Still entirely relevant.

As noted previously in these electronic pages, Sony’s PlayStation Network went silent last Wednesday.

NotGraphs readers — particularly those who access MLB.TV through their PS3s — will be displeased to learn not only that (a) the Network is still down, almost a week later but that (b) there’s evidence that the security of some personal information has been compromised.

From the Sony’s PlayStation blog:

Although we are still investigating the details of this incident, we believe that an unauthorized person has obtained the following information that you provided: name, address (city, state, zip), country, email address, birthdate, PlayStation Network/Qriocity password and login, and handle/PSN online ID. It is also possible that your profile data, including purchase history and billing address (city, state, zip), and your PlayStation Network/Qriocity password security answers may have been obtained.

The Wall Street Journal referred today to the outage as “indefinite,” while Sony’s Senior Director of Corporate Communications & Social Media Patrick Seybold has suggested (in the above-cited blog post) that Sony has “a clear path to have PlayStation Network and Qriocity systems back online, and expect to restore some services within a week.”

You ask me, I think it’s time to greenlight the Seal incursion.

Credit to my enemy’s enemy, Grant Bisbee — or “Brisbee,” as some would have us believe.

David Price has benefited greatly from play therapy.

There’s clearly a lot to enjoy about this photo — the fact that a talented major leaguer is wearing a hand puppet, the expression (which seems to say, “I don’t necessarily like you, but I respect the hell out of you”) on said major leaguer’s face, etc.

In this case, I’d like to draw attention to the angle in which Price’s cap is resting on his head — an exact replica, as it turns out, of the manner in which Dickens’ Artful Dodger wore his hat.

Image stolen directly from TampaBay.com. Brought to the author’s attention via the scrappy, always hustling Erik Hahnmann.

If you’ve ever seen Kyle Blanks — in person, on TV, in a dream you had this one time but’d prefer not to talk about — then the above image (captured from the official site of Minor League Baseball) will give you a brief chuckle before you turn back to considerably more important things.

If you haven’t ever seen Blanks, then picture a bear in a Padres cap. Except the bear can talk and eats normal food. And it has to pay taxes like everyone else and also it has human parents. And it went to college for a little bit. And some other things.

Nominally, this is a WGN sports report from July of 1991. In reality, it’s a case study in what can happen when man is stripped of his civilizing influences.

Annotations follow, with time-elapsed marks.

0:00 — Video begins with frightening ghost-person* looking directly into soul of viewer. (*Direct translation from German.)

0:08 — Anchorman uses words “rock and roll” in manner befitting of his era.

0:10 — Festive collared t-shirt!

0:22 — Soccer player, for some reason, jogs behind correspondent at Wrigley Field.

0:44 — “Oop, that’s the wrong tape.”

0:56 — Joe West assumes the position.

1:04 — Joe West resumes the position.

1:11 — Andre Dawson experiments with look he calls the “I Just Killed Your Family.”

1:16 — Bat-tossing!

1:23 — Bat-tossing!

1:30 — Joe West experiments with look he calls “The Horrible Child.”

1:34 — Bat-tossing!

1:40 — Commence cheerful littering.

1:56 — Rob Dibble does legitimately strange thing.

2:01 — Unusually incisive commentary regarding Rob Dibble’s mental health.

2:31 — Andre Dawson gives brief tutorial on how to properly groom and wear a mustache.

2:47 — Andre Dawson distinguishes himself among ballplayers for using adverb.

3:28 — Andre Dawson articulates something particular about Joe West.

4:20 — Phrase “mighty Toronto Blue Jays” uttered without irony.

4:27 — Hawk Harrelson’s voice happens.

Deep, prostrating bow to reader/ubermensch glassSheets.

Life without MLB.TV can be painful.

Have you tried to watch a baseball game on your PlayStation 3 recently? Did you get a message like this after trying to sign in?

An error has occurred. You have been signed out of PlayStation Network. (80710A06)

If so, then you are everyone who’s tried to log on to same Network over the last 36 hours.

Per the official PlayStation blog:

While we are investigating the cause of the Network outage, we wanted to alert you that it may be a full day or two before we’re able to get the service completely back up and running. Thank you very much for your patience while we work to resolve this matter. Please stay tuned to this space for more details, and we’ll update you again as soon as we can.

National nightmare? Perhaps not. But as Slate notes, there are approximately 70 million subscribers to the PlayStation Network — which that’s pretty significant (although not news that’s “fit to print,” apparently).

Bob Uecker is a fixture of American high-brow culture.

Though Larry Granillo of mortal enemy Baseball Prospectus is right to suspect that I’ve thought such a thing in my head, I did not write the following entry for Bob Uecker at Urban Dictionary (emphases mine, everything else sic):

One of the most legendary baseball announcers of all time. Born in 1935, Uecker was raised in Milwaukee, WI. Uecker played major league baseball for 5 seasons, stretching from 1962 to 1967. Career highlights include being “intentionally” walked by Sandy Koufax and getting out of rundown against the mets. He is also an established comedian and actor. His words are that of pure greatness, similar to ones of a deity. Uecker has numerous famous quotes like, “Juuuuust a bit outside” and “Heeey Struck him out”. (Uecker actually says He but in excitement it turns out to be Hey) Bob Uecker won the Ford C. Frick award in 2003 and is a Milwaukee Brewer Hall-of-Fame member. Bob Uecker is more than likely a disciple of God, and one of the greatest men to every grace this beautiful earth.

Who is the author? That’s the million-dollar lire question.

We have some clues, though:

• Our author’s user name is Mitchell-Francis.
• User Mitchell-Francis wrote two other definitions: a (negative) one for Lopez Tonight and also for Jimmy jacked.
• As in, “Everyone’s real jimmy-jacked that this post is finally over.”

That beautiful mustachioed gentleman you see there is Mr. Josh Collmenter, circa July 2008. If Mr. Collmenter’s name sounds familiar, it’s either because (a) you read about his unique pitching delivery in these pages last November, (b) you read about his recent promotion two days ago at our buttoned-up parent site, or (c) it just sounds like a pretty normal American name. (Please note: those are the only three possible ways you’ve ever heard Josh Collmenter’s name. Don’t even start pretending like there’s some fourth way or something. That’s ridiculous.)

Being the sort of person who’s paid handsomely just to sit at home and amuse himself, I was watching this afternoon’s contest between Collmenter’s Diamondbacks and the Cardinals of St . Louis when broadcaster Matt Vasgersian made reference to a promotion in which Collmenter had played a major role while a minor-leaguer with the Sound Bend Silver Hawks — a promotion called Mustache Appreciation Night.

Let me repeat that in red Comic Sans just case you’re impaired in one way or another. What I said was:

Read the rest of this entry »

The pitch you see here was (a) thrown by Daniel Bard to Nick Swisher last year and (b) appears to possess changeup-type (or at least two-seam fastball-type) movement while also traveling at 99 mph.

Sean Murphy, who’s preserved the above-embedded GIF at his site, refers to the sequence as “baseball porn” — and for good reason, too: there’s something equal parts filthy, captivating, and primeval about what Bard’s able to do with/to/all up on a baseball.

Yesternight, Oakland starters Brett Anderson and Brandon McCarthy got to tweeting about this pitch — a conversation to which Man About the Internet @BigMike05 alerted me. Mr. Big Mike was also curious about how we might accurately characterize this pitch which, it must be said, defies superlatives.

As I say, filth is the definitive quality of the offering. Watching this pitch is like watching Christina Aguilera give a lap dance to a side of beef — i.e. both disgusting and impossible to look away from.

The question is, what ought we to call such a pitch?

Some ideas, from the dirtiest part of Dirtville:

• The Slavic Tongue Kiss — Tongue-kissing can be romantic, but not the way they do it in Eastern Europe.
• The Pantless Velociraptor — A velociraptor with pants is bad enough.
• The Well-Oiled Ambassador — Oiled with what, exactly?
• Hepatitis K — The filthiest possible virus.
• The Moist Handshake — Ick. Not so nice to meet you, actually.

This is a video still of third-base umpire Angel Hernandez, from the 8th inning of last night’s Indians-Royals game.

As someone who watched this game in its entirety, I can assure you that, almost immediately after this particular moment, Hernandez killed — in evermore grotesque and harrowing ways — all the players and coaches of both teams involved.

We receive quite a bit of mail here at NotGraphs’ headquarters, much of it inappropriate either in a sexual way or spiritual way or other type of way.

That said, we occasionally receive correspondence of some merit, too. Below are three recent examples of same, with responses of varying quality.

(Note: got a pressing question or incisive comment for NotGraphs? Feel free to fire it through the internet to not+tips@fangraphs.com!)

Now, on to the letters:

Is it true that, like a fractal or most things found in nature, all the posts at NotGraphs are composed according to the ratio of numbers in the Fibonacci sequence?

— Steven in Toronto

Very observant! And, in fact, you’re correct — for everyone except Dayn Perry, that is. Perry, having been born in Mississippi (i.e. a state in which it was actually illegal to be Italian until 1989) is starkly opposed to all things Italian. Italian food, Italian integer sequences, even italicized words: Perry firmly rejects all of it.

Where is Joe West right this second?

— Tony in Worcester

Look behind you, Tony!

You’re doing our work. Keep it up!

— All the gods of all the religions

Thanks!