It’s the present author’s contention that the public is entirely too invested in what are often referred to as “current events” — or, rather, that the sort of event which qualifies as “current” ought to be broadened substantially.

For example, a 25-year-old version of Alfredo Despaigne hit his Cuban League record-tying and -breaking 34th and 35th home runs on April 3rd, 2012. That was an achievement of some note when it occurred. The author, however, has just re-watched footage of them this afternoon — plus also Despaigne’s 40th home run, which occurred about a month later — while putting off a short jog that he should actually be taking so that he might more comfortably fit into a pair of Land’s End-brand shorts he recently purchased under the watchful eye of his blameless wife.

Are Despaigne’s feats of strength over a year old? Yes. However, do they live on so that we might come upon them, hungry for diversion, willing to put off till tomorrow what could theoretically be done right now? Yes. Also that.

Below are the videos in question, for the reader to utilize in whichever way he chooses.

34th Home Run
This is Despaigne’s record-tying home run, on which he breaks his bat.

Read the rest of this entry »

The Columbia Guide to Standard American English continues to regard — or regarded in 1993, at least — the word alot as a “substandard” form of the adverbial construction a lot. The author has utilized it in the title of this post, however, as an important reminder that nearly everything in life is substandard. Like the chair, for example, in which the author is presently sitting. And like this body, for example, in which the author is trapped for life.

Read the rest of this entry »

A common sight at Safeco Field.

Central to the enjoyment of baseball for many of that sport’s fans is the cultivation and maintenance of a team allegiance. Below, apropos of little, are four pleasures derived from same.

Family Tradition
Frequently, children inherit the team allegiances of their parents and, before them, grandparents. There’s a certain pleasure to be derived from this continuity within a family. Our bodies seem predisposed to derive pleasure from the passing down of rituals from one generation to the next. One remembers, for example, being taken at a young age to Fenway Park, and looks forward, perhaps, to taking his or her own child to Fenway Park.

Read the rest of this entry »

Of Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s widely celebrated 1967 novel One Hundred Years of Solitude, critic William Kennedy wrote in the New York Times Book Review that it’s “the first piece of literature since the Book of Genesis that should be required reading for the entire human race.” Approximately 460 years before Marquez’s novel, noted Flemish painter Hieronymus Bosch finished his stirring triptych The Garden of Earthly Delights.

Regarding both Marquez and Bosch, it’s probably fair to say that their respective legacies and influence will outlast Dodgers rookie Yasiel Puig’s. That said, it’s also fair to say that neither has hit four home runs in his last five games — especially not Bosch, who was inconveniently dead for over 300 years even before our sport was even invented.

In any case, Puig has clearly been influenced both by Marquez and by Bosch, as the following three animated GIF files illustrate.

Like this one, for example, of Paul Maholm’s first pitch to Puig in the latter’s third plate appearance tonight — on which Puig gestured as though to bunt:

Read the rest of this entry »

As one might suppose, social media sites like Facebook and Twitter drive considerable traffic both to FanGraphs and its subsidiaries. Also important, of course, are the page views generated by searches made on Google and elsewhere. Below are the seven searches which mostly commonly brought readers to NotGraphs this week.

babkdoor cutter
A popular pitch type in Polish Baseball League, one assumes.

Read the rest of this entry »

There’s little from history to recommend naked appeals to the sordid, teeming masses. Former Louisiana governor Huey Long, for example, was decidedly populist in nature and ended up all assassinated in his own state capitol building. More recently, Italian media tycoon Silvio Berlusconi — no stranger to the absolutely lowest common denominator — has been forced to serve as that ridiculous country’s prime minister on no fewer than three occasions. “Very unappealing,” one says with regard to that.

And yet, even with those cautionary tales having been well established, what the author has done here is to capture video of Dodgers outfielder Yasiel Puig’s hitting his third home run in four games — a grand slam in the eighth inning, no less, to secure victory for the home team — and render it into GIF form.

“Cynical!” says one sort of reader. “Exciting and easy to consume!” says another. And what does the author say? “Nothing,” is the answer — because it’s after midnight locally, and he’s all alone in the house, typing these vain, needless words.

The footage by Bullpen Banter’s Steve Fiorindo of very recent Phillies draft pick J.P Crawford taking infield practice doesn’t necessarily suggest to the author that he (i.e. Crawford) will be a major-league shortstop. What we see later in that same video, however, is Crawford hitting, like, seven home runs by means of a swing that one feels compelled to compare to butter or honey or some other manner of viscous flavor enhancer.

Over the course of the week, members of this important internet weblog have written about their respective contributions to what organizer Robert J. Baumann has called the First-and-Only-Ever NotGraphantasy Draft. The object: to assemble, via a snake-draft format, the squad which most embodies the spirit of this nearly perfect internet weblog.

Contrary to David Temple’s overzealous claims of yesterday, it is the present author who has distinguished himself as the No. 1 SuperChamp of this exercise — not only because he is (read: I am) the boss of everyone (although, please note, I am quite literally the boss of everyone), but also because I’ve allowed my own Infallible Nature to guide me, as a compass, to the correct picks.

Before enumerating in greater detail the myriad virtues of Team SuperChamp 2013, first a brief note on the title of this post. It’s very possible that certain of my colleagues — like that inveterate contrarian Patrick Dubuque, for example, with his little face and everything — will suggest that my reference to very popular and woefully inaccurate 1995 film Braveheart is symptomatic of my own mindless allegiance to what mid-century German theorist Theodor Adorno referred to as the Kulturindustrie, or (in English) the Culture Industry. Accordingly, they will attempt to dismiss whatever follows as the product of a mind contaminated by the flotsam of consumerism and jetsam of empty utopian aspirations.

“Ha! Just let them try!” is my response to that. On the contrary, allow me to submit that a truly liberated aesthetic, such as the author possesses, is necessarily large enough and sufficiently expansive to account for texts of all sorts, be they high or low, auteurist or focus-grouped.

The club assembled below — and annotated by clever remarks — is a result of such an aesthetic.

CA: Jeremy Brown, 11th Round (Profile)
Noted character from Michael Lewis’s important, if polemical, Moneyball. Actually made 11 major-league plate appearances. Retired suddenly following age-27 season having never recorded an OPS below .718 at any level.

Read the rest of this entry »

Become acquainted with all of Eno Sarris’s flawless pronunciations by clicking this hyperlinked text.

Become acquainted with all of Eno Sarris’s flawless pronunciations by clicking this hyperlinked text.