It is often said — not by the present author, it should be noted, but surely by an elderly writer somewhere with an impressive baritone voice — that baseball is a “child’s game played by grown men,” or something to that effect.

The merits of the sentiment are debatable, of course: leisure oughtn’t necessarily be the provenance of children alone, nor is it right necessarily to suggest that professional baseball is populated exclusively by entirely mature adults.

The finer points of the debate aside, it has become clear in the last hour that certain personnel within the Arizona Diamondbacks organization are committed to celebrating semi-publicly the connection between the innocence of youth and our honored game, which point the club has made implicitly by producing the lineup card pictured above, completed entirely in Comic Sans — i.e The Official Typeface of the Innocence of Youth.

Credit to the gentlemen rock stars of Productive Outs for bringing this image to the author’s attention.

What follows is, as you may have already surmised, pathetically derivative of the Eno Sarris Pronunciation Guide. Be that as it may, I am undaunted.

Because this, our Internet is in desperate need of a halfwit’s shrill fault-finding, I present to you the Dayn Perry Denunciation Guide, in which I full-throatedly condemn the sundry villains within and in dangerous proximity to our baseball.

This first episode shall hold up for merciless ridicule those who materially contribute to the deification of Nolan Ryan and his billions of unintentional walks.

Come with me, won’t you?

Nolan Ryan loyalists, consider yourselves denounced.

I came across this passage while reading the book The Fix is In.

We’ve created nicknames for players. We’ve created nicknames for former players. But every now and then, a previously-used nickname needs to be reapplied. “Whiskey Face” is one such nickname.

So, fair NotGraphs readers, spout off in the comments as to which baseballing person– former or current — is most deserving of this nickname of nicknames.

This morning I received an email as part of the Milwaukee Brewers mailing list. The headline read,

Braun steps up to the plate for fans in “Brewers Win, You Win!” promotion | Brewers Star to Fund Ticket Program for June 3 – 5 Series Versus Oakland Athletics

The pertinent part of the email, for your convenience:

The original promotion called for every Brewers victory between May 1 and May 30 to earn $1 off a Terrace Box ticket for the June 3 – 5 series vs. the Oakland Athletics. With just five victories this month, though, the Brewers outfielder has made a move to ensure that Brewers fans are rewarded despite the team’s struggles.

Regardless of how many wins the team records through the end of the month, fans will be able to purchase a limited number of Terrace Box (regularly $24) and Loge Bleacher ($23) seats for just $8 (matching Braun’s uniform number). Braun is subsidizing the savings through a financial contribution, which will cover up to 4,000 tickets for each of the three games against the A’s.

Let’s do the math. There are two ticket prices, roughly the same. If Ryan Braun picks up the tab for the entire difference in price — let’s say there’s 2000 each of the $24- and $23-tickets since the email doesn’t specify that particular breakdown — that’s $62,000 per game, and a total of $186,000 for the three game set with the A’s. This, of course, assumes that the Brewers organization isn’t covering some of that, and that those sections will sell out, which, I suppose, there’s actually a possibility of that: despite the third-worst record in all of Major League Baseball, the Brewers have the 13th best home attendance, averaging over 31,000 fans per game (a sell-out at Miller Park is 42,200), and are closing in on a million in total attendance with 29 home games played.

The Brewers could stand to put more butts in the seats, sure. And every team runs promotions of some sort. Maybe other players have done similar things in other cities. But seeing this email made me want to cry, for two different reasons:

First, it’s a reminder that my favorite team sucks right now. Boohoo, I know. Fans of any number of teams could whine about this, and while a few fan bases might have more claim to gloominess than Brewers fans, there aren’t many. (Pirates fans, maybe. I’ll listen on the Mariners or Royals.) It’s dark, and I don’t see a light at the end of the tunnel. I’m not sure there is an end to the tunnel. Despite what has the potential to be a potent offense, they haven’t even won enough games in May to make the “original promotion” worthwhile. This wanting-to-cry is based in selfish sadness, and a general fragility of spirit.

Yet there’s another type of wanting-to-cry here, too, and it’s even more foolish. Ryan Braun is making $8.5million this year, and he’s got $150million in guaranteed income through 2020. And, of course, that doesn’t include endorsement deals and other ventures. That is, he can probably afford to subsidize some tickets. But those other ventures, like this ticket deal, show a commitment to and investment in Milwaukee — a place that could easily be dismissed as flyover country by a Cali boy who colleged in Miami and affects considerable swagger — that is so rare that it’s almost confusing. Robin Yount played his entire career as a Brewer; Bob Uecker probably could have moved on to a bigger venue at some point, but chose to stick it out in his home town. Still, Braun’s enthusiasm for being a part of Milwaukee just feels different, even if it is appears gimmicky at times. Braun really likes Milwaukee, and wants to prove it.

I’m a small person, maybe, for hoovering up that sort of affirmation of my town’s worth. So be it.

The Kansas City Royals have lost seven in a row. The worst of it (so far) was a humiliating four-game sweep at the hands of the Angels, a series in which the Angels started Jason Vargas, Jerome Williams, Joe Blanton, and, perhaps worst of all, Billy Buckner. Buckner was a former Royals prospect traded away back in 2007, who, until this last game, had not pitched in the majors since 2010. He shut the Royals out for five innings and was promptly sent back down.

Enough of the misery! These are hard times in Royals-land. After years of hard times. It may take divine intervention to restore the wholeness of “Royals Nation” or whatever stupid name people want to give to collective Royals fandom. In hopes of restoration let us turn to the hymnal words of G.K. Chesterton (1874-1936), the early twentieth-century English Catholic writer, whose works span philosophy, theology, history, cultural and social criticism, and, yes, poetry, on this day of Chesterton’s birth, which I totally knew about and did not need to be told by someone on Twitter. “Coincidences are life’s spiritual puns,” indeed.

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In a sport that clings to its traditions — from managers wearing uniforms to the playing of “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” during the seventh-inning stretch — one time-honored feature at the ballpark has taken an absurd turn, at least for the game’s purists: the ceremonial first pitch. For decades, the honor was extended only a few times a season to a rarefied group that included presidents, mayors and military veterans. These days, it is regarded as a marketing opportunity, a sweetener in sponsorship deals between baseball teams and groups that want a piece of the spotlight. The rite, now carried out nightly, is handed to actors and reality television stars, sponsors’ representatives and contest winners, and people dressed as animals as well as actual animals.
— The New York Times, 5/29/13

Throwing out the ceremonial first pitch tonight are twelve special guests, and one fan who won a lottery drawing conducted by our friends at Bank of America. The first honoree is from TV’s World’s Deadliest Animals on the National Geographic Channel. Please, if you are seated in the first six rows, be prepared to run from the wild tiger currently entering the stadium, getting ready to throw the ball to the catcher your home team has deemed most expendable.

Our second honoree is from our friends at Merck Pharmaceuticals, our sponsor for tonight’s Mood Elevator Giveaway, where the first 15,000 fans received a pill to help them forget about the 65% likelihood we would lose tonight’s game, just like we’ve lost 65% of the ones that preceded it. Of course, we still have 4,000 pills left over, since we can’t seem to fill even a quarter of our seats over here. So please put your hands together for Merck’s Director of Experimental Drug Development.

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Here at NotGraphs, we have often tried to shine a light on how spectacles make the game of baseball better. How much better? Well, it’s hard to quantify. But I think it’s safe to say “lots.” They make baseball lots better.

But there is a spectrum of spectacles. On the one end are these monstrosities worn by Vance Worley, which understandably led to a 7.21 ERA and a 5.55 FIP for the Twins in 10 starts:

 Now compare them to these spectacles worn by Kurt Russell during his three seasons as a minor league second baseman baseball in the Angels’ system from 1971-1973: Read the rest of this entry »

There are those who will contend that — contrary to the claims being made by the author in the title of this post — that what Dodgers pitcher Hyun-Jin Ryu is captured doing here, in this artisanally crafted animated GIF file, doesn’t constitute a bat flip proper.

What those people don’t understand is, is that the author is paid to make breezy comments about trivial baseball occurrences. And also that, relative to an infinite universe, that all is trivial, actually. And also that we’re, all of us, cadavers merely awaiting our future caskets.

Credit to internet user/abuser urbuddy haysoos for bringing the author’s attention to this Moment in History.

Second Base, Head First

Elimination Number: 75

Due to the hammering down of what actually constitutes my tastes, and using that stencil to make decisions about which people who I care to listen and admire, I have ended up with a select group of people I call friends. Some I’ve met more than others, some hold a more prominent role in this constructed circle, but almost all of them share at least one quality; they love the show Arrested Development. And with good reason. It’s delightful.

This past weekend, the creators of the show released a fifth season of sorts, years after the show’s original and untimely end. This was lauded by my acquaintances as a triumph, a righting of a wrong, and — most importantly — another opportunity to entertain ourselves. The buzz surrounding the release was palatable, as people’s breaths were sufficiently bated. Without even checking, I’m going to say that there was a Tumblr counting down the days. That’s how confident I am that there was one. This past Memorial Day weekend, the episodes were released. The Internet subsequently lost its shit. I was visiting my parents at the time, helping them do chores that emphysema and hysterectomies have made more difficult than they used to be. I missed the experience that many had, but I knew the episodes would be there when I returned home.

But, the thing is, I don’t think I want to see the new episodes.

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