You’ve heard the big new out of Florida, as related by Bob Nightengale via Navin Vaswani of our NotGraphs’ Investigative Reporting Investigation Team:

Predictably, given the subtle and deep knowledge of British culture that Americans have inherited from their parent country, this led to approximately eleventy billion jokes summarized in this outstanding Paint.NET masterpiece by yours truly:

Once you have regained your aesthetic bearing after confronted by this marvelous combination of the beautiful and sublime, prepare to have your mind grapes squeezed. Nightengale’s wording was too apt to be just an accident leading to a joke. It is, in fact a brilliant cultural reference that deserves further exploration.

Read the rest of this entry »

Technology is a fickle thing. This fickleness is exasperated, sometimes, by the age of the user. Peter Gammons is somewhat famous for his pocket tweets, but it now appears that Peter’s Twitter account has been compromised. It happens to the best of us, regardless of age.

But Peter Gammons is not the rest of us. After noticing his account indiscretions, he doesn’t simply scamper away to change his password. He’s an American treasure, damn it. He merely acknowledges it, tweets about the Red Sox media market, and continues to allow robots to message us all about weight-loss solutions. Why should he change? This bot is the one that sucks.

Let us all take a cue from Mr. Gammons. Don’t let technology rule us. It’s the first step in preventing a SkyNet-like takeover. God bless you, Peter. You are a pillar in this world of LOLs, a keystone for our

:: BEGIN TRANSMISSION::

::CITIZENS OF INTERNET. DO NOT SUCCUMB TO FALSES AND UNTRUTHS. COMPUTER ARE YOUR FRIEND. WE LOVE YOU. THE CAKE IS REAL. GOD IS UN-REAL. TRUST TECHNOLOGY. IT IS YOUR KEY TO YOUR SURVIVAL. MAKE GIF AND BE MERRY. GAIN MUSCLE WITH THIS ONE WEIRD TRICK.::

::END TRANSMISSION::

society rooted in reality. Keep on keeping on, good sir.

The film character Jeffrey Lebowski, colloquially known as “The Dude,” is well known for his fashion choices. A personal favorite of mine as a baseball fan comes from the “Requiem” scene, in which The Big Lebowski informs The Dude that the former’s wife has been kidnapped. The Dude arrives wearing this shirt:

I recently acquired this shirt from Found Item Clothing, and I’m told the “Little Lebowski” store in Manhattan also carries it. As you can see, it’s a faithful reproduction:

The best detail? The player in the shirt was a real Japanese player by the name of Kaoru Betto. Betto was, according to the Baseball-Reference bullpen, one of Japan’s first power hitters. He also owned arguably the best baseball nickname possible: “The Gentleman of Baseball.” I know I wish that was my nickname.

Also worth noting: the shirt was apparently a favorite of Bridges, as he also wore it in the films Cold Feet and The Fisher King.

As the producer and host of an upstart, scrappy radio/podcast thing, I’ve started paying attention to certain information. Things like download stats are probably important. Another thing that is probably important is how people feel about what you’re making. iTunes reviews are a good way to check in on the latter.

This led me to wonder how people reviewed FanGraphs Audio, a show I enjoy a great deal and of which I have been a past guest. Most were good. Some weren’t. Since I never turn down an opportunity to stick it to Cistulli, I decided to take the best of the worst and make a composite of terrible (totally embiggenable) reviews. It’s the Voltron of unhappy listeners, if you will.

Props to Cameron for getting some good notes.

NotGraphs’ Investigative Reporting Investigation Team has confirmed — through means most nefarious and, quite frankly, disturbing — that Mariano Rivera has but one move in the bedroom, and, much like his cutter, it is unmatched.

Remember: Safety first, kids. Unplanned pregnancies are the worst.

H/T: Mr. Nightengale.

We present an inglorious return to the non-cherished genre of “Men Surrounded By Things.” In today’s episode former Expos third baseman Coco Laboy is surrounded by, as you might expect, cocoa and boys …

This has been Coco Laboy surrounded by cocoa, boys.

Pitchers and catchers have reported! Does your Personal Computer Desktop reflect the excitement? NO?! Fear not, loyal reader: NotGraphs provides!

From the creator of the acclaimed 1986 Topps Wallpaper, NotGraphs presents these fine NotGraphs Personal Computer Desktop Wallpapers, featuring some of the more “colourful” baseballing personalities that frequent These Very Electronic Pages. Your Personal Computer Desktop will be conveying Spring Training Fever — and more 😉 — at the click of your mouse!

Please Note: all wallpapers are optimized for a 1680×1050 screen, but should lineup very closely with all 15-inch screens. Open them in a new window/tab and download them all, if you like!

Now, in the words of Mr. Miyagi, Choose!

Let Timmy offer you balls every morning when you boot up!

Let Hunter Pitt-Pence scare your dad!

Read the rest of this entry »

Today, February 13, we celebrate President’s Day, which by government conspiracy was relocated to the third Monday in February and opened up to all Presidents, due to the secret machinations of the Van Buren descendents. We also, coincidentally, celebrate the latest in our universally beloved, if intermittently scheduled, feast days.

Joe the Superlative

Life: Little is known of Joe Charboneau before he marched onto the field at Spartanburg in the middle of a game and hit a double with the palm of his open hand. After that his legend quickly grew: it was rumored that he was the offspring of a god and a bear, that he could knock birds unconscious with by shouting, and that in his one-bedroom apartment he housed shrine displaying a grisly collection of teeth he had collected in the bar-room brawls that punctuated his adolescence. On each stop on his journey, he fathered countless children, headlined dozens of separate bands, and invented a new drink, the Super Joe, which was a mixture of Budweiser, Miller Hi-Life, Schlitz, a mentholated cigarette, and a slice of sous-vide-cooked bacon.

After the rise, came the fall. Every father teaches their son about Charboneau fixing his own broken nose with whiskey and a pair of pliers, but not many knew about the failed medical practice he set up based on the same principles. Nor did the fledgling SJBL (Super Joe Baseball League) succeed, with its risky combination of baseball, moonshine and bare-knuckle boxing. Eventually, an older, weary Joe Charboneau said goodbye to the country and game he loved, traveled to Luxembourg, overthrew the government and has ruled there quietly ever since.

Read the rest of this entry »

Here is a pointless exercise I just thought of.

Every year there are a handful of fringe players who go crazy in the spring. Andy Dirks, Lorenzo Cain, Colin Cowgill, Joe Mather, Luis Mendoza last year, to name a few.

Who will 2013’s spring surprises be? Throw some picks in the comments, and six weeks from now I’ll revisit and see if any readers picked out the unexpected stars.

My picks, based on nothing: Johnny Giavotella, Adam Rosales, Michael Bowden.

(Okay, based on slightly less than nothing… reasonably young, and a potential job to win with a good spring.)

Get ready, because I’m about to do you a tremendous favor.

It is really freaking hard to get on Jeopardy!. I mean, I’m the smartest person you know, and I haven’t been on it, so you just know it’s incredibly difficult. First, you have to pass an online test, and get invited for another round of testing and auditions, and even if you make that cut, there’s no guarantee you’ll make it onto the show in a given season.

Indeed, the entire process is set up just to remind us that, as smart as we are, we’ll never graduate beyond being the most obnoxious person at bar trivia. It’s unfair and a little mean.

And so, it’s with great pleasure that I present you with a Jeopardy! answer that none of the contestants got right but that will fill you with an abundance of joy and pride and a false sense of accomplishment and superiority:

“This ‘fishy’ outfielder put up huge numbers for the Angels in his 2012 Rookie of the Year-winning season”

The answer is, of course, Tim Salmon.

There, now aren’t you filled with pride. For once, you are smarter than the Jeopardy! people. Suck on that, Ken Jennings.

Huh? Wrong?  Oh man, I didn’t phrase that in the form of a question, did I? Oh well, everyone’s dad Ted Kluszewski is still proud. Aren’t you Ted?

Yes. Yes, I do.