The unwritten rules of baseball extend into the crowd. For example, there’s a decorum that governs when spectators should boo. Sometimes gentleman, sometimes bartender Jon Rauch helps us out:

Very disappointed with the fans who booed Jason Bay as he came off the field. This is a serious injury that affects his livelihood (cont)

— Jon Rauch (@jrauch60) June 16, 2012

Well, okay, that one was obvious. Jason Bay ran full tilt into the outfield wall trying to catch a ball and suffered a concussion for it. Maybe that wasn’t the best time to boo him.

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I went home to my mother’s house this past weekend to paint her kitchen; she’s gearing up for the yearly rummage sale. Amongst the possible rummage items were my Starting Lineup figurines, all of which were Brewers players from the 1988 and 1989 seasons. I used to have a Kirby Puckett figurine from 1989, but somewhere along the line he vanished: I might have traded him for some cards back in the day, or he might have been the victim of another rummage purge by my mother. At any rate, I salvaged these guys from the purge-in-process.

Your 1988 Milwaukee Brewers

As you can see, none of them are still in their packaging. I was only seven years old when I got these, and I was more interested in crudely recreating one of the copious Brewers losses that I watched on TV or at Milwaukee County Stadium than I was in “resale value” or whatever. First I would write inning-by-inning scripts of the games (because, you know, I already wanted to be a writer and stuff) and then I would act them out the best I could with the seven or eight figures that I had.

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A recent spate of ballplayers showing questionable judgment in their extracurricular activities expanded to the West Coast this weekend, as Giants first baseman Brandon Belt — known as “Baby Giraffe” for his resemblance to the long-necked animal — was photographed jumping into a swimming pool with an unnamed actual giraffe. The relationship between the two is unclear, and Belt was not available for comment. “He’s a grown man,” said Giants skipper Bruce Bochy. “I mean, he’s kind of — he’s pretty much a grown man. What he does with his personal time is his business. My own feelings about giraffes have nothing to do with it.”

According to TMZ, Vladimir Guerrero pays over $25,000 in child support each month, for eight children with five different women.

[scrippet]
CHILD ONE
I tried to call and wish him a Happy Father’s Day, but the line was busy all day!

CHILD TWO
I kept getting his voice mail. And the mailbox was full.

CHILD THREE
I got him a Father’s Day card, but he said he already had three of the same card I bought. There simply aren’t enough unique Father’s Day cards. Hallmark, you suck.

CHILD FOUR
I think it’s almost my turn to see him again this Christmas. Too bad he won’t remember what I look like, since the last time it was my turn was 2004, and I was one.
[/scrippet]

The latest paternity lawsuit was filed by a woman named Heidy Ogando, who, hopefully for Alexi Ogando of the Rangers, is not his wife. Although if it is, perhaps this gives the Blue Jays players a reason not to be too upset he won’t be joining them in Toronto.

“I like my wife,” said Casey Janssen.

Mark again,
  a rising and daring,
  a burning without exhaustion,
  a heat with dangerous form,
  not like the fire without an end,
    but the coals, under the ashes and warm.

A mark from before,
  a promise unkept,
  a hero unkempt.
  A man seen only in white and red and blue —
  the same still, but now in red and blue and white,
    all shades different, but not askew.

Our prior notation,
  a classic tale,
  a useful trope.
  Kerry Wood ended with a K.
  Bartolo Colon just kept going.
    And now what will remain?

“Dopamine and Baseball” is not, turns out, the name of Marcy Playground’s second most popular song. Indeed, it’s the name of nothing, in particular, besides this post on a ridiculous blog read by fewer than, say, .0001% of the entire world.

However, dopamine’s role in our enjoyment of baseball is, in fact, mentioned in a New York Times article from 2002 by Sandra Blakeslee which the author found himself reading this afternoon for reasons that will continue to remain mysterious — even to the author himself.

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Abhorrence of Abhorrences lurking behind the potted palm, Brian McCann sees you. If it’s any consolation, Abhorrence of Abhorrences, you are absolutely as mortifying as you think you are. At least to the quaking likes of Brian McCann …

Know this, Brian McCann: whatever you have seen is absolutely not as scared of you as you are of it.

(Thanks to MockSession for the initial image and, thus, the walking tour of the abyss.)

Today’s peculiar tweet comes from the official Twitter feed of the Baltimore Orioles (click to embiggen):

We have all, at some point or another, done things in our younger years that we’re not entirely proud of. Perhaps you bought a Hypercolor T-shirt, or perhaps you bought Hanson’s album Middle of Nowhere. It’s not your fault. Rather, it’s not your fault now; instead, your punishment is to suffer occasional flashbacks to the crimes of your former self, the past you cannot unmake. I understand. I, too, have fought my demons.

Case in point: last weekend as I was rifling through the contents of my filing cabinet, I came upon a rather innocent-looking piece of graph paper adorned with equally innocent-looking handwriting. As I studied the arcane runes, my curiosity was consumed by horror; my initial reaction was to burn the evidence and the filing cabinet that housed it. But as you (dear reader) and I are in the process of building back up trust and familiarity after a long and unexplained absence on my part, I knew that my only choice was to give you the truth you deserve. Thus I’ll share this wayward moment of my misspent youth.

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I’m reading Roger Kahn’s The Boys of Summer. It is, for lack of a better word, amazing. I’m taking my time with it because, frankly, I don’t want it to end.

Kahn grew up a huge supporter of the Brooklyn Dodgers. “Within shouting distance of Ebbets Field.” By 25, he was covering the team for the New York Herald Tribune. Yet, after having read Kahn’s prose, which strikes you immediately (pardon the pun, bro), I’m having a hard time thinking of Kahn as a Dodgers fan first, and a writer second. Nobody who writes about baseball today writes the way Kahn did about the Dodgers. (Except masters of prose Carson Cistulli and Dayn Perry.) Today’s baseball writers strike me as baseball fans first, and writers second. Kahn may have grown up a Dodgers fan, but he’s a writer before anything else.

I urge you to read The Boys of Summer. You’ll learn why they were called the Dodgers, something I didn’t know until I bought the book. You’ll read about the incredible racism in the American South in the early 1950s, and what Jackie Robinson went through, and said, as he broke baseball’s color barrier. And, finally, you’ll read 484 of the greatest words I’ve ever come across about the art that is pitching. I’m going to turn it over to Mr. Kahn …

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