Okay, how did we miss this?

On May 24th, Coco Crisp tweeted to his followers, looking for a name for an app he’s developing where you catch baseballs in his hair:

I'm developing a new game where you catch baseballs in my hair. Any ideas for names? #namecocosgame pic.twitter.com/glv6tGWgY4

— Covelli Crisp (@Coco_Crisp) May 24, 2014

We’ve missed the deadline, and the name was chosen last week– and with a little Twitter research, you can find out what it was– but I thought I’d see if NotGraphs commenters can do better than what was chosen.

The floor is all yours.

On occasional occasions – and this is one such occasion – we here at NotGraphs like to see if you’ve paid attention. So … have you paid attention?

1. Before hiring Jay Z’s Roc Nation Sports, Cuban free agent Rusney Castillo also considered:
(a) Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Rach Nation Sports.
(b) Johann Sebastian Bach’s Bach Nation Sports.
(c) Doc Severinsen’s Doc Nation Sports.
(d) John Holmes’ Penis Country Athletics.

2. When Manny Machado threw his bat at Alberto Callaspo, he was trying to:
(a) Teach him an important lesson about the U.S. timber industry.
(b) Administer an invigorating deep-tissue massage.
(c) “Keep him on his toes.”
(d) Marry him, in the manner of a jumping-the-broom ceremony.
(e) Both (a) and (c), and possibly (b) and (d)

3. The Nationals are attributing their recent hot streak to banana and mayo sandwiches. To what sandwich do the D-backs attribute their miserable season?
(a) PB&J (the “J” is for “Jheri curl”)
(b) BLT (the “T” is for “thumbtack”)
(c) Banana and mayo
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Click it if you want, but it’s ain’t gettin’ any bigger, pal.

Hey, Max. Yahoo Sports reports that you took out an insurance policy to cover lost earnings in case you don’t end up with a contract offer as big as the $144 million you turned down from the Tigers.

Here at Podunk Insurance, we were very excited to hear about it.

Because it sounds like you’re the kind of pragmatic, risk-averse individual who values quality insurance, to cover all of your potential calamities.

You may be covered for lost earnings… but are you covered in the case of a giant meteor attack?

Major League Baseball is going to have a tough time continuing if the Earth’s atmosphere is blackened with soot. Worried about the Tampa Bay Rays? I’d be more worried about the sun’s Rays, and how they’re not going to be able to get through, to warm your body and fuel the growth of the food you need to compete. And what’s the (David) Price of a policy to cover such a catastrophe? Well, let’s not talk about cost just yet…

Because you may be able to bundle the meteor insurance with another product we’re very excited about. You’ve heard of robots, right? They already have robotic arms that can throw baseballs. We’re not that far away from a robot taking your job, or possibly eating your family.

So you’ll need coverage for that, too.

And what if you decide to freeze your sperm, and the clinic loses it? We have sperm insurance. It’s very important. You never know when you’ll need it.

And how about a fan in the stands throwing ice cream at you? Ice cream insurance. I’ll add it to the list.

I assume you already have car insurance, but did you see the Transformers movie? What if your car turns into something else? Do you have insurance for that? Speaking of movies, you need Godzilla insurance too.

How are you going to pay for all of this insurance? Someone did offer you $144 million, didn’t they? I think they did. So you should probably take that deal, since insurance can be very expensive.

Good luck the rest of the way. Especially if the meteor hits.

Friends, allow me to pull back the curtain and show you how the sausage is made by sharing with you some private correspondence not intended for your eyes. Prepare to be totally shocked and appalled:

“Buttfaces,

I’m taking the week off this week, for all of your information.

I’m in the very south part of the heel of Italy.

I don’t know most of what anyone’s saying.

Here’s a picture of me with a strange dog that my wife took: http://instagram.com/p/o9OBR9sjHZ/

Here’s a picture of me from the day before that, probably writing the next great epigram: http://instagram.com/p/o8JitwMjCu/.

Don’t [redacted word unsuitable for your eyes] up the whole site this week (ahem, David Temple).

Tell your mothers I love them. [Ed. note: Mom says you know the restraining order says you’re not allowed to contact her anymore.]”

While the language and sentiment of the message’s sender may be disturbing, surely some of you are concerned what will happen to me, given my egregious breach of trust. Do not trouble your heart. I am confident that I will get away with it because A) it’s Carson and B) as he points out, he’s not paying attention to anything this week. I am free and clear to do whatever I want.

Which is why I feel totally comfortable posting pictures of a dick and balls on Notgraphs: Read the rest of this entry »

The North Shore Navigators are a baseball team from Lynn, MA playing in the Futures Collegiate Baseball League. They use wooden bats. Cistulli knows a lot about them, I’d guess. Other facts about the Navigators can be found on their Wikipedia page, but those facts are trivial compared to the content of this here web page. Because what Wikipedia can’t tell you about the Navigators, is that they are in love. The relevant screenshot, below:

You’ll notice the players who’ve moved on to professional baseball are listed as Coming Soon! Evident in this picture is that this might apply to one Navigator “sooner!” than the others.

Take in the following three images while listening to the Twin Peaks Soundtrack. 

And understand The Love of the Navigators.

Guests file into the Iroquois room at the Downtown Marriott while a man playing an electric piano finishes a Bach toccata. There is an urn on a handcrafted oak table at the far end of the room. The music stops and the crowd quiets. A man begins to speak.

“Good morning, everyone. I’m Mr. Temple’s lawyer. Mr. Temple requested that I head the proceedings today in the event that his original choice for emcee, Tom Hanks, was unavailable. As Mr. Hanks has also passed, here I am.”

“I’ve been instructed to keep this very short, and I will try my best to do so. I’m sure many of you have some things you would like to say about the deceased, but Mr. Temple laid out very specific instructions about how this ceremony should proceed, and none of them include others sharing their feelings. Mr. Temple did express an interest in having Tom Waits perform the song ‘Young at Heart’, as Mr. Temple was certain he would die before Tom Waits. This is not the case however. He also asked that I simply read this prepared statement and play the accompanying video presentation.”

The lawyer clears his throat and opens a piece of paper.

“‘Dear people who came to see me dead; there is a very good chance that you and I had a strong bond — an important relationship. I never really found the time or the interest to get close to people, so the fact that you knew me well enough to attend this event points to the fact that you were one of the few special people in my life. I want you all to know that all the special times we had — all the indelible memories we created — pale to this.'”

A screen raises from behind the urn. A video plays.

The lawyer continues.

“‘The fact that I love this more than I love any of you is more my fault than yours, but that’s the way it goes. And now, ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Tom Waits.'”

The lawyer trails off on the last sentence, clears his throat, then folds the piece of paper nervously. He nods to the piano player.

“Thank you all for coming.”

The piano player begins singing “Young at Heart”. It’s not as good as Tom Waits.

On behalf of the Upper Deck Company LLC, we at NotGraphs would like to apologize for the harmful influence of its 1990 edition of baseball cards. At a time when America was already enthralled by the siren songs of Wilson Phillips, and being told that King’s Quest V was a really good video game, our nation’s youth was already reeling on the edge of credulity. Then came these images, undoing three decades of helpful short films about how to act, groom, and play baseball, forever sealing off any hope of universal truth or beauty. One might protest that it was Crystal Pepsi that killed the last spark of resistance and laid an entire generation prostrate before the towering menace of American propaganda, and one may be correct. There are no simple answers. For now, we can only offer this meager apologia to the long-vacant souls of our generation.

Delinquent as this notice may be, we would like to offer the following corrections, in hopes that those affected might salvage a fraction of the lesser years of their lives.

This is not how to bat.

Read the rest of this entry »

Mets second baseman and sports’-only-parental-role-model Daniel Murphy was in the news in April when he missed the first two games of the season to be with his wife for the birth of their son (who was unfortunately born a Mets fan, a condition that will make it difficult for him to function normally).

This week, Murphy was a guest at the White House for a discussion about working dads.

Readers might recall that, at the time Murphy took his leave, Boomer Esiason suggested Murphy’s wife should have had a C-section before the season. Interestingly enough, Esiason scheduled his own lobotomy to occur right before he made that remark.

I have one and only one problem with baseball players taking paternity leave to be there for the births of their children:

Read the rest of this entry »

From ESPN:

MINNEAPOLIS — “Why not us?”

That was the response from Twins general manager Terry Ryan on Sunday when informed the decision to sign free-agent Kendrys Morales to a one-year, $7.6 million deal was, well, very un-Twins like.

“Why not us? We’re a baseball team. We have players. We sign contracts. We have people at every position, just like all of the other teams. And we’re trying to win games. Sort of. I mean, we’re putting players on the field, and I’m sure they’re doing their very best, and sometimes the laws of random chance come out on our side and, odds be damned, we win a game or two. We’ve had success before with players we’ve signed. Ricky Nolasco, for example. Okay, not a great example. But an example nonetheless. Jason Kubel. Okay, again, not a great example. Well, we have some really up-and-coming talent here. Aaron Hicks. Okay, I’m going to stop with the examples. We have superstar Joe Mauer, having a, uh, having a year. That’s what everyone on the team is doing. Having a year. And maybe our years will somehow turn out to be better than enough people’s years that we accidentally end up in the playoffs. That’s why Kendrys is a fit. Because if we sneak into the playoffs, maybe by then he will be in playing shape and can lead us in a big celebration at home plate if we manage to ever score a run, and he can break his foot again, and then we’ll have the flexibility to call up anyone we want to replace him on the roster. So you ask why us? Because. Because why not us, and why shouldn’t we have as much of a right to sign a player of questionable value and no true position who hasn’t played in months and was probably going to be of negligible value anyway, especially since we already have Josh Willingham. That’s why us. And if he can pitch, too, then that’s even better, because Ricky Nolasco is not terribly good, and is mostly goodly terrible.”