Dispatch from an alternative universe…

BISMARCK, 2020. As the one-term Presidency of Jeffrey Loria comes to an end, we take time to reflect on his accomplishments. The United States in 2016 was of course a far different place than it is now. It’s hard to remember that there used to be fifty states. And the President’s house used to be painted white. And people lived here. President Loria swept into office promising to make the U.S. great again. And, indeed, for the first six days of his administration, he pretended to try to do just that. He hired the leaders of over two hundred other nations to come work for America, offering compensation far greater than they deserved, even to the old and decrepit ones. He appointed Ozzie Guillen to run the State Department. And he designed a brand new flag, with sparkly colors and real live fish on it. (Don’t think too hard about the details there.)

But then some kid somewhere failed his math test, and so Loria decided to cash out before the whole thing collapsed. So he traded our most expensive states — California, Texas, New York, and about thirty more — to Canada for a couple of uninhabited islands off the coast of Newfoundland, fired Ozzie Guillen and replaced him with a backup catcher, and convinced the taxpayers to fund a brand new Capitol Building in Bismarck, North Dakota, with a retractable roof and shiny sculpture that would shoot off fireworks whenever a bill was passed.

C-SPAN also canceled its coverage of Congress, because no one cared anymore.

And now the only remaining American of note, Justin Timberlake, is kinda pissed off.

Good luck to our incoming President, Mr. Fred Wilpon, as he looks to find a way out this mess.

I was a white boy in Jamaica first, and then a Jamaican in Germany. Then I was a Euro in the south.

Even as a nerd in prep school, I was out of place. I flew to Boston with a Colorado Rockies starter jacket for some reason, and very little experience with snow. That jacket, cinched tightly to reveal one eye most days that first winter, was often the object of scorn. Labelled a Jamaican on some paperwork somewhere, I again found myself as a white person at social events full of minorities.

And I was bad at sports. I arrived at Milton Academy a full five-foot-three, 100 pounds. I grew three inches every summer, but left school six-foot-two, hitting a buck fifty soaking wet. My motor cortex thought my limbs were shorter than they were, and so I was uncoordinated and small most years. That resulted in some ridicule, but it also created a problem for me, since I somehow had to satisfy the sports requirement every season. I resisted the wrestling team’s advances to be their super lightweight. Then a couple small bones broke and made me seem brittle. So I turned to other sports. Intramural (hack) skiing. Hack ultimate. Hack squash. I coached the field hockey team. I tried soccer until my ankles begged for mercy.

The only sport I kept trying all four years was baseball.

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And former major-leaguer Ramiro Mendoza is pitching for Panama. Against Brazil. In a World Baseball Classic qualifier.

Here’s the video link: video. And the box score: box.

The following tweet is entirely and in-no-way altered from the original (click to embiggen):

Something is going to happen tonight. This something will make you want to voice an opinion. Many of you will want to voice said opinion on Twitter. Don’t. It’s not worth it. It will not change the outcome, nor will your quip lead to you being recognized as a cultural luminary or sports-critic extraordinaire.

May I suggest some alternative activities for spending your evening? Oh, I shall.

1. Take a nap. I realize that a nap that late in the day may just lead to extended sleep, but who cares? Sleeping is awesome.

2. Go to Macy’s and get that v-neck sweater you’ve been eyeing. Come on, you know it fits great and that color will really go with those olive green slacks you’ve been waiting to debut. YOLO.

3. When’s the last time you really read Family Circus? They’re touching on important issues over there. Doin’ God’s work.

4. I have it on good authority that baseball writer/National Treasure/degenerate Aaron Gleeman will be on a FanGraphs Audio episode that will drop today. It’s a way to kill time, at least.

5. The way this country’s going in the toilet, you better start learning some Chinese, amirite?

Ha! Alf kills you.

Apart from some notable exceptions, the quality of commentary on baseballing broadcasts leaves something to be desired — in particular for the handsome and bespectacled sort who’ve made NotGraphs part of their (a) lives and (b) RSS feeds.

Below are five candidates to fill whatever color vacancies are currently open around baseball — or are likely to become open in the near future.

5. ALF, from TV’s ALF
You know what would really annoy Willie? Were ALF to secure gainful employment, delighting home audiences all over the greater Los Angeles area — even as Willie continued to insist (impotently) that ALF was a slovenly and freeloading houseguest.

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It has come to the author’s attention that, as part of a recent update and reformat of MLB’s At Bat 12 app, there’s been included a tab (pictured right) that allows users to access and watch any one from 16 different classic baseball games. Most readers will likely find the majority of the games either too old (such that the broadcast technology is borderline prohibitive in terms of “watching”) or, otherwise, so recent that they (i.e. these games) are insufficiently shrouded by the mists of time.

There is, however, a collection of three or four games — starting with Game Five of the Orioles-Mets World Series in 1969 and ending with Game Five of the 1984 NLCS between the Cubs and Padres — that are both (a) available in brilliant Technicolor and (b) old enough that one can experience them again for the first time, as it were.

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I don’t know where the saying came from. It’s partly a platitude, partly a statement of the rules. It is used to celebrate a player’s skill, while also unkindly magnifying precisely how that skill cannot be used. It’s a pat on the back, and a kick in the groin. It’s a definition of a back-handed compliment.

“You can’t steal first.”

This phrase, when used by broadcasters, usually accompanies an at-bat by a speedy, light-hitting player. It is meant to point out that while this player’s speed is an asset, it does not help his ability, or inability, to get on base.

“You can’t steal first.”

But what if, like, you could? What if the rules of baseball allowed a player to, at any time during an at-bat, take off for first base? You probably haven’t thought about this, due to the fact that it’s a silly idea. But I have, fair NotGraphs reader, for your benefit.

The pitcher is a fragile creature indeed, and the installation of this rule might be the thing that sends most of them to the asylum. Gone would be the days of walking around the mound. An errant pickoff throw would now put runners at first and second. And the wild pitches, my God, the wild pitches. If a pitcher bounces one with a runner on base, the runner moves up. Not the end of the world. However, if the batter were allowed to take first on a wild pitch or passed ball, regardless of the count? It may be a smart idea to buy stock in Gatorade-cooler repair companies, if this were to happen.

There were 104,403 plate appearances in 2012 where no bases were occupied. That’s 104,403 new opportunities for a pitcher to negatively his team’s win probability on ANY pitch, not just ball four.

How would it be scored? Would an extra category need to be added to signify the difference in traditional steals and steals of first? Would stealing first positively affect one’s on-base-percentage? What’s the WPA of such a feat? How many more steals would Ricky Henderson and Vince Coleman have amassed? Would there finally be a good reason to slide into first? Would speedy hitters and defensively-deft catchers be more valuable?

Mr. Cistulli recently penned a micro essay about the importance of the unknown and the yet-to-happen in baseball – how mere possibilities of fantastical things happening are, perhaps, more important than factual things happening. If this has truth to it, and I believe it does have some, the legalization of stealing first adds a new matrix of possibilities of which to gain pleasure.

So I implore you, Mr. Commissioner. Legalize the theft of first. If you won’t give us instant replay, or better umpire accountability, then at least allow Carlos Gomez to up his OBP when the pitcher spins a curveball 60’ 2’’. Tradition be damned. Long live possibilities.

Darkness has descended, like a great damp tarpaulin, upon our land; and as the hot stove gradually cools to a simmer, as the last awards are desultorily awarded, and as the last Brandon McCarthy tweets settle around us like falling leaves, we enter a time of lonely and solemn reflection. It is at times like these — when our collective spirit meets its greatest trial; when all purpose seems to retreat before us; when all we have is each other — that I grasp for the resolve, the determination, the inner strength, to pack my bags and go somewhere else. And that is precisely why I am now inaugurating a new series of posts, titled: Around the Horn*: Four Boats, Thirteen Camels, Two Hundred and Seventy-Six Bouts of Intestinal Distress, and One Man’s Quest to Find Baseball Where He’d Never Expected It. Over a period that may or very well may not amount to eighty days, I’ll be circumnavigating the globe, spending time in countries where baseball is obscurely played, and ruminating on the meaning of our sport, as well as on what it means to be human, as time and space permit.

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