Throughout history there are countless examples of men becoming victims of their own, respective creations. There’s Dr. Frankenstein and his monster; there’s the Rick Moranis character from Little Shop of Horrors and that giant, soulful carnivorous plant; there’s… well, allow me rephrase: “Throughout history, there are at least two examples of men becoming victims of their own, respective creations.”

To which list, we can now add a third: NotGraphs and its celebration of the Peter Gammons mis-tweet. As the reader will know, NotGraphs has endeavored to become the leading voice in Gammons’ mis-tweet coverage, and I believe — if you’ll pardon the cursing — I believe we’ve covered the hell out of it.

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Setup + Punchline = Comedy

While leading economists have found that, indeed, money (for the most part) can’t buy happiness, one thing it can buy is a Mets toilet seat from popular online auction house eBay. In fact, it can also buy toilet seats for six other teams: the Tampa Bay Rays, New York Yankees, Chicago White Sox, Los Angeles Dodgers, Chicago Cubs, and Boston Red Sox.

Image (and everything else) stolen directly from Mets Police.

MLB Business PR Manager Jeff Heckleman brings our attention to the foodstuff you see situated to the left of these words (an image that you should feel very comfortable embiggening) — an item known either as a Smoked-Beef Brisket or Pulled Pork Parfait, depending on which meat you’d like to be the cause of your immediate death. The dish features two layers each of mashed potatoes and your preferred meat and is then topped with barbecue sauce.

When asked, one fan at Milwaukee’s Miller Park described the meat parfait as “delicious.” Another said, “I see a bright light at the end of a tunnel and my Grandpa Pat in the cardigan he always wore on gameday.”

While, at some point in the future of humanity, one man maybe won’t feel compelled to laugh at the site of another man taking it — where it is an object possessing some unfriendly combination of mass and velocity — taking it in the Most Important Organ, October 2nd, 2011 is decidedly not that day.

Accordingly, NotGraphs is pleased to present the following GIF — all 6.8 slow-motion megabytes of it — of umpire Tony Randazzo’s encounter with an Ivan Nova pitch in the dirt Saturday night.

Behold, schadenfreude:

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In this life it’s important for a man to know on which side his bread is buttered. The gentleman you see in the footage above is pretty aware that his bread is buttered on the Ranger side of things — which is why said gentleman takes it upon himself to return Kelly Shoppach’s third-inning home run back to the playing field almost as soon as it (i.e. the ball) departed same.

That’s just facts being facts, is what that is.

Merci buckets to JDanger at the FanGraphs Chat for bringing the author’s attention to this GIF.

Situated in the farthest reaches of Angels Stadium on July 9th, as part of this summer’s SABR fesitivites, a number of things occurred to me: this hot dog, with all this mustard on it, is delicious; this beer, with all this beer in it, is delicious; Mike Trout is secretly asking me to be his friend from right field or, like, a mentor-type person.

One thing that didn’t occur to me is where either of the teams playing — i.e. the Angels and Mariners — where either of them stood in the AL West or Wild Card standings.

The peculiar thing about this is that, a mere two-plus months later, the season was/is over — and, in the case of Seattle, has been over for some time. In the meantime, playoff races have materialized, have dissolved, have re-emerged in unlikely places, and have come to what can only be referred to as a “glorious, pulsating climax.”

Again, all in fewer than three months.

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It has been said by no one, so far as I know, that a man who knows his strengths will do great things, but a man who knows his limitations is probably way less of a douche.

In any case, having read zero of the other words he’s ever written in his life, I can say with some authority that, despite the other (likely many) flaws he possesses, the Daily News’s David Murphy — author of the tweet you see above — knows his place in this world.

And, when you think about it, it’s not the worst place to have. Imagine asking merely affluent or (gasp) middle-class people about their groins! “The horror! The horror!” indeed, Mr. Kurtz.

Portrait of the artists as a middle-aged Jewish woman.

After the events of September 28th, we at NotGraphs are a little verklempt.

Please, talk amongst yourselves.

I’ll give you a topic: the parfait should change its name after yesternight in baseball.

Discuss.

Among the things you’ve bought in the past week, reader, one of them is decidedly not the giant, behatted frog with bloodshot eyes and purple, fire-emblazoned tank top that you see pictured in this internet post.

You’ve bought a lot of things, sure — sensual oils with which you will make love to America; the complete set of The Wire DVDs; diet juice — but not, unfortunately, this huge, irksome frog made of synthetic materials and sadness.

Don’t get me wrong, reader: you’ve pulled your weight so far as both the local and national economies are concerned. Like with your purchase of that toothpaste that’s exactly like Tom’s of Maine but, like, half as expensive, for example. And that copy of pre-Victorian British erotic novel The Lustful Turk. And a six-pack of an amber ale described as “sweet but not cloyingly so” by a shitty bartender whose face you hate. Among that list, regrettably, is not “haunting and/or haunted frog mascot.”

Let me not mince words here: you, the person reading this, have exchanged American currency for goods and services. By what other means would you have had a delicious brunch the other day while reading the Sunday edition of the New York Times? Or watched all those out-of-market NFL games on DirecTV? Or renewed your subscription to The Economist, which you’ll totally read more often, you swear. “None,” is the answer. Unfortunately, of all the transactions in which you’ve been involved, exactly zero of them have been the acquisition of this menacing and drunk-looking and likely dangerous fake frog.

Every word on the internet to the contrary, the footage you see here seems to suggest that John Lackey — who has recently not only divorced his cancer-addled wife but also called her repeatedly to ask if her refrigerator is running — is not an unfeeling monster.

In fact, Lackey was roused enough by Boston prospect Ryan Lavarnway’s first major-league home run to offer a combination high-five/Top Gun-style hug to the young catcher.

When asked about the sequence after the game, Lackey said nothing, instead taking NotGraphs into his masculine embrace.