A typical, run-of-the-mill European.

Living in Europe, the author has become acquainted with a population of this world for whom baseball, strangely, isn’t a daily concern. Because they’re otherwise occupied with punishing the most ambitious and ingenious of their race, is perhaps one reason why. Because they haven’t been properly introduced to the sport, is another possible reason, however.

With a view towards addressing the latter contingency, the author has produced below the top-10 leaders in baseball this season by velocity — as rendered in kilometers per hour, however, so that the European mind might more readily comprehend it. What else the author has done is to capture video of Dodger relief prospect Jose Dominguez throwing a fastball in June at 163 km/h to then-Phillies outfielder Delmon Young.

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You may have forgotten about Matt Harvey. I did for a spell. Perhaps the title of this post struck a dower dour chord in your heart. Writing it certainly did.

This off-season, there will be a fair amount of wheelings and/or dealings. Some players will sign big contracts, some will sign small ones. Others will get traded. And we will expel a lot of time and energy contemplating on what these happenings mean for those players and their respective teams.

But let us save a little time, and perhaps a little more energy contemplating on Matt Harvey. For with every day that passes, he grows stronger. He grows stronger and more eager and one step closer to doing shit like this again:

Heal fast, Matt Harvey. We will continue to remember you.

Ken Griffey Junior Executive is nothing like a junior executive. Rather, at age 20, he is the Chief Executive of World Baseball Talent. He reports directly to Willie Mays himself.

Ken Griffey Junior Executive hasn’t any time to write or type, but whatever he projects into this state-of-the-art car-phone receiver — right down to that infectious smile — is transcribed by adoring millions. Right now he is finalizing the acquisition of a majority stake in the newly public stock of fashion-sweater moguls Dolce & Cosbyana. Ken Griffey Junior Executive will see to it that his fashion-sweaters are made of 100% ebullience.

Ken Griffey Junior Executive is driving a lightly used 1988 BMW M5 not out of financial necessity (pffft!) or any sense of frugality, but rather because it is far classier than the new 1990 version of the same model. Also, his million-dollar ass cannot be put in jeopardy by the arduous task of breaking in that stiff Bimmer leather. Next month, Ken Griffey Junior Executive will buy a new lightly used 1988 BMW M5.

Ken Griffey Junior Executive was just checking in on his Ken Griffey Junior Smiles Outlet, where his used smiles are sold at wholesale prices with a portion of the profits benefitting children’s charities. Now, he is off to consult with the printer about some new business cards. Bone coloring with Silian Rail font? Eggshell with Romalian type? Ken Griffey Junior Executive is thinking of something more subtle: an off-white stock of tasteful weight, watermarked with a nautical compass…

Sorry for chiming in again so quickly after my last post. Usually I need at least a couple of weeks to recuperate after writing a few hundred words for Internet consumption, but this Jhonny Peralta signing really got to me. I have experience in the area of drug suspensions and attempting to find a new job afterwards. A few years ago I found myself terribly addicted to a complex cocktail of Ambien, Lexapro, and two pints of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream every night. My supervisor down at the content mill where I worked noticed that I was, well, a little zonked out most days, and getting a little too big to fit in my cubicle. He obviously couldn’t afford to move the wall out by a few inches — “you get two square feet, Joe, that’s just how it is in the real man’s workin’ world,” he would say, while counting his Bitcoins — so he put me on unpaid leave and told me to clean myself up. I stopped the Ambien and Lexapro cold turkey, switched from Ben & Jerry’s to some diet substitute, and spent the next two weeks awake, manic, and unable to leave the bathroom, because whatever was in that diet ice cream just made me go and go and go without end.

Where was I? Oh, yeah, so I came back to the office, and the content mill had gone out of business, replaced by a team of Tweeting robots trolling for page clicks, and my job was no more. And then — and here’s where the similarities to my situation and Peralta’s really become obvious — a man in a Cardinals hat said he wanted to take me as a prisoner for the next 4 years, and pay me in Cheerios.

Sudden withdrawal from Ambien may cause hallucinations. I think.

I did take steroids once. Cleared up a rash I got, from this one time I sort of volunteered at a homeless shelter. I didn’t realize it was a homeless shelter. And the volunteer coordinator didn’t realize I was homeless. The steroids gave me another rash, somewhere else, of course. I take steroids, I get a rash. Jhonny Peralta takes steroids, he gets $52 million dollars. They say money doesn’t buy happiness, but no one’s ever said they prefer a rash. So I think he wins.

I should check out that Cardinals fan’s Cheerios prison. It doesn’t sound that bad, sort of.

Year 2! Year 2! Year the second!

In the comments of Year 1, Ol’ Double R axed:

Any way to see our pre-draft profile? You know, the one when the draft list is released? Or at least our scouting history?

So, what the heck, right? We’re doing this for fun. So here’s this:

Uh oh.

For whatever reason (not including the possible reason of data entry error; this I double-checked), some of the prospects did not have quite the prospectiness of other prospects. I am open to suggestions that might improve this in later editions.

Go below the jump for a more detailed look.
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In an effort to get this show off the air faster, ABC pulled a fast one on us, dear readers, and showed an episode last week, even though it had originally said the show was on hiatus until this Wednesday. Their skullduggery is your gain this week, though, reader, as you get a super-sized double review and recap of the last two episodes. So far, this series has gone to great lengths to demonstrate the awfulness of all of its characters, and to portray humanity as a greedy, oblivious, selfish, and devoid of empathy. Let’s see if they can do better going forward. Maybe the extra time off has caused them to reevaluate the general tone of this unfunny dreck. I mean, if it can’t be entertaining, maybe it can be pleasantly benign.

Nope, it turns out it can’t.

Episode Seven opens with the team “shagging fly balls” in practice. While your Little League team probably put players into positions and spread them out, Coach Terry and The Cannon instead let their players huddle in a mass of squirming, shoving 10 year olds who jockey for position, all shouting “I got it” over each other until all of them dive out of the way at the last second, and the ball falls to the ground. Let it not be forgotten that Terry and The Cannon are, in addition to being rotten people, terrible coaches.

While “Regional Safety Officer” Sheldon Bickle (a paycheck-cashing John Michael Higgins) looks on, one fly ball hits Dong square on the head when he forgets to put up his glove to catch it. This is accompanied by actual Looney Tunes sound effects. Horrified at the lack of medical attention Dong receives, Bickle orders both The Cannon and Dick, the misogynist league president, to attend “safety school” (safety schools being a concept this show’s creators are probably very familiar with).

Meanwhile, Coach Terry stays late after practice with Dudley (the fat kid) because his parents forget to pick him up for what sounds like the umpteenth time. They’re divorced, you see, and far more interested in hating each other than paying attention to their lonely son. They even refuse to attend his games, because, as his father says “It’s not my custody day. I got plans. And besides, do I want to sit in the stands with my ex-wife yelling at me?”

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“Even the Americans want to taste it.”

The author encountered this Compelling Advertisement on Thursday while walking along the Rue Ordener.

From it, one is able to infer certain, undoubtedly true facts — namely, that:

• With regard to bacon, its sheen is of some importance.
• With regard to fast-foot hamburgers, Americans are the arbiters of taste.
• Americans, additionally, are be-gloved at all times.

It was in 1946. July, I think. The Dodgers were playing the Cardinals. The game got out of hand by the fifth inning or so. The Dodgers were losing big. As I usually did during those times, I began telling stories to break up the monotony of the game. Well, for some reason — and to this day I still can’t for the life of me remember why — I began talking about Brooklyn’s pitcher Kirby Higbe. And I mentioned that though he was getting up there in age, he still was firing a pea of a fastball. Well, this fan that was sitting right in front of the press box took umbrage to that statement, and stood up to tell me so. He started cursing at me telling me I had no idea what I was talking about. Read the rest of this entry »

One imagines that the diagnosis of an inoperable brain tumor is a particularly harrowing one for a 50-year-old person to receive — especially the sort of 50-year-old person who, by all appearances, derives fulfillment both from his private and professional life. Indeed, the only response of which I can personally conceive involves merely assuming the fetal position and cursing capital-F Fortune until such a time as my body stops functioning.

This doesn’t at all resemble late union head Michael Weiner’s particular strategy for dealing with his own diagnosis and subsequent illness. Indeed, it’s difficult to find news coverage of him in which he’s not expressly conceiving of life as a sort of luminous mystery.

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Things of substance are happening in Major League Baseball! Things like Prince Fielder and Ian Kinsler getting swapped. Things like A-Rod storming out of his arbitration hearing. Things like Chris Carpenter retiring. Who even KNOWS what kinds of substantial things will happen next?! Zowie! It’s the offseason! A time for sitting around waiting for things to happen! The American Dream!

BUMMER ALERT, THOUGH: One bummer about all the offseason substance is that we have to wait for it. We hate waiting! Take meals for example: We LOVE meals. Meals involve eating, and Americans are nothing if not prolific food-to-poop converters. If only we could have meals ALL THE TIME. Too bad our stupid bodies won’t let us consume 2300 calorie meals every five to seven minutes. Instead we’re stuck waiting for our lame-o corporeal vessels to “metabolize” that steak we had for breakfast. Luckily snacks exist! Snacks are the best. They let us use our mouths and tastebuds for 100% of the day. Check out this bitchin’ pie chart that I screen-captured from a freely available online slideshow on the state of the snacking industry:

What this pie chart shows is that we want something in our mouths at absolutely every possible moment we can have something therein. Showering? Have a Twix. Driving to da club? Have a bag of Doritos. Filing your taxes? Engorge thyself with some cracklin’ pork rinds. About to copulate with a comely dame? Engage in some Swiss Cake Roll foreplay.
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