10. Breath Underwater

Better than not having any super power. Helpful if you’re a Navy Seal. Add fake shark fin for non-stop pranking fun.

9. Climb Walls/Shoot Spider Webs

Benefit to your peeping-tom hobby. Can easily avoid traffic jams. Never have to get up to fetch the remote.

8. Laser Eyes

Never get mugged again. Impromptu bird hunting always a possibility. Legit reason to wear sunglasses at night.

7. Control the Weather

Adds realism while telling scary stories. Perfect lawn. Always snows on Christmas.

6. Hammer-Wielding Alien

Abs. Pecs. Face.

5. Generally “Super” Alien

Bulletproof. Can turn back time. Job at a newspaper.

4. Accelerated Healing Capabilities

No hangovers. Eat all the fast food you want. Invulnerable to logging injuries.

3. Teleportation

Never late for probation meetings. First in line when the liquor store opens. No more bathroom accidents.

2. Flight

Avoid airports. Not required to fly commercial. Seriously, airports are the worst.

1. Invisibility

See every movie for free. Get to see your kids graduation, even though you weren’t invited. Freak people the fuck out.

Because it takes place within mostly idyllic surroundings, produces literally dozens of top draft picks per annum, and is also entirely free of charge, the Cape Cod League is really one of the great treasures of base-and-ball. That its 2013 season starts today (Wednesday), is the point of this post.

The point of this post is not to intimate at all that the author is an expert on the Cape League. That same author, for example, has only been to two games ever — not from a lack of wanting to, it should be noted, but rather from a confluence of factors involving mostly geographical and fiscal constraints.

So far as assorted notes on the Cape League are concerned, however, the author has managed to collect five of them:

• About one-third of the players taken in the first 10 rounds of this year’s draft were former Cape Leaguers.

Read the rest of this entry »

Ian Stewart got in some trouble Monday night when he complained on Twitter about how the Cubs didn’t want to call him back up to the majors. He has since apologized, and been suspended without pay.

Here at NotGraphs, we have jumped into our time machine and are proud to present some Future Ian Stewart Tweets. Be aware that our time machine is only intended for discovering future tweets, and not to be used for sports betting or other wagering purposes. Thank you for understanding.

Yeah, I don’t know what that last one means either.

Editor’s Note: the author of this post originally misspelled Puig’s first name as Yasail as part of his unceasing campaign against his own and also the site’s credibility.

I can’t believe you keep spelling my name wrong, man.

It’s true, Yasiel Puig is nowhere to be found on my All Star ballot. I’m trying as much not to be miffed about that as I am trying to follow Internet Superstar and world champion non-blinker Dave Cameron’s advice to include Yasiel Puig’s name in the title, and preferably the body of any post on the ___Graphs family of premium websites, even though the article in question may (and in this case does, in fact) have nothing to do with Yasiel Puig. Integrity be damned. I’ll play it the company way. Wherever the company puts me, there I’ll stay.

Anyway, I went to the Phillies-Brewers tilt last Saturday with three Phillies phans, because I apparently have a death wish of some sort. I met them before the game at a bar in Milwaukee at 3:00 in the afternoon. They had been there since 11:00. Two of the Phillies phaithful in question were greatly enjoying their brews, but in a greatly responsible manner. The third was already the kind of drunk that confuses “loud” with “charming.” The omens were good for the evening’s merriment.

Later, at the game itself, he proceeded to make a harmless nuisance of himself to the various Brewers fans in attendance in a way that was simultaneously hilarious to me and deeply embarrassing. I can’t say I didn’t encourage him once or twice. I can’t say I didn’t howl with laughter at others. And I can’t say that I didn’t take extra trips to the men’s room and concession stands to escape him on occasion.

When they passed out the All Star ballots, I took the opportunity to distract him, handing him mine and a pencil and encouraging him to phill out the ballot in my name. This, friends, is that ballot, filled out by one of the more harmlessly intoxicated fans I have ever come across. The only ballot I will be submitting for the 2013 All Stars, because democracy is often dumb and I won’t participate in this pharce: Read the rest of this entry »

I am known in certain circles, though not all circles, as an SEO wizard.

While the following image was not definitively taken moments after David Murphy felled Mark Reynolds, that treasonous Reb, at Antietam with one shot from an Enfield rifle, it probably was …

David Murphy, you see, is quite possibly surveying the Confederate dead.

It’s the present author’s contention that the public is entirely too invested in what are often referred to as “current events” — or, rather, that the sort of event which qualifies as “current” ought to be broadened substantially.

For example, a 25-year-old version of Alfredo Despaigne hit his Cuban League record-tying and -breaking 34th and 35th home runs on April 3rd, 2012. That was an achievement of some note when it occurred. The author, however, has just re-watched footage of them this afternoon — plus also Despaigne’s 40th home run, which occurred about a month later — while putting off a short jog that he should actually be taking so that he might more comfortably fit into a pair of Land’s End-brand shorts he recently purchased under the watchful eye of his blameless wife.

Are Despaigne’s feats of strength over a year old? Yes. However, do they live on so that we might come upon them, hungry for diversion, willing to put off till tomorrow what could theoretically be done right now? Yes. Also that.

Below are the videos in question, for the reader to utilize in whichever way he chooses.

34th Home Run
This is Despaigne’s record-tying home run, on which he breaks his bat.

Read the rest of this entry »

Here is a thing that I made. I picked the Red Sox at random. I thought some of you might enjoy it, and maybe I will do it for other teams too.

Cover of BOOG CITY, Issue 80, by Basil King

Back in February, I alerted at least one NotGraphs reader to a call for baseball poems by the small press poetry publisher/newspaper Boog City, which, I found out, is named after former Orioles All-Star 1B Boog Powell. That issue is now “out.” (The previous baseball-themed issue of Boog City, which I “reviewed” in the aforelinked post, was published in 2006, so these issues are kinda rare.)

Among my favorites this time around was a piece entitled “Sabermetrics” by Erika Stephens:

Though it seems to be an “argument” against sabermetrics, it treats the issue in a way that is less obnoxious than most arguments against sabermetrics by invoking the world outside baseball. The poem is at once about baseball and its statistics, and a reminder about the limitations of said to create a full life. “Here is chaos,” the poem says — chaos, which in many ways accounts for what we experience in life better than math or even grammar and syntax. Listen to me: trying to be smart about poetry!

My true favorites in the issue come from “my boy” Joseph P. Wood, a short series of poems called Ladies and Gentlemen, It’s the 1980s, and Here are My Philadelphia Phillies, including this portrait of Mike Schmidt:

I put my face in your handlebar mustache —
it’s like a fan blade — Harry Kalas orgasms
on your 500th — hating you, the city cashes
in on your face — I must handle my bat stash
like manmeat — you lead the league in rashes
broken out — O the lady bits, blessed organism
I’ll never put my face in — I handle your mustache
like Harry Kalas — my fan blades, orgasms

An ode worthy of NotGraphs, for sure — what with its focus on moustachios and manmeats.

There’s also an interview regarding with Travis Macdonald regarding the poet trading cards that he does for Fact-Simile Editions, for which Macdonald said he “considered just creating a template and dropping everyone’s picture in but that seemed like it would get boring fast. So [he] started trying to recreate old Topps designs from scratch.” I myself have of few of these poet trading cards. They are fun…for nerds!

It’s possible that the screwball Hector Santiago throws is actually not that great of a pitch. It doesn’t get a ton of whiffs or grounders, he seems to have lost control of it a bit, there’s a chance that using it less this year has led to more success, and mostly batters just don’t swing at it.

And yet, with famous screwgie throwers like Tug McGraw and Fernando Valenzuela backing him up, it’s worth trying to perfect.

Here’s a decent one, from his start against the Mets on May 22nd: