Today, we pay homage to Grover Cleveland Alexander — and perform a spiritual exercise in his honor.

Life: Grover Cleveland Alexander — known as “Pete” for reasons that remain mysterious — pitched for 20 years in the majors, spending time with the Chicago, Philadelphia, and St. Louis of the National League. Six times in his first seven seasons Alexander led the league in innings pitches — and is, in fact, 10th all-time with 5190.0 IP. Despite a number of health problems — including (but not limited to) alcoholism, epilepsy, and combat-related stress — Alexander still managed to pitch 2672 IP with a 130 ERA+ after returning from World War I.

Spiritual Exercise: While the modern mind will instinctively characterize Alexander’s relationship with alcohol as a “drinking problem,” he (i.e. Alexander) proved to be durable and effective in ways that few pitchers have ever exhibited. Ask yourself, “What else do I view with a modern bias?” and “What else do I fail to consider in the context of its time?” If you have an extra moment, also consider what sounds more delcious this moment, beer or wine.

Prayer of Grover Called Peter

Grover Cleveland Alexander!
You’re famous for being
the first pitcher ever
to appear in a painting
by tiny Frenchman
Henri Toulouse-Lautrec,
whose work “Le Lanceur”
depicts you drinking gin
and discussing the invention
of the prank phone call
with a table of amused
and bearded intellectuals.

Critics debate to this day
whether it’s French or English
you’re speaking; however,
there’s little disagreement
on the number of pants
you appear to be wearing —
a quantity one might
best characterize
as “none whatsoever.”

Described alternately as a “balm for the soul” and “something that only gaywads like,” our feast-day exercise continues with Santo the Thrice-Lifed.

Life: Despite having posted the eighth-highest WAR among third basemen ever (79.3), Santo has never fared particularly well in Hall of Fame voting. Diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes at the age of 18, Santo was forced to have both legs amputated, though he’s remembered as an unequivocally affirmative and generous person. For the last 20 years of his life, he worked as a color commentator for WGN Radio’s coverage of the Chicago Cubs — a post for which he received mixed (read: superbad) reviews.

Ritual: To celebrate the life of Ron Santo, receive praise for that which you do poorly, and remain unrecognized for that which you do well. Start… now!

A Prayer for Ron Santo

There are three Ron Santos in Ron Santo:
the shockingly underrated third baseman
the spokesman for human dignity
and the roundly panned radio voice
of the very depressing Cubs.

Three-in-one, one-in-three:
you are either a modern instance
of the holy trinity, Ron Santo,
or a very expensive pocket knife!

Alternate Prayer

While the sound of one hand clapping
remains an unsolved mystery,
the sound of Ron Santo clapping
has been documented extensively
courtesy of the Cubs Radio Network.

You can click on that image if you want, but basically what I’m telling you is “KaBOOM.”

Our plagiarism of the Eastern Church’s feast-day tradition continues today with one of the game’s most important historical figures.

Life: Wagner is inarguably one of the greatest baseballers ever, compiling some 149.8 WAR in his 21-year career, and playing — according both to his contemporaries and the available fielding metrics — a passable shortstop through his age-42 season. Known as “The Flying Dutchman,” Wagner has also attained legendary status for his T206 baseball card, of which there are only 57 known copies.

Ritual: To commemorate and recognize Wagner, devise some amusing adjective-demonym combinations. Like, “The Discriminating Botswanan,” for example. Or: “The Woebegone Chilean.”

Prayer of Wagner

Contrary to what many will assume,
your sobriquet refers not to your
conspicuous athleticism, but rather
to the flight of the soul towards the divine
during an act of pure play —

a concept that you introduced
and upon which you elaborated
during a series of celebrated guest lectures
at Union Theological Seminary
shortly after your retirement.

Besides all the money and fame and bottles of Cristal and hookers and first-class transport and hookers and celebrity luncheons and hookers — besides those things, the best part about running a blog is devising and then utilizing hilarious and/or whimsical tags.

Below is a list of all the tags here at NotGraphs. And also a picture of the bottle of Cristal from which I’m currently drinking. And also a picture of Mark Fidrych — because, duh, Mark Fidrych.

Actual Thing
Apropos of Nothing
Audio and/or Visual
Big Idea
Call to Action
Dick Allen Research Department
Event
Everything’s Amazing
Extry Extry
Feast Days
Food Metaphors
Gaming
Highly Reputable and Totally Real Think Tank
Investigative Reporting Investigation Team
Item
Jersey Edit
Mad Lib
Memorabilia
Naming Names
News About News
Now Playing
Obvious Conspiracy
Old News
Open Letter
Poem
Readings
Received
Self-Help
Shameless Promotion
Site News
True Facts
Uncategorized
Unreliable Source
Website Review
Wisdom

Not always “fun to read” or even “think momentarily about,” our exercise in blasphemy continues today with a minor, but compelling, figure from baseballing lore.

Life: Over a 12-year career with five different teams, largely as a second baseman, the otherwise unspectacular Hunt led the majors in hit-by-pitches for six consecutive years, including a total of 50 HBPs in 1971 — a total surpassed only by Hall of Famer Hughie Jennings‘ mark of 51 in 1896. Despite a lifetime batting average of just .273, only modest power (39 career home runs), and a below-average glove (-40 fielding runs per TotalZone), Hunt retired with a lifetime .368 OBP and 34.4 WAR.

Ritual: To commemorate and recognize Hunt the Hurt, build an entire career off of the strangest possible skill. Go!

Prayer of Hunt the Hurt

So far as anyone knows
you were never forced, Ron Hunt,
to suffer the slings and arrows
of outrageous fortune.
You did, however, suffer
repeated blows to the arm
and back and leg and chest
and probably even the beanbag
on occasion — proving,
for those of us who’d forgotten,
that the line between genius
and the merely foolish
is super, super fine.

I actually can’t confirm officially that the look on Mr. Dirk Hayhurst’s face is one indicating mischief. What I can confirm is that the photo in question (a) is pretty funny and (b) comes to us courtesy the very amiable Mr. Hayhurst himself via his Twitter feed.

What I can also confirm is that, owing the fact that this photo is a tall, rectangular shape, it’s now incumbent upon me to supply, like, two more inches of text. Let’s do so with a quote from either Samuel Johnson or Ben Jonson (the internet can’t quite decide), as follows:

“Let them call it mischief; Then it is past and prosper’d, ’twill be virtue.”

And how here’s that same quote in much bigger letters:

Today, we herald a single member of the baseballing canon.

Life: Though he played for sometime in the Dodger and Phillie organizations, Sparky Anderson is most well known for his long managerial career, which includes World Series titles with the 1975 and ’76 Reds, and then the Tigers in 1984. He’s also known for having looked about 75 years old for the greater part of his life.

Ritual: To recognize the life of Sparky the Eldest, yell at someone to turn their rippity-rap music down. Or describe what life was like in the Great Depressions. One or the other.

Prayer

You were called Sparky
not, as history maintains,
for your spirited play
as a minor leaguer
but because
much like African American superhero
Black Lightning
you were born with the ability
to generate and magnify
external localized
electromagnetic phenomena —
a power you used to great effect
when creating from inorganic compounds
winner of the 1984 Cy Young Award
Willie Hernandez.

On the one hand, it’s a fact: writing a 14-part review of a colleague’s book in the very same publication for which both of you work — it’s entirely indecent. And yet, that’s what Albert Lyu and I propose to do here for our colleague Jonah Keri’s The Extra 2%.

What’s more, we appear to be experiencing absolutely nothing in the way of moral distress over our decision.

Why? I don’t know exactly. But my guess is it involves some combination of the following five reasons:

1. It’s exciting, in a general way, when a friend writes a book. It’s natural to want to discuss it.

2. Albert and I are too naive to realize that we’re toiling thanklessly merely to augment Jonah Keri’s already substantial personal wealth.

3. The Extra 2% happens to address, like, a thousand topics entirely within the scope of FanGraphs’ own interests.

4. Writing a multi-part review in dialogue form allows Albert and I to experiment a little, and hopefully to amuse both ourselves and readers.

5. We’re bad people.

I invite the reader to mix and match these possibilities in whichever way is most pleasing.

In any case, here are the facts: Albert and I each own a copy of Keri’s book, which goes on sale March 8th. We’re going to read a chapter each weekday and then gather at an undisclosed virtual location to discuss said chapter. Sometimes we’ll provide close readings of the day’s passage. Other times, likely, we’ll stray far and/or wide from our assigned topic.

Mostly, as I say, the idea is to have some fun.

Read the rest of this entry »

Lewie Pollis — of both Wahoo Blues and our very own Community blog — has written a post at the first of those two sites in which he does his best to find comparables for the cast of 1989’s smash-hit comedy Major League among the actual current squad of his Cleveland Indians.

That in itself is a commendable-enough undertaking. What raises his effort to Totes Delightful status, though, is that the videos Mr. Pollis has found to illustrate his selections happen to be in the Italian language.

At the risk of sounding boastful, allow me to announce for the benefit of the readership that this (i.e. Italian) is a language in which I happen to possess some expertise. And, as I have some time on my hands and am the sort of person to help his fellow man, allow me — once again, for the benefit of the readership — to present this brief, but important, Italian lesson.

Below are are three Italian phrases that you will almost definitely find yourself using within the next 24 hours — with the corresponding time-elapsed marks for the embedded video.

Now, learn!

0:21
Ecco Jake Taylor.
Behold, Jake Taylor.

1:30
Gioco come Mays, corro come Hayes.
I play like Mays, I run like Hayes.

2:19
Questa squadra mi piace blah blah blah blah.
I like this team blah blah blah blah.