Magna Carta, the Constitution, and the Brewers dessert policy.

It is not a question of if, but how hard, the present author will defame both himself and his entire family line during his debut on Monday, at Miller Park, as a Proper Baseball Writer.

With a view to softening the inevitable blow, however, that same author has spent some portion of the weekend within the pages of the Milwaukee Brewers media guide.

From this document I’ve learned, for example, both that right-handed reliever Burke Badenhop graduated magna cum laude from Bowling Green State University with a degree in economics and also that the Brewers, as an organization, haven’t conducted a trade with the Miami (née Florida) Marlins since a November 1996 deal for left-hander Joel Adamson (in exchange for right-hander Eddie Collins).

I’ve also learned that the media interview room is located across from the home clubhouse and that attempting to purloin from Ryan Braun a lock of his hair is grounds for revocation of one’s credential*.

*Not expressly stated, this point about Braun’s hair, but certainly implied.

The most important lesson to be derived from the media guide, however, is that the Brewers organization is for (and not against) the people — and that, yes, while they’ll be charging a certain number of American dollars for a full meal, that they’re also not monsters — and that the consumption of certain popular dessert treats is not a privilege among the residents of the Bob Betts Press Box, but a right — and that, therefore, frozen yogurt and milkshakes shall be complimentary for credentialed media for now and for ever and amen.

While there are a number of things one might reasonably detest about the Boston Red Sox and the club’s attendant culture, one of those things is not the club’s television broadcast team, ministers of insouciance Don Orsillo and Jerry Remy. For whatever their flaws, Orsillo and Remy are manifestly dedicated to the proposition that the point of watching baseball is to extract enjoyment from it. And if the play of the team itself has facilitated fewer opportunities for pleasure in recent seasons, Orsillo and Remy have remained playful and accessible on air.

Therefore, it was not surprising to find — during the final inning of Boston’s final spring-training game at JetBlue Park in Fort Myers, Florida — it was not surprising to find the pair (and especially Remy) signing various souvenirs and interacting with fans directly from the press box even as play continued.

Here, via the sophisticated medium of slideshow, are select images from the episode in question:

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Images from MLB.TV footage of Saturday’s Red Sox-Twins game.

Max Scherzer, bathed in the uncreated light.

How has the author spent his Sunday? Generally speaking, not in any way that would credit the species.

Yet, just like a broken clock, that same author is both (a) standing quite still in your grandmother’s anteroom and (b) occasionally right.

In this particular case, a brief moment of inspiration has produced the following — i.e. three premises towards what would likely be an important syllogism were it complete. But it is not complete. And perhaps — like all things that are beautiful but imperfect — never will be.

In any case, here are those same three premises, sans conclusion.

Premise No. 1
To philosophize is to learn how to die.

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The following tweet is entirely and in-no-way altered from the original (click to embiggen):

Dodgers prospect Yasiel Puig, flipping the bat even in his MLB.com profile image.

In today’s sporting journalism, there is all manner of coverage: injury coverage, transaction coverage, rumors coverage, steroids coverage. “Where is all the bat-flip coverage, though?” one is inclined to ask. To which question, the author would like to whisper the answer (i.e. “NotGraphs”) softly into all of America’s respective ears. Given the wild expense of such a project, however, and the implications it might have in terms of violation of privacy, etc., allow me just to present the three following animated GIFs of Dodgers outfield prospect Yasiel Puig — all captured shamelessly and totally sans shame from Puig’s media page at MLB.com.

Including this footage of Puig flipping his bat with the Cuban national team:

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As Baseball America’s Ben Badler has made clear by way of an internet weblog post, 18-year-old Japanese right-hander Shohei Ohtani made his spring-training debut today for the Nippon Ham Fighters, with whom he signed after considering the possibility of moving straight to affiliated baseball following high school.

Embedded above is complete footage of Ohtani’s appearance versus Rakuten. Included below are increasingly less informative annotations for that same video.

0:09 — Ohtani roars and shakes his fires in the burdened air takes the mound.

0:17 — Uniformed Japanese youth clap in unison.

1:56 — Casey McGehee appears before our eyes.

2:00 — Ohtani throws his first pitch at 143 km/h — or, roughly 89 mph.

2:07 — A man celebrates his fortune: a foul ball off the bat of the real Casey McGehee.

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Walt Whitman, in his classic of the effing genre “Song of Myself”, declares that every atom belonging to him “as good belongs” to everyone else. One assumes, however — in light of the footage embedded here, from today’s Braves-Pirates spring-training game — that there are certain atoms belonging to Pittsburgh’s Michael McKenry that Whitman might let the catcher keep to himself. Like the ones in McKenry’s swimsuit area, for example.

The following tweet is entirely and in-no-way altered from the original (click to embiggen):

A typical fan at Camelback Ranch, spring home of the White Sox and Dodgers.

Avoiding the very hot and equally fiery desert sun at spring-training games in the greater Phoenix area is not merely an issue of personal comfort, but also public safety. Towards the end of his appearance on this week’s edition of FanGraphs Audio (available later Tuesday), managing editor Dave Cameron — himself having just returned from Phoenix — discussed which of the region’s stadia offered the best accommodations, so far as shade is concerned.

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It’s a matter of record that competitive fist-pumping was an event at the inaugural Olympic games held in 776 BCE, and was a fixture of said games for over 400 years. The choice not to revive the event for the modern competition has been criticized by voices as diverse as Anglo-American philosopher Alfred North Whitehead and also singer-songwriter Sade, probably.

During the fifth inning, though, of their WBC victory on Sunday night over Japan, Puerto Rican batterymates Jose De La Torre and Yadier Molina made an important submission to the annals of the fist pump, executing this elaborate but also spirited maneuver following the strikeout of Japanese third baseman Nobuhiro Matsuda.