Paul Coro of azcentral sports recently reported on Diamondbacks outfielder Adam Eaton’s eight-month-long struggle with hives. Eaton himself surmises that the excessive sweating caused by the hives is the main reason of his weight loss over the last month.

Eaton is hoping to reestablish his ba-donka-donk.

Coro’s news blip is chock-full of colorful quotes from Eaton that amused me greatly and that, ultimately, I could not ignore. Consider this one:

I was taking [allergy pills] twice a day and it didn’t care. It just came through. Real bad itchy. Just terrible. Sweating all the time.

I guess I haven’t done an exhaustive search for similar language, but this, to me, stands out as an unusual incidence of an athlete anthropomorphizing his ailment. The hives, here, are aware of the attack being made on them, and in spite of that, they continue their sojourn throughout Eaton’s body, stimulating his itch and sweat glands in the process.

Also, there is the phrase “real bad itchy,” which, well, alternately makes me laugh and conjures imagines of a murderous clown hulk. (Note: said phrase also has utility as a euphemism when revealing to one’s significant other that one has a mysteriously acquired groin irritation.)

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This has been Men Surrounded by Things. Now go take a cold shower.

As reported on yesterday by MLB.com’s Bill Chastain, Tampa Bay Rays pitcher Matt Moore is working his way back from elbow soreness. After his Sunday bullpen session, the left-hander was in good spirits, giving this insightful quote:

Today it was really just a great conditioning day for my shoulder, my lat, all the baseball-specific muscles.

It is clear that Matt Moore, science nerd, has science knowledge about science things that most of us did not even know existed, scientifically, in the first place — chiefly, baseball-specific muscles.

My interest piqued, I spent some time researching the fake internets of my mind and compiled the following list of baseball-specific muscles. This list is by no means comprehensive; feel free to add your own findings in the comments.

• sitim restinguere, or “the muscle of champions” – The only way to build this muscle is to have large coolers of iced beverages dumped over them.
• shoulder – Reclassified by Matt Moore as a baseball-specific muscle in 2013.
• lat – the baseball-specific equivalent of the latissimus dorsi.
• deridens diu pilam, or “the laughable long balls” – named in honor of the biceps of Gabe Kapler, the size of these “bad boys” is not necessarily linked to the frequency or distance of home runs.
• lignum proiciente, or “the bat-flipping muscle” – While all who play baseball professionally theoretically possess this muscle, we find that it is underdeveloped in some while being the predominant baseball-specific muscle in others.
• determinatur sordibus, or “the hustle muscle” – Delightfully rhymy, this muscle is generally only found in shorter and lither ballplayers and is often inversely proportional to other baseball-specific muscles; said to keep developing into old age, so it is often quite large in coaches and managers. Fun fact: Adam Dunn had an emergency determinatadectomy while in high school.
• carsons cistulli/dayns perry – The ability to capture the spirit of the game is centered in the groin, of course. While the dayns perry constantly pushes the loins outward, so as to unfurl the baseball-literadong from its editorial swaddling, the carsons cistulli is always working to restrain said while emanating its own joie de vivre. Ideally, these muscles are equally developed; sadly, they rarely are.
• lapso melius, or “slide-right” – These are the muscles used when a runner is trying to break up a double play; without them the top leg would remain along the ground and limply absorb the bag.

This has been Baseball Players Twerking.

Good night.

The recent Biogenesis suspensions levied by Major League Baseball are leaving many anti-aging clinics and other “sports wellness” organizations scrambling to come up with new kinds of performance enhancing substances and new methods by which to consume them.

Many players are hoping that Dino DNA Gumdrops™ will be an accessible, inexpensive source of powers.

An anonymous survey of players at the major and minor league levels was recently administered by the NotGraphs Investigative Reporting Investigation Team, the results of which (posted below) might inspire the leaders of the aforementioned clinics and organizations as they brainstorm new ways to tarnish America’s pastime.

• 37% Dino DNA Gummies
• 19% Hiring sabermetric consultant to give them in-game advice
• 15% Heavy intake of Sparks and/or Four Loko while repeatedly shouting, “YOLO!”
• 12% Lifting weights, regular sleep, protein-rich diet, daily meditation
• 10% Voodoo Magic
• 9% Batting Practice w/ Ted Williams’s head

On Monday night, Andrelton Simmons beat the Rockies with a walk-off triple.

One inquiring Twitter user wanted to know, How’s that happen?

@RobertJBaumann How the hell does one achieve a #walkoff 3B? I actually understand how a walkoff 2B is possible but a 3B? #Braves #ATL #MLB

— Brian Jones (@TheFantasyPronk) July 30, 2013

My immediate thought was that a walk-off triple would have a lot to do with base-out state, and by how many runs a team was trailing. In the case of Simmons’s triple, there were no outs with a runner, Dan Uggla, on first. If Uggla, who’s not a particularly fast runner, had been thrown out at the plate (there was a relay throw to home, but it wasn’t close: Uggla scored standing up), Simmons would have wanted to be in the best position possible for the next hitter to drive him in. Simmons was aware of that, maybe, and he was also aware that any throw would have to go to the plate, and he’s fast enough to take advantage of that and scoot along to third base. Taking that extra base didn’t matter in the end — the very nature of the walk-off triple is such that taking that final base never matters — but Simmons was showing the kind of awareness and hustle that’s a pleasure to see, even for fans who don’t obsess over things like hustling.

But. We still might want to know how common the walk-off triple is, and whether the context of Simmons’s game winner was typical for WOT.

Using the always amazing and often life-ruining Event Finder at Baseball-Reference, I easily generated the following, presumably comprehensive list of 141 instances since 1945 in which a game has ended on a triple:

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Doctor Cyclops, by Will Johnson

When I am sad, I like to spend money. Because I am often sad, I am in big time mondo debt, as many of you know. At the moment, my cash flow is such that I cannot purchase any of these high quality screen print reproductions of Will Johnson’s baseball paintings — which I happened upon while learning more about Johnson’s recent musical project, Overseas, a collaboration with David Bazan of Pedro the Lion “fame” and the Kandane brothers of my [probably] favorite band ever, Bedhead (more recently of The New Year).

But that doesn’t mean that you should not buy these prints — or the very painting themselves! — dear affluent and/or fiscally responsible NotGraphs readers.

Look, you cannot take your money to the grave with you. Well, you could, but you can’t spend it from the grave. You could save it to give to your children, but let’s face it: your children will probably be jerks who don’t deserve an inheritance of significance, or they will be far wealthier than you, or both. Should they be neither, they will probably be the kind of people who would like to inherit a nice baseball painting or a high quality screen print of a nice baseball painting.

When you have grown putrid and reek also of antiquated ointments, you will be able to look upon these paintings and feel comforted: the Greats have preceded you in death; to yield to death is to follow their greatness in the only regard that you will ever manage to do so. You will be able to look at these paintings or prints one day and die consoled. In the meantime, you will enjoy their colors, the memories they evoke, a feeling of connection with other discerning baseball fans, one of whom produced these pieces of art, others of whom have similarly made the wise decision to purchase some of said pieces.

Let’s face it: you should spend your money on these things.

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I recently downloaded MLB.com’s Home Run Derby™ game. I am very bad at it. After playing dozens of rounds, I’ve never hit more than four HR, never advanced to the second round. Like with any of the copious examples of failure in my life, my lack of skill with regards to this game does not surprise me; as with any failure, this one saddens me nevertheless.

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Dayn Perry and Carson Cistulli — NotGraphs heartthrobs, both — have done me and the entire city of Milwaukee a favor by agreeing to “read” their “work” tomorrow, Saturday the 20th of July, at Woodland Pattern Book Center (known as the poetry bookstore of the Midwest, just as Perry and Cistulli are known as the poets of the online baseball community).

A 6pm start helps to maximize the leisure time both preceding and following the reading, without which neither of these men would be fit to give their public what it wants, i.e. a hearty and thorough loin-ravaging.

Perry’s chapbook, Drinking With Boileryard Clarke, will be available for purchase for $10. Half of each purchase will be donated to Woodland Pattern, a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization; the other half will go toward enabling Mr. Perry.

If you’re within traveling distance of Milwaukee, please join us for what promises to be an event.

If you are Eno Sarris and are planning to attend, be sure to wear a protective dong covering.

Questions, regrets, and excitements can be directed to @RobertJBaumann on Twitter.

A man, wearing nothing but an unadorned white baseball jersey and a gray mesh baseball cap, careens his Winnebago down a desolate highway in the Arizona desert. In the passenger seat, another man—either passed out or passed beyond—also wears an unmarked baseball jersey, his head on the dashboard. Two bodies, even more likely dead, slide across the RV floor among loose free-weights and other exercise equipment until the vehicle veers into a ditch. The hyperventilating driver, Turk Bass, climbs out, swaps his blank jersey for a vintage Rickey Henderson Oakland A’s jersey that is still on a hanger dangling off the side view mirror (his pants are long since gone), then re-enters the van to retrieve a video camera. He records a cryptic, handheld farewell to his son. “I just want you to know that no matter how it may look, I only had you in my heart.” He turns to face the oncoming sirens.

*

Flashback to the eve of Turk’s birthday, three weeks earlier. At dusk, Turk exercises on a mini-stairmaster in front of a plaque commemorating his contributions to some Nobel Prize worthy research. At breakfast the next morning, his henpecking wife Selma hands him a plate of eggs topped by veggie bacon spelling “50.” Afterwards, Turk drops off Junior—whose arm is in a sling—at a physical rehab clinic before heading to the local high school where he works as an ineffectual chemistry teacher and an assistant coach for the varsity baseball team.

Later that day, one of Turk’s more disrespectful students—also the hotshot shortstop on the varisty team—witnesses him moonlighting at a car wash for additional income. The encounter becomes even more belittling when the student laughingly photographs his teacher wiping down the tires.

A now humiliated Turk returns home where Selma has organized a surprise birthday party for him. Among the guests is Turk’s gregarious brother-in-law, Rog, an investigative lawyer and spokesperson for the Office of the Commissioner of Baseball. Several guests at the party have gathered around the television to watch Rog’s segment on an ESPN broadcast, wherein he defends the validity of the recent suspension of several star players. Rog explains that, should the suspensions be appealed by the MLB Players’ Association, he’ll have two pieces of “knock out” evidence: detailed financial records of the company that supposedly provided steroids to the players in question, and testimony from a recently retired player, who has confided to Rog that he facilitated connections and helped funnel steroids to dozens of players—and also has a major gambling problem.

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