To understand what’s happening in this finely crafted GIF, you need first to understand that, for reasons only Father of Capitalism Adam Smith can tell us, the Houston Astros play host to a promotion called the Taco Bell Hot Sauce Race. Given this video evidence, it appears similar to the sausage and president races one finds at Milwaukee and Washington, respectively, except sad.

In any case, between innings during Daniel Hudson’s most recent start, Border Sauce Mild apparently found itself out of position and, instead of taking the safe way around, challenged Hudson — and, one might say, the human spirit — to a singularly peculiar game of chicken.

This is the result.

What follows is a screenshot from the home page of my fantasy league, from maybe about 11:30pm CT last (Friday) night.

The bit in red there represents my inner monologue upon loading/gazing briefly at said page. (As always, clicking = embiggening.)

Note: if the reader is curious about which team belongs to the author, it’s actually the only one you can’t see there, on account of it (my team) is the first place one.

Nicasio reacts to news of his promotion.

Colorado Rockies’ prospect Juan Nicasio will make his major-league debut Saturday against the St. Louis Cardinals. As the above photo indicates, he is very, very surprised by the news.

Image courtesy Ed Andrieski – AP.

Webcomic xkcd cuts us all to the quick.

Total bro hug to Twitter-er Patrick McCaw for link.

This post comes complete with poll. Because it’s America, you know.

Tiger play-by-play man Mario Impemba is most well known for his role as a Fratelli in The Goonies.

In a move that I believe underscores my commitment to the fledgling broadcast-review project here at NotGraphs, I’ve not only consumed three or four Tiger games ahead of the present review, but have actually traveled to the pleasant peninsula that is Michigan with a view towards truly understanding what it is to watch Tiger baseball*.

*That my wife’s family happens to live on same peninsula, and that we had been planning to visit them this past weekend, ought to be regarded as mere coincidence.

As I say, I watched parts of about three or four broadcasts on FS Detroit for the purposes of this review — including the May 24th game, at home versus Tampa Bay, with particularly close attention.

The FS Detroit broadcast team is composed of play-by-play man Mario Impemba and color commentator Rod Allen. Regarding the studio hosts, there are either one or 100 of them. But they’re all giant, large men with strange haircuts, is what I can say about them.

Read the rest of this entry »

The third-ever NotGraphs Chat will take place tomorrow (Thursday) at 3pm ET. Here are some assorted thoughts ahead of same.

Allow us to re-introduce ourselves.

The attentive reader will probably know that we at NotGraphs have, in the course of the last month, hosted two chats (this first one and this second one).

Insofar as said chats have been mostly pleasant and have begotten other posts (like this one and this one), I’m prepared to describe the chat experiment as a success thus far.

Yet, it’s also clear that there’ve been some questions — both among the readership and inside my own brain — about what a NotGraphs Chat actually is and how it differs from other chats at FanGraphs.

For while, in the typical FanGraphs Chat, it’s generally the case that readers submit questions about specific players or teams — with the author answering them in turn — that’s obviously not a useful model for the authors of NotGraphs, for whom performance analysis is res non grata (which, I understand that maybe that’s not a real phrase).

To that end, I submit this post, wherein readers might suggest how these sorts of chats ought to go.

For my part, I assume some discussion of books and movies and other cultural artifacts is a possibility. Or the aesthetics of the sport, generally — including the quality of broadcasts, the best camera angles, or the very best in the mustache-related arts. Mostly, I suppose, I view it as an opportunity for people who like baseball and one other thing — whatever that thing is — to meet each other and have fun.

But, like I say, I’m curious if the bespectacled readership has any input on this matter, as well.

This image is presented to the world courtesy British gentleman and graphic wunderkind Craig Robinson, whose every post at Flip Flop Fly Ballin’ we would steal if it weren’t for our commitment to Utmost Decency.

As the learned reader will already know, there exists in life two kinds of mystery: a mystery, and then a Mystery. The main difference between them, as anyone can see, is that the latter one has a capital-M.

It’s hard to say exactly upon which kind — a mystery or a Mystery — Phillies beat writer Ryan Lawrence stumbled yesterday, but that he did stumble upon one is as obvious as the nose above Steve Lake’s mustache.

For it was yesterday that Lawrence submitted the tweet you see skillfully embedded (and embiggen-able by clicking) at the top of this post. Nor, as the photographic evidence directly below these words indicates, was Lawrence lying even one bit.

Regard, from Bronson Arroyo’s Baseball Reference page:

In fact, Lawrence is entirely accurate: the words “Saturn Nuts” are written here, plain as day. The real question, however, is why those words appear there.

For that kind of information, I turned to the wild frontier of the internet. It was there that I learned, via the Sons of Sam Horn (SOSH) Wiki, that the sobriquet was assigned to Arroyo in a SOSH game thread by then-teammate Curt Schilling during the 2004 ALDS. Even more research brought me to the primary source.

Regard, Schilling’s own words, under the pseudonym of gehrig38 (a common handle for the former pitcher):

The reader can click on that image to embiggen both (a) the image itself and (b) the joie de vivre on all of Earth.

Once again, reader, we find that Great Moments in Spectacles and our industry-standard Mustache Watch come together in a single shining beacon of masculine masculinity.

The gentleman you see in these (very) collectible trading cards is ex-baseball pitcher Fred Breining, notable not only for posting consecutive two-win seasons in the early 1980s but for possessing a surname that’s also a gerund.

In the left-most photo, Breining models for us the Spectacles/Mustache Package Deal that’s captured our attention of late. Of the right-most photo, reader and muscled philosopher Joe P. makes this observation:

Adding to the glory of Fred Breining’s spectacles here is the “Oh, hey, I didn’t see you there” look on his face, as if we’ve interrupted his afternoon of reading Proust at the ballpark.

If nothing else, reader, you’ll have to agree that these images of Breining represent for us that singular pleasure provided by the remembrance of things past.

As this internal office memo I’m holding suggests, today is Bat Day at NotGraphs. Already, Bradley Woodrum has introduced us to the big stick with which famous Negro Leaguer Josh Gibson walked softly, while Dayn Perry has stared at your daughter for 30 unflinching minutes skillfully embedded a video of Josh Womack performing all manner of bat-related tricks.

In an effort to distill Bat Day to its most whimsical, what I’ve endeavored to do here is collect five images from the internet of Batman the superhero engaged in bat-and-ball related activities.

If you, reader, could hold your LOLs till the end, it would be much appreciated.

1. This is Batman playing baseball with Robin and Superman:

Read the rest of this entry »