Here’s an excerpt from Munenori Kawasaki’s recent interview with Sanspo (translation):

You bounced back and forth between the minors and Majors.
I was busy. But I like being busy. I was born in the year of the bird, so I love fluttering about (laughter).

[…]

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.

This is probably not what you think.

As you may know, Out of the Park 14 (OOTP 14) is perhaps the best baseball simulation game on the market (review). It is an addicting and delicately balanced game (cue Dubuque).

But my friends over at BlueSeatLyfe.com found a way to make the game even more interesting. Below the jump, you will find a singup to enter YOURSELF into the 2013 draft class. You can choose either a position player or a pitcher, as well as your strengths and weaknesses. Over the next few posts, we will follow your player through the seasons.

Will you be a bust or a boom? Will you be the first Nigerian to win the Cy Young? Will you go undrafted and then cry yourself to sleep every night? Join us and find out!

The first 5 people will be guaranteed coverage. Any additional signups will be subject to the whims of my magnanimity.
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Let’s do this math:

David Eckstein + Parks and Rec + Bob Loblaw = gritty; it always equals gritty

Well that’s what happened:

Because Parks and Rec had this law firm create Ron Swanson’s will.

Because Bob Loblaw is watching out for our best interests:

A secret ceremonial hat tipping, complete with unicorn costumes and blood snifters, for Tyler Hissey.

Prepare your eye units for the majesty machine.

It’s hard to focus on this card without tears blurring eyes in grateful joy and supplication, but the NotGraphs GIF Inspection Team did manage to establish the following data points:

• 5 mustaches
• 0 glasses
• ~80% Topps, ~18% Donruss, ~2% other
• 0 Mariners and 0 Devil Rays — presumably because both sets of pitchers spend/spent equal time turning and watching as pitching
• 0 Rays and 0 Nationals — as we might expect from a piece of classical Art
• 0 Red Sox and 0 Cardinals — presumably because they are preparing for the worst World Series ever (for Rays-Cubs fans, such as your humble reporter)

Many blessings on Matt Pfeffer for distributing this unsourced GIF to us!

It was only a matter of time, I guess. I bit my tongue because he’s my boss and it seemed harmless and all. But now Carson Cistulli and his francophonic spouse and his francophonic article category have given Google the impression that not only do I speak French, but that I live in Europe and purchase mes voitures with yonder “Euros” currency:

NO. WRONG. I buy my cars not with “Euros,” but “Americas.”

Good. Old fashioned. You. Ess. Dee.

WHAT MORE TROUBLING: The NSA only needs 51% proof of foreignness in order to peruse my emails, download my browsing history, or lock me in the Federal Reserve for 71 months of grueling interrogation.

Moreover, you, the person reading this, have probably just crossed that 51% threshold yourself. More than likely, you’ve read some FranceGraphs, you’ve adopted a Curacaoan name, and you’ve watched Yu Darvish GIFs. Welcome to the 51%, my dear reader.

So: Well done, Carson. You’ve doomed us all.

The Well-Beered Englishman, a NotGraphs frequenter and tipster, may hail from yonder eastern edges of the pond, but HE KNOWS AN AMERICAN WHEN HE SEES ONE:

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Wladimir Balentien has obliterated a league-record 57 pitches in Japan. That looks like this:

And ultimately this:

But the task isn’t so hard! Our team of NotGraphs scientists have determined a two-step process in repeating his success!
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Tired of German geniuses employing their vast intellect to invent super bombs? Exhausted from the onslaught of innovation that brings only violence, terror, and Kardashians to your front door?

Well, we finally have a tool that will allow us to ingest more baseball while watching live baseball — we finally have a legitimate use for the great Google Glass experiment:

That’s right. It starts here. It starts with basic pitch-by-pitch data. Eventually Google will wise up and make full glasses (with transparency and sunglasses modes) so that I can go to, say, a Mariners and Rockies inter-league matchup and use my Google Glass to watch fullscreen HD feeds of, say, a Rays and Yankees game because who on earth would care about a Mariners-Rockies matchup?

Oh, behold, a bucket of greasy ballpark thanks to Frank Spinillo for passing along the relevant data — all without a Google Glass, too!

Here is a 55-year-old Sadaharu Oh hitting a ~370 ft. home run to right field during a retiree game at Koshien Stadium (thereabouts of 1995):

I once hit a ball about 320 ft. But that was in a video game. Apparently Oh’s final comment in the video is, “Baseball is good, isn’t it?”

You know what, Mr. Sadaharu? It is good. And so are you.

Intrigue! The August 27 contest between the Los Angeles Angels and the Tampa Bay Rays had Intrigue! Behold! Slow-motion medium-high fives!

Regular-motion C.J. Wilson turf eats!

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