It’s not uncommon in this world — is, in fact, celebrated at some length by the god of the Old Testament in the book of Nahum, probably, or Habakkuk — for the star-crossed lover, separated by some combination of fate and legal injunction from the object of his affections, to pull himself up off the bar stool, place a call via pay phone to the local AM station, and dedicate Foreigner’s 1984 power ballad “I Want to Know What Love Is” to the only woman who ever mattered to him for 20 minutes last Saturday out near the municipal lake.

It was in much the same spirit, one imagines, that internet lover Michael Spitznagel stumbled to his keyboard tonight, booted up his Twitter computer, and requested that the present author utilize one of his few skills to the end of sharing A.J. Griffin’s curveball with the world — such that, after witnessing said curveball, the world would have a better idea than Mick Jones et al. what, precisely, love is.

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Kansas City’s Hunter Dozier is a rare sort of prospect. He’s both physically impressive and athletic — and appears, at least from a small professional sample, to have something in the way both of power and contact skills. At the same time, however, he attended a school (Stephen F. Austin State) not particularly well-known for baseball in a conference (the Southland) not particularly well-known for baseball.

All considered, there was decided uncertainty about where Dozier would be selected in the most recent draft. About 29th, was Baseball America’s best guess entering the draft. Definitely eighth, was the actual result — which is to say, 21 spots higher.

Until late, there’s been little extant video of Dozier. To amend that, in part, the author has produced the piece embedded above, which features footage of Dozier from a recent Pioneer League game paired, for unknown reasons, with the theme song to 1978 film The Deer Hunter.

In 1961, astronomer Frank Drake authored an equation (known colloquially as the Drake Equation) designed to estimate the number of detectable civilizations in the Milky Way galaxy, which equation accounted for the average number of star formations per year in the galaxy and the fraction of those stars that have planets and the average number of those planets that could potentially support life, etc.

Just tonight, the present author has devised a similar equation — except, in this case, one intended to estimate the number of other weblogs that might have already posted the bat flip by Wil Myers embedded above from the third inning of Sunday’s Tampa Bay-New York game (box). “Zero others,” is the likely answer via that equation’s impregnable logic.

Credit to concerned citizens of the internet, both je and Dan Rozenson, for bringing these important events to the author’s attention.

Jeeves and Wooten, the new short story collection by the reanimated corpse of British humorist P.G. Wodehouse, follows the hilarious antics of newly recalled Milwaukee reliever Rob Wooten and his gentleman’s personal gentleman, Jeeves. Not unlike his original Jeeves stories for all their breezy humor — but also quite different because they largely concern baseball and are also written by a deceased person — Wodehouse’s Jeeves and Wooten collection is full of that accomplished author’s singular prose style.

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The reader should rest assured that the above is not merely a hastily selected clip-art image stolen from the internet of a cartoon thermometer exploding, but rather a technologically advanced and mega accurate Outrage Meter exclusive to NotGraphs which is capable of measuring the level of indignation present among America’s sporting commentators at any given moment. What one finds now, in the wake of Ryan Braun’s admission of guilt and subsequent punishment, is that the Outrage Meter has reached Dangerous Levels of Danger.

As the half-smile suggests, Young Dayn Perry regards his attitude as one of the “devil-may-care” variety. He’s wrong in this regard, however: the devil doesn’t care — not about him, and not about his attitude.

Young Dayn Perry has recently received an invitation — from varsity linebacker Darrell Perkins, specifically — to wipe the goddamn smirk off his face before Perkins does it for him. Young Dayn Perry has every intention of accepting.

Darrell Perkins’ invitation is the first Young Dayn Perry has received, to anything, since freshman year.

Owing to the example set by his parents, Young Dayn Perry absolutely knows what love is. The subject with which he’s less familiar is girls’ privates.

Young Dayn Perry wants nothing more than to put his hands up on Katie Graham’s hips and then, when he dips, to have her dip, as well, such that they’re both dipping together at the same time.

Young Dayn Perry has recorded no fewer than 37 mix tapes for Katie Graham since September, he’ll reveal while signing her yearbook.

“Never change,” Young Dayn Perry will add. For totally different reasons, she won’t.

Young Dayn Perry hasn’t so much watched 1992 drama School Ties as memorized every line and written a sequel that follows Brendan Fraser’s character David Greene into college and then onto his professional life as a successful dermatologist in Newton, Mass.

“You can take the man out of Mississippi,” Young Dayn Perry’s father has intoned on more than one occasion, “but you can’t take the Mississippi out of the man.” Young Dayn Perry is haunted by this and other truths.

It is manifestly the case that people who are shackled by responsibilities and whose lives are little more than a series of burdensome obligations, one upon the other — it’s manifestly the case that these sorts of people take pains, whenever possible, to inform other, different people whose lives aren’t conspicuously awful that “sometimes it’s necessary to do things in life that you don’t want to.”

Besides ending their sentences with prepositions all the time — itself an unattractive quality — these people commit another grievous error, as well, in supposing that their actions are somehow of any consequence in the world.

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RotoGraphs editor and co-proprietor of BeerGraphs Eno Sarris has organized an event for later today (Thursday, July 18) at Chicagoland bar Fizz — which event will feature baseball writers of some consequence and also Dayn Perry.

During a recording of FanGraphs Audio this morning, that same Dayn Perry inquired about the timing of the event, and, after being informed that it was scheduled to begin at 4pm CT, launched into a frothy-mouthed tirade about the early-ish hour — suggesting both that it (a) wasn’t becoming of civilized man and also (b) might force him to rearrange his schedule a little bit.

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Embedded here is footage of right-handed Colorado prospect Eddie Butler striking out Boston shortstop prospect Xander Bogaerts prospect by means of an excellent 90-mph changeup during Sunday afternoon’s Futures Game in New York.

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There are certain things a man must do in this life. Like fight a mountain lion with only his hands, for example. And look up the precise definition of fiduciary at some point, for other example.

A third thing a man must do in this life is both capture via a screencasting application and then render into animated GIF form footage of very Cuban émigré Yoenis Cespedes performing what is known in that island nation as a Bat Flip 140% Especial, Good Job.

Fortunately for the present author, Yoenis Cespedes executed that precise manuever on Monday night at the conclusion of this year’s home-run derby. This post is designed to serve as evidence of same.

Credit to concerned internet citizen Eli Nellis for bringing the author’s attention to this especial event.