In 2012 there will be a new mascot stomping around the Frontier Baseball League, and his name is not Jack the Ripper, despite the overwhelming evidence on the contrary. Yesterday Dave Martin, the team president and general manager of the newly announced London Rippers, unveiled the team’s name and logo. The protests immediately began pouring in.

I only kind of look like Jack the Ripper.

But here’s the thing dummies, even though the team name is the Rippers and the mascot looks exactly like a cartoon version of Jack the Ripper it’s actually not. “Ripping a ball is used in baseball all the time,” Dave Martin told the London Free Press in an effort to explain the team’s name. But what about the mascot Dave???

The mascot’s name is Jack, but as in Diamond Jack, not Jack the Ripper. Apparently, Diamond is a “frustrated hockey player who found he could “rip” the cover off baseballs. Despite his talent, teams grew weary of the expense of replacing balls so Diamond Jack decided to form his own team in London, Ontario.” Or, baseball’s creepy version of Happy Gilmore.

“It’s Phantom of the Opera meets baseball. He’s a mysterious character who is somewhat edgy,” said Martin. “I think this is going to help redefine baseball in Canada. We wanted to make it fun and make it Canadian.”

Mission accomplished.

Fist bump to Greg for the investigative reporting.

He’s not in the Hall of Fame, but Dave Parker’s legacy is firmly cemented in shirt form:

Quick internet research shows that this shirt is at least two years old, but I just saw it yesterday. On a person. Walking the streets of Cincinnati. Here’s the original image:

The good ‘ol days.

Yes, caption, yes those were the good ‘ol days. Most frequently asked questions:

1. Where was this taken? At Pirates spring training, Bradenton, Florida, 1980. (by legendary SI photographer Walter Iooss Jr.)

2. Who’s the dude chilling in the back? Pitcher Grant Jackson, then a relief pitcher for the Pirates.

3. Is that just a cigarette? One can’t quite be sure, but preliminary reports point to no…

Jay Johnstone, Fleer ’84, #495.

Cloudy with a 100% chance of PARTYIN!

DID YOU KNOW…

1. …that Jay Johnstone was a notorious clubhouse prankster?? From his wikipedia page: He pulled off a number of infamous pranks during his playing days, including placing a soggy brownie inside Steve Garvey’s first base mitt, setting teammate’s cleats on fire (known as “hot-footing”), cutting out the crotch area of Rick Sutcliffe’s underwear, locking Dodger manager Tommy Lasorda in his office during spring training, dressing up as a groundskeeper and sweeping the Dodger Stadium infield in between innings, nailing teammate’s cleats to the floor, and replacing the celebrity photos in manager Lasorda’s office with pictures of himself, Jerry Reuss and Don Stanhouse. One time, during pre-game warm ups, he climbed atop the Dodger dugout and, in full game uniform, walked through the field boxes at Dodger Stadium to the concession stand and got a hot dog. He also once dressed up in Lasorda’s uniform (with padding underneath) and ran out to the mound to talk to the pitcher while carrying Lasorda’s book and a can of Slim Fast.

2. …that Lou Brock owns the patent for the umbrella hat (officially called the Brockabrella?? 

3. …that this – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c74eT6MC9co– exists??

THE MORE YOU KNOW!

Hunter S. Thompson committed suicide three weeks after the 2005 Super Bowl, titling his note “Football Season is Over.” Not to get too dramatic, but I get that feeling of general malaise that creeps in after the end of a sports season. It’s been a little over one week since St. Louie won the World Series, and I must admit I’m already growing restless. No NBA isn’t helping, and surprisingly neither is the start of the Australian Baseball League. That leaves one place to find immediate salvation – To the library!

“Honestly, the plot’s a little slow for me.”

What I’m proposing is a NotGraphs bookclub, but not really, because that would be too much work.  So what I’m really proposing are a few books that I would recommend to this fake bookclub if it actually did ever exist.

The now famous Jonah Keri posted a list of great baseball books many moons ago on NotGraphs, and it is pretty great and a good a place as any to start building your personal baseball library.  My only problem with it, however, is its lack of good fiction books (he includes just one, the albeit fantastic The Iowa Baseball Confederacy) – this list, while not as long, thorough, or as well hyper-linked, is an attempt to rectify this very, very minor literary injustice.  And that’s my preamble.

Book #1 – The Great American Novel, Philip Roth.  A long, well-written joke about our national pastime.  Read this in spurts, or just re-read his best book, the novella Goodbye, Columbus, and call it a day.

Book #2 –   The Universal Baseball Association, Inc., J. Henry Waugh, Prop., Robert Coover.  A weird book by a weird writer, the plot follows the titular Henry Waugh and his devotion to a fictional baseball league he creates and plays by himself.

Book #3 – The Natural, Bernard Malamud.  The best ever.  Better than the movie.  If you haven’t read it, do it today. 

 More to come at some point, probably.

This one goes out to my main man C.C. Sabathia and his lucrative new contract. Cheers, toast to crime.

Infinite hat tips to our favorite Demon Deacon Tim for the heads up.

Swoon.  C.J. Wilson is a free agent, and although not the prettiest girl at the dance (figuratively of course!) he is sure to have his fair share of sugar daddies vying for his services.  Where’s he going to end up? Straight from the (work)horse’s mouth, in an interview with ESPN Dallas last week:

“At some point you need to be made to feel special. If you have a wife or a girlfriend – or both, some people like to party – and you don’t make them feel special, eventually they feel neglected and they feel left out and like they’re not part of the party. So Texas is going to have their chance to do that obviously after the World Series is over, and we’ll go from there.”

Okay, so he needs to feel it.  I dig – I mean, who doesn’t want to feel special?  Who doesn’t want to party?!  Now, if only there was a video of some sort where C.J. Wilson talks about his perfect suitor.  If only…

Cut to some Yankee’s intern getting sent to the New York public library to find out everything he can about film noir. “Did you know that The Killers is an adaptation of a Hemingway short story?  Isn’t Chinatown great?  What do you think of the Coens’ work is more a tribute or a challenge to the form?”

The Bachelor, starring C.J. Wilson, Monday’s at 8, on NBC.

 That’s right, Colby Preston Lewis, star of the hit Japanese baseball cartoon comedy/porn Who’s on First.

The Buckner ball is up for sale, and apparently current owner Seth Swirsky’s asking price is in the neighborhood of $1 million (he bought it in 2000 for $63,500 from Charlie Sheen, who paid $93,500 in 1992).  It’s easy to get why it’s valuable, but I don’t know how easy it is to justify it.

There’s a great moment during the second season of Mad Men when Bert Cooper explains to Harry Crane why he purchased a Rothko painting (in the clip it’s around the 2:45 mark).  “People buy things to realize their aspirations, it’s the foundation of our business.”  He pauses.  “But between you and me and the lamppost that thing should double in value by next Christmas.” 

It’s kind of a funny moment because of how true it is – in the art world, that’s basically how things work.  People buy paintings either because they like the aesthetic or because they think it could double by next Christmas.  But a baseball?  It’s become pretty commonplace to bash on nostalgia (a recent, pretty-great book by Simon Reynolds called Retromania talks about it fairly well), but that argument seems like it might make sense here.  No one would buy a Picasso because of it’s ties to the past, but someone might buy a signed Mickey Mantle baseball for just that reason.

This particular baseball has some obviously strange vibes surrounding it. It is steeped in significance and meaning, but it’s a little different for everyone.  Semiotically, when I say ‘tree’ we all see in our mind’s eye some similar version of what a tree is, but when I say ‘Buckner baseball’, a Red Sox fan is going to feel differently then my 87 year-old grandmother, who probably has no idea who Bill Buckner is.  What I don’t get is why anyone would feel good owning this?  It’s cool, sure, in the way that having something that no one else has is cool, but it doesn’t really say anything more than ‘I like things that are expensive and identifiable.’  It’s connotations, if anything, are mostly negative. 

Comic book artist Todd McFarlane famously bought Mark McGwire’s 70th home run ball for $3 million in 1999.  I understand that a little more, but it’s still a lot of money for a baseball.  Someone’s going to buy this ball, maybe around the million dollar asking price, and they’re going to be happy they bought it, and they’re going to take it home and tell all their friends, but I wonder where, in three or four or twenty years, that ball will be.  On the mantle?  A safety deposit box?  In a dresser drawer?

When Lil’ Wayne was 16 he bought his first Mercedes-Benz, and when I was 8 I bought my first baseball cards: a crisp pack of ’97 Bowman.  A magical summer later (and almost a magical fall, until Edgar Rentaria broke my young Cleveland area-heart) I was hooked on the stuff, this particular set becoming a sentimental favorite.   Throughout the years I have come close to acquiring the complete set (the crown jewel being Jaret Wright’s RC, which I bought for twenty bucks at a card convention the March before the 1998 season*), but stopped when I discovered girls and drugs and D.H. Lawrence and stuff.

*Fun Fact: The Indians turned down a Jaret Wright-Pedro Martinez swap at  the exact moment I made this purchase.

Why am I thinking about this today?  Because when I did collect cards, I used to look at them – a lot – and one card that keeps popping into my head as I watch this World Series is Lance Berkman’s RC, an image I could never shake because of how goofy it is: Berkman, with that trademark boyish smile, leaning on a beat-up white truck (?) in the parking lot (?) of the Astrodome. 

This was a much simpler time in my life, a Wonder Years before all the teenage angst. 

Adrian Beltre’s RC card is somewhere in here too, and, although it’s not as memorable as Fat Elvis, it is charmingly awkward.  (Also, among his “Skills” listed on the back are the “classic wrists” of a future “HR machine”).

 On E-Bay you can get either one in pretty good condition for around 99 cents, while Jaret Wright’s card is gonna cost you at least a cool dollar – ADVANTAGE: Cleveland.

In a highly unorthodox move, Detroit Tigers manager Jim Leyland announced during a press conference yesterday that he was shutting down ace Justin Verlander for the entirety of the off-season.

“With an arm like that, you don’t want to take any chances,” Leyland said.  “So, yeah, he’s done  for the off-season.  I don’t want him pitching, playing catch, signing autographs, giving interviews, going to see Reel Steel, baking anything, going out in public.  Really, all we’re gonna let him do in the next couple of months is to brush his teeth – with his left hand of course – and some light pool workouts.”

Later, he added: “You’re absolutely going to see Justin again.  Just not until opening day.”

Approached after the anouncement Leyland, characteristicaly enigmatic, kept repeating these three phrases – ‘no-brainer’, ‘slam dunk’, and ‘whiffle ball’ – before rolling back to Tiger headquarters on his motorized scooter.

It appears the wheels are already in motion as Verlander could not be reached or  found for comment.