Come back, Sammy Sosa;
All is forgiven.
The grass has grown past the cork.
It’s 545, Kelvin;
never too hot for Wrigley,
never too cold for homers,
never too old for friends.

There’s a chance this could be my last post for NotGraphs. And though it has been easily the best place I’ve ever written for, I am kind of glad to see it die. It is like a great painting in my life, a great painting I will smooth down with epoxy and other preserving agents, and there will be no memories of burnouts or angry commentors or mean bosses. Just the beauty of trying to be funny and sometimes succeeding.

So it’s in that context that I encourage you, dear readers, to tell me which of these freely and legally available photos best represents the Post World Series, or if the Royals wins, Post Apocalyptic NotGraphs?

A Ghost Town in Utah

Credit: Michael Gäbler
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It’s 1981. A dapper, 36-year-old Don Sutton appears on the The Match Game. He sports a fluffy, brown afro and a winning smile. He’s still got another half decade left in his Hall of Fame career.

Now it is 2014. You’re living maybe not the live your dreamed, but a life nonetheless — and likely a more practical, more quietly excellent life than you expected. And you need a desktop background for your 1920 by 1080 monitor.

Don Sutton has finally found that match. And it’s us. Today, that match is all of us.

Ho boy! Looks like somebody has a case of the Mondays!

Click and watch it grow!

Regular golf is for aristocrats; frisbee golf is for hipsters — and now we have a game for the shirsey-wearing once-jock, the be-pit-stained fan of stretchy shorts and gaudy, utilitarian sunglasses. I present, ladies and gentlefolk, Fungo Golf:

The question is not: Who thinks that looks fun? The question is: Who wants to join my new league?

This hat tip goes, as they all do eventually, like a bottle rolled down hill, to the Well-Beered English Sir.

You at home count along. The answer is below the jump:

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It has been a year hence since I made a series of bold predictions, all of which came true, I assume. And now it is time to press forward and prognosticate and pontificate about this very season’s future.

The following events will occur during the 2014 MLB Postseason:

Prophecy #1

A heretofore unknown bench player will hit two key home runs and a extra-clutch double. This will propel him into additional playing time in 2015, where he will generally be a nondescript disappointment.

Prophecy #2

An NL manager will use the word “flabbergasting” in a post-game presser. The world will trend on Twitter — but not for the reasons you might expect.

Prophecy #3

A call to the bullpen will go disastrously wrong!

“You want to speak with Fernando Dogney?”
Rollover to animate.

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This is Noah Syndergaard, Mets pitching prospect. Would you like to see his statistics, perhaps cycled through Carson Cistulli’s famed SCOUT formula? Well, go ahead type in “SCOUT Leaderboard” into the Fangraphs search bar. I’ll wait.

I have created a transcript of your failed endeavours below.
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I donned my finest, most sultry workout clothes, braved the balmy Florida heat, and then promptly challenged you, dear NotGraphs reader, to be very not cynical, to fasten your not-cynical pants high upon your pale, voluptuous waist, and ice bucket yourself (if’n you’ve not already done so).

Here’s how it works:

Accept or Decline the Invitation
If you decline, you give the ALS Association — which fights Lou Gehrig’s disease — $100. You also must brand your forehead with a serif’d “i,” for “invalid” — as in: incapable of icing one’s forehead.

If you Challenge Accepted the challenge, then you hurl a bucket of ice upon your person and then you have the option to make a donation of your chosen value. I chose $15, which is approximately the equal 25 NotGraphs paychecks.

Bucket the Ice
Add water. Introduce the concoction to your head zone. Film this act for proofiness, and then share the proof in the comments here. Anyone who accepts (or previously accepted) and then shares the video in comments will have their video shared in a subsequent post.

If No One Accepts
Then maybe we NotGraphers are just too cynical and maybe we don’t deserve to have NotGraphs. This stupid challenge has already raised millions of dollars.

You have 24 hours!

(from the moment you read this)

Observations from My Own Bucketing
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The tiger-striped glasses that didn’t
look quite like I expected,
as though the frame in the doctor’s office
was the toy on the cereal box —
never the same as the one inside; sometimes
painted differently, sometimes
plastic, not steel —

the tiger-striped glasses, heavy
on my nose and adding roundness and orangeness
to an already circular and freckled face
paid me in headaches lost
(no headaches from squinting
at the Mr. Lawton’s chalky notes
on elements and particles
from the back of the class),
but cost me in those fleeting moments
with brown-haired Alyssa,
who thought I was making fun
of how she ate the banana,
who never seemed so interested
in me as me in her.

Chris Sabo, let’s go, you and I,
and lie etherized on the optometrist’s table;
let’s stretch across expired TIME
and NatGeo magazines until we
get our vision and our heartbreak;
let’s wait together and say nothing
when the toy inside is not red,
       but blue.