Kauffman Stadium is a tough park. Sure, it has those nice fountains and that massive scoreboard, but have you ever tried to put together a winning team there? Earlier this season, then-Royals hitting coach Jack Maloof noted that since the Royals’ home stadium deflates home run rates, there was no point in trying. That is obviously the main why the Royals are tied with the AAA-and-a-half Marlins for last in baseball in home runs.

[In an unrelated event, Maloof was shortly thereafter relieved of his duties and replaced with (interim) hitting coach George Brett. Maloof and co-coach Andre David were sent back down to coach in the minors, where they can work their magic again with young Royals hitters, just like they did with Eric Hosmer and Mike Moustakas.]

The K is not just responsible for the Royals’ relative inability to hit the ball out of the park. It also is responsible for their longstanding problems drawing walks, according to General Manager Dayton Moore.

[Both of these stories were written by former Kansas City Star employee Jeffrey Flanagan, who now writes for FOX Sports Kansas City, which, and you aren’t going to believe this, broadcasts Royals games! You might remember Flanagan from this.]

You might be expecting me to make points about component park factors, what other teams do in Kauffman or in their own parks given those factors, player development, or something else. But Moore and Maloof got me thinking. What other difficulties has Kauffman imposed upon the Royals over the years? I did some research, and lo-and-behold, I found a whole different set of park factors for The K.

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There are many things that Lou Gehrig has done in his life that you will never do. You will never win an American League MVP award. You will never hit 49 homers in a season or 493 overall. You will never win a batting title. And lord knows you will not spend even one consecutive game in a major league lineup, let alone 2,130. You will never be as beloved as Lou Gehrig. You will never be as nice as Lou Gehrig. And indeed, you probably aren’t even as good a child to your parents as Lou Gehrig, who lived with his parents until he was 30, despite having gainful employment, so that they could pay the bills. You live with your parents until you’re 30 so that they can pay yours. Shame on you.

If I had my druthers, Lou Gehrig would be alive today in your place. But I don’t. I don’t have any druthers of my own. So you get to stay. Read the rest of this entry »

@notgraphs Dear Notgraphs, please regard proof of my status as an Ubermensch http://t.co/UjzfCCgTXX

— Derpson (@CanuckAssassin) June 21, 2013

Besides total patience and constant praise, NotGraphs asks almost nothing — and also cash donations wired to anonymous offshore bank accounts — NotGraphs asks almost nothing of its readership. The purpose of this post, however, is to ask something of the readership — namely, to follow the hyperlink within the tweet embedded above and regard how this one guy was acknowledged via social media by championship broadcaster Vin Scully for a moment.

There are six affiliated minor-league clubs with the word “cat” in the team name. Some of those clubs are named after real types of cat; others, less so. What follows, for the benefit of (a) the readership and also (b) the abstract concept of Truth, is the authoritative list on teams named after cats, real or fictional.

Club: Carolina Mudcats (Zebulon, NC)
Level: High-A League: Carolina
Affiliation: Cleveland Indians
Real Thing? Yes. Common name for catfish native to the Mississippi Delta.

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This is Mike Shannon’s pencil:

This is the very pencil that Mike Shannon used to bat .288/.339/.462 during the course of the 1966 season.

This is the very pencil that Mike Shannon used to captain a gondola — a gondola handsomely crafted from the very same pencil — along every nautical spice route. All the while, Raquel Welch felt safe. She found the turmeric soothing.

This is the very pencil that Mike Shannon used, in 1932 in Greenwood, Mississippi, to write the lyrics, “You’re closer to me, baby, than Jesus to the cross.”

This is the very pencil that Mike Shannon, son of Denethor, used to avenge the death of his brother, Boromir. On the plains of Rohan, Mike Shannon and his pencil trenched many an orc.

Mike Shannon’s pencil likes “Disease Monsoon” to place in the third race at Conestoga Park. Mike Shannon’s pencil, without prompting from its master, has made notes to this end in Mike Shannon’s copy of today’s Daily Racing Form, which Mike Shannon’s pencil will later copy and preserve in Mike Shannon’s Scriptorium of Gambling Documents.

This is also the very pencil that Mike Shannon uses to toll the cathedral bells in every belfry across Christendom. The chimes rise and melt to form what sounds like a human voice, what sounds like Mike Shannon’s voice. “Baseball without ceasing,” the voice says.

I was initially afraid to fill out an All-Star Ballot, because anytime I vote for someone, for anything at all, he or she immediately dies. That’s why I only participate in Republican primary elections.

But once I realized that my All-Star votes are utterly meaningless, given that people can fairly easily stuff the ballot box with dozens of votes each, I was willing to take the risk. I was also eager for the online voting option, since I suffer from a terrible case of hanging-chad-ophobia, and so I am very uncomfortable attempting to punch the little circles out of the paper ballots. As a child, I had nightmares that I was the All-Star ballot and my parents were taking small pencils and poking holes through my most important internal organs. I don’t know how to interpret that dream.

Enough about me. Onto my selections. This week, the National League. Next week, the Americans. At first base, there really is no alternative to Casey Kotchman, who did so well in his brief time in the majors this season (0-for-20, with a walk — but, somehow, only one strikeout) that he has been exiled to Jupiter. Sometimes I wish I lived on Jupiter. Kotchman easily gets my vote.

At second base, Danny Espinosa, who just this week has shown supernatural talent in getting reporters to believe absolutely ridiculous statements, leading to the bizarre headline on this Washington Post article, “Danny Espinosa embracing returning to minors, rediscovering old swing.” Yes, because every major leaguer dreams of returning to the minors, going on long bus rides, and hanging out with people who make 2% of the salary you do, and hate you for it. Also, it seems unlikely that Espinosa’s old swing has been hanging out in the minor leagues, waiting for Danny to return, like a lazy sibling who can’t quite get it together enough to leave home.

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Jeff Sullivan over at the mother site took some time recently to examine the effortless home run swings of Chris Davis. Davis was at it again today, with such a breezy dong-piece, it deserves some extra attention.

Watch:

Listen:
easy

This has been a GIF and a Tune.

The Giants called up Juan Perez, a 26-year-old center fielder in Triple-A who had never seen the bigs before, because they were short on center fielders with Angel Pagan out. The young man has tools and strengths, but he knows the former and is working on the latter.

To wit, two things he said to me before last night’s game:

1) “I got a good arm. I just made a good throw in a perfect time in the game.”

Then he did this Tuesday night.

2) “This year, I’ve been working on my two-strike approach, trying to be more selective and get the ball in play.”

Then he did this on a 3-2 count in the eighth inning Tuesday night.

Well done, young man. Well done.

Courtesy of the morning paper, the current standings …

I think it’s obvious at this point that it’s going to come down to Junior A.C. and Davis Shell and the private-school kids with their high-end bikes who populate the two teams. Were this a cinematic flight, then the relentlessly middle-class kids from, say, Naas Candy, would rise up and bring low their economic betters. But this isn’t a movie, so Junior A.C. and Davis Shell, what with their superior breeding, boutique equipment and precocious and unreachable girlfriends will surely hold sway.

Just as sure is that this will mark the onset of many decades of holding sway over the Naas Candy boys. The difference is that the certain defeats ahead will be more meaningful, more lacerating. For instance, is there really any doubt that Davis Shell shortstop Caspian Westwood will one day order his middle managers to fire current Naas Candy left fielder Rusty Stricken from the crew because he was rumored to have a flask in his lunch pail? The mounting black lung was making him less than efficient, anyway.

As for the natural rivalry between Faultless Cleaners and Economy Cleaners, two concerns that will leave your Sansabelt slacks crisp to the grope and redolent of chemical vats, it’s not much of a contest thus far. This is because Economy Cleaners is shitty in all ways.

You see, they are shitty because their coach, Floyd Chickens, is all too at ease on the dole, where he’s been for lo these many years. His indolence seeps down to the shiftless layabouts on his roster. Rather than patrol the infield with a sense of mission, they instead panhandle base-runners. Even when a member of Economy Cleaners is presented with the opportunity for honest toil — for instance, Junior A.C. star pitcher Maximilian Humphries, while measuring his lead-off from second base, recently offered Economy infielder Cesar Chavez McMurphy a good many pence to beat the teammate of his choosing with a ditching spade and then finish him off with sheep shears — they recoil and fart. They are bound headlong for diseases that never spread north of the Town Plaisance.

All of this helps explain the current standings, which you see above.

Loyal Reader John P. pointed us to some breaking news on Twitter regarding a Bullpen Gospels movie.

@OSITF_blog yep. just signed the deal.

— Dirk Hayhurst (@TheGarfoose) June 19, 2013

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