The following images were captured from Ms. Wendy Thurm’s Twitter feed at approximately 12:30am ET, early Friday morning, and clearly document her descent into madness.*
*Note: Ms. Thurm has denied these allegations, suggesting that the following was a result merely of placing her cellular telephone in an airport security tray. To which explanation the unwashed masses respond, “Pssh! Hah! Pfft! Shwa! Therp!”
Exhibit One:
Today we celebrate the life of Bob Uecker, as part of our long-neglected feast-day series.
Life: Over six seasons and more than 800 plate appearances, Bob Uecker was a precisely replacement-level catcher for the Braves, Cardinals, and Phillies. After his playing career, he was hired by the Brewers as a scout — and has been described by then-owner Bud Selig as the “worst scout I (Selig) ever had.” Since 1971, he has been the radio voice of the Milwaukee Brewers — a platform he utilizes to celebrate the relative merits of American beer and encased meats.
Spiritual Exercise: The ethical mandate “Know thyself” is more or less as old as the Western intellectual tradition, attributed alternately to Pythagoras, Heraclitus, Socrates, and others. The sense is also preserved by Epictetus, who writes in his Discourses (II.6): “It is good to be clear about the level of your talent… Don’t pretend you have a particular skill if you don’t.”
Uecker’s greatest strength is his capacity not just for acknowledging, but celebrating, his weaknesses. Ask yourself what your weaknesses are. Instead of fleeing from them, become intimate with them, buy them some drinks, introduce them to your work friends.
A Prayer for Bob Uecker
Bob Uecker!
During a 1979 appearance
on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson,
millions watched as you resuscitated
a dying man using only
half a Miller Lite
and some grainy images of Bo Derek
eating poutine sensually.
In German, I’ve learned, Uecker is a noun
meaning “one who impregnates women
competitively and is celebrated as a god
for doing so” — is that true?
A medical doctor I know said you
suffer no effects of gout but have
transmitted it to dozens of partners
sexually — is that even possible?
Just this afternoon I’ve submitted an application for employment to baseball’s new Most Interesting Club, the Houston Astros. Here are some notable excerpts.
From the Cover Letter, Page 1:
Mr. Luhnow,
With the announcement yesterday that PITCHf/x expert Mike Fast will be joining the Astros’ baseball operations department — that, coupled with a generous comment about FanGraphs in your Twitter account — it’s apparent that both you and the new-look Houston Astros are looking for fresh ideas. It’s what that in mind that I submit the present application for employment in the Houston Astros organization.
What, precisely, qualifies me to work for the Astros? Allow me to answer candidly: nothing, really. To that admission, allow me to add hastily that I have never, at any point in the roughly 2.5 years during which I’ve worked for FanGraphs, been qualified for even one position I’ve held there — and yet, over that same span of time, both the site’s traffic and presence in the mainstream media have increased exponentially.
“Correlation, not causation,” you say? Luckily for me, I have no idea what that means!
On the occasion of his signing with the Mariners, a hand-crafted, artisanal snap regarding the aged Kevin Millwood.
The Author: Kevin Millwood is so old he’s got a negative Player ID number on FanGraphs.
All Gathered: Oh, snap.
Also: Rapturous applause.
Listen, bespectacled reader, we don’t need to discuss the specific course of events that have led me to watch the above footage — from a June 2011 baseball game between the Cardinals and Giants — this footage of Maikel Cleto striking out Nate Schierholtz over and over and over again on a frigid Wisconsin night. Let’s just all agree that it’s the sort of thing that’d happen to anyone who happens to find himself with a digestif in one hand and a computer mouse in the other.
In any case, please take this opportunity to welcome both Maikel Cleto and what is probably his 92 mph two-seam fastball into your world. And your pants, too. If you’re into that sort of thing.
As noted earlier in these pages, managing editor Dave Cameron made his second — and probably final, because he’s a weirdo’s weird — appearance on MLB Network program Clubhouse Confidential, hosted by the vigorously coiffed Brian Kenny.
For the busy executives among us, a brief account of the footage above (kindly made available by MLB.com):
Coy Smile: 0:21
Nervous Swallow: 0:57, 1:29, 2:04
Frog Mouth: 2:05
Blinks: N/A*
Crack Analysis: Whole Thing
*At least so far as I can tell from a single viewing. Seriously, I’m not gonna spend my whole night watching this, people.
As someone who hangs on NotGraphs’ every word and doesn’t read any other websites and won’t ever leave me otherwise you-know-what will happen, you’ll remember the footage embedded here of managing editor Dave Cameron’s inaugural appearance on last Monday’s edition of MLB Network’s Clubhouse Confidential.
While interested parties have noted many flaws with Cameron’s appearance (like, for example, the whole face part of his body), a great deal of attention has been focused on the frequency with which Cameron blinks — which is to say, “almost never.”
The present author counts two of them (i.e. blinks) — one at the 0:37 mark, and another at 2:30 — plus a nose scratch at 0:23 that maybe is or is not accompanied by a third blink.
In any case, this important information is relevant to your life insofar as Dave Cameron is making another appearance on Clubhouse Confidential tonight — one that we can scrutinize in ways that ultimately contribute to Cameron’s burgeoning body dysmorphia.
The show airs at 5:30pm ET, again at 7:30pm ET, and then a third time in a fever dream you’re gonna have tonight.
One imagines that having something in the vicinity of half-a-billion dollars has its advantages — like, for example, being able to send one’s children to boarding school the very minute they’re born.
We who do not own the means of production have this advantage, however: never once, while sitting in the 300-level of Miami’s American Airlines Arena, has anyone been almost concussed-or-worse by the fastest, giantest living human.
Link courtesy Juan C. Rodriguez of the Sun-Sentinel.
Here’s a very accurate pie chart of all the thoughts I had this morning — many of them, it turns out, concerning Pirates outfield prospect Robbie Grossman.
Clicking = Embiggening
As a resident of Madison, Wisconsin, I’m informed with some regularity that this is what democracy looks like — where this is a group of people who’ve gathered to express their frustrations with governor Scott Walker.
I don’t care to comment on those proceedings per se — except, perhaps, to say that Wisconsinites are skilled at gathering and staying gathered. Rather, I’d like merely to suggest that democracy probably looks like a lot of other things, too — for example, Prince Fielder celebrating concurrently (a) a game-winning home run and (b) his momentary victory over death.
