For all of the digital ink that has been spilled this offseason with regard to Atlanta catcher/outfielder/noted cast member of 1969 film Easy Rider Evan Gattis, little has been written about the private checklist he maintains for every plate appearance, the contents of which has been recovered by our Investigative Reporting Investigation Team and reproduced below (and each particular of which we see him fulfilling in the GIF embedded here while hitting his first major-league home run tonight).

To wit:

Sometimes people are like, “Stop making GIFs of Matt Harvey’s slider every second of your life,” and other times they’re like, “Stop signing all your business memos to me as ‘Private Private Dancer.'”

What the world needs to learn, though, is that Carson Cistulli is a private private dancer, and that Matt Harvey’s slider — like this particular one to San Diego’s Jedd Gyorko from ca. 20 minutes ago — needs to be captured and rendered into as many animated GIFs as there are sands on the shores.

The Boston Red Sox’ social-media strategy has taken a turn for the dark and harrowing, as the following tweet — entirely and in-no-way altered from the original — reveals (click to embiggen):

Pam should have never taken the trip to Houston.

No more than four hours ago, Pam was leading what she thought to be a happy, fulfilling life. Did she grow up wanting to be a receptionist at a realty office? No. But she made the best of it. And sure, her husband isn’t much of a looker, but he’s a sweet man and gave her two beautiful children. Of course she would like Tiffany to pump the brakes a little when it comes to boys, and Tyler’s ADHD is starting to really become an issue, but she’s fairly confident her kids won’t grow up to be criminals or musicians or anything like that. When put into perspective, Pam figured she ended up with a nice life.

That was until about 30 seconds ago. Thirty seconds ago, Pam was excited. She was about to see Yu Darvish pitch a perfect game for her Texas Rangers. He was only one out away, and the Astros weren’t even coming close to getting a hit so far. Pam didn’t know how many perfect games had been pitched in history, but it had to be pretty low. Less than 100, right?  No matter, Pam was about to witness history. She was already thinking about how she would explain what happened to everyone in the office and her book club. She was crafting the narrative in her head. People would be hanging on her every word. For once, Pam would be the coolest person in the room.

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The author, who is moving in the wrong direction relative to blackest death, recently had his habits questioned and testicles fondled by his primary care physician*. He also, the following day, had what he (i.e. the author) considers to be “too much blood” removed from his body for the purposes of evaluating its cholesterol, and other sorts of, levels.

*In that same physician’s office, I mean. Not, like, out on the street.

Below are the results of the blood test in question — rendered both in raw form and also relative to national averages for adults.

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Over the off-season, the Milwaukee Brewers asked fans to submit uniform designs. The contest winner would have her/his design made into actual uniforms, which the Brewers would then wear in a couple of spring exhibition games. NotGraphs demigod Dayn Perry covered the winning selection in an article at CBS’s Eye On Baseball; sadly, Dayn’s own “unique” entry was not selected as the winner.

The winning entry, by Ben of Richfield, MN

The Barrel Man head on the cap is awesome, even if the rest of the uniform is pretty bland. I do like the single stripe on the sleeve — a simple but classy touch. And, after slogging through all of the entries, I feel confident in saying that the winning entry was easily one of the best complete designs.

Most of the other entries were slight variations on Brewers uniforms past and present, and aren’t worth parsing here. But as I scrolled through the entries, I noticed some interesting themes emerge.

For instance, a number of erstwhile designers really wanted to incorporate depictions of beer into their uniforms:

Tri-dong: not appealing.

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Scott Erickson is afraid of many things. It is 1994, the age of having a surplus of hair and of wearing one’s cap backwards, and Scott Erickson can do this. He has spent hours in front of the mirror, perfecting the exact level of carefree indifference he wishes to project upon the world. But there will be a day when it is no longer acceptable to wear one’s cap backward, and when one’s hair becomes something one must attend to. Scott Erickson fears for that day.

Scott Erickson is afraid of failure, but he is more afraid of success. It is May 3, and in his previous start he has just pitched the first no-hitter in Metrodome history. He knows that he can never achieve those heights again, that he has only added a new layer of fraudulence to the fiction that is his life. Expectations swell. Children will ask for strikeouts to cure their cancer. Men will want to talk to him in hotel lobbies. Women will expect a few extra seconds of sexual pleasure.

Scott Erickson is afraid that when it comes down to it, our whole lives are really just small sample size.

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In this column, I will look on Twitter for baseball-related questions that no one is asking me to answer, and I will answer them.

@etling_25 Would’ve I have gotten a million fantasy points if Yu Darvish would’ve thrown a perfect game last night?

— Daniel Grote (@dangrote) April 3, 2013

Probably not, although I suppose it does depend on the points system in your league. If you get 25,000 points per out recorded by a pitcher, and an additional 25,000 points per strikeout, then you indeed would have earned 1,000,000 fantasy points from Darvish’s start last night– and that’s even though he missed the perfect game! If he had succeeded, you would have earned 1,025,000 points, or 1,050,000 if Marwin Gonzalez had struck out. In most leagues, however, you would not have earned a million fantasy points even if Darvish succeeded in throwing a perfect game. In a points league I am in, Darvish’s owner earned 79 points. Which is 999,921 points less than a million.

How funny is Yu Darvish’s 98% perfect game? #YuLose #YuSoClose

— Dustin Rich (@DRich_17) April 3, 2013

Actually, it was a 96% perfect game.

Did darvish throw a perfect game last night?? I fell asleep in the 8th.

— Lightning ⚡ (@U_Webby) April 3, 2013

Good question, Twitter user. I think the people who run Twitter should be pretty excited that their application is so relied upon that someone would sooner think to post such a question on Twitter than to type it into Google and instantly find out the answer from any of 50,000 websites that might be reporting on such news. For someone to think that the most efficient way to find out if Darvish threw a perfect game is to Tweet the question and hope than one of his followers will reply with an answer makes me think I do not appreciate the power of Twitter nearly enough.

Anyone know if Yu Darvish got that perfect game or not last night? That’s my team!

— Nick Milligan (@FyeBuckeye) April 3, 2013

Anyone? Anyone at all? My only friend fell asleep in the 8th and so he doesn’t know either!

Wtf why did they wrap up Darvish’s arm so much?

— Matt LaMartina ✌ (@MyNiggaMatt) April 3, 2013

Pitching is a stressful activity for the arm. By applying ice to the arm after pitching, swelling is minimized. The ice reduces pain and soreness. Also, they were trying to prevent it from falling off.

Money can be exchanged for goods and services, like beer and pretzels, but it can also be used, apparently, to honor Americana through the design and minting of commemorative coins. I don’t know why anyone would want to collect money, when they could spend said money to acquire baseball cards, but that’s neither here nor there. I will not criticize someone else for their hobbies, at least not publicly.*

*Note: for these purposes, Carson Cistulli’s drinking and slothful lethargy are considered an activity and a non-activity respectively, not actual hobbies. I, and you, remain free to criticize these at length. For we live in raucus, bacchanaliac democracy, where our movements are still not monitored and regulated by a benevolent, paternalistic monarch. Yay, America.

Anywho, the United States Mint and the Department of the Treasury would like our assistance with designing three coins “to recognize and celebrate the National Baseball Hall of Fame.” There are so many directions a coin designer could go to truly convey everything the Hall of Fame was, is, and will become in the future. There are baseball’s greats who embody the Hall itself, players like Babe Ruth, Christy Mathewson, Jackie Robinson, and Satchel Paige. There are images that one generally associates with the game itself, balls and bats and ballcaps and athletic cups and the like. There’s the building itself, a beautiful structure in a picturesque town that provides a stately home for baseball’s most exclusive club and the primary keeper of the game’s history.

None of these seem to get at the heart, though, of what the Hall of Fame has become. And thus, being of sound mind and body, possessing naturalized American citizenship, and having a passing interest in baseball, the United States, and what my money looks like, I thought I would offer the following options that I think more accurately reflect where the Hall is today: Read the rest of this entry »

A bat in the stands–

–now wrapped in leathery hands.

The secret vinegar murky in Canadian veins,
Something wicked has thawed from winter pains.
A raspy, throaty call, an elk in the distance?
Or the beast of silent knife falls?
The bat is yours. Swim three rows deep of Maple leaf
and rip it from this king’s claws,

or let it be.

A thousand thank yous to this unpronounceable man.