Many able baseballing commentators have noted that the media coverage of Texas Ranger (principal) owner and president Nolan Ryan is perhaps exaggerated relative to his actual role in assembling the team currently playing in the ALCS — for which achievement general manager Jon Daniels and his colleagues are largely responsible.

For me, personally, it’s fine. Daniels certainly deserves credit, but the media will always tell the most interesting available story — and that’s Ryan. The thing I absolutely can not tolerate is how super judgmental Ryan has become recently.

Like, consider this interaction I had with the former ace pitcher just last night:

Me: Hey, Nolan Ryan how do you think these shoes look with these pants I’m wearing?

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This man is after our women.

I don’t have facts to back this up, but my unfailing intuition* tells me that, if there’s one problem with marriage in 2011, it’s that we ask too much of it.

*Or “mostly unfailing,” I should say. One time my intuition told me to go all-in on Crystal Pepsi. Turns out that was a “bad” “idea.”

Where our grandparents — survivors of war, Depression, and uninspired TV programming — were happy merely to find a spouse with most of the limbs in most of the right places, the husband and wife* of the modern era are now expected not only to tolerate each others’ stupid faces for 50-plus years, but also be best friends, accomplished lovers, and, in most cases, caring parents.

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While I’m inclined to agree with the author of Ecclesiastes* — in a general sense, at least — that there’s “nothing new under the sun,” I’ll also submit that the particulars of all the things under the sun change with enough frequency that it’s important for humans to taxonomize them, lest we (i.e. humans) are overwhelmed and compelled by fear to crawl back into all our mothers’ wombs**.

*Part of my habit of deferring to anyone who identifies himself as “son of David, king in Jerusalem.”

**Awkward, gross.

And so it’s without anxiety, but with a small mustard stain on my shirt, that I submit this confidently worded statement on two popular 21st century games and the respective pleasures they provide.

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The author, having lived in Wisconsin for only slightly more than a year and owning no previous ties to the region, has nevertheless found himself smitten with the present incarnation of the Milwaukee Brewer ballclub. As an entirely eager, but equally unaffiliated, Believer, he (i.e. the same author) has developed a convert’s zeal wherein said Brewer club is concerned.

Below is a product of that zeal: a prayer for Milwaukee and its baseball team on the eve of the League Championship Series.

Milwaukee Brewers!
You removed the fig leaf from existence momentarily
and revealed all the wild kindness beneath it.
You published a new version of the OED
with only the words marked “vulgar” from the bigger edition.

I heard you declared “dance party” as a business expense
on your income taxes, is that the case?
I heard you voted Malcolm in the Middle for president.
I’ll admit: I didn’t even know that was a thing.

I’m so excited, I’d like to devise
a creation myth from your current roster
if I have time this week.

I’m so excited, I’d like to eat
hitherto unknown encased meats,
inundated with equal parts kraut and magic.

Let’s get a drink sometime, how about,
during the next lunar eclipse or whatever.

I’ll be the one at the bar
wearing 10 fake beards as a joke.
You be the ones all high-fiving,
shouting “good game” indiscriminately
to every last person who’ll listen.

As International Man of the Internet Eric Freeman noted via the Twitters, Natural Born Enthusiast Nyjer Morgan was yelling “Fuck yeah” even as he approached the mic about to broadcast his voice into a million American homes. It was with zero surprise, then, that Morgan continued to ejaculate same glorious ejaculation as TBS on-field reporter Miss Thang placed same microphone in front of Morgan’s speech organ.

The other obvious point is: no one cares. Nyjer Morgan, man of a thousand flaws, is the best possible Transformer: sometimes man, sometimes Joy personified.

UPDATE: Below is another, clearer video (from SportsGrid). The relevant part is around the 1:20 mark, but it’s all pretty great.

Video stolen from YouTube user pilz42424 via SB Nation’s Brian Floyd.

Not technically a graph.

At Bluebird Banter this morning, real-live Dutchman and Pitch F/x understander-er Woodman663 published some notes on the movement of various right-handers’ fastballs. Almost without exception, said fastballs occupy the top-left quadrant of the Pitch F/x graph — which is to say, they all feature arm-side run and “rise” relative to a spinless ball.

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Jimmy Piersall utilized “kicking” more often than is usual in the sport.

As noted by Dayn Perry earlier today — and the whole internet over the past 12 or so hours — a squirrel found its way onto the field of play and into our hearts yesternight during Game Four of a heated NLDS battle between Philadelphia and St. Louis.

While last night’s sequence of events certainly has its owns charms, it’s hardly the most notable instance of an animal making its way onto the baseball diamond. Some research in the Annals (that’s with two Ns, reader) of Base-and-Ball reveals the following, entirely unfabricated instances of animals on the field.

1921: In an effort to address poor attendance numbers, Detroit fields a team of all actual tigers. Eight fans are mauled — seven of them, it turns out, by Ty Cobb.

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While the word sin is commonly understood to mean “an offense against God” in modern parlance, the corresponding words in the Greek and Hebrew versions of the Old Testament (hamartia and chet, respectively) actually both mean something closer to “missing the mark” — the way, for example, an archer might miss a bull’s eye. The suggestion is not that one has purposely aggrieved God, but has, instead, fallen short of imitating Him.

As the attentive reader will note — either by using his memory or peering deeply into the footage embedded above — Milwaukee right-hander Shaun Marcum sinned the crap out of a 1-2 fastball to Arizona first baseman Paul Goldschmidt Tuesday night. Nor did this particular sin go unpunished, as Goldschmidt smote (a) Marcum’s offering into the right-field stands and (b) Milwaukee’s probability of victory by about 15% (the largest single play of the game).

To his credit, Marcum is instantly aware of his error, tossing his glove air-ward in a manner that one might refer to as “disconsolate.” In truth, the Brewer should take heart: sin is inevitable. It’s how one reacts to same that is meaningful.*

*Note: may (a) not be theologically sound and/or (b) be totally fabricated by heathen author.

“Why the eff not?” says Mets owner Fred Wilpon, all the time, before doing anything.

At Mets Police on Tuesday, Shannon Shark asked the readership which statue they thought might be most appropriate — and most representative of the team’s history — to greet fans outside Citi Field.

Just today, the NotGraphs Investigative Reporting Investigation Team has learned that the Met front office has not only considered such a project, but has actually devised a list of five “finalists,” as it were, for the hypothetical statue.

The five approved concepts are as follows:

1. William Shea, his hand raised — as if to say, “My bad, New York.”

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It’s with some hesitation that the author has given the present post its entirely sophomoric title. The achievement that is Justin Verlander’s curveball deserves heroic couplets, not thinly veiled references to the male anatomy (itself consisting of couplets that are, generally speaking, considerably less heroic).

However, it’s also the case that (a) more people will click on articles with thinly veiled references to the male anatomy and (b) Verlander’s curveball ought to be viewed by as large an audience as possible. Furthermore, much like Walt Whitman and our country’s worst public schools, NotGraphs is large and contains multitudes.

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