The following tweet, which concerns a real and not fake report regarding Dayan Viciedo and the Chicago White Sox, is entirely and in-no-way altered from the original (click to embiggen):
8:00 PM. Where are the jokes about baseball?
8:01 PM. I’m really not sure why Tina Fey and Amy Poehler were picked to host this baseball fielding awards show. I mean, I like Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, but what do they know about baseball?
8:03 PM. Wow, they sure got a lot of big celebrities to come to this thing. Wonder why they’re all sitting in the front. I guess Joey Votto is somewhere in the mezzanine.
8:06 PM. Lots and lots of movie jokes, but none about 42. That’s really confusing. You would think if they’re going to talk about movies, they would celebrate the one movie that’s about baseball. Crazy.
8:08 PM. Totally didn’t realize that’s what Johnny Damon looks like, and that his actual first name is Matt. He really cleans up well.
8:10 PM. Did Brandon Phillips really have that good of a year?
8:13 PM. Best supporting actor? You mean like the infield coach? When are they going to get to the catchers?
8:16 PM. These award shows really take forever to get going. I can’t believe someone sent his mother to accept the award for him. Who is she? At least the statue is nice. It looks like a very fine baseball indeed.
8:22 PM. I certainly hope Troy Tulowitzki wins his category.
8:26 PM. Oh… wait… Golden GLOBES????
8:27 PM. No, no, I think former Padres pitcher Brian Lawrence must have just gotten a sex change or something.
Eastern Park, about which anyone can read on the internet, was located on the corner of what’s now Pitkin Avenue and Van Sinderen in Brooklyn and home to that borough’s storied Dodgers club between 1891 and 1897. Shortly afterwards, it was sold by then-owner Charlie Byrne. Presently, as the image embedded here reveals, its former home-plate area is occupied predominantly by wooden pallets.
On NotGraphs, the readers are entertained by one of two kinds of articles: the kind that require work and creativity and those where somebody’s name is hastily inserted into a work of literature. This is the latter.
Today, certain circumstances have conspired to make it necessary that the Royal We insert self-appointed stathead icon Brian Kenny, former BBWAA president Susan Slusser, Fox Sports reporter Ken Rosenthal, and former catcher Mike Piazza’s names into a revered representation of the Western Canon, thus making it much louder and unlisten-to-able.
In today’s episode, self-appointed stathead icon Brian Kenny conducts an inquiry in the town of Salem to the tune of Arthur Miller’s seminal work, The Crucible. Any further meaning you may or may not take out of this insertion is entirely on you.
BRIAN KENNY: I am a stranger here, as you know. And in my ignorance I find it hard to draw a clear opinion of them that come accused before the court. And so this afternoon, and now tonight, I go from house to house-I come now from Mike Piazza’s house and-
SUSAN SLUSSER, shocked: Piazza’s charged!
BRIAN KENNY: God forbid such a one be charged. She is, however-mentioned somewhat.
SUSAN SLUSSER, with an attempt at a laugh: You will never believe, I hope, that Piazza trafficked with the Devil.
BRIAN KENNY: Woman, it is possible.
KEN ROSENTHAL, taken aback: Surely you cannot think so.
BRIAN KENNY: This is a strange time, Mister. No man may longer doubt the powers of the dark are gathered in monstrous attack upon this village. There is too much evidence now to deny it. You will agree, sir?
KEN ROSENTHAL, evading: I- have no knowledge in that line. But it’s hard to think so pious a catcher be secretly a Devil’s bitch after forty-five year of such good prayer.
BRIAN KENNY: Aye. But the Devil is a wily one, you cannot deny it.
No, Brian. Indeed, we cannot deny how wily the devil has become. We cannot deny it at all.
“I guarantee you that if Mad Dog was pitching today,” Leo Mazzone, Maddux’s vaunted former pitching coach with the Atlanta Braves told USA TODAY Sports, “he would never give up a run all year.”
In addition to our Steamer and Oliver projections, we’ve now added projections based on the MAZZONE system to our player pages. Though these numbers, which are entirely based on the off-the-cuff opinions of former pitching coach Leo Mazzone, have been criticized by analysts on several counts — notably, for being weighted toward retired Atlanta Braves players, and for being insane — we’re including them on our site as an important resource for fantasy owners, especially those who have abandoned all faith in the scientific method.
COOPERSTOWN, NEW YORK — In a tradition that now has spanned 75 straight years, the voting process for the National Baseball Hall of Fame — and all the shit throwing, posturing, statement making, and overall pissy attitudes that go along with it — has succeeded in turning pretty much everyone into an asshole.
“We could not have asked for a bigger outpouring of dickish attitudes and self-absorbed douchebaggery for our 75th anniversary,” said Jeff Idelson, president of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum. “I mean, have you been on the Internet lately? They’re using language my father wouldn’t have used when he served in Vietnam. This blogger is calling this columnist a name, then the columnist fires back but misspells a word and everyone goes bananas over that. One dude let a website fill out his ballot, then that dude got freaking suspended. Oh man. This is really a display of toxic vitriol and human degradation befitting our great organization. It’s like everyone is screaming at each other while jerking off on a picture of themselves. That’s the way we like it here in Cooperstown.”
“Who do you write for?” asked a national baseball writer when approached for comment. “How did you get this number?”
“What, you think you’re better than me?” one blogger responded when asked for a statement.
When asked if the Hall will possibly make some suggestions to the Baseball Writers Association of America — the voting body for the hall’s museum — to prevent future backlash and shitty behavior, Idelson was indignant.
“Why should we? When this great institution and induction process was founded, it had one goal. To get a whole subset of people to behave in the most childish, selfish, arrogant, and idiotic way possible. When you start something like this, I don’t care what it’s for, you want everyone involved to act one way, like a bunch of pompous fucking assholes. I may be biased, but I’m really proud of how we were able to accomplish that feat.”
The hall of fame ballot for next year should be just as contested, with almost-certain shoo-ins like Pedro Martinez and Randy Johnson becoming eligible for induction for the first time. Regardless of the outcome, Idelson is certain the voting process will be just as horse-fucked.
“Oh yeah, total shit show. We can’t wait.”
According to the records kept by interpid weblog The Deadball Era, no fewer than three ballplayers have been shot and murdered by bartenders.
Here are no fewer than those three (each player listed with career WAR, click images to embiggen):
Frank Bell, -0.5 WAR (Profile)
From an unspecified paper on April 15, 1891:
In 2005 the United States government funded a nearly $200 million dollar advertising campaign titled “Above The Influence” intended to curb marijuana and drug use among teens and young adults. The campaign, unlike the “My Anti-Drug” campaign that preceded it, has been effective in reducing drug use among teens, a result that inexplicably rankled the entire nation of Australia. So Australia fought back.
In direct opposition to to the successful campaign, the Australian Baseball League (ABL) adopted “Be The Influence” as league slogan, commanding every Australian to encourage American teens to abuse drugs. The campaign, though morally bereft and fully evil–not to mention horrid and sick, just… sick–has been a resounding success. From a disregarded desert of death-snakes rotting on the bum-side of the planet, Australians have succeeded in causing America’s youth to spiral into a twitchy, drug-addled catatonia, all by telling ABL fans to speak positively to American kids about drug use anytime they visit. The substantial effectiveness of the Aussies is reportedly due to a mix of their friendly, informal attitude and the American misconception that anyone with an accent is a fucking genius.
Americans hope the aggravatingly competent ABL chooses to alter their slogan–and soon–to target other countries battling drug problems, like Iran or Mexico. However, rumors are circulating that the crafty Ozlanders are targeting America’s neighbor to the north, rebranding Canada’s benign “DrugsNot4Me” campaign as “DrugsYes4MeAnd4U2” to kick off next year.
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The “Be the Influence” slogan is, in actuality, meant to raise awareness of binge drinking among Australians–a noble campaign by all accounts, seeing as Foster’s is gross.
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BONUS: Here’s an ABL brawl from last week, in case you haven’t already seen it:
And he has the Internet to thank! With the first ever Hall of Fame vote credited to “tweeples,” presenting the immortal and amazing Jacque Jones!
Apprecaite my tweeples for helping me get that 1 HOF vote. Seriously that is awesome.
— Jacque Jones (@JacqueJones11) January 8, 2014
@desipiodotcom @kengurnick @raymon322 Happy New Year Angry Smurf!!!!!!
— Jacque Jones (@JacqueJones11) January 8, 2014
Jacque Jones was once on a fantasy team of mine, I think. It was not the season he had the .852 OPS. Maybe it was the one he had the .446 OPS. Yes, that’s right, .446. Happy New Year, Angry Smurf.
I ain’t to proud to admit it — I was slightly bummed out by the Hall of Fame results today. So, to cheer myself up, I do what I usually do when I’m feeling glum — read the Wikipedia list of inventors killed by their own inventions.
It is here that I stumbled upon Karel Soucek, a sort of professional stuntman from Canada. Soucek had an idea for a barrel that was padded, so he could survive inside of it when he took it over Niagra Falls. It worked, as he survived the trip. Then, Captain Smartguy got it in his head to one-up himself and drop himself and his barrel from the ceiling of the now ill-fated Astrodome into a tank of water — a 180 foot drop or so. It did not go well. He died on site.
You heard me, the Astrodome is a murderer. And when it is torn down, the ghost of Karel Soucek will rise above the wreckage, only to float into the greater Houston area, softly uttering his catchphrase.
“There is no heaven or hell; there is no God. It’s all a myth. You’re born, you live, one day you die and that’s it.”
For Soucek, that one day was January 19th, 1985. And that’s it. I somehow feel less bad about Craig Biggio now.
(h/t to my skip Adam Derkey, who’s whose incessant nagging regarding my curling sweeps has prompted me to buy a horse hair broom.)