Our quest to find a movie-worthy story continues today as we vote on the second round of contestants.
Here’s the top five from Round 1:
1. Roberto Clemente 14.5% (77 votes)
2. Satchel Paige 13.94% (74 votes)
3. Moe Berg 11.11% (59 votes)
4. Branch Rickey 9.79% (52 votes)
5. Bill Veeck 8.47% (45 votes)
Here are the Round 2 contestants, our final grouping:
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Few people have the capacity — the necessary on-the-moment machismo and swiftness of mind — to both brag about their 1% television set while also, quite simultaneously, laud their own physical attributes. Ladies and gentlemen, I present the hyper-licensed C.J. Wilson.
After about minute 1:07 in the following video, I began to lift Mr. Wilson to a new level of esteem. At first, I thought perhaps he is a modern-day Andy Kaufman, straight trolling the universe. But then I began to suspect that Wilson is in truth what the famed drinker of Dos Equis is in jest: The most interesting man in the world.
Which makes us ask: Would I actually hate hanging out with the most interesting man in the world, would I think of him as a living turd?
Also, Wilson reportedly has light switches to turn on and to turn off. Few things boil the pot of wealth jealousy than the ownership of light switches.
Many thanks to E. Moore for shoving this delightful video our way.
Perhaps I am alone in my undue affinity of batting stances (I am not), but allow me to indulge in one of my favorite baseball minstrels, that Batting Stance Guy.
Regard, nerds, not only his flair for the follow-through, but his utter disregard of the whiffed whiffle ball from the Marco Scutaro at bat:
Other assorted notes:
• The Ichiro Suzuki follow-through: Hahaha!
• The Kevin Youkilis follow-through: Hahaha!
• The Jim Thome follow-through: Hahaha!
Hat tip: Rob Neyer.
As if this guy:
Couldn’t get any creepier, he went ahead and did this number to his face:
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Alright. There was a bagillion nominations, so we’re going to have to break this down a bit.
Newcomers to this endeavor should know: We are looking for the next great Hollywood baseball movie. Not a documentary, per se, as several of these players already have such. No, we want a Moneyball quality film made about one of these amazing men.
Below the jump will be a breakdown of the nominees, followed by the poll.
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Many thanks to what-if.xkcd.com for putting the old radar gun debate to bed. According to legend, the faster the fastball, the better. NOT SO.
In answering the query “What would happen if you tried to hit a baseball pitched at 90% the speed of light?”, the fine people of what if? have ultimately established that it would result in no less than a hit-by-pitch every time:
Just so you know, the words that my crossword puzzler spits out are randomly generated from a generous pool of MLB-related words (and then some). So the fact that this week’s them is quite Cubs related is matter of, shall we say, Chance.
I’m not supposed to post on 4th of July in deference to the real life nerds who elect to barbecue, be out of doors, and socialize with acquaintances and loved ones. But this here crossword puzzle goes out to you, brave American / maybe Canadian, a crossword puzzle for the off day!
Clues beneath the jump.
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If this doesn’t make for a good movie, then what does?
Jim Morris has one. Joe Jackson has several. Lou Gehrig, Babe Ruth, and Ty Cobb all have movies — and even Billy Beane has one now — but who still needs one?
This is a potent question because — as we all know — movie executives read NotGraphs with regularlity, so if we as a group decide on, say, the top five players who need baseball movies made about their lives, WE CAN FULLY ANTICIPATE SAID PLAYERS TO HAVE A MOVIE MADE WITHIN THE NEXT TWO YEARS. Counting from the moment we finishing crowd-sourcing the screenplay, naturally.
So who out there needs a movie — players or executives that either do not have a movie about them or only have a crappy one? My first choices include:
• Roberto Clemente
• “Three Finger” Mordecai Peter Centennial “Miner” / “Brownie” Brown
• Branch Rickey *
• Ron Santo
• Eddie Gaedel
• Dick Allen
So whom else deserve consideration? Who on this list does not deserves consideration? Debate, and then we’ll vote.
ASIDE: Which one of you nerds wrote this on Dick Allen’s Wikipedia page? “Dick Allen was a true professional singer. He sang in a high, delicate tenor that belied his powerful body.”
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