Either a little bird or the official site of Major League Baseball — I’m not telling which — has informed this author that Bob Uecker is the feature guest on MLB Network’s “Studio 42 with Bob Costas,” airing this Friday at 8 p.m. ET/7 p.m. CT.

Uecker, in the event that you’re unaware, currently holds the title of Best Person Imaginable, an honor bestowed upon him by all the gods of all the different religions. Also, for reasons I’m pretty sure I made clear over over at Larry Granillo’s Wezen-Ball this past July, Uecker has distinguished himself for his capacity to navigate the rough waters of life with apparent ease.

Because of MLB.com’s video policy, you’ll have to follow this link to watch the teaser for show. In the meantime do please (a) watch that video up there with Norm McDonald and/or (b) revel in the following anecdote, about the guest appearance Costas made in Uecker’s booth this past August.

Costas was in Milwaukee for a ceremony to honor Major League Baseball Commissioner Allan H. “Bud” Selig, and stopped by the radio booth for what was supposed to be a quick visit. Uecker talked Costas into calling a few innings, including a very tough sixth for Brewers left-hander Manny Parra.

“A ringing single for David Eckstein,” Costas quipped at one point, “who, in my view, is the perfect size for an American male.”

As the Padres knocked Parra around, Costas noted that some in the Miller Park crowd had begun to voice some displeasure.

“Bob, don’t take it personally,” Uecker said. “The booing will stop.”

Dear Bespectacled Readership,

Your host, Carson Cistulli (i.e. me), has just — literally, within the last half-hour — completed the drive from Madison, Wisconsin, to an undisclosed location in Michigan.

Though I’m not at liberty to discuss the exact reasons for my visit to America’s second-most peninsula-y state, I can assure you that all but one or two of them (i.e. the reasons) are legal.

In any case, I have two announcements for you, the first of which will make you L — if not OL, then at least STY* — and the second of which will make your quality of life better.

*That’s “silently to yourself.”

The first is this: “… and, boy, are my arms tired!”

Ba-da-bing, amirite?

The second is this: thirty or so minutes of the trip were rendered entirely bearable by listening to an April 2008 interview with Bill James on PRI’s The Sounds of Young America (TSOYA).

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Like any serberista worth his fashion spectactles, I spend about 90% of my day within arm’s reach of Bill James’ collected works. Or, okay, maybe collected works is an exaggeration — but at least a whole bunch of them.

Anyway, when I find a moment of leisure, I’m not averse to reaching out my arm, extracting from the bookcase one of James’s aforementioned works, and reading the frig out of it.

Which, I was doing that just now, when I came across a passage that will be of interest to the NotGraphs readership.

The passage in question comes from James’ Baseball Book 1990. In that Book, there’s a section called the Draft Adviser, in which section James provides brief capsule-type analysis for probably like a thousand players.

One such capsule is for Charles Hudson, and it looks almost entirely like this:

CHARLES HUDSON
Detroit

Ouch. I detest pitchers like this. Hudson is one of those guys who looks great — five times a year. The rest of the time he loses. Basically, I’d rather have a cocklebur in my underwear than Charles Hudson on my pitching staff.

Two notes on this. Or, at least two.

First, let it be known that Hudson’s story is actually a kinda not-inspiring one. After some success in 1983 and 1984, his career went the wrong direction — until 1989, when he had more walks than strikeouts. Adding a very literal injury to the insult that was his career at that point, Hudson was involved in drunk-driving accident at the end of the year and never pitched again in the Majors.

So, I recognize that’s unpleasant. One-hundred apologies.

There is, however, a second, decidedly more LOL-ish, side to this particular story. Notably, it’s this: owing to the layout of the text, the word cocklebur is actually split in half, so that it reads cock-lebur. To the eye of a male, between the ages of 18 and, say, infinity years old, a cock-lebur is a very different thing than a cocklebur.

I’ll leave it to the reader’s imagination exactly what it might be, but it’s almost definitely something that shouldn’t be in Bill James’ underwear, that much is clear.

As previously reported in these electronic pages, Oriole pitcher and writing Dutchman Rick VandenHurk has spent the last couple weeks in Europe with teammates Adam Jones and Jeremy Guthrie — plus some other baseball-types — offering instructional camps to tiny little foreign people.

Or, I should say, he was in Europe. The group has now concluded their duties abroad and flown back to the US of A. Even so, that hasn’t stopped VandenHurk from attempting to charm your pants off one last time.

Of note from VandenHurk’s most recent dispatch:

• More instances of totally unnecessary, but still entirely delightful, capitalization — including the words/phrases Indoor, Big Welcome, and Clinic.
• A brief account of a PSV Eindhoven match.
• Which, that means Adam Jones was at a PSV Eindhoven match.

Finally, and extra specially, the careful reader will note that the perpetually considerate VandenHurk signed his name “Vandy” in observance of Ron Gardenhire Day.

Jehovah’s Witnesses of the Upper Midwest are collectively kicking themselves today after Tim Pawlenty — Governor of the State of Minnesota — declared today to be Ron Gardenhire Day in the Land of 10,000* Lakes.

*Note: an approximation.

“In his declaration,” writes MLB.com’s Kelly Thesier,

Pawlenty pointed to the fact that Gardenhire, like [former manager Tom] Kelly, has made throwing strikes and playing sound defense the foundation of his teams. Over his nine seasons as the Twins manager, the 53-year-old Gardenhire has a career winning percentage of .550 with a record of 803-656.

The recognition comes just a week after Gardenhire won his first American League Manager of the Year Award.

While all the good people of Minnesota will no doubt have their own special ways of commemorating the beloved Gardenhire, the generally accepted custom is to spend the day addressing friends and relations by their “locker-room name” — a form constructed by adding “-y” to the first syllable of an addressee’s surname. By this method, Justin Morneau becomes “Morny“; Michael Cuddyer, “Cuddy“; and Nick Blackburn, perhaps regrettably, “Blacky.”

When asked how to address people whose last names already end with a “-y,” the governor’s office replied that it’s probably best “to ignore such people entirely.”

Baseball Superstars 2011, released earlier this month for iPhone and iPod Touch, is another in the Baseball Superstars franchise begun by Gamevil in 2007.

I acquired the game this past Friday and will be reviewing various aspects of it over the course of the next week or two.

In this dispatch, I’ll provide my first impressions of the game and some comments on the Exhibition mode.

First Impressions
You might have guessed, owing both to the Asian people and the Asian other things in the video above, that this game is deeply influenced — aesthetically, at least — by Asian cartoons. I’m tempted to say “Japanese” cartoons (as Strong Bad does in the video below), except for Gamevil is actually a Korean-based company, and I think it’s right and good to celebrate all our Asian brothers and sisters.

Whether for these aesthetic considerations, or for other reasons entirely, the game can be overwhelming at first. There are no less than seven options on the main menu — including Exhibition, My League, Season, and something called Mission. The literature for the game suggests that the My League mode “contains unique RPG elements in a sports title,” which sounds intriguing. It also says that Mission Mode “demands finest skills.” That’s unfortunate, of course, for those of us who possess only middling skills.

Like many swords, this is the double-edged kind. On the one hand, the number of options for play are alot for a newcomer to comprehend; on the other, if one measure of a quality game is that it can be played for some time, then the myriad options bode well for this.

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It’s likely, reader, that you remember something called the Holiday Inn Look Again Player of the Year Award. It’s also likely that you remember it for the same reason I do — namely, because its existence was brought to your attention via Fire Joe Morgan, where Junior (a.k.a. Alan Yang) revealed — rather predictably, perhaps — that a disproportionate number of nominees for the award (including winner David Eckstein) were on the caucasian side of things.

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You might have caught word of this around the interweb, but it appears to be a real thing now: Peter Miller’s Jews and Baseball: An American Love Affair has opened in New York and Los Angeles — and will be doing the same in Kansas City today (Friday, the 19th). A general opening will occur sometime in the following weeks.

So far as a proper review goes, it’s with all my heart that I regret not being able to offer one. However, allow me to state with totally undeserved authority five things about the film:

• Sandy Koufax agreed to be interviewed for it. (That’s him at around the 1:53 mark.)
• There appears to be no footage of fly balls clanging off Ryan Braun’s glove. This I find terribly misleading.
• Director Peter Miller has worked pretty extensively with Ken Burns, meaning this film is almost definitely well-crafted.
• It also means that viewers should prepare to be bullied emotionally by musical cues (the hopeful “whoosh” around the 1:28 mark, for example).
• Being bullied by Dick Dale and the Del-Tones is considerably less objectionable.

H/T: Ben Platt at MLB.com

Yesterday, in a lighthearted interview with Boston sports radio station WEEI, Red Sox second baseman Dustin Pedroia stated — and understandably so — that he’d have no interest in fighting modern-day boxing great Manny Pacquiao.

Though whimsical in the context of the Pedroia interview, it’s not outside the realm of possibility that a ballplayer, former or otherwise, could excel in another sport. In fact, a number of MLB-ers have done just that. Below are some brief, and very-non-fictional, examples of baseball’s two-sport athletes.

1883: Charley “Old Hoss” Radbourn becomes America’s first real two-sport athlete, not only pitching for the Providence Grays but also excelling in the popular late-century sport of “drunken carousing.”

1961: Boston center fielder Jimmy Piersall (pictured above) unveils for the public’s consideration his self-taught “crane kick,” the move later used by Daniel LaRusso to beat that douche Johnny from Cobra Kai.

1982: In his freshman year at Auburn University, Bo Jackson becomes first college athlete to letter in 17 sports, including Women’s Equestrian. “I just love those damn horses,” says Jackson when asked to comment on his first-place finish at the NCAA national tournament.

2009: “If not wearing pants is a sport, I’m the f*cking champ,” announces a pantless Kenny Powers.

2014: After retiring from baseball, middle infielder and scrapaholic David Eckstein goes on to successful career as jockey in thoroughbred horse racing.

That man up there who knows all the words to 1979’s genre-defining single “Rapper’s Delight” is, in fact, not all the members of The Sugarhill Gang combined M.A.S.K.-style to form an uber-rapper, but rather Philadelphia mayor Michael Nutter. The man next to him, on the ones and twos, is DJ Jazzy Jeff, who once combined with the Fresh Prince (a.k.a. Will Smith) to sing the songs of our lives.

“Yes, but how’s this related to baseball?” maybe you’re asking. To which I answer: (a) the event in question was the opening of a Philadelphia-area sporting goods store known as Mitchell & Ness and (b) there’s at least two or five Phillies-related items in the background there.

Jerks.

H/T: RJ White