7:56 himno nacional, 7:59 lanzamiento ceremonial, 8:05 #Giants sale al terreno, 8:07 primer pitcheo del juego. #SerieMundial2012

— Enrique Rojas/ESPN (@Enrique_Rojas1) October 25, 2012

Here’s a thing the author knows: that foreign-language acquisition is miserable, more a function of daunting repetition than engaged and creative thinking. Here’s a thing the author doesn’t know: Spanish. In light of the former point, however, the latter one is unlikely to change.

That said, as a follower on Twitter of ESPN’s Enrique Rojas, I sometimes — just by virtue of the common language of baseball — I sometimes find myself accidentally learning Spanish. Am I in danger of reading and then writing a compelling thesis on the works of Jorge Luis Borges? Likely not. However, even just owing to the tweet embedded here, I now understand, like, 50% more Spanish than I did a second ago — and I’ve derived the translations by means of context alone!

To wit:

Himno nacional? National anthem!

Lanzamiento ceremonial? Ceremonial first pitch!

Giants sale al terreno? The Giants go out to the terreno!

In conclusion, here’s a Learning Spanish Accidentally with Enrique Rojas! checklist:

If Tim Parks, author of A Season with Verona (i.e. a real book that real people can really read) is to be believed, the fans of Italian football club Hellas Verona frequently chant — when they’re not making moderately to very racist remarks — frequently chant the words “facci sognare,” an Italian expression meaning “make us dream.”

It’s likely that readers of NotGraphs and FanGraphs, etc., follow baseball for a number of reasons. For the present author, however, it’s the sport’s capacity to facilitate dreaming that is its greatest strength. Offseason projections, prospect analysis, every Max Scherzer start: each is an exercise in the art of the possible. And each, I think, gestures at a version of a future that is perfect.

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Earlier today in these pages, we utilized the great American tradition of submitting your opinion electronically to the void (a.k.a. polling) as a means of determining with zero shadows of doubts who would win in various Mortal Kombat-style battles between various sorts of tigers and other, various sorts of giants — i.e. the mascots of the team competing in the World Series that’s about to begin.

The polls are closed and the shadows of doubt dissolved by the bright light of Mass Opinion. Regard the answers below, brothers and sister!

Tiger Mom vs. Giant Rabbit

Winner: Tiger

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It goes without saying that, at NotGraphs, we’re dedicated to those twin pursuits of the Western Tradition, art and science. Even more than that, though, what we’re dedicated to is driving the most possible traffic with the least possible content. In conclusion: polls.

Yesterday, in these same electronic pages, the author began his attempt to answer what is less of an age-old question and more of a starting-two-days-ago question — namely, if one were to pick the winner of the World Series based entirely on the fighting prowess of each team’s mascot, who would win? That query was problematized, naturally, by the fact that there are many types of giant things. Giant rabbits, for example. And giant, disembodied eyes, for other example, washed up on Floridian shores. And giant hill figures with impressive, giant phalluses (phalli?), also.

What the author has discovered even more recently — after ruminating on the matter for, like, five seconds — is that there are different types of tigers, too. And not just different species of tigers, I mean, but, like, other nouns in the vernacular that have the word tiger and then another word altogether.

Surely, then, what is needed is multiple polls to determine the winners of multiple Mortal Kombat-style battles to determine the winner of this one, determinative query — which, that’s what’s happening now.

Results will appear in a second, sparsely worded post — sure to drive its own share of traffic — minutes before the beginning of tonight’s World Series game at 8pm ET.

Tiger Mom vs. Giant Rabbit

One is a strict Chinese mother who teaches law at Yale. The other is a German breed of rabbit that weighs 20 or something pounds.

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By means of his 2002 novel, author Chris Bachelder settled for once and all the very important debate over who, “given a relatively level playing field — i.e., water deep enough so that a shark could maneuver proficiently but shallow enough so that a bear could stand and operate with its characteristic dexterity — who would win in a fight between a bear and a shark.”

Very much in the spirit of that question, the author asked himself another, similar one — just to himself, like — this morning: “given a relatively playing field, etc., who would win in a fight between a tiger and giant (i.e. the mascots of the teams in the forthcoming World Series)?”

One begins, of course, by wondering, “Carson, do you really use parentheses in your own thoughts?” To which I respond: “Sometimes almost exclusively.”

After that, one continues wondering: “Indeed, who actually would win in a fight between a tiger and giant?”

To answer this second question (i.e. regarding a tiger versus a giant and who would win in a Mortal Kombat-type scnenario) the author was required to settle what, precisely, one might mean by giant — and was required, therefore, to conduct a Google image search.

Shocking, awful, on the computer: the aforementioned Google search produced results that were all three. And more. Like harrowing, for one. And shocking again, for another — because it’s not like the author is a human fucking thesaurus for chrissakes.

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Matt Cain is starting tonight for the Giants in their elimination game against the Cardinals in San Francisco. He is also having his name inserted into works of literature — or, at least, extant texts — by the author.

Book of Genesis

Adam made love to his wife Eve, and she became pregnant and gave birth to Matt Cain.

Matt Cain said to his brother, “Let’s go out to the field.” While they were in the field, Matt Cain attacked his brother and killed him.

Then the Lord said to Matt Cain, “Where is your brother?”

“I don’t know,” Matt Cain replied. “Am I my brother’s keeper?”

Matt Cain made love to his wife, and she became pregnant and gave birth to Enoch.

Adam made love to his wife again, and she gave birth to a son and named him Seth, saying, “God has granted me another child in place of Matt Cain’s brother, since Matt Cain killed him.”

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That’s Ulysses on the left, Thersites on the right.

When FanGraphs CEO and maker of love David Appelman announced the launch of NotGraphs almost two years ago now, he noted that it would give us, the authorship, “a place to put things that would otherwise not have a place on FanGraphs, that we find interesting and we think you would also find interesting.”

Frequently and violently are the ways in which that original statement of purpose has been abused — and that’s accounting for the work of Dayn Perry alone. Nothing, not even all of the chickens at your local Whole Foods, have been given freer range by the relevant handlers than the contributors to the present weblog.

Still, that’s not to suggest that Appelman’s original and abiding directive is without merit. Indeed, like everything else he touches, it ought to be dipped in gold or stuffed or both. And, in most ways, the work that’s appeared here has reflected the concerns of the modern baseball nerd, purveyor of reason and wearer of spectacles.

It’s apropos both that original statement of purpose, then — and also a recent sojourn by the author into the Great Books section of his home library — that I’d like to introduce (or, as the case might be, to re-introduce) the reader to the only nerd in the Iliad: Thersites.

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Joe Strauss reports today at the St. Louis-Post Dispatch that Los Angeles Angels first baseman Albert Pujols underwent knee surgery last week in St. Louis.

However, while Strauss’s source has described the procedure as a “minor” one intended to “clean-up” the joint, some crack analysis by our Investigative Reporting Investigation Team reveals that Pujols’s knee injury — and the corresponding procedure to correct it — were likely much more serious than anyone knows.

By way of example, here’s an image of Pujols from near the end of the season:

“Nothing amiss,” you say, right? “Here is a baseball player, playing baseball,” you continue. And, yes: to the naked eye, Pujols appears to be as fit as any number of fiddles you’d care to invoke.

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News you can use… to feel better about your own drinking habits.

Dayn Perry, of both CBSSports.com’s Eye on Baseball and the present charming weblog, made it known recently during an appearance on FanGraphs Audio that he has made a habit of recording, via some manner of internet spreadsheet, a (mostly) accurate account of the number of adult beverages that he (i.e. Perry) has consumed every day since last November.

Today, by means both nefarious and degrading, the author has acquired the internet spreadsheet in question — to which spreadsheet the reader himself can gain access by clicking here.

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