Author Archive

GIF: Teenage Bryce Harper Homers onto a Mountain

Harper HR

The freely available video from which this GIF has been captured — and which appears to feature the College of Southern Nevada at Western Nevada College in 2010 — offers more or less everything a person could want so far as Bryce Harper and mountains are concerned. Like, Bryce Harper singling to left in front of a mountain, for example. And also Bryce Harper making an extra-inning relief appearance in front of a mountain.

What said video also offers is the footage above — of teenage Bryce Harper not only homering in front of, but also mostly onto, the mountain in question.

Surely, one realizes, Walt Whitman was right when he said… all those things that Walt Whitman is famous for saying about one thing and another.


Exclusive Video: Jesus of Nazareth on Mike Trout’s Divinity

The performance of Mike Trout over his first two seasons in the major leagues has prompted suspicion among all manner of fan that the young Angels outfielder has perhaps benefited from the ultimate PED: god-like omnipotence. In what follows, famous world philosopher and also possible deity Jesus of Nazareth comments on the allegations regarding Trout’s divinity.

Part One:

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Baseball Metaphor Watch: Norm Macdonald on Conan, 1997

One of the most important skills a person can cultivate towards the end of becoming (and, of course, also remaining) an internet baseball writer is his or her capacity for recycling media that’s almost 20 years old in a manner that seems nearly relevant to the contemporary reader.

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Gentleman’s Slideshow: Notable Baseball Personages Who Also Attended Fine New England Boarding Schools

It’s generally the custom of the present author to confine the headlines of his posts to just a single line. Such is the importance of this particular post, however, that it’s necessitated a violation of that very sound practice, and whatever monstrosity of design it’s created.

A slightly less than cursory inspection of Wikipedia has produced the results for what follows — “what follows” being a slideshow both for gentlemen and also by gentlemen of notable baseball personages who’ve also attended fine New England boarding schools.

It commences here:

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Quiz: To What Has Noah Syndergaard Been Likened Today?

Promising Mets right-hander Noah Syndergaard, whom the club acquired as part of the trade that sent R.A. Dickey to Toronto, has been the locus of some attention today at the club’s camp in Port St. Lucie. Take the following meaningless quiz to guess which objects and/or people Syndergaard has and hasn’t been likened.

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Interview with Definitely a Real Scientist re: Jeter’s Teflon Image

Jeter 2

Derek Jeter’s 20th major-league season will be his final one, the Yankees shortstop announced recently. As Mike Lupica noted in a stirring piece of investigative journalism from 2007 — and as Bradley Woodrum has elsewise confirmed in these pages just today — the Captain seems strangely immune to bad press. NotGraphs spoke with definitely a real scientist from American chemical company DuPont to inquire about their role in Jeter’s impeccable reputation.

For a player with such a long career, under such intense media scrutiny, and with rather a long list of sexy, famous ladyfriends — for all that, Derek Jeter seems to have remained almost entirely free of controversy. DuPont has had something to do with that, I understand.

Yes. We were able to devise a method by which to apply Teflon, our popular non-stick coating for pans, to his public image.

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Historical Bat-Flip Coverage: Giant College Player, 1991

Mouton 1

While one might reasonably suggest that giant LSU junior and future/former major-leaguer Lyle Mouton isn’t technically flipping his bat in the two animated GIFs embedded here, it’s also entirely the case that Mouton’s intentions are identical to those of the bat flipper. “I have all the talents,” Mouton announces with his actions — not unlike boy poet Arthur Rimbaud, that is, who said the same thing over a hundred years earlier in French words.

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Poorly Crafted Jokes for the Unlikely Roast of Todd Van Poppel

Laughing

The occasion for the poorly crafted jokes below is not a definitely scheduled, certain-to-happen roast of former top Oakland prospect and actual major-league right-hander Todd Van Poppel. Rather, it’s how the author inexplicably woke up in the middle of the night, found it difficult to fall back asleep, and subsequently challenged the internet to amuse him until such a time as he became drowsy again — which he did, eventually, but not before also learning from WebMD that insomnia is a major symptom for no fewer than dozens of fatal conditions.

Were such an event to occur, however — that is, a roast of retired pitcher Todd Van Poppel — the author would at least have seven jokes already written for it.

These jokes, in particular:

1. Your career was so short, if it were a literary form, it’d probably be the epigram.

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OC Register‘s Jeff Fletcher Leading League in Self-Awareness

It’s a sentiment shared by all the big philosophers, probably, that happiness and mental well-being are the province of those who recognize their myriad shortcomings. To what degree happiness and mental well-being are the province of the OC Register’s Jeff Fletcher, the present author is unable to comment. That he (i.e. Fletcher) recognizes at least one of his shortcomings, however, is manifestly the case, as the comment attached to his lousy spring-training photograph suggests. To praise briefly Jeff Fletcher’s conduct, is the purpose of this post.


Image: Symptoms of Having Heard the Jeter News

Jeter News

Credit to Les Carter for this essential public health announcement.