In a recent depressive manifesto here at NotGraphs, you lamented that you had made too many “Photoshop-heavy” posts, Baumann.

However: unlike — for better or for worse — your handsome author-boss, you, feeling aligned with the huddled, addict readership more than the bourgeois editorship, are inclined to give the people what they want.

In a comment on that same post, NotGraphs reader “leeroy” asked, “can we get another post about chris sail?” [sic].

Baumann, it is okay that today you have decided to say, “Yes, brother leeroy, we can get another post about ‘chris sail’ — and here it is!”

Rickey Henderson has epitomized many concepts in his lifetime — the concept of The Greatest Ever comes to mind, for instance. Stolen Base Artist might be another. Also: Effing Awesome; True Leadoff Hitter; Subtle Marxist; and especially, Enigma.

The following video clip allows us to add yet another such epitome to Rickey’s list: Fake It ‘Til You Make It!

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I’d like to posit — and by way of doing so, also remind you of the amazing and in some ways tragic story of J.R. Richard (if you could ever forget) — that the above photo epitomizes the American spirit as much as any photo.

If America is about the individual, then here is individualism: two men donning the same uniform, their bodies overlapping in the photograph’s framing, yet so very separate from and unconcerned with each other, only, seemingly, with the presentation of themselves.

If America is about confidence — false or otherwise — both of these men are supremely confident. Richard, calm and almost smiling, yet immoveable; Nolan Ryan agressive, as if ready to violently subdue the very wind that has threatened his waning coiffure. The picture gives the sense that these men are (and in fact they will be) captains of industry — or at least they will make investments, own things, and run things.

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It is a dance both proverbial and physical: the jiggle of excitement felt by players, coaches, and spectators alike when a baseball has been made “live” and has not yet come to rest in a “dead” state. The Jiggle acknowledges the moment when something is happening and, simultaneously, that a number of other things — some good, some bad, some neutral — may yet still happen.

As spectators, we might clench our teeth, or have the sensation of going deaf. The more consistently-inebriated among us might shart or pee a little. As for the players, who must be in a ready state both physically and mentally and upon whom many eyes and cameras are fixed in these moments, their enactment of the Great Baseballing Jiggle — a microcosm of the Great & Stupid Jiggle of the Human Condition — is often more obvious.

Such was the case with young David Wright last night. With the score tied 3-3 in the bottom of the tenth inning, bases loaded and two outs, Wright was less than 90 feet away from scoring the winning run for the Mets. Heath Bell threw a 1-2 pitch in the dirt, and Wright was ready to make a break for home, until it was clear that Diamondbacks catcher Miguel Montero had made a pretty nice block.

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Remember when you used to write for NotGraphs? Remember when you first started — when you were first “hired”?

When Carson Cistulli called you on that October day, to talk about your new future at NotGraphs, you walked right out of work (it was the middle of the day), walked all the way home, talking to him, sat in your back yard talking to him about baseball (duh) and also about poetry — which poets you knew, which players you loved, what sort of approach you might take expressing that love on NotGraphs. Dongs were not yet a thing that you mentioned to exasperate Carson; “Baumann!” was not yet a thing Carson uttered with equal parts puritanical exasperation and resigned exclamation. But those would becomes things that you enjoyed, the unspoken benefits of this thing you loved: baseball.

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Cover of BOOG CITY, Issue 80, by Basil King

Back in February, I alerted at least one NotGraphs reader to a call for baseball poems by the small press poetry publisher/newspaper Boog City, which, I found out, is named after former Orioles All-Star 1B Boog Powell. That issue is now “out.” (The previous baseball-themed issue of Boog City, which I “reviewed” in the aforelinked post, was published in 2006, so these issues are kinda rare.)

Among my favorites this time around was a piece entitled “Sabermetrics” by Erika Stephens:

Though it seems to be an “argument” against sabermetrics, it treats the issue in a way that is less obnoxious than most arguments against sabermetrics by invoking the world outside baseball. The poem is at once about baseball and its statistics, and a reminder about the limitations of said to create a full life. “Here is chaos,” the poem says — chaos, which in many ways accounts for what we experience in life better than math or even grammar and syntax. Listen to me: trying to be smart about poetry!

My true favorites in the issue come from “my boy” Joseph P. Wood, a short series of poems called Ladies and Gentlemen, It’s the 1980s, and Here are My Philadelphia Phillies, including this portrait of Mike Schmidt:

I put my face in your handlebar mustache —
it’s like a fan blade — Harry Kalas orgasms
on your 500th — hating you, the city cashes
in on your face — I must handle my bat stash
like manmeat — you lead the league in rashes
broken out — O the lady bits, blessed organism
I’ll never put my face in — I handle your mustache
like Harry Kalas — my fan blades, orgasms

An ode worthy of NotGraphs, for sure — what with its focus on moustachios and manmeats.

There’s also an interview regarding with Travis Macdonald regarding the poet trading cards that he does for Fact-Simile Editions, for which Macdonald said he “considered just creating a template and dropping everyone’s picture in but that seemed like it would get boring fast. So [he] started trying to recreate old Topps designs from scratch.” I myself have of few of these poet trading cards. They are fun…for nerds!

Reading Jon Bois’s recent article on the collapse of Andruw Jones’s career reminded me of two things:

1. I’ve wasted my life. (Jon Bois is three years younger than me. Jon Bois is awesome, and I am fine with awesome people being younger than me, but I had been assuming that, because he is so awesome, that Jon Bois was older than me, and I was overcome with existential dread, until I remembered that being overcome with existential dread is meaningless.)
2. Mistranslated things are often very amusing.

If you don’t want to click on the link to Bois’s article (and you really should: it’s a very good read), I’ll tell you what the title and lead-in reveal: Andruw Jones has a tattoo on his neck of Chinese characters that were supposed to mean “Bull” but instead translate more closely (and perhaps more appropriately, as Bois points out) as “Beef Animal.”

So, I set out to see what other baseball nicknames I might hilariously mistranslate using Bing Translator — you know, just in case other players might want to get more appropriately [mis]translated tattoos of their own.

Let us meme!

[Important Amendment: El Oso Blanco]

Pronk (Project Donkey)

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Two days ago I introduced the first-and-only-ever NotGraphantasy Draft. Yesterday, Bradley Woodrum unveiled his team, the Woodrum Whiteys, and then Jeremy Blachman presented his team, and then today, Mike “The Common Man” Bates gave us the Bates-o-Matic Fun Machine.

Here is the roster for my team, Baumann’s Earnest Best (draft rounds in parentheses):

C – Gary Carter (3)
1B – Joey Votto (5)
2B – Joe Morgan (7)
3B – John “Bad Dude” Stearns (11)
SS – Henry Skrimshander (9)
OF – The Greatest (1)
OF – Glen Gorbous (10)
OF – Reggie Jackson (8)

P – Mark “Bird” Fidrych (2)
P – Pedro Martinez (4)
P – Bill “Spaceman” Lee (6)

Manager – Ron Washington (S3)
Executive – Billy Fucking Beane (S1)
Home Park – The Sandlot (S2)

Before I offer brief commentary on each of my selections, I want to say something about Baumann’s Earnest Best as a team, and the philosophy behind its construction. As the name suggests, Baumann’s Earnest Best is a team full of pathos and sincerity; the players/personalities live(d) life and participate(d) in the game in a way that only they could/can. Some met every game and every day with a youthful exuberance (here’s looking at you, Kid), some see every plate appearance as a chance to destroy personal demons. All of these men provide their own examples of intense sincerity, an awareness of self that, for better or worse, sets them apart from the world at large in a way that allows their public-baseball-being to be intensified.

That, I believe, was the guiding principle in the construction of this team.
 
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It’s been a while since I had some fun constructing Cistullian section headings, so I’m going to go ahead and do that for this post, since this post actually makes use of section headings, whereas most of my posts do not.

The NotGraphantasy Draft, What It Was, Essentially

To describe the essence of the NotGraphantasy Draft is easier, and, by virtue of being briefer, likely to be less annoying to the reader than detailing the logistics of said draft.

Essentially, the NotGraphantasy Draft was nine baseball nerds being very baseball nerdy.

The NotGraphantasy Draft, What It Was, Logistically

Logistically speaking, a Google Spreadsheet was created and shared among nine NotGraphs writers. The spreadsheet was populated with — over a too-long period of several weeks — the names (and often nicknames, sometimes improvised) of baseball personalities that the selecting participant felt exhibited exceptional “NotGraphsiness” in one way or another.

Also, emails were exchanged, politely encouraging some participants to hurrythef*ckup, while chiding others for stealing one’s next pick. Wiseness was cracked. Someone made a beer run. In these ways, the NotGraphantasy Draft was not unlike a real, live fantasy baseball draft.

The NotGraphantasy Draft was decidedly unlike a real, live fantasy baseball draft in its distinct lack of homemade buffalo chicken dip.

What the Participants Might Have Considered in Selecting Baseball Personalities for Their NotGraphantasy Team

As mentioned, the participants were advised to consider the “NotGraphsiness” of baseball personalities. In light of that, more specifically, they certainly considered facial hair. Pathos, too. Ebullience, perhaps; Twitter accounts, other-worldly abilities, dong size/shape/essence, enigmatic qualities, proclivities for culture and art, sundry other personal oddities that they (i.e. the participants themselves) witnessed in players in one way or another. Nostalgia, we can assume, guided at least a few selections in this draft. Having the Good Face certainly didn’t hurt a player’s chance of being selected in this draft, nor did having a bad face, nor did an excellent nickname.

The participants would not have considered whether a player was alive or deceased, or if s/he had played in MLB ever. To some degree, the participants would have also ignored whether a personality was real or fictional, as each participant was allowed to select two fictional baseball personalities: one player, and one “auxiliary.”

The participants would have considered where a baseball personality would fit into their roster, given the roster restrictions of the NotGraphantasy Draft.

The Roster Restrictions of the NotGraphantasy Draft, What Those Were, More Specifically

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