The nomination process, which ran afoul of just about every directive found in Leviticus, is complete and now you may select from the 10 men to follow — men who have been painstakingly drawn and quartered by the forces of Heaven and Hell. Who among these men should be known forevermore as “Man vs. Bible”?
Thank you for exercising the franchise.
What we are doing is assigning cool nicknames to players rather than the opposite, which is a bloodless tradition that has been with us too much and too long.
So how does this running feature differ from the dear, departed exemplar of the genre? “Nickname Seeks Player” was devoted to active base-ball-ists, while “Nickname Seeks Former Player” is the province of those who no longer play this fine game because they are dead in spirit and perhaps also dead in the corporeal sense. Boileryard Clarke? Eligible! Sal Maglie? Eligible! Fred Lynn? Eligible! Dontrelle Willis? Eligible! Pete Rose? Asshole!
You may surmise from this that almost the entire sprawl of baseball history lies before you, like a sexy patient etherized upon a table. So prepare yourself to plumb both depths and heights as we ponder fitting candidates for this week’s name to nicked: “Man vs. Bible”!
Before we proceed, though, let us remember those who have previously survived this crucible of sturdy ghosts. Last time out, John Olerud did a better job of raising another man’s children than did Steve Garvey or Ty Cobb and thus claimed the nickname “America’s Step-Dad.” So now let us — snifters in hand, cardigans beswaddling our mortal parts — gaze upon The Fireside Mantel of Reposed Fortune-Hunters:
“Museum of Questionable Medical Devices” – Ted Williams
“A Garbage Truck That Runs on Lightning” – Matt Stairs
“Colonel Sanders’s Drinking Buddy” – Charlie Manuel
“America’s Step-Dad” – John Olerud
And now … “Man vs. Bible”!
Implications and Intimations
He is a tortured sort. He wants badly to please the Judeo-Christian godhead, but doing so is at cross purposes with his blackened nature. Normally, he would yield to his wicked appetites, but the Good Book — and the Jeff Huson-led tent revivals he attends — wrench his guts. So sometimes he gives in and then weeps in the pews. Other times, he resists and then weeps at the scent of corn liquor or the promise of gonorrhea.
He is Man vs. Bible. And don’t you know that he is losing the fight?
Who, citizens of sufficient origins, should be nicknamed “Man vs. Bible”?
Over at the Home for All Baseball Fans, I briefly celebrated the 28th anniversary of the greatest donnybrook of them all — one in which crimson masks surely abounded. The fact is that sometimes gentlemen must settle disputes over the phrasing of certain contractual elements with their fists and chunky cocks. The resulting bruises are as black as Bibles, but, lo, those bruises clarify.
How do you know a given fracas is right-wise? First, civilians are conscripted …
Second, Ed Whitson is bestripped of tunic and as affronted as a hornet who is not only wet but also cuckolded and accused of a crime he did not commit and overcharged for a lousy seafood dinner …
Twenty-eight years ago, some men saw to some business.
First, though, let us allow the land-owning NotGraphs commenters and their powdered wigs to justify their chosen nominations …
What we are doing is assigning cool nicknames to players rather than the opposite, which is a bloodless tradition that has been with us too much and too long.
So how does this running feature differ from the dear, departed exemplar of the genre? “Nickname Seeks Player” was devoted to active base-ball-ists, while “Nickname Seeks Former Player” is the province of those who no longer play this fine game because they are dead in spirit and perhaps also dead in the corporeal sense. Boileryard Clarke? Eligible! Sal Maglie? Eligible! Fred Lynn? Eligible! Dontrelle Willis? Eligible! Pete Rose? Asshole!
You may surmise from this that almost the entire sprawl of baseball history lies before you, like a sexy patient etherized upon a table. So prepare yourself to plumb both depths and heights as we ponder fitting candidates for this week’s name to nicked: “America’s Step-Dad”!
Before we proceed, though, let us remember those who have previously survived this crucible of sturdy ghosts. Last time out, Charlie Manuel edged Wade Boggs for the drilling rights to the nickname “Colonel Sanders’s Drinking Buddy.” So now let us — snifters in hand, cardigans beswaddling our mortal parts — gaze upon The Fireside Mantel of Reposed Fortune-Hunters:
“Museum of Questionable Medical Devices” – Ted Williams
“A Garbage Truck That Runs on Lightning” – Matt Stairs
“Colonel Sanders’s Drinking Buddy” – Charlie Manuel
And now … “America’s Step-Dad”!
Implications and Intimations
America’s Step-Dad might be a well-meaning sort like Mike Brady. He might have “step-dad hair” like a middle-aged Robert Goulet. He enjoys being mediocre at tennis. He wears an ionized bracelet because, who knows, it might work. Perhaps, right now, he is at a Knights of Columbus luncheon. His handshake is sturdy yet not punishing. He occasionally complains that the color of the tough-up paint doesn’t quite match the color of his very rational sedan. He thinks about gas mileage. His medicine cabinet suggests mounting fates. He and your mother were brought together by a love of the evening news.
Who, citizens of sufficient origins, should be nicknamed “America’s Step-Dad”?
You were no doubt roused from fat sleep this morning by an urgent thought: “Who, prithee, has the greatest full name in baseball history?”
Because I am a man who knows things but not people, I have an answer — quite possibly the correct one:
The first thing you’ll notice is that Mr. Partenheimer’s head shot is actually an Instagram of Craig Biggio, which is fine. The second thing you’ll notice is his full name: Stanwood Wendell Partenheimer. Rogue scientist? Deep-cover assassin? Outrigger canoeist with a sex addiction? Yes. He is these and all things.
And he is nicknamed “Party” not because of phonetic similarities to his surname; rather, it’s because Stanwood Wendell Partenheimer uses the word “party” as a verb, as do all base-jumping surgeons.
When one surveys the funereal countenance of base-balling great/fugitive from happiness Mr. Eddie Murray, one is likely to think, “Here is a man who conducts business even when he is not conducting business.”
Indeed, Mr. Murray’s famously solemn expression suggests not only a workmanlike seriousness and dedication to craft but also that he is about to become a signatory to documents awful in scope and implication — documents that he will soon entrust to a seasoned Latvian courier with whom he has a Business Relationship of longstanding. If Jeffrey Leonard has a “penitentiary” face, then Eddie Murray has a “tasked with making high-level executive decisions regarding the solvency and revenue streams of the penitentiary that houses Jeffrey Leonard” face.
Mr. Eddie Murray, you see, is unceasingly about business, save for those moments in which he is not about business. Yet it is during those moments that he is most about business. As such, Mr. Eddie Murray has spawned and husbanded exactly 25 ways of doing business, and for each of these 25 ways of doing business he has a distinct visage. We present them here …
Mr. Matt Kemp may be Business Handsome, but it is Mr. Eddie Murray who is Business Business.
First, righteous gratitude to Dangerous Don Hammack for the championship photo edits seen above.
The nomination process, which was decidedly racist but included an open bar, is complete, and now you may select from the 10 fate-groped names to follow. Who among these men of finger-licking standing and breeding should be known forevermore as “Colonel Sanders’s Drinking Buddy”?
Citizens, let us vote like no one’s watching, even though several deputized sociopaths are indeed watching …
Thank you for exercising the franchise.
What we are doing is assigning cool nicknames to players rather than the opposite, which is a bloodless tradition that has been with us too much and too long.
So how does this running feature differ from the dear, departed exemplar of the genre? “Nickname Seeks Player” was devoted to active base-ball-ists, while “Nickname Seeks Former Player” is the province of those who no longer play this fine game because they are dead in spirit and perhaps also dead in the corporeal sense. Boileryard Clarke? Eligible! Sal Maglie? Eligible! Fred Lynn? Eligible! Dontrelle Willis? Eligible! Pete Rose? Asshole!
You may surmise from this that almost the entire sprawl of baseball history lies before you, like a sexy patient etherized upon a table. So prepare yourself to plumb both depths and heights as we ponder fitting candidates for this week’s name to nicked: “Colonel Sanders’s Drinking Buddy”!
Before we proceed, though, let us remember those who have previously survived this crucible of sturdy ghosts. Last time out, Matt Stairs made love astride trash and claimed the nickname “A Garbage Truck That Runs on Lightning.” So now let us — snifters in hand, cardigans beswaddling our mortal parts — gaze upon The Fireside Mantel of Reposed Fortune-Hunters:
“Museum of Questionable Medical Devices” – Ted Williams
“A Garbage Truck That Runs on Lightning” – Matt Stairs
And now … “Colonel Sanders’s Drinking Buddy”!
Implications and Intimations
Colonel Sanders dressed like landed gentry, wore his whiskers like Cardinal Richelieu and otherwise had the mien of a huge-ass racist. He carried a rapier-tipped walking cane and 11 herbs and spices with him everywhere. One assumes he enjoyed surveying his holdings from the breezy wrap-around porch with a vast bourbon toddy in hand. Sometimes, lonesome from drink, he would invite this ballplayer over to sit on the breezy wrap-around porch and wassail, most of the while encased in the silence of men.
“You’ve done well for yourself, Colonel,” the ballplayer would say.
The colonel would take a sip. “Reckon so.”
“Welp,” the ballplayer would begin. “Best be getting on. Got a ballgame.”
“Reckon you do.”
“Thanks for the hooch, Colonel.”
“God almighty damn.”
Who, citizens of sufficient origins, should be nicknamed “Colonel Sanders’s Drinking Buddy”?
First, the scene-setting Tweet:
And now the urgent query …
Hot Internet call-to-action poll served up hot.