It may not necessarily be the case that major-league debutant Brandon Cumpton’s slider is an excellent pitch. It’s probably the case that it features too much lateral movement to ultimately prove very effective against left-handed major-league hitters.

What is certainly the case, however, is that a combination of Cumpton’s excellent placement of the pitch to Dodgers leadoff hitter Skip Schumaker and Pittsburgh’s excellent camera angle have conspired here to create either Art Eternal or Art Mostly Eternal.

Because noted American painter Chuck Close has never done a portrait of San Francisco Giants right-hander Tim Lincecum, the image embedded here is by definition not an actual Chuck Close portrait of Tim Lincecum.

However, had Chuck Close ever done a portrait of Tim Lincecum, it would probably bear some resemblance to the image above.

Some people around here consider themselves to be poets of some kind or another, or at least that’s what they tell their family as “professional medical test subject” is considered less of a noble calling in this day and age. Really, the last non-Maya Angelou to really make it as a poet was one Theodore Geisel, who turned his verse into children’s books that are belovéd and turned into shitty movies, as a way to support his filthy rhyming habit. His was an exhausting writing process where he went through several drafts of his work before finally settling on the right combination of whimsy, life lessoning, and made up words that are probably actually anagrams for swears. Here is one such draft, originally titled Did I Ever Tell You How Lucky You Are You’re Not Butts Wagner? that was rejected for being too damn depressing:

“When you think things are bad,
when you feel sour and blue,
when you start to get mad…
you should do what I do!
Just tell yourself, Duckie [Medwick],
you’re really quite lucky!
Some people are much more…
oh, ever so much more…
oh, muchly much-much more
unlucky than you!”

You’re your parents’ sole baby; you had their attention.
So whenever they’d meet someone new they would mention
All the things you were up to, and what you had done.
It would take them two hours, they’d talk a whole ton.

Every small thing you did filled them with pride,
and you felt their love with every fiber inside.

But you could have been poor, poor, poor, poor Albert Wagner,
whose parents made him sleep every night in a bagner.
A bagner is far less warm than sleeping bags,
on account of it’s made out of old moldy rags.
But his folks saved the space on the big double bed,
for his younger brother, who got it instead.
“Trust us,” they said. “Your brother Honus
Will some day be rich enough that he could own us.
You don’t have his potential.
You’re just not that good.
We’ll feed you and clothe you
like society demands legally we should.
But that’s all you’ll get, Al,” they said with two shrugs,
“now get in your bagner and what watch out for bugs.”

Worse, while desperately trying to fight his removal
from the bed and their hearts, desp’rate for their approval,
Albert barely noticed when some dumb old klutz,
decided to nickname the sad young man Butts.
And despite his misgivings, he never said boo,
like you might have done if in his place were you.

You might have screamed and you might have yelled
Albert poured himself into a game at which he excelled
“Baseball!” he cried, “now that’s the ticket!”
“I’m quite good at this bastardized version of cricket.”
But so too was Honus and before too much time,
His brother surpassed him and left him behind.

Honus became one of baseball’s bright shining stars,
bought houses, woo-bangles, snazzers, and cars.
He moved his parents to a brand new palatial estate,
with a long winding driveway and impassable gate,
while poor old Butts Wagner, died sad and alone.
in the only home that he had ever known.

So when you feel yourself getting down, and feeling sad,
remember some lives are less easily had.
At least people love you and you’re not a putz,
with a brother like Honus and a nickname like Butts.

(As Matt Hoeppner correctly points out, this was only strike two.)

The author would like to announce sans delay that — contrary to all of the rumors which have been totally swirling everywhere — that he acquired the animated GIF here of Cardinals prospect Mike O’Neill hitting his second home run of the season by entirely legal means and absolutely not in exchange for a tidy sum of cash on a street corner in Providence, Rhode Island, regardless of what supposed “photographic evidence” suggests.

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As noted in the introduction to his most recent appearance on FanGraphs Audio, Dayn Perry has recently cancelled his land-line phone service so that he might more ably shoulder the financial burden of having his child educated by Catholics. That being the case, the author of this post — and host of that podcast — was compelled to call Perry on his cell phone to record that episode, which cell-phone connection afforded what’s known in the industry as “shit sound quality.”

What follows is the (deleted) audio from the beginning of the aforementioned conversation — which includes not only an even less coherent Perry than usual, but also the entire and laborious process of Perry both downloading and registering with Skype.

The reader would do well to note that the following is not intended for people who are accustomed to making good life decisions.

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As some of you may have noted, the above is clearly a Graph, and therefore an express violation of this weblog’s mission statement. I humbly entreat all parties for forgiveness, and pledge to rededicate myself to the sharing of useless and inappropriate frivolities, starting next week.

But meanwhile, click to embiggen.

Over the last couple days, Dave Cameron has submitted what he considers to be the most reasonably constructed rosters for both the American League and National League’s All-Star teams, respectively. What follows is the author’s own version of that same exercise — except for actual stars in the universe.

Here are the author’s choices for the All-Star Star team, by luminosity classification:

Supergiant: R136a1
Discovered by British scientists in 2010. Most massive and also most luminous star known. One weakness: part of decidedly substandard constellation.

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Earlier this week, I presented Luke Scott’s beard as a current mistake in facial hair. Loyal reader Larry Holt has alerted me to something even worse. Avert your eyes. Not safe for workplace, homeplace, or anyplace.

Courtesy of The Detroit News… which means BLAME THE DETROIT NEWS…

That’s Jose Valverde, and some kind of terribly diseased animal that has attached itself to his chin.

(Bobby Jenks says hello.)

It’s been a good day at the High-Rise Business Building of Banknotes Harper …

At first, it appeared as though the leveraged buyout of the pharmaceutical concern he’d been eyeballing would fall through, but then, as negotiations frayed, Banknotes Harper locked eyes with Larry Ellison, his minority partner, and thundered, “Get your purse.”

Sensing the seriousness of the moment and suspecting no contrivance, the Business Victims and toothless regulators across the conference table — splintered from an unappeasable pounding — promptly surrendered. Seized with Business Terror, they scribbled their beggarly imprimaturs upon stacks of binding documents, each of which was bannered in 36-point Fraktur typeface, “BILL THE FUCK OF SALE.”

Afterward, Banknotes Harper remained standing — there are no chairs here — surveyed the Business Dead, and unspooled his jumbo member onto the catered platters before them. “On this day, I have arbitraged,” thundered Banknotes Harper.

Then he used his portable handheld cordless telephone to call ahead to Morty Constantine’s Hot Steaks, Cocktails and Hot Dinner Rolls, Banknotes Harper’s favorite downtown restaurant. “Steak, rare, hot dog on the side, rolls, another hot dog, scotch, beans, ladle of scotch on top of the food,” he thundered to Herman Crackers, the obliging and tenured maître d’hôtel.

“As you wish, sir,” said Herman Crackers.

“Oh, and Crackers,” thundered Banknotes Harper, “Another scotch and hot dog and beans and steak.”

The staff at Morty Constantine’s Hot Steaks, Cocktails and Hot Dinner Rolls knows that Banknotes Harper prefers to dine while sitting on the aftermarket sliding bench seats of a 1977 Chrysler Cordoba. So they accommodate him.

He also likes that Morty Constantine’s Hot Steaks, Cocktails and Hot Dinner Rolls understands the visual power of price points. For instance, every menu item is priced not at rounded dollars, but rather at 99 cents on top of the next-lowest dollar amount. Banknotes Harper knows that this helps the customer feel that he’s getting a bargain, and gentlemen like bargains.

Just that same day, Banknotes Harper had closed that leveraged buyout by offering not $100,000,000,001, but rather $100,000,000,000.99. Sure, the conference-table pounding, threats of purses, intimidating deep-knee bends and timely pretend Business Telephone Calls helped, but that strategic price point was the difference. You motherfuckers need to know that.

At Morty Constantine’s Hot Steaks, Cocktails and Hot Dinner Rolls, Banknotes Harper sat on the aftermarket sliding bench seats, ate in silence and thought about compounded interest and offshore holdings. Then his business phone with the dry-cell battery rang decisively.

It was Marilu Henner.