No Morons Allowed’ rule, I’m afraid that would mean you couldn’t post either.”

• While thorough, Miller’s pieces is incomplete for its total omission of this image (courtesy Dayn Perry):

Oh, Red Sox. Why’d you have to start the game so early yesterday?

Yep, Shields and Bard, both on my bench. 1 earned run. I lose my week by less than 80 points, and I’m putting a curse on the Red Sox. Another one.

Short, sweet, and to the point. What I love about the shot — courtesy of the fine folks at Getty Images, via Daylife — is that she’s sitting among mostly Yankees fans at Oriole Park.

I’m with her, though: Never forget, Orioles fans.

The Major League Baseball season is long, and, theoretically, there’s a reason for that even beyond making the league and owners a ton of money: to ensure that the best teams win out in the long run; i.e., to mitigate the effects of short-term luck.

At the same time, Commissioner Bud Selig has recently proposed and pushed through the addition of a second wild card team from each league. The extra spot makes the results of the long season a bit less meaningful, as a team that would have otherwise been an also-ran could have a hot September, nab a wild card, win the one-game playoff, and go all the way with your mom!.

Realizing that he has made a mistake — that only the very best teams should play for the pennants — but also realizing that it’s too late to revoke the second wild card, the Commish has decided to correct this by significantly amending the regular season schedule: he’s borrowed the idea of “running it twice” from the world of high stakes poker.

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1. Major league baseball players have romantic liaisons with each other all the time.

2. These liaisons are often extremely sensual, and can be surprisingly sweet and tender as well.

3. They are documented in persuasive detail (under the delicate guise of “slashfiction”) on hard-nosed sites like this one.

4. They make for better reading than you might think.

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It’s a fact of science — and by “fact of science” I mean “I heard on the news or something once” — that the human brain is, more or less, programmed to search out narratives. The instinct is so strong that, in those cases where it (i.e. the brain) encounters seemingly disparate facts and events, it (i.e. the brain) will compel a human being to name Yuniesky Betancourt as the starting second baseman of his baseball team.

In maybe — although not definitely — related news, Newsday reporter Jim Baumbach’s Twitter coverage of this morning’s jury selection for Roger Clemens’ impending perjury trial is more amusing than all of your spouse’s work stories.

Some recent selections from Baumbach’s timeline:

Jury selection in the Roger Clemens perjury trial, take two, begins Monday morning. I’ll be live tweeting from inside the courthouse…

— Jim Baumbach (@jimbaumbach) April 10, 2012

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4/13: Ellsbury injures shoulder in 4th inning of Rays-Red Sox game. “In a lot of pain.” “Felt something move a little bit.” Leaves ballpark for further evaluation.

4/14: Diagnosed with “subluxed shoulder.” Expected to miss a minimum of six weeks. Surgery remains a possibility. “I haven’t heard the word surgery,” says manager Bobby Valentine. “Whatever the best possible care is, that’s what we will give him.” Ellsbury expected to be re-evaluated in a few days.

4/17: Ellsbury’s other shoulder injured en route to his re-evaluation. Expected recovery time for original injury remains six to eight weeks; other shoulder “felt something move a little bit, also seem to be foaming at the mouth.”

4/19: Ellsbury diagnosed with a second subluxed shoulder.

4/27: While recuperating, Ellsbury develops “Mountain Fever,” which is the opposite of “Valley Fever” in that instead of causing decreased strength, it causes increased strength. In attempting to use this increased strength to lift a car, Ellsbury drops the car on his foot. He is diagnosed with a subluxed foot, which isn’t even a real thing until Ellsbury becomes the first person to ever have it. Estimated recovery time: 10-12 weeks.

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This is a map — a map not yet revealed to be shocking — of driving directions from Matt Kemp’s hometown of Midwest City, Oklahoma to Saduharu Oh’s hometown of Tokyo, Japan, U.S.A. Admire …

As you can see, this route has tolls, the bulk of them presumably on the Tom Wopat Pacific Ocean Tollway. As you can also see, it’s 8,732 miles from Kemp’s hometown to Oh’s hometown. And this is where things get … shocking.

What’s the significance of the number 8,732? Well, you say, 8,732 is the number of beautiful ladies in a town of 8,732 beautiful ladies. While that’s true, it’s also the number of Kemp’s career plate appearances coming into Sunday, April 15, 2012 added to his career at-bats coming into Sunday, April 15, 2012 added to his career total bases (again, coming into play on April 15, 2012) added to his plate appearances for 2007 added to his triples for 2008 added to Oh’s career home runs. Or should I say: !. (I’m pretty sure all of this is correct; I shall do things, but I shall not double-check this dumb shit.)

That map I said was not yet revealed to be shocking? It’s now shocking.

Shocked, are you? Shocked by the relevant numerology? Yes, you are so, and you are such.

As I survey the ratscape of my lousy life and work, I shall remember that the numbers have an unseen power over us. Specifically they have the unseen power to make the number of Matt Kemp’s career plate appearances coming into Sunday, April 15, 2012 added to his career at-bats coming into Sunday, April 15, 2012 added to his career total bases (again, coming into play on April 15, 2012) added to his plate appearances for 2007 added to his triples for 2008 added to Sadaharu Oh’s career home runs equal the number of miles, by car, from Midwest City, Oklahoma to Tokyo.

Now go and rage against the will to rage against the dying of the light.