Use a colorful stock photo to attract readers’ attention.

For more than a month, the present author has waged an on-again, off-again with a very persistent ear infection — a condition itself which appears to have developed owing largely to the dimensions of the author’s left Eustachian tube, which is roughly the size of an infant child’s. That’s the medical explanation distilled to its essence, at least.

A week of antibiotics did little to address the problem, initially. A second week — in this case, of steroids administered both orally and by way of the ear canal — helped some. The most recent treatment, however — of a second, more efficient antibiotic (according to the doctor) — has produced tangible results so far as the health of the ear in question is concerend. What else it’s done is to cause within the author’s body a condition that isn’t but ought to be known as Gastrointestinal Melee 5000.

Indeed, a brief inspection of the fact sheet for the drug in question reveals that users of same frequently observe selles molles. An exercise in euphemism, is how one ought to regard this.

At the very least, this (admittedly minor) ordeal has created a flimsy pretense upon which it is now possible to produce Internet Weblog Content. It has occurred to the author that it might be amusing to attribute to each major-league club the most common “side effect,” as it were, of cheering for same.

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There either is or isn’t an actual Czech folk song regarding the successful construction of a new baseball field. What follows either is or isn’t a translation of that same folk song’s lyrics into English by the author.

In the middle of Czech Republic, a new baseball field was built!
Syn, slaughter the fatted calf.
Dcera, prepare a stew from harvested vegetables.
In the middle of Czech Republic, a new baseball field was built!
Tonight, we abandon reason for pleasure.

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Those who cling to reason will demand an explanation for the present weblog entry, which consists of little more than an embedded audio clip of comedian Amy Schumer uttering the words “inside baseball” — perhaps in the presence of NPR personality Terry Gross, perhaps not.

For those who — like probably all the members of American rock band 38 Special, for example — for those who know that one is best served merely by holding on loosely, the presence of this brief audio clip will be as second nature. “Did life even exist before I heard Amy Schumer just saying ‘inside baseball,'” those same readers will ask.

“It did and it didn’t,” is the correct answer, of course — as everyone already knows.

The author needn’t really mention that left-handed Tampa Bay prospect Grayson Garvin was born and raised in Georgia. Indeed, history dictates that there are only two sorts of people in this world who could reasonably have that name: those who were either (a) born in Georgia or (b) born in Georgia but then subsequently killed while serving in the European Theatre of World War II. That left-handed Tampa Bay prospect Grayson Garvin is alive and not dead reveals which sort of Grayson Garvin he is.

Indeed, it isn’t Grayson’s biography which the author cares to address here, at all. Rather, why we’ve all gathered at this internet post is for the purposes of inspecting Garvin’s breaking ball — in this case, as it appeared during the young Georgian’s Arizona Fall League start of November 9th.

Here’s the first example of it — in this case, to Kansas City outfield prospect Lane Adams:

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Nearly actual reportage conducted by this internet weblog has revealed that, despite his frequent claims to the contrary — distilled to their essence, most notably, in the 1998 hit single embedded here — late Bronx-born rapper Big Pun remains the most valuable player to basically anyone with some combination of (a) ears and (b) a heart.

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Ceats

— Ben Revere (@BenRevere9) November 13, 2013

At the beginning, which is also kinda the end, of Orson Welles’ 1941 cinema classic Citizen Kane, newspaper magnate Charles Foster Kane whispers a single word, rosebud, before shuffling off this mortal coil. The search by a reporter, Jerry Thompson, for the possible relevance of that word to the life of the famous and troubled Kane serves as the device by which the film is driven forward. Ultimately, Thompson’s search is fruitless — even as the mystery is resolved for the viewer in the film’s closing frames.

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Ken Rosenthal has something to say.

Like most men who wear bow-style ties without irony, very spry baseball reporter Ken Rosenthal is not immune to the charms of the beaux arts. As the following poem suggests — composed entirely of lines from his recent dispatch from the front lines of the baseball news cycle — Rosenthal is capable of writing poignant lyrics on the nature of hope even when he appears to be writing just about a hypothetical Cardinals trade for Rockies shortstop Troy Tulowitzki.

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Because life is meaningless, morality is fiercely relative, and even the work of humanity’s most beautiful minds exerts its influence only for a few thousand years, the present author prefers to concern himself with mere trifles — nugae, a Roman person would likely say, were he not long dead and his language nearly as dead, too.

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A dispatch from Japanese site Nikkan Sports, translated poorly by a computer into English, reports that “Major landlord” has plans on returning to major-league baseball “in full knuckle learning.” A tweet along those same lines — in this case, however, courtesy very polite outlaw Patrick Newman — suggests that what’s actually happening is former Boston and Montreal and Washington and Milwaukee and Toronto and Cleveland right-hander Tomo Ohka, now 37, is attempting a comeback to the majors as a knuckleball pitcher.

Ohka has been pitching of late in Japan’s independent leagues, it would appear. The reader is invited to enjoy recent video footage of him doing precisely that, above — set lovingly, one will note, to a combination of Bush’s 1996 single “Machinehead” and a group of enthusiastic amateur musicians. A second video, in this case from September, depicts Ohka pitching atop an infield composed of what is almost certainly reclaimed coal ash.

Do you have something slightly less than total indifference to late son-of-a-bitch Boileryard Clarke? Have you ever wanted to spend a probably inclement weekend afternoon at Maryland’s Druid Ridge Cemetery? If so, then have your photo for your family Holiday Card taken in front of or beside or behind Boileryard Clarke’s actual headstone this weekend.

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