Talented surgeon and nearly irrepressible lothario, Nicasio Beckett.

Frequently in this life, we do things for reasons that are mysterious. Like marry a woman despite her open contempt for us, for example. Or remain married to her, for example, despite her continued and unwaveringly open contempt for us.

This post represents such a mystery, as well. Whilst composing today’s diamond-encrusted edition of the Daily Notes, the author discovered that, by pairing the surname of a visiting pitcher with the surname of that same contest’s home pitcher, that the resulting name — in really almost every case — resembled those such as are frequently encountered within the confines of America’s most popular soap operas.

What follows, then, is the result of the author not only identifying that phenomenon, but also following through on it in such a way so as to make any reasonable person question the value of this life.

Names listed in order of today’s first-pitch times.

Gee LeBlanc
Of unclear, but decidedly nefarious, French-speaking origin. CEO of corrupt and profitable LeBlanc Pharmaceuticals. Irrepressible lothario.

Diamond Sanchez
Wealthy and brilliant Mexican heiress who suffers amnesia and becomes exotic dancer.

Gomez Burgos
Priest who is constantly tempted by Diamond Sanchez. Also, CIA secret agent.

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After consulting the part of his body responsible for sight and also the part of his body responsible for detecting capital-B Beauty, the author has determined that the following animated GIF files depict Jose Fernandez’s best changeup and also Matt Harvey’s best changeup from Monday night.

Here, for the sake of the readership, is video footage of Jose Fernandez’s best changeup from Monday night — to Lucas Duda in the first inning for a swinging strike two:

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Bob Uecker would like to remind the listener about the Milwaukee Braves Historical Association’s 15th Annual Testimonial Dinner, to be held on May 6th at the Potawatomi Bingo Casino and honoring former Braves Ray Crone and Frank Thomas.

He would also like to embezzle a little bit.

To wit:
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A scene similar to, if not precisely the same as, the one accounted for below.

In the main/only concourse of Beloit’s Pohlman Field, minutes before the first pitch of a Midwest League game between the hometown Snappers and West Michigan Whitecaps, one encounters a group of anxious-looking men holding binders full of Bowman Chrome baseball cards. They’re approaching the Beloit and West Michigan players as they (i.e. those same players) make their way from Pohlman’s rather improvised locker rooms to its only-slightly-less improvised dugouts. They’re asking, with a sense of urgency, for the players (who are, in every case, younger than the men asking) to sign the cards in the binders.

Passing by and through the scene, one thinks, “This is behavior unbecoming of an adult man.”

Simultaneously, or nearly simultaneously, one envies the sense of purpose exhibited by those same autograph-seekers.

Image stolen shameless and without same from Ballparks of the Midwest.

If rocks were capable of engaging in sexy lovemaking with each other, that would be strange. That’s one fact. A second fact is this, though: if rocks really could make love, their yawps of craggy pleasure would be indistinguishable from the normal speaking voice of St. Louis Cardinals radio broadcaster Mike Shannon.

Such a voice is well-suited to utter certain words. Words like cud, for example. And arse-ropes. And Beowulf.

A word that has no business either in or around Mike Shannon’s mouth, however, is chartreuse — a word so French that, after giving voice to it, one finds himself tempted either to smoke a cigarette or denounce the Zeitgeist or both simultaneously.

And yet chartreuse is precisely the word Mike Shannon found himself compelled to speak aloud during the first inning of this evening’s Pirates-Cardinals game.

To wit:
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It’s official — @robdelaney will sing the national anthem for the @dodgers this Friday: atmlb.com/13YtWkE

— Cut4 (@Cut4) April 23, 2013

The purpose of this post is to remind the reader that — inside his handsome leatherbound agenda and on this particular date — that he has made plans at ca. 10pm ET to watch American comedian Rob Delaney sing the National Anthem at Dodgers Stadium.

Note, please, that this post is concerned with none of the other entries in that same agenda — not the one on Saturday night, for example, to “Five-finger-discount someone else’s dreams” and not the one for next Thursday, either, to “Wear parachute pants like it’s my destiny.”

If Dave Cameron has unearthed today what he believes to be the Mona Lisa of GIFs, what follows is perhaps more like Max Beckmann’s triptych Departure — if Max Beckmann’s triptych Departure were divided into four, and not three, parts, that is, and also if it were less a “complex Modernist concerto of horror and hope” and more a “collection of Yu Darvish’s four slow curveballs from Wednesday night.”

Here’s Darvish’s first slow curve, to Josh Hamilton in the fourth inning:

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The reader might have suspected for a moment — for a rather a long moment, in fact, full of terror on all sides — that Reno Aces right-hander Nelson Figueroa was intent on throwing a baseball directly into that same reader’s chops, such that those chops would be most grievously injured and bloodied and perhaps ultimately deformed.

What Nelson Figueroa goes on to make perfectly clear, however, is that violence is neither the answer or even just an answer — unless the question, that is, is something like, “What’s the main thing that Nelson Figueroa despises.”

Yesterday, in these electronic pages, the author published a catalog and ranking of all the main cameras from each International League club’s MiLB.TV feed. What follows is a similar exercise, except for the Pacific Coast League. Posts for the remaining minor leagues will follow in subsequent days.

Note that each club’s main (usually center-field) camera has been evaluated according to three criteria, as follows:

Shot Angle
In which more central and lower is generally preferred.

Shot Size
In which closer up and not longer is generally preferred.

Video Quality
In which a higher resolution, nicer graphics, etc., are generally preferred.

The cameras are ranked as follows: the bottom three, the top three, and then the rest. Some brief notes follow the collection of screenshots.

Bottom Three
15. Las Vegas 51s (New York Mets)

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New York Mets director of media relations Jay Horwitz is, by his own admission, “not real mechanical.”

In the message embedded here, though, he appears — wittingly or not — to have summarized Mets baseball in precisely 1/140th of the characters allowed by twitter.internet.com.