Because life is meaningless, morality is fiercely relative, and even the work of humanity’s most beautiful minds exerts its influence only for a few thousand years, the present author prefers to concern himself with mere trifles — nugae, a Roman person would likely say, were he not long dead and his language nearly as dead, too.
The 2013 season has concluded for our mystical NotGraphs OOTP Fantasy League. Here is a look at the entrants that made it into the first draft:
We started with 17 five-star prospects, and we are down to just 2 five-star prospects. Jerry “Juice” Loose is still projected to be a five-star reliever and my humble top overall pick, John Donne, has retained five-star status because, let’s be honest, he failed to sign with the Houston Astros and is still benefiting from Shiny New Tow Syndrome.
Here are the top five prospects in my estimation, as well as the player cards for all the remaining players:
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I just read through 189 reader comments about the Braves moving from Turner Field to a new stadium in the suburbs. Why did I do this? So I could pick out my favorite one and post it. The winner:
U all R stupid 4 sayin this is a bad idea. Finaly we can go to a game and not worried abut my wife gettin rapped.
Oh, Internet, you have done such a great job of raising the level of literacy in this country.
A dispatch from Japanese site Nikkan Sports, translated poorly by a computer into English, reports that “Major landlord” has plans on returning to major-league baseball “in full knuckle learning.” A tweet along those same lines — in this case, however, courtesy very polite outlaw Patrick Newman — suggests that what’s actually happening is former Boston and Montreal and Washington and Milwaukee and Toronto and Cleveland right-hander Tomo Ohka, now 37, is attempting a comeback to the majors as a knuckleball pitcher.
Ohka has been pitching of late in Japan’s independent leagues, it would appear. The reader is invited to enjoy recent video footage of him doing precisely that, above — set lovingly, one will note, to a combination of Bush’s 1996 single “Machinehead” and a group of enthusiastic amateur musicians. A second video, in this case from September, depicts Ohka pitching atop an infield composed of what is almost certainly reclaimed coal ash.
doing laundry
— Jon Heyman (@JonHeymanCBS) November 8, 2013
I was on Twitter at 4:15 a.m. on said Friday morning, reading that Jon Heyman was doing his laundry. I favorited the tweet, and thought to myself: “I should post this on NotGraphs.”
I then asked myself what I was doing. We are the product of our decisions. I had laundry to do, too.
Do you have something slightly less than total indifference to late son-of-a-bitch Boileryard Clarke? Have you ever wanted to spend a probably inclement weekend afternoon at Maryland’s Druid Ridge Cemetery? If so, then have your photo for your family Holiday Card taken in front of or beside or behind Boileryard Clarke’s actual headstone this weekend.
A brief note: there is good news on the Back in the Game front. It has officially been cancelled by ABC, so our weekly torment will end. There is also bad news, and that’s that there are seven more episodes to burn off before this show disappears in its entirely. That’s actually one episode more than we’ve been forced to endure thusfar, so our torment will not end quickly. However, the show is off until November 20, meaning our torment shall be delayed. Thank heaven for small miracles. Now, how to torment you until then…?
In recent months, thanks to my six year old’s obsession with Transformers and Lego’s, I have become increasingly familiar with the deeply weird world of online toy reviews on YouTube. These reviews presumably help collectors decide whether they want to drop $125 for the new, two foot tall Metroplex at San Diego’s ComicCon, though they have also inspired The Boy to ask whether he can get the $400 Lego Death Star for his birthday or an original Shockwave off of Ebay for $120. Thanks, YouTube, for inventing new ways for me to disappoint my child.
These reviews, however, are available for damn near every kind of product, presented by presumably well-meaning people who have a webcam, a lot of extra time, and a generous spirit. You, perhaps, will benefit from their expertise. For instance, you might be asking yourself, “Self, how do I get my baby interested in baseball?” Have you considered the Playskool Swing ‘N Score Baseball Toy?
Here’s an excerpt from Munenori Kawasaki’s recent interview with Sanspo (translation):
[…]
You were not planning on getting an interpreter?
I thought I could figure things out, but things did not work out quite that well. There were times I sat through hour-long meetings and could not understand a word that was said.
What did you do?
I pretended I understood. Then I would go to the coaches later on and they would draw me pictures to help me understand. It was like, “Oh, that’s what they were saying.” That’s what it was like.
Bless that man. And shame on all MLB franchises if this guy doesn’t get a 40-man roster spot in 2014.
In my corner of America’s Middle-West, the leaves are falling with great frequency. There is also snow on the ground. If anyone needed a reminder of the demise of Summer, one need not look farther than my sprawling plot of God’s country. Certainly, the absence of Major League Baseball serves as another chilling reminder that — as I read in a book once — Winter is Coming. According to the Gregorian calendar, it is already here.
The popular Internet website “YouTube”, a video hosting and streaming service, is powered by a vast and powerful network of silicon and electricity. While it is possible for these machines to know a certain date numerically, the feel of a date is unknowable to these robots. How does one explain a gentle snowfall in bleeps and bloops? One cannot. Because of this fact, however, popular Internet website YouTube doesn’t know it isn’t baseball season. Therefore, it offers the embedded video without prejudice. And for that, we can be thankful. Hang tight, fair NotGraphs readers. We’ll get through this together. Unless I — or one of you — die. Then we most likely have bigger problems.
(h/t to ESPN’s Mark Simmon for the link.)
On Tuesday I asked you to recommend baseball-related media that I should consume, digest, and defecate into the port-o-john known as my brain. I received so many good recommendations that I will probably become overwhelmed trying to decide where to start, and instead re-watch MacGruber precisely one–thousand times. So way to go guys. (But seriously: way to go. I will consume so much of what you threw down in the comments)
However, I did notice that some of you bemoaned (or just kinda weren’t into) my desire to read certified masterpiece Juiced, by Jose Canseco. “What this book will lack in tact, insight, truth, and readable syntax, it will make up for in being written by Jose Canseco,” was my thought as I added it to the list.
It’s really, really, really, easy to make fun of Jose Canseco. I’m not so much above making fun of the man as I am too lazy to compile the relevant material. Given the wealth of quality material Jose generates, this should tell you something about how lazy I am. What this post definitively is not, then, is me making fun of Jose Canseco. What it is, is me letting Jose Canseco tell us two things:
Life holds a cruel ending for all of us.death
— Jose Canseco (@JoseCanseco) October 8, 2013
Poop
— Jose Canseco (@JoseCanseco) October 20, 2013
This has been Letting Jose Canseco Tell Us Two Things.
