Because you, reader, are a bespectacled person with his finger on the pulse of medias social and otherwise, you might very well be aware that the proprietors of eight fake Twitter accounts (listed below in full splendor) recently descended upon a virtual draft room to pick and choose entirely not-real baseball teams.

Riddles, mysteries, enigmas: you get the idea.

In any case, We the People — thanks to the internet — have been granted the ability to follow this very important fantasy league as the season unfolds via this webpage.

Here are your owners of this fakest of fake leagues: Old Hoss Radbourn, Fake Dayton Moore, Fan Since ’09, Fake Cito Gaston, Fake Fred Wilpon, Dodgers GM, Very Fake Bleacher Report, Faux Frank Wren.

And here’s some crack analysis of the draft, courtesy of Faux Frank Wren himself.

It goes without saying that the lifeblood of any capitalist enterprise is the ability of said enterprise’s brain trust to market their product effectively and creatively. This is known in some circles as “finding synergy” and in others as “relentless douchebaggery.” Whatever you call it, FanGraphs is all in!

It’s with this in mind that Dark Overlord David Appelman has revealed to me just this morning a cross-promotional project that’s sure to raise the profile of the FanGraphs brand.

“What’s the project?” you’re obviously asking, breath hella bated.

The answer: FanGraphs: The Movie.

Read the rest of this entry »

Today’s feast-day celebration is three, three, three feasts in one!

The Feast of Dick Allen is actually a three-day long celebration — this year, beginning on Wednesday, March 9 and continuing through sundown on Friday, March 11 — and marks the transition from the offseason and its attendant horrors to the optimism that mid-March brings, with its promise of spring and baseball and magic numbers in the mid-hundreds.

The feast is recognized (by those who can make it) in the form of a ritual pilgrimage to the desert — which, of course, explains the timing for Team FanGraphs’ descent upon Phoenix, Arizona (and accounts for the absence of a Feast Day post yesterday, when the author was in transit to same arid city).

Of those who’re unable to perform said pilgrimage, understanding is requested for the lack of content at the Amalgamated Blogs of Team FanGraphs.

Life: NotGraphs is committed to remembering the life of Dick Allen.

Spiritual Exercise: Use the three days of Dick Allen’s feast as an opportunity to shed the previous year of baseball and to prepare yourself — mentally, physically, mentally again — for the season ahead. Time permitting, learn how to juggle and smoke at the same time.

A Prayer for Dick Allen

Dick Allen!
For most of
your career
you were
misunderstood —
like me when
I’m trying
to place
an order
at the drive thru
and the guy
on the other end
can’t hear
because he
hates my being

or when I ask
if the tequila
is 100% agave
and it turns out
to be only, like,
95% agave
or something.

I read somewhere
for example
that the media
characterized you
as selfish,
even as you were
starting a charity
that helped
inner-city kids
get all the
cigarettes
they needed
that’s unfair.

For me,
Whatever the color
of your beanbag
or religion
of your domestic
employees,
everyone needs
to learn
cooperation —

like that one
episode of
Punky Brewster
where everyone
gets stuck in a
different
refrigerator
and then learns
cooperation.

We’ve all wondered it quietly to ourselves, but only BiS Video Scout and sabermagician Andy Tworischuk had the courage to render his musings publicly, as noted in the tweet above.

It’s a reasonable question, though, and the only way to get a totally accurate and completely unbiased answer is definitely to embed it as a poll here at NotGraphs.

Which, that’s what this is:

I’ll add, too, that, like pizza or the Ocean’s franchise of films, even the worst baseball-related thing is probably better than most other things this world has to offer. Like heart attacks, for example. Or junk sandwiches.

You can neither stop nor contain our feast-day celebration series, which continues right now with…

Life: From 1976 to 1980, J.R. Richard was an excellent pitcher and, from 1978 through the middle of 1980, was the best starter in all the majors, leading all starting pitchers in K/9 (9.7, better than Nolan Ryan’s 8.9) and FIP (2.28) over that stretch. However, on July 30, 1980, Richard suffered a stroke and collapsed while playing a game of catch before an Astros game. He was rushed to the hospital for emergency surgery to remove a life-threatening blood clot in his neck, but never pitched in the majors again. After his professional baseball career ended, Richard became involved in unsuccessful business deals and went through two divorces, which led to him being homeless and destitute in 1994. Richard later found God and now lives indoors.

Spiritual Exercise: German polymath Gottfried Leibniz and Texan polymath Kris Kristofferson have both suggested that this is “the best of all possible worlds.” If that is the case, how ought we to understand the case of J.R. Richard? Or the proliferation of something called “Celebrity Apprentice”?

A Prayer for J.R. Richard

I have problems like
what’s the synonym for
delicious meal, again?
while you have problems like
instead of a doctor
a falcon accidentally
is performing my
important surgery.
I have problems like
please sign this petition
to help protect
the Oxford comma
in society
while you have problems like
that’s not a cork-type
bulletin board,
it’s the fragilest part
of my human psychology.
I have problems like
this shirt doesn’t wick away
moisture as advertised
while you have problems like
arterial thoracic outlet
gone wild.
I have problems like
wherever your heart is
that’s your treasure
while you have problems like
wherever your heart is
that’s your treasure also.

Biographical assistance courtesy of the Wikipedias.

Collect the whole series.

Our feast-day exercise returns and is yellower than ever.

Life: Wilver Dornell Stargell played 21 seasons with the Pittsburgh Pirates, who won the World Series twice during his career, once in 1971 and also in 1979. Playing mostly as a left fielder and first baseman, Stargell is remembered for his prodigious power. At one time, Stargell held the record for the longest homer in nearly half of the National League parks. He hit 475 lifetime homers despite playing his age-22 through -29 seasons in Pittsburgh’s Forbes Field, which allowed home runs at just 68% of the league-average rate over that same time. Stargell was also the driving force of the festive “We Are Family” Pirates and likely gave amazing Christmas gifts, although this last point is unsubstantiated.

Spiritual Exercise: Of Stargell, Dodger starter Don Sutton said, “I never saw anything like it. He doesn’t just hit pitchers, he takes away their dignity.” Question: with regard to dignity, is it a quality that one feels inside, or is it proscribed to us by others? Consider the case of Diogenes the Cynic, who lived like a dog (literally, as cynic is from the Greek kyon, which means “dog”) and yet made happiness the study of his life. Did he have dignity?

A Prayer for Willie Stargell

Willie Stargell!
No less a personage
than American poet
Robert Frost died
as a direct result
of the home run you hit
in 1971 at Philadelphia’s
Veterans Stadium, which
plummeted into the ocean
because the protective shell
didn’t separate
before entering orbit,
somber-faced officials
begrudgingly admitted.

The episode was
so full of pathos
that it spilled
over the sides
of its ice cream cone
and onto the street,
where it mixed with
Jamaican traditions
to create hip-hop music
in the Bronx in 1979.

Hail!

See ya, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon — and General Assembly, as a whole! Wouldn’t wanna be ya.

This image is from Matt D himself.

Umpire Joe West is off on a great adventure.

In the spirit of Newt Gingrich in Front of Stock Photos, here’s umpire Joe West — in front of an imploding Kingdome.

Thanks to reader Matt D. for whited-out Joe West.