The reader has only one choice to make: does he or she like pleasure? If the answer is in the affirmative, clicking the button embedded below is to be advised.

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Not everyone is amused by all these boners.

Monday represented the 105th anniversary of Merkle’s Boner, the baserunning error committed by then-New York Giants rookie Fred Merkle that ultimately allowed the Chicago Cubs to win the National League pennant en route to their last World Series victory.

Below is a list of seven other notable gaffes from baseball’s rich and storied history.

1846 – In early edition of official base-and-ball rulebook, a very hungover Alexander Cartwright omits any mention of second base.

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Unlike precisely every other image which appears in these stupid pages, the image that appears on this stupid page was not stolen from the internet but rather captured by the author himself on the streets of Paris by means of an internet-phone-camera.

One finds, while wandering those same streets — in the 18th arrondissement, specifically — one finds Cafe Francoeur, a charming establishment that both (a) features a self-described epicurean menu and also (b) probably serves as free agent Jeff Francoeur’s raison goddamn d’être that no one knew about before.

But now people know about it, is the point of this weblog post. Like probably every person knows about it now, is the point.

CLEVELAND – Scoreboards all over the American League this season have been unkind to Houston manager Bo Porter, having now indicated at the conclusion part of more than two-thirds of his Astros’ games that his club has produced fewer runs than that respective day’s opponent.

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Merely a brief glance at the animated GIF embedded here might compel the reader to conclude that Texas right-hander Yu Darvish performed last (Thursday) night — in his start against Tampa Bay — rather a commonplace (if aborted) pick-off move towards second base against the Rays. In fact, further inspection reveals that the video footage is depicting Darvish, a fixture among baseball’s avant-garde always, literally pitching backwards.

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It would be difficult, owing largely to the number of grand slams he allowed, to describe Yankees reliever Preston Claiborne’s appearance at Boston on Friday night either as “very” or “even at all” successful.

That’s not to say it was entirely sans merit, however. Before conceding the relevant home run to Boston catcher Jarrod Saltalamacchia in the seventh inning of that game, Claiborne threw a triumvirate of changeups, each of which deceased English person John Keats would have likened to Truth quite willingly.

Here, first, is Claiborne throwing that changeup to Red Sox outfielder Daniel Nava for a swinging strike two during the latter’s seventh-inning at-bat:

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Recently, the author announced in these pages that — by way of preparation for a temporary move to Paris, France — that he would produce here a “brief, daily French exercise concerning base-and-ball.” To say that the results have been of the daily variety would either be (a) incorrect or (b) to problematize considerably the idea of “dailiness.”

Regardless, what’s happened is that the author, filled with an emotion cocktail of shame (as a result of his failure to commit to the project) and dread (apropos his mediocre language skills) has endeavored to revisit the daily French exercise here, this afternoon, ahead of his Sunday departure.

The passage featured here is taken from the 1991 edition of Expos Magazine cited previously by the author at the beginning of August — and is excerpted from a longer portion of that publication entitled «Croyez-le ou non», “Believe It or Not.”

Below, the author has produced a (likely flawed) translation of the relevant passage. Below that, there’s commentary regarding certain words or phrases of note (and which are marked by an asterisk) either because (a) those words and phrases are particularly difficult, but the author has grasped their meaning or (b) they are particularly difficult and the author has abandoned all attempts to make sense of them.

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There are a number of matters to which the reader is compelled to devote his time, presently: to the cultivation of meaningful relationships, to the study of weighty texts, to the consumption of wine and spirits. All to the good, that.

Given his paucity of leisure just at the moment, the reader likely has no need for the sort of literary baubles produced occasionally in these pages — of which the current post, featuring an image of Red Sox first-base coach Arnie Beyeler’s mustache and spectacles, is an example.

A brief survey of the author’s emotions, however, reveals that resentment is nowhere to be found. Furthest thing from it, actually. A time to be born and a time to die, a time to read trivial weblogs and a time not to do that. All that kind of thing. What the author has endeavored to provide here, rather, is a sort of diverting thought — in the event that the reader finds a minute or two — which might be contemplated briefly and pleasantly. Refreshed, the reader marches on again — till human voices wake him, and he drowns.

In 1997, then-Boston GM Dan Duquette traded reliever Heathcliff Slocumb to Seattle, a club en route to winning its second division title in three years, for pitcher Derek Lowe and catcher Jason Varitek. While there existed perhaps some justification for the deal at the time so far as the Mariners were concerned, it ultimately proved entirely one-sided: Slocumb threw fewer than 100 leauge-average innings for Seattle, while Lowe and Varitek produced approximately 46 wins over the next 20 or so player-seasons for Boston — including a combined seven wins during the Sox’ world championship campaign in 2004.

As Lowe revealed during the third inning of Wednesday night’s NESN telecast, however — of the Red Sox game against the Rays in Tampa Bay — it’s possible that Duquette was not entirely acquainted with Boston’s new acquisitions at the time.

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Sources close to the situation — and also just the box score itself — suggest that right-hander Jose Fernandez has homered tonight off Mike Minor in the sixth inning of Miami’s game against Atlanta. Internet hysteria suggests further that Fernandez has tossed his bat aside, spit on Atlanta third baseman Chris Johnson, and stabbed Atlanta manager Fredi Gonzalez in the subclavian artery with a crudely made shiv-weapon.

Mostly by way of Jeff Sullivan’s industry, NotGraphs presents here part of what appears to have been a night full of goddamn American fists in Miami, Florida.