The Scout feature of MLB.com’s Gameday service is generally regarded as innocuous, if sometimes less than helpful, by the Baseballing Public.

For reasons that aren’t entirely clear, however, a recent strikeout by A.J. Burnett of opposing pitcher Felix Hernandez prompted the Scout in question to inspect the poorly constructed foundation on which his own assumptions of the world are perilously built.

As the reader will note, the initial comment bears considerable resemblance to the Scout’s usual sort of analysis:

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Dear NotGraphs,

–Ambiorix Ouellette

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Pictured Above: Old-Timey Basestealing

Today, a public service. This, dear readers, is a baseball player named Rickey Henderson. You probably haven’t heard of him. He was a fairly well known player prior to the turn of the century, so you could hardly be expected to remember him, and he was elected to the Hall of Fame, where he’s enshrined with other great stars of yesteryear like Ed Delahanty, Amos Rusie, and Tommy McCarthy. He has faded into relative historical obscurity.

But that’s not very fair to a man who was, by all accounts, one of the better out fielders of his day. So I’m going to dedicate this post to maintaining his memory and to spreading the word. Based on painstaking research, here are a dozen (mostly) true facts about Rickey Henderson:

1) Rickey Henderson is the all time leader in runs (2295), stolen bases (1406), and caught stealing (335). The modern record holders are Albert Pujols (1399), Juan Pierre (597), and Juan Pierre (193). It was a different game back then.

2) This story is probably apocryphal, its origins lost to the mists of time. But Rickey signed as a free agent with the New York Metropolitans in 1999. During Spring Training, he noticed John Olerud was playing 1B with a batting helmet on. Rickey walked over to him and said, “Hey, I used to play with a guy in Toronto who used to do that.” Olerud said, “Rickey, you’ve got an amazing memory to be able to remember that far back.” “I know,” Rickey said. “My teammates are more important to me than anything in the world.”

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There are two ways to deliver a sponsor catch-phrase. There is the way the ad-agency toadies believe to be the most effective based on focus groups and free associations scrawled on a dry-erase board, and then there is the way that Cardinals Radio Man Mike Shannon knows to be the best because he knows a thing or two about a thing or two. And the Mike Shannon way is to pitch the product like you’re talking up some hubba-hubba dame in the buffet car.

Take Scott’s Turf-Builder, for instance. Here’s the actor they hired to deliver the words upon which the the lives of their children and shareholders depend …

And now here’s Mike Damn Shannon, who, as you can imagine, was through with it before you or anyone else not named Artie Shaw knew what to do with it …

Allow me to answer for you: You prefer Mike Shannon’s golden throat and pitches to whatever that Gaelic beast was trying to perpetrate.

I’ve collected baseball cards since I was a kid. When I use the word “collect,” I really mean that I don’t throw away the ones I have. I’m not the sort of person who can justify a heavy investment in luxury items like baseball cards, lottery tickets, bottled beer, or plus-rated gasoline.

For someone who grew up at the rise of the junk wax era, my collection is and was pretty decent. When one of my father’s co-workers gave me a crumbling December 1987 Beckett Magazine, I sorted through my card and found that I owned the rookie card of a guy named Tony Gwynn. I took it to church to show my friends, and lost it. Later, I traded a ton of cards for a 1963 Carl Yastrzemski, which I always found difficult to look at because of the patch of sunlight on the tip of his nose, and which made him look like an elf. The card was worth $75 at the time. I took it to a card show, and had it stolen. Later on, in 1992, I pulled some fancy insert rookie card of Shaquille O’Neal, and it, too, was stolen. That one is hard to feel upset about now, given that it’s probably worth 20 cents. Still, I was a pretty stupid kid.

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One would be hard-pressed to find two people more different in stature than the author’s mother and Arizona Diamondbacks’ ace-in-the-making Archie Bradley. When one compares their use of social media, however, one finds two beings whose concerns, pleasures, and use of language are not that different at all.

Love pitching when family is in town! Great win for the #baybears had great hitting and solid defense! Time for dinner with mom!

— Archie Bradley (@ArchieBradley7) May 19, 2013

Celebrities: They’re just like us and/or our moms!

And you know if I strikeout, okay, you know whatever, but if there are guys, runners in scoring position, things like that and you strikeout too, that to me, that’s bad. – Adam Dunn

In all of baseball, there is no man more distinctively and consistently himself than Adam Dunn. In an uncertain world, he is a treasure. Adam Dunn does three things well; no more, no less. Because none of them requires any effort from the opposing defense, Adam Dunn is a gentleman, as well as a treasure. But although he does three things well, he only does one of these things with true greatness, and that is striking out. If nothing else, history will remember this about this man: Adam Dunn struck out.

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The Wall Street Journal writes about “historically skinny” Chris Sale and his amazing feats of culinary indulgence:

In a four-hour masterpiece, Sale packed two ice cream sundaes and, by one teammate’s estimate, around 30 bags of potato chips into one of the skinniest bodies the sport has ever seen…. Before a game in Anaheim, Calif., last week, Sale polished off a chili cheese dog. Then he returned to the kitchen for two more…. Over the weekend, Sale was planning a trip to In-and-Out Burger, which he calls “my kryptonite.” He is also a loyal customer of McDonald’s, Taco Bell and Five Guys…. He also aspires to break the record for most cheesesteaks consumed by a visiting player in Philadelphia when the White Sox play there in July.