News yesterday that Orioles prospect L.J. Hoes will be playing for the Mesa Solar Sox in the Arizona Fall League. That adds another area code to the list of area codes in which the Orioles have assigned L.J. Hoes.

Observe:

As usual, click to embiggen.

At the end of the first Back to the Future, Doc Brown returns to 1985 for the purpose of bringing Marty and Jennifer — for reasons too obvious to acknowledge — bringing them back to the year 2015. Moments later, Marty notes that there isn’t enough road in the Lyon Estates subdivision to accelerate to 88 mph (i.e. the speed at which the time-traveling DeLorean needs to reach to initiate time travel). To which comment Doc Brown replies, “Roads? Where we’re going, we don’t need roads.”

Doc Brown’s sentiments ring true for the present post, as well — except, instead of “roads,” what Doc Brown would say is “any actual reason” and, instead of “where we’re going,” he’d say “apropos Action Footage of young Mets right-hander Matt Harvey striking out Laynce Nix on a 99 mph fastball.”

Here’s the aforementioned fastball:

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Who is this baseball player?

Without using any type of fancy search method, peruse these images and type in your answer at the end, via NotGraphs Advanced Poll Technology (NGAPT™).

Many thanks to my buddy LAC3 for the idea. I didn’t do it justice.

Obviously the one on the left here.

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There is a saying that a fool and his money are soon parted. Whether that’s the case or not, it is true that anyone who possesses money will eventually spend some of it in a way that does not contribute to his/her overall well-being and fulfillment as a person. There are, of course, a nearly infinite set of degrees to which this can play out. I feel as though I fall on the upper 50% of that spectrum, but I am not without my occasional lapses in judgment. Behold this stupid bobblehead I bought on eBay recently:

The absurdity of this purchase is magnified by the fact that:

1. I don’t live in Oakland, nor have I ever considered myself a fan of the Oakland Athletics.

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The Baltimore Orioles are 71-57. The Toronto Blue Jays are 57-71. I suspected this was the case after last night’s action; I felt a disturbance in the proverbial force. The Orioles have a -39 run differential, the Blue Jays -37. Life remains unfair. Baltimore starters have a 4.60 ERA. Toronto starters: 4.80. The Orioles’ bullpen has been money: a 3.03 ERA in 424.2 innings. The Blue Jays’ bullpen has been a nightmare: a 4.20 ERA, worst in the American League, in 405.1 innings. Bullpens matter. Baltimore is – somehow – 24-6 in one-run games, and 12-2 in extra innings. The Blue Jays are 9-20 in one-run games, and 6-6 in extra innings. The bottom line: the Orioles will play meaningful baseball in September, and the Blue Jays will not. Showalter Magic is real. I believe. In the AL East’s battle of the birds, the Orioles have won.

This troubles me, of course. Over the past few years, I’ve taken my fair share of shots at the Orioles. Seriously, I’ve talked a lot of shit. They were low-hanging fruit. It was so easy. Too easy. But the time for jokes has passed. And now, it’s time to look back, and reflect. Were the jokes – the #OriLOLes hashtag was a personal favorite – worth it?

I’ve thought long and hard about this. About calling Baltimore’s visits to the Rogers Centre “Guaranteed Win Night,” about the Orioles’ fiasco in South Korea, and Dan Duquette’s comments about the cut fastball. I’ve had a lot of good times at the Orioles’ expense. And, yet, here we are: the Blue Jays are now the butt of jokes; the Blue Jays are in last place.

I’m sorry, Baltimore, I apologize, but, after much introspection, yes, it was all worth it, goddamnit. Especially  the #OriLOLes hashtag. No regrets. The Orioles’ struggles made me feel alive. And fortunate. But good luck the rest of the way.

Image credit: Noisy Decent Graphics.

What we are doing is assigning cool nicknames to players rather than the opposite, which is a bloodless tradition that has been with us too much and too long.

So how does this running feature differ from the dear, departed exemplar of the genre? “Nickname Seeks Player” was devoted to active base-ball-ists, while “Nickname Seeks Former Player” is the province of those who no longer play this fine game because they are dead in spirit and perhaps also dead in the corporeal sense. Boileryard Clarke? Eligible! Sal Maglie? Eligible! Fred Lynn? Eligible! Dontrelle Willis? Eligible! Dave Parker? For the ladies!

You may surmise from this that almost the entire sprawl of baseball history lies before you, like a sexy patient etherized upon a table. So prepare yourself to plumb both depths and heights as we ponder fitting candidates for this week’s name to nicked: “Actual, Literal Brick Shithouse”!

Before we proceed, though, let us remember those who have previously survived this crucible of sturdy ghosts. Last time out, Carl Everett talked his drinking buddies into crucifying him to the front door of a brothel and thus claimed the nickname “Man vs. Bible.” So now let us — snifters in hand, cardigans beswaddling our mortal parts — gaze upon The Fireside Mantel of Reposed Fortune-Hunters:

“Museum of Questionable Medical Devices” – Ted Williams
“A Garbage Truck That Runs on Lightning” – Matt Stairs
“Colonel Sanders’s Drinking Buddy” – Charlie Manuel
“America’s Step-Dad” – John Olerud
“Man vs. Bible” – Carl Everett

And now … “Actual, Literal Brick Shithouse”!

Implications and Intimations

Internet Hot Links teach us that the phrase “like a brick shithouse” was, understandably enough, originally concocted to indicate a lady of pleasing physicality. Time and tide, however, have altered the phrase to mean a gentleman of sturdy build, capable of beating up a nation. It is this latter connotation that informs this particular exercise.

The former player, then, should not only be built like a brick shithouse, but should also be actually be, in the most literal of senses, a stink lodge constructed of bricks and mortar and-or impregnable concrete structure filled with big shit. Here’s a helpful artist’s rendering:

So who, citizens of sufficient origins, should be nicknamed “Actual, Literal Brick Shithouse”?

“@zombeels: @mrlecure you suck.” couldn’t agree more, tonight was not my finest, cost us the game. I’ll do better the next time

— Sam LeCure (@mrLeCure) August 19, 2012

Bob Ross.

Who is he?

Major player in the PBS golden years and landscape painter extraordinaire? Freunde to all who would have him via the tele-waves? Creator of happy little trees, happy little clouds?

Or, Major League Baseball player, pitcher for the Washington Senators in 1950, ’51, and the Philadelphia Phillies in ’56? Purveyor, it seems, of sad little fastballs, sad little curves, plenty many walks, sad few strikeouts?

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One might detect, if one somehow had the inclination, a certain level of melancholy in some of my baseball writing. I assure you that this is in no way reflected in my love for the game in question, but rather a defect in my upbringing wherein my parents lamentably provided me no real tragedy with which to ground my craft. I am a Mariners fan, and this has done its best to to counter my unfortunate life of fortune, but I doubt it’s enough.

Perhaps this is why I took to baseball, rather than football or basketball; in football the offense and defense of a game is seen as a net zero sum, with only occasional flashes of unstoppable brilliance from either side. In basketball, where defense is still treated by the media with uncomfortable derision, offensive performance is quantified as varying levels of heroism, on a scale from zero to one. Only baseball, as Ted Williams remarked, is littered with failure. The best batters get out six times out of ten, and the onus of this is still placed on the shoulders of the hitter, rather than the will of the defense. We are not yet writing poems about the man who struck out Mighty Casey.

The purpose of this long-winded introduction, as you may have surmised, is to reflect on some of the writings of nineteenth-century philosopher and general malcontent Arthur Schopenhauer, specifically his unshakable opinion that the world is full of suffering. His best line: “A quick test of the assertion that enjoyment outweighs pain in this world, or that they are at any rate balanced, would be to compare the feelings of an animal engaged in eating with those of the animal being eaten.” Misery is everywhere, and it’s unavaoidable.

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The author, a high school senior in 1998, was one of the few second basemen consistently DH’d for in the Greater Boston area’s Independent School League.

Image largely stolen from ESPN’s Mark Simon.