Breaking news from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s article about Clint Hurdle winning the NL Manager of the Year Award:

“Clint’s passion is infectious,” Pirates owner Bob Nutting said in a statement.

PITTSBURGH– The entire city of Pittsburgh is under lockdown after it was revealed that Pirates manager Clint Hurdle has an infectious case of passion. According to sources, he developed this condition after leaving his post as manager of the Colorado Rockies, where he mostly floundered with indifference for years, occasionally flirting with mild excitement, but never developing the full-blown passion condition. It is not known at this time where Hurdle acquired his passion, although rumor is that Andrew McCutchen may be a carrier.

State law requires all Pittsburgh residents to have received the passion vaccine, which protects against most strains of the illness. The passion vaccine involves living in Pittsburgh for any amount of time.

In the US, approximately 800 to 1,500 people are infected with passion and 120 die from the disease per year. About one of every five survivors lives with permanent disabilities, such as euphoria, inertia, laughter, and psychological problems. Even in cases where treatment has been given, the fatality rate is around 15%.

If you have close contact with Clint Hurdle, see your doctor for prophylactic antibiotics.

A great philosopher and beloved dead uncle once said “with great power comes great responsibility.” To date, no one has deemed me worthy of receiving great power (and rightfully so; I would misuse it the first chance I’d get), and so I’m reduced to creating and maintaining a fictional Hall of Fame based on the teachings of fictional character Ron Swanson. This gives me some infinitesimally small amount of power, and since Uncle Ben never mentioned that, I don’t feel obligated to exercise any responsibility at all. As such, I am abdicating any and all responsibility in the selection process, save for organizing the candidates for your voting pleasure.

Based on your feedback, the new nominees are:

Wade Boggs – For mustache-having, For love of meat (fried chicken before every game) and scotch, For popularity with the ladies, and For unquenchable iconoclasm as expressed through his appearances on The Simpsons, Seinfeld, and Cheers

George Herman Ruth – For love of meat and scotch, For popularity with the ladies, For unquenchable iconoclasm, For disdain of unnecessary rules and regulations, For general joie de vivre.

Bill Veeck – For toughness (lost a leg in World War II), For woodworking (carved an ashtray into wooden leg he received after losing leg in World War II), For love of meat and scotch, For unquenchable iconoclasm, For blatant disdain for unnecessary rules and regulations (hired Eddie Gaedel to pinch hit), For general distrust of authority. You know what, just go read this comment.

Satchel Paige – For love of meat and scotch, For unquenchable iconoclasm, For blatant disdain for unnecessary rules and regulations (jumped contracts constantly in his youth), For general distrust of authority.

Mickey Mantle – For love of meat and scotch, For general popularity with the ladies, For toughness (played on a bad knee his whole career).

Ted Williams – For love of meat and scotch, For having wives with similar names, For toughness (fought in both World War II and the Korean War, crash-landed a plane and walked away), For unquenchable iconoclasm

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Ceats

— Ben Revere (@BenRevere9) November 13, 2013

At the beginning, which is also kinda the end, of Orson Welles’ 1941 cinema classic Citizen Kane, newspaper magnate Charles Foster Kane whispers a single word, rosebud, before shuffling off this mortal coil. The search by a reporter, Jerry Thompson, for the possible relevance of that word to the life of the famous and troubled Kane serves as the device by which the film is driven forward. Ultimately, Thompson’s search is fruitless — even as the mystery is resolved for the viewer in the film’s closing frames.

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MINNEAPOLIS — In a turn of events that residents are calling sad and uninspired, a local writer of baseball “comedy” poorly Photoshopped an image of a pizza onto an image of Tampa Bay’s Tropicana Field, in a failed attempt at producing humor.

“I don’t get it,” one neighbor said. “I mean, I guess if there is funny text to go along with it, then maybe. But this on its own isn’t funny.”

“It sounds to me like he’s flat out of ideas,” a woman claiming to be the writer’s wife said. “This happens every so often. He just finds it hard to be creative. I mean, he isn’t really creative anyway, but you know what I mean. Whatever, it’s not like anyone reads that site.”

Preliminary reports indicate that the writer had high hopes for the image, and perhaps planned on writing a faux news story about it. But once the story was started, the writer quickly realized the piece had no merit. Yet, without any other real ideas to contribute, he knew he was stuck with the image. Witnesses say he proceeded to delete the entirety of the accompanying text, replacing it with yet another faux news story about the actual act of Photoshopping the picture. At least one witness claims that that text is what readers are reading at this moment.

Police are also following up on eyewitness accounts claiming that the writer has no idea how to end the article in a funny or amusing way.

Yoga was invented by British naval officers during the Siege of Malta to confuse enemy semaphore interpreters, and brought to the mainstream by Japanese schoolchildren in the 1950’s. These days yoga is for everyone, not just Brits and young Asians. This is good news! Along those same totally not untrue lines, it just so happens that my favorite yoga positions are inspired by real-life baseball players. This post is me sharing three of them with you.

Counsell Pose

This pose is only fully realized if you have a baseball bat handy. First grab the bat, left hand over right. Take a deep breath, and feel the fat draining from your horrid, porcine excuse for a human body. You now weigh 85 lbs., like Craig Counsell. Your mind, too, is in Counsell-space . Feel the alignment of the universe as Craig felt the alignment of well-executed double-plays during his 16-year career as a defense-first infielder. Splay your legs wide beneath you and slowly raise the bat above your head. Now raise the bat even higher. Feel the stretch in your chest as you poke the gods. Take a breath. Release the pose as if weakly dribbling a grounder to second base.

Martinez Pose

This two-part pose is meant to get your juices oogling and boogling. Carlos Martinez is, of course, a rowdy young fire-baller known for his yoga-inspired delivery. To channel his Martinezness, begin by putting all your weight on your left foot and sticking your leg out to the side at a 90-degree angle. Try to focus on one point, like a tree in the distance, or Yadier Molina, to help maintain balance. Now think of all the things in your life that are stressin’ on you, like the kiddos, troubles with a lady-friend, getting blamed by the boss for something that was Doug’s fault, or pitching to red-hot David Ortiz in the World Series at age 22. Next, picture all those stresses congealed as a fuzzy-bad-ball-thing floating in the air in front of you about thigh high. While maintaining eye contact with your “object in the distance” (your “Yadi”), violently twist the hips and sweep the right leg through the fuzzy-bad-ball-thing like Charlemagne swept the Lombards out of Northern Italy. Repeat until you feel like your stresses are thoroughly routed.

Rizzo Pose

Next let’s try an endurance pose. The Rizzo allows us to embody eternity within the terminal confines of our infirm human shells. Start by forcing a smile—make sure it’s forced! Don’t think of any actual reason to smile. Instead, think of a time you have to force a smile, like anytime someone shows you a YouTube video. Next, twist your arm back as if thousands of fantasy owners are punishing you for disappointing them when they needed solid first-base value. Now, hold that pose for ten-thousand years. This one is tough! Keep that forced smile and twisted arm as long as you can. Eventually your smiling face will melt into a vacant world-weary stare, and layers of dead calciferous sea organisms will coat your face (you think that’s shaving cream?) as you rest on the ocean floor where Chicago once was (thanks global warming and other ocean-causing catastrophes!). Your twisted arm will fall off and become a gathering place for bored sea minnows. Your other arm will meld into your side as your body slowly becomes a featureless monolith. As you watch human civilization crumble around you, try to recall the little things, like fresh sheets or how the smell of blown-out candles reminds you of your eleventh birthday. After ten-thousand years of holding Rizzo Pose, relax and carry on as usual.

The 18,172 proud gentlemen who have donned a Major League uniform, plus Boileryard Clarke, can be said to be the finest baseball athletes the world has ever offered. But of course such a statement requires an untenable simplification. It ignores Josh Gibson, for instance, and Sadaharu Oh, and it includes Yuniesky Betancourt. Not only that, but it discounts a great many gifted athletes who, for various circumstantial reasons, were never given the opportunity to excel in this particular sport. One can safely assume that Jesse Owens would have stolen more than a few bags, and that Mikhail Baryshnikov would have made one hell of a shortstop. One once said similar things about Michael Jordan, but one bad apple doesn’t spoil the bunch, now does it? And why stop there, really? Why not speculate about the baseball IQ of the Duke of Wellington, or the scrappiness of Spartacus, or the mound presence of Moses?

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Ken Rosenthal has something to say.

Like most men who wear bow-style ties without irony, very spry baseball reporter Ken Rosenthal is not immune to the charms of the beaux arts. As the following poem suggests — composed entirely of lines from his recent dispatch from the front lines of the baseball news cycle — Rosenthal is capable of writing poignant lyrics on the nature of hope even when he appears to be writing just about a hypothetical Cardinals trade for Rockies shortstop Troy Tulowitzki.

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*

…but probably not that soon, since he just moved into a new house last summer.

There is a surprising amount of information on the Internet about where Joe Mauer lives. There is this weebly page that appears to have been created by a child. A 2007 video tour of what was then called his “mansion.” An aerial shot of the estate he bought in 2012. And a 2006 Sports Illustrated “Cribs” feature on the house he shared with Justin Morneau, proving that Mauer drinks orange juice and collects bobblehead dolls.

*Yes, let me just leave this image here without further comment on the headline.

**NOTICE TO ALL MLB PLAYERS**

Effective immediately, MLB will be expanding the list of banned substances, per the Joint Drug Agreement. Testing positive for any of the following substances will result in an immediate 50-game suspension. In the interest of transparency, we are including the “street names” of these substances, so that you may comply in a quick and easy fashion, and without confusion. If you have any questions about these substances, such as their chemical makeup, feel free to contact your agents, your MLBPA union representatives, your doctors, or a combination thereof. This is not a complete list, only new additions. A detailed and thorough list can be obtained from the League office, or your MLBPA rep.

NEW BANNED SUBSTANCES FOR 2014:

• Fling
• Spit
• Cheese
• Knuckle
• Goober
• Swamp Foot
• Bela Fleckstacy
• Control Alt Defeat
• Brown Skittle
• South by South Pacific
• Jesse Camp
• Midnight Train to Georgia (the Country)
• Grease 2
• Parker Full of Posey
• Creamed Corn Row
• Ram Jam
• Ronny James Dios Mio
• Fart Barrel
• Hose Face
• Knight to E6
• Friendster
• Popamatic Bubble
• Ian Ziering
• Hitler’s Pyramid
• Bubb Rubb
• Black Lung
• Black Bung
• William Hung

Hello? Oh, hi, sorry to bother you so late, it’s Matty Baseballs.

…

What? It’s not that late? Haha, of course. To me, it’s always baseballs o’clock, please pardon me.

“Hello, Baseball? Matty Baseballs here. I hear you’ve got baseballs for me…”

…

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