NotGraphs reader Zac Hinz wins a Most Valuable Correspondent award for sharing this amazing spreadsheet he created (Google Docs) compiling the upcoming season’s promotional giveaways for all 30 teams.

His thoughts, all well worth sharing (and slightly edited):

* Every team does the magnetic schedule, but Toronto notes that they give you it on exit. Bravo, Toronto, Bravo! I’ve gotten the magnetic schedule before (on entering), and it’s like, what am I supposed to do with this for 3 hours? Also those adorable Canadians list their September 29th giveaway as a toque.

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Behold: A movie regarding a Honus Wagner baseball card. Be also hold: The most epic score of any baseball card movie you will ever belisten:

Which brings us to the next, most impressive question: WHY ARE WE NOT MAKING SUPER AWESOME RETRO CARDS?! And moreover: WHEN WILL ALL THE GIFS I MADE APPRECIATE IN VALUE?

Here is my first entry into the New T206 line. Consider Heyward, Jason:

See as well:
“The $220,000 Baseball Card”
“The Feast of Wagner, Patron Saint of Interior Flight”

Glove slap to my man Will Smith (no relation).

Life is a journey of discovery, according to the rustic hand-painted mass-produced wooden signs in the antique store I walked past yesterday. So it proved to be, for as I later wandered aimlessly through the wild internets, I made a fortuitous and fortunate query:

I don’t know what providential force brought the name of Niedenfuer to my fingertips; the world works in mysterious ways. But Niedenfuer I sought, and for my trouble fell upon one imdb page. Surely, I thought to myself, this can only be an appearance in a World Series highlight video or, at best, a quick interview in a hand-taped biopic. Surely one could not expect a film career to rival that of fellow reliever Craig Lefferts. I was lost, I can see now. My heart was full of doubt.

If the fifties were a time of worried cigarette smoking, fallout shelters, and Jailhouse Rock, then one can forgive the current generation their One Direction. For the current generation daily breathes in the midichlorians of that benevolent force, the Internet. And today the Internet earned that capital I, for it presented me – unworthy and lost soul that I am – with the following motion picture event. I share it with you, a humble and converted prophet, a fisher of men. I share with you: Casey at the Bat.

http://www.imdb.com/video/hulu/vi3685287449/

The video linked above is presented by Hulu and is an hour long. You will want to clear some time in your schedule to accommodate it, and then watch it posthaste. But if you, too, are plagued with doubt, please read past the cut and allow me to convert you. Soon you will find yourself changed, and your spirit unbound.

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Andrew Miller pitched for Boston on Sunday, March 3rd, 2013, against the New York Yankees. He threw 15 pitches and struck out all three batters he faced. His entire appearance lasted just three or four minutes.

This is that same appearance, condensed into ca. 30 seconds.

Video stolen without malice from MLB.com.

Insofar as every image of Chris Snelling is an image of Chris Snelling just seconds before an injury, so is this image an image of Chris Snelling — who was just removed in the third inning of this evening’s WBC opener — seconds before an injury.

As you have no doubt learned by now, I recently was the winning bidder of the Sotheby-auctioned marijuana bong that formerly belonged to Walter O’Malley. Please do admire my purchase:

Lost to history is just what a relentless weed smoker O’Malley was. Sure, every baseball fan knows that Walter O’Malley burned through a lot of herb, but none but the most devoted historian recognizes the depth and breadth of his beloved habit. But that’s not why I was happy to secure ownership of the bong at a cost of $6.28 million in unmarked bills.

You see, upon O’Malley’s cherished bong, which for years served as the Dodgers’ “Vice President of Velvet Easy Time,” is the patina of not only heavy and unqualified use, but also the forces of consequence. As William Manchester wrote in his 1971 opus on the life of O’Malley, The Felis Leo of Our Brooklyn Hearts, Times and Honor and Valor, it was O’Malley’s zeal for the kine bud found in the roadside ditches of the Inland Empire that prevailed upon him to move the Dodgers from Brooklyn to Los Angeles. Manchester writes …

Much as Walter O’Malley could never resist the invitations of a stupendous doobie, so it is that I am unable to resist an artifact such as this.

I shall admire Walter O’Malley’s marijuana bong stationed upon my mantel and think fondly of his listening to Steely Dan somewhere in tangled Heaven.

T-JERK!

Because he uses his time wisely and has all of his priorities entirely straight, the author has dedicated a not insubstantial portion of his life to acquainting himself (and the expensively educated NotGraphs readership) with the center-field camera shots of all 30 major-league teams.

Because he continues to use his time wisely, the author has dedicated a less substantial — but not inconsequential — portion of this very afternoon to acquainting himself (and now the expensively educated NotGraphs readership) with the camera angles currently being employed during spring-training broadcasts on MLB.TV.

The reader will note that there are only 10 images below. In fact, this appears to represent nearly all of the parks that will be broadcasting games for the moment. Other clubs scheduled to debut broadcasts in the near future are as follows: the Toronto Blue Jays (March 2nd), the Atlanta Braves (March 3rd), and the San Diego Padres (March 3rd).

As one might expect, the spring camera shots are less excellent than those utilized at the major-league level — with literally none of them employing the straight-on center-field angle that has become more popular at the game’s highest level, and allows spectators the best possible views of pitch movement. This isn’t a complaint, but rather an observation.

Among the best below are the Phillies’ center-field angle and — for the tightness of the shot, if not the angle itself — the Nationals’ camera.

Baltimore Orioles

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A lot has already been accomplished in the year 2013. We have universally ratified the use of WAR in evaluating a player’s ability, conclusively established the exact correct players in the Hall of Fame, agreed upon the role of steroids in the game of baseball, as well as how to punish players who have used them and what in fact a steroid is, presaged the winners of this and the following World Series, and unlocked the horrible secrets of the inverted W and eliminated pitcher arm injuries forever. It’s an exciting time.

Now we can turn our attention to the heart of baseball’s matter: how to pluralize the RBI.

In his critically acclaimed book, Words and Rules: The Ingredients of Language, award-winning researcher Steven Pinker discusses morphology, or the rules we follow when forming complex words, and attaching prefixes and suffixes to roots. Unless you’re a linguist or an elementary school teacher, you know most of these rules without knowing them: for example, that the suffix –ed sounds like idif the verb ends in t or d, like t if the verb ends in p, k, f, s, sh, ch, and th, and like d for all other verb endings. You already speak this way, because it sounds right, and it sounds right to everybody.

If only communication were so simple in baseball. But alas, when wRC+ and “hustle” pass each other like strangers in the night, how can we forge common bonds? How can we, when we don’t even know how to describe that very basic function of human existence, the run batted in?

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The image above, found in a pub in Markham, north of Toronto, comes to us from one of our many intrepid correspondents in the field. Look at those uniforms. Let no one ever say Lyle Overbay didn’t leave his mark on Canada’s finest metropolis. We remember 2006. It inspires us.

NotGraphs’ Investigative Reporting Investigation Team has uncovered that in 2009, The Lyle Overbays led Markham’s 4-Pitch Hardball League with a .566 on-base percentage, and .577 batting average. They finished first in hits, runs, home runs, and RBI, and second in doubles, all while striking out only 12 times in 1,203 plate appearances. The Overbays’ 2009 championship was the first of three in a row, and came following their stunning defeat at the hands of Deez Nuts in the 2008 final, after winning their first title in 2007. All The Lyle Overbays ever wanted was to make Lyle Overbay proud.

And they did. The Investigative Reporting Investigation Team reached Mr. Overbay for comment, via text message, about the dynastic success of the team named in his honor. Mr. Overbay, never a man of many words, responded:

“Flags fly forever.”

Indeed, Mr. Overbay. Indeed.

H/T: My cubicle mate, and the hardest-working man in Canadian public broadcasting, @DanielKitts.