Humberto is my friend and he was pointing out one of my best attributes, my eyes! #proudtobeofasiandescent

— Bruce Chen (@ChenMusic) June 10, 2012

Courtesy of CBS Sports’ Eye on Baseball, this heartwarming article about Humberto Quintero and Bruce Chen.

It’s good to know that CBS has an entire blog devoted to things like this.

Wait, what? Are you telling me that every post on “Eye on Baseball” isn’t about the shape of baseball players’ eyes??? But… how… huh…??? Could there even be a more perfect name for the blog that would report this story? It’s really just a coincidence? Seriously?

Stay tuned for my soon-to-be-launched Ears On Baseball blog, which will only contain posts about this guy.

Today, I would like to thank Austin Kearns for deflecting a ground ball in the bottom of the second inning last Saturday. Thank you, Austin Kearns; thank you for not standing and jogging, but instead crawling like a mewing kitten to the dribbling-yonder ball.

Here’s a poem to commemorate the occasion:

A spreading expanse of clay
separates you and I.
The easy bred error,
and for the thinnest of moments,

the sport and I have fallen into disrepute
as I mime a kitten in my scrambling commute.

        I pounce.

Hat tip to my buddy, the most Jason of Collettes.

In what follows, radio voice of the Milwaukee Brewers Bob Uecker discusses jockey shorts and, before that, a scheme he’s developed for relieving contest entrants of their winnings.

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One minute it was Ohio winter, with doors closed, windows locked, the panes blind with frost, icicles fringing the backstops, pitchers breathing hard into curled hands, huddling in their windbreakers, catchers lumbering like great black beetles in their shells, crouching in the tall weeds. Baseball was trapped between the pages of Sports Illustrated, held by trembling fingers near lamplight, images of Mantle and Snider striding, smiling, before black and white fields, frozen.

And then a long wave of warmth crossed the country. A flooding sea of hot air, mixed with cut grass and oiled leather, mingled with loam and chalk dust. The snow dissolved to reveal diamonds, glaciation carving patches of clay out of grass. Aluminum birdcalls echoed above the fields.

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The author, in his capacity as a member of this country’s Leisured Poor, recently made a journey to the Duck Pond at Warner Park in Madison, Wisconsin — baseballing home of the Madison Mallards of the summer college wood-bat Northwoods League. This is something I’ve done before — both with the internet’s Common Man and also the internet’s Jackie Moore — however, in the present work, I’d like to address, specifically, what a Mallards game reveals about the ideal ballpark experience.

There is, of course, reason for me to delude myself into the opinion that a Mallards game represents something close to the ideal ballpark experience. Both (a) living in Madison and (b) having no car, my options for live baseball are limited. The Brewers are about 75 or 80 miles to the east; the Beloit Snappers (Low-A affiliate of the Twins), about 50-55 miles south. As such, the Mallards represent my only real opportunity for live baseball.

Even so, games at Warner Park satisfy the criteria that I (and I’m guessing many fans) consider when evaluating the quality of live baseball as entertainment — have, perhaps, helped me to understand what those criteria are, in the first place.

Criteria like these:

Proximity — As in, how far the stadium/park is from my house, in minutes. And also how easy it is to park or commute via public transit, too.

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Can I brag about this one fantasy team that I’ve got? It’s a keeper, twelve teams, head-to-head. Think I lost in the championships last year. Traded David Wright and Cole Hamels for Dustin Pedroia before keepers were due, which was kind of a loss maybe, but this team was too good to care and it made my six keepers going into the season Carlos Santana, Joey Votto, Dustin Pedroia, Brett Lawrie, Jose Reyes, and Carlos Gonzalez. Felt pretty good going into the draft.

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In the introduction to the most recent edition of FanGraphs Audio — featuring interviews with Tampa Bayers Will Rhymes and Luke Scott — David Laurila notes that the longest home run he’s ever seen was hit by Miguel Cabrera during batting practice before a recent Tigers-Red Sox game at Fenway Park.

Laurila goes on to say that said home run was hit over the Bank of America sign in center field — which sign I have brought to the reader’s attention via red circles by means of a program similar to, but not precisely the same as, Adobe Photoshop.

Image stolen shamelessly and without shame from NESN.

Last night, Brewers infielder Taylor Green hit his first major league homerun.

Green’s current Brewers teammate (and longtime minor league teammate) catcher Martin Maldonado — who also recently hit his first big league homer — was, maybe, very excited for Green:

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Can someone explain to me what was going on in 1955? Was everyone contorted by fear of Communist infiltration? Were chemical mutagens being released experimentally into major league clubhouses? Did Topps photographers surprise players on their way out of the bathroom? And then run their portraits through Photo Booth for Mac?

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As students of history and Uncle History himself are well aware, Hall of Famer Nathan Hale (class of 2002) long insisted that paper dolls have nipples. Now, for the first time since Antiquity, when Hale was CEO of Activision and King of All He Surveyed, a paper doll has nipples. Notable for our purposes, the paper doll is of Dock Ellis, who, besides playing baseball, drank deeply of the good and worthy …

In equally uplifting news, you may purchase this at Etsy, where durable goods are made into art and then sold over the Bald Eagle Computers of this fair land.

(HT: Me, for finding this)