My 62-year-old Dodger fan friend, who is a 12-year veteran of a 32-year-old fantasy league team, sent the following email to Clayton Kershaw’s doctor. He then forwarded it to me with the note “The recommendation he made was exactly what I asked for. Coincidence?” In real life, people, in real life.
Dear NotGraphs,
Back in spring training I made a bet with an obnoxious Yankee fan friend of mine. [ed. note: is there any other kind?] If the Yankees win 98 games or more, he designs a t-shirt for me that I have to wear to work. If they win less than 98, I design the shirt, and he wears it.
It is now obvious at this point in the season that I am going to win the bet.
What should the shirt say? It has to be be safe for work, but other than that, anything goes.
Keep in mind, this guy is the most obnoxious Yankees fan you’ve ever met. One of those guys who thinks Derek Jeter is God’s son, and calls Alex Rodriguez A-Fraud. He talks about “True Yankees” on a daily basis, and frequently states with complete confidence that Scott Brosius was a better 3rd baseman than Rodriguez. He talks about Felix Hernandez as a Triple-A prospect for New York. He even says that the Yanks are entitled to Hernandez, without any sense of how ridiculous he sounds. He honestly thinks someone in Kansas City spiked Robbie Cano’s Gatorade during this year’s Home Run Derby to prevent him from hitting any bombs. He believes Derek Jeter is “clutch” because of something that happened in 1998, and believes that all of Rodriguez’s RBI have come in games that the Yankees were already winning. He does not believe the two MVP awards that A-Rod won (and the 2009 playoffs in which he carried the team) matter in the least. He thinks every position player in New York is intrinsically better than all players from anywhere else, except Rodriguez, who he believes is a terrible baseball player, and always was. Earlier this year Carl Pavano beat the Yanks, and I texted him something humorous about it. He cursed me out and wouldn’t talk to me for a week. The guy knows very little about other baseball teams, even within the same division. He is very knowledgeable about the Yankees’ day-to-day moves, but, for example, did not know which league the A’s were in. Imagine the most stereotypical Yankees fan with all the obnoxious traits you can imagine. That’s him.
He is a good friend, but I am relishing the easy win I have on this bet. He was willing to bet on 106 wins, but I lowered it to 98 just to tick him off. They will be lucky to win 90 if you ask me.
Here are some of the ideas I have. I’m not especially happy with any of them, so I’d like some help.
“Derek Jeter is on Roids.”
“Alex Rodriguez is a better shortstop than Derek Jeter.”
“I have tremendous personal fondness for Josh Beckett.”
“Derek Jeter and Mariano Rivera choked in ’01, ’03 and ’04.”
Thanks,
Sean
From the depths of newspaper morgue and the dead-letter office come this Collage Most Murderous …
Dave Parker is not on the loose on the streets of your town, but that’s only because Dave Parker’s call is coming from inside the house.
Occasionally, in some manner of print or electronic publication deeply concerned with sport, the editors will denote one or the other athlete as “most improved” among his peers. What follows has little — one might even say nothing — to do with that.
What concerns us here is something that happens on other types of occasions — specifically, during the stories of P.G. Wodehouse. Occasionally, in Wodehouse’s stories, gentleman’s personal gentleman and widely hailed savant Jeeves will make a statement to the effect that he has plans to read — or, alternatively, has just concluded reading — an “improving book.” What he means is not, as some might expect, a book that gets better the further it goes along, but rather one that makes stronger the character, clearer the thoughts, and richer the imagination.
The purpose of this post is to accept nominations for Most Improving Player — that is, the baseball-ist who, by virtue of his play or conduct or some ineffable je ne sais quoi, has improved the reader most this season.
Nominations for this very important distinction will be accepted in the comments area below. A brief note on the virtues of each nominee are not only permitted but encouraged.
Players who belong to a reader’s preferred team, while not strictly forbidden, are frowned upon — both by the author and also former commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis.
To wit:
Mayhap your team needs to lighten up down the stretch, have fun as a team, grow trust. Glenn Braggs & Co. can help with that. Allow him to provide a list of services.
Mayhap your team needs someone to move very, very heavy things. Glenn Braggs himself can do that. For fifty bucks!
Tommy Lasorda bids you: Look at that specimen.
You say your team’s players desire to know exactly who among them is able to get away with wearing a half-T while bobbing around the locker room in their respective jocks? For a reasonable fee, a consulting team comprised of select members of the 1991 Cincinnati Reds — including Glenn Braggs — will be able to advise on said.
To this day, when Tommy Lasorda needs to present a “specimen” of human strength, he refers to this video, and to its inadvertent star, Glenn “That Specimen” Braggs:
While Max Scherzer’s shoulder is tired, his capacity for experiencing awe is constantly renewed.
Detroit Tigers right-hander and perpetual case study in human potential Max Scherzer was removed after two innings from his start on Tuesday due to “shoulder fatigue.” While an MRI revealed no structural damage, Scherzer and the organization will proceed with caution.
To address concerns about his health, the Tigers media relations staff has distributed the following statement, composed (it seems) entirely by Scherzer himself.
It’s almost impossible, in light of my recent medical concern, not to be reminded of that great record-keeper of the ephemeral, Tang Dynasty poet Tu Fu — his entire oeuvre, really (or, as much of it as is available to a commoner like me, whose Chinese has suffered from disuse in recent years), but, in particular, the second section of his poem “Meandering River”, which David Young translates as follows in his excellent collection from Oberlin’s Field Translation Series:
Those of you who follow the news of baseball regularly – and I expect that to be most of you, fair readers – might have been made aware of something that Yunel Escobar did the other day, and the subsequent fallout. I will not use these pages to convey my feelings, as I feel nearly every baseball writer and consequent Internet commenter – my God, the commenters – have put in their two one-hundredths of a dollar.
I will, however, bestow upon you some additional knowledge of the situation learned by the NotGraphs Investigative Reporting Investigative Team. As it happens, Mr. Escobar’s suspension will not be the only penance he must pay. Nay, he will also be required to wear an apology on the same eye black that cause such a ruckus.
This humble author offers a few opinions:
1. Hit ‘em where it hurts, by pointing out he is really not that good of a baseball player.
Dear NotGraphs,
Curses upon my father for bestowing upon me Mets fandom, with the Yankees in the very same city! I bite my thumb at thee! Alas, I cannot assuage my love for the New York Metropolitans, despite a lifetime of gifts consisting of hopelessness—a la my formative years of the early 90s—or the even more painful act of granting hope before ripping it out of my hands to beat me with while I whimper pathetically on the floor—a la falling to the Evil Empire in the 2000 World Series. It appears as though yet another season will pass without glory for the Mets, this time with the ironically malevolent gift of hopelessness to start the season, then the slow granting of hope through spring and early summer, then, when I finally felt genuine belief, tearing the hope away from me, this time not even needing to beat me with it, merely content to watch me writhe on the ground and laugh maniacally.
I do not seek asylum to cheer for another team. No, I have acquiesced to my fate. For I have found the glory of rotisserie baseball, and my team sits atop the standings with over 1,000 dollars of prize money on the line! My question for you, NotGraphs, is when, if ever, does it become acceptable to cheer against my woefully beloved Mets in order to see my own chances at winning my league increase? Teams within striking distance will benefit from David Wright’s, Frank Francisco’s, Jordany Valdespin’s, and—lo!—even Jason Bay’s production as the season draws to a close.
My New York Mets still have a non-zero chance of contending, but any realistic prediction would leave them out of the playoffs. What does one strikeout here, one blown save there really harm my Metsies? But those very same strikeouts and blown saves could lead to my own personal glory! Is it wrong when my feeble heart jumps with glee to see Chase Utley of the damnable Phillies hit a home run, or to feel a hint of smile approach my lips when Josh Thole fails, yet again, to drive in a runner from third with less than two outs? After all, I have no say in the operation and performance of the Mets. Their successes are not my successes, and their failures are not my failures. And, perhaps more or perhaps less importantly, no meaningful successes are even possible for the Mets this season. My rotisserie team, however, is of my own creation, a product of my own mind and intelligence, so how can it be wrong for me to feel pleasure in its success? It is far more rational to feel joy, even to feel pain, on behalf of my own doings. But a part of me still questions the validity of those feelings.
Desperately seeking guidance,
John Cusack
You have refused to eat your mush. You have been told many times to hush. Your eyebrow has broken the brush.
So goodnight, room.
And, at long last, goodnight, Wally Moon.
Goodnight, nobody.
Unflappable. We will not be flapped.
There are many differing demeanors found among the attendees of any baseball contest. The above photo contains a number of them.
There is the photo-bombing younger sister (seen at left above), who has no interest in the game to begin with, but sees an evening at the ballpark as an occasion to enjoy nonetheless.
There is the moderate fan (at center above, between the figures of the foreground), wearing apparel that expresses his casual, Nike-sponsored fandom. He is intelligent and observant, but really, he knows little about the intricacies of the game, and he doesn’t care to know them. He is there to clap excitedly at the triumphs of the home team, nod in pity at its shortcomings, and to otherwise mind his reasonably handsome business. For him, this contest constitutes entertainment; it is not baseball.
There is the sleeping fan (at right above, his peaceful face just peeking out) who took too much sun and too much drink while tailgating before the game. He is an excitable fan, normally — not one of the fair-weather types, he’ll tell you. Normally, however, he doesn’t have so much to drink.
There are, finally (and at the focus of the photo above), fans who consider themselves to be the model fans, whom nothing escapes as far as the contest itself is concerned; who consider the wave to be fascist but never say so; who believe that the ballpark is no place for children or for those possessed of weak bladders; who clap and cheer and harbor heartbreak only with their minds, and with the subtle, silent shifting of their attention to follow the action.
When these fans have children, and when those children are able to sit still long enough to attend a ballgame, those children shall not require popped corn or the like; they shall only require the sound of oak or ash striking cowhide, the bright lights of the ballpark on their unblemished faces, the flowing swoop and scoop of the shortstop, the firmness of the park’s seats on their well-disciplined hindquarters…
And they, too, shall have their likenesses immortalized on such a baseball blog as this.