This game. This…baseball, like life itself, can be a harsh mistress. Whether you’re playing and making outs in seven out of ten at bats, or watching your Twins devolve into the second worst team in the American League (hey, thanks for that, Astros), or you’re a vendor who just needs to find a place to poop before you sell your snowcones (again, thanks for that, Astros). Failure is so endemic to baseball that it’s refreshing to see anyone who can take whimsical, unadulterated joy from such cruelty.

That is why, as I slide headfirst into middle age, I’m leavinging my moribund, dumpy Minnesota Twins and getting a younger, hotter baseball team that wants an older fan because it has daddy issues. Someone who can keep up with me and maybe even challenge me a little in the energy department and with their joie de vivre. Someone who is still young and naive, and hasn’t yet learned not to fall for my bullshit. Somebody like the University of Cincinnati Bearcats. Seriously, how can you not love these guys?

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Johnny Four Eyes, you are the NotGraphs Fan of the Night!

In the matter of four seconds, you manage to display looks of fear for your well-being, concern for the well-being of Nate McClouth, general confusion, and a firm belief that this was not a catch.

Looks like ducking out early from your world history lecture paid off, Johnny! Congratulations! You win a … I dunno, a Labatt? It’s probably a Labatt.

What was that you just said?

Well, that’s simply preposterous, and B.J. Upton does not believe it.

Oh, it’s not that Bossman distrusts you personally, it’s just that he doesn’t believe much of what he hears these days. Or sees. Or smells. In fact, the only sense that he trusts at all these days is taste. Perhaps if Bossman could have somehow tasted Evan Gattis’s grand slam on Wednesday, he might believe it. If he could but taste the bullshit that you are spewing right now, he might believe you, too (but he would probably barf, if he could taste it).

Bossman has nothing against you, like he said. Bossman is cool. In fact, hey, he’s sorry for referring to what you were just saying as “bullshit.” Unbelievable is a better word, probably. Bossman doesn’t believe much of what he hears or sees or smells, but he is amused and befuddled and excited by it all. He just gets worked up, gets too excited.

So, Bossman is sorry: you’re amazing, you’re unbelievable — but that’s just the thing: Bossman don’t believe you.

Now shut up and have some candy — tastes like Truth.

Atlanta closer Craig Kimbrel, naturally blessed with both boyishly rosy cheeks and lethal competitive instincts, has been called (and more than once) the Baby-faced Assassin. With this epithet coming into wide usage, it is perhaps only a matter of time before an attempt is made — either by Mr. Kimbrel himself, or by arbiters of culture like Baseball-Reference.com — to give it some sort of official sanction. We here at Nickname Watch take a conservative stance on such matters, and have consistently advised that a very high burden of proof be set for those wishing to claim a nickname. In the case at hand, we consider the burden of proof to be especially high, since this nickname has in fact already been used in Major League Baseball: (nick)namely, by longtime Reds reliever Danny Graves. Though it is easily argued that Mr. Kimbrel is a superior player to Mr. Graves — and after all, to employ a reductio ad absurdum, we would certainly not strip the name “Splendid Splinter” from Ted Williams due to the revelation of prior use by some minor player — the seniority of the latter man, I’m sure we can agree, should have some value.

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Previously: Trey Michalczewski.

NEW YORK — Ike Davis, who recently claimed he “can’t do any worse,” did worse last night, as he went 0-6 with 9 strikeouts and 21 strikeout-assists, where he ran up to the plate and literally grabbed the bat from his teammates’ hands. Said Lucas Duda, “that was not cool, Ike.” Said Ruben Tejada, “whatever, I was going to get myself out anyway.” Davis also made 19 errors in the game, including twice getting confused about how many outs there were, and walking off the field while the ball was still in play.

In the bottom of the 4th inning, Davis walked over to second base and broke Daniel Murphy’s arm, further hampering the team’s attempt to win the game. In the top of the 8th, Davis spit on three umpires, but, unfortunately for the team, was not ejected from the game. In fact, the umpires ruled that he should be forced to play, as that would be worse punishment for the Mets. Before the game, Davis quietly informed Dillon Gee, the night’s starting pitcher, that his entire family had been killed in a bear attack. This distracted Gee and led to him giving up 16 runs in just a third of an inning. Actually, it was 6 runs, but Davis reprogrammed the scoreboard to give the Mets’ opponents a 10-run head start.

After the Mets’ loss, Davis inadvertently added a powdered laxative to the food in the post-game spread, which will hamper the team’s attempt to stem the losing streak tomorrow. He also switched the lineup card with a joke version that places 4 members of the starting rotation in the infield, and invited a twelve-year-old fan to play catcher. Davis was found clumsily corking David Wright’s bat and tainting Matt Harvey’s urine for Harvey’s routine drug test. He also pretended to be Sandy Alderson and traded Zach Wheeler for a bucket of Dippin’ Dots, which he neglected to place in the freezer.

So when Ike Davis says he can’t do any worse…

Roy Howell is oral tradition.

If you are of a certain age, then you may believe you have seen Roy Howell play our baseball. You did not because he did not.

If your grandfather tells you of seeing Roy Howell kick the third-base bag to dislodge the loam from spikes after smiting a triple, then call your grandfather the liar he is.

For Roy Howell is the boy asking what the graveyard is as the car whisks past it and he is the mother driving the car who aches for quiet and he is the dead stevedore buried in that graveyard and he is the dosage of gruel spooned into his mouth each night at assisted living before he wound up in the graveyard that the boy is asking about.

You did not see Roy Howell play our baseball. If you are a dried old river, you may have read of Roy Howell in the etchings upon the basalt, but you did not see Roy Howell play our baseball. Do not call him spectral. You may call him the moment the specter was created, but don’t you know he is not even that. If you are a limestone cave, then the stalactites and the slow raindrops that made them may have told you about seeing Roy Howell play, but they are as empty of truth as any grandfather who said he saw Roy Howell play.

For Roy Howell played only in stories. Once the stories stop, Roy Howell will go on playing our baseball, but then only the stories will tell stories. Roy Howell is the words squaws used to soothe their children. The roaming trappers stole those words and gave them to brute soldiers who told them to their sons who had sons of their own who became stevedores buried in graves yoked to the seasons by the roadside. And every word they used was about not having seen Roy Howell play our baseball.

For Roy Howell is oral tradition.

It’s no use concealing the fact, reader, that your life is a series of failures, each more disappointing than the last.

Rather than trying in vain to improve your own station in life, however — which course of action is likely to end only in even greater embarrassment — consider regarding the brief victories of other, more able-bodied and -minded humans. Like this changeup by Ross Wolf, for example, from earlier today — with which pitch Wolf struck out contact-oriented Oakland catcher John Jaso.

Regard the footage until its enchantment wears off. Then proceed to another area of the internet and repeat.

1. A Home Run
2. A Stolen Base
3. An Umpire
4. A Good Catch
5. A Team Lose
6. A Bunt
7. A Manager Get Ejected
8. An Infield
9. A Team Win
10. A Pitcher
11. A Double Play
12. A Baseball
13. A Baseball Bat
14. A Batter