As we know, Chien-Ming Wang, who in better times would be regarded as merely a Dude Trying To Get By, was forced, by the fell and rank schoolmarm forces among us, to apologize for enjoying some harmless, well-intended hubba-hubba with a woman not his wife. As every Premarital Memorandum of Understanding states, sometimes a gentleman must marinade himself in strange ass in order to take his mind off the high-level business transactions that consume him during daylight hours. Thus it was; ergo, thus it should be.

But we’ll leave the decline of Western mores for another day. Instead, I would call the besexed reader’s attention to what follows, which is animated, real-live footage of the dark forces working against Wang and his efforts to share himself with the ladies of America and America-World:

Mike.

(HT: Eye on Baseball, a place you should visit without ceasing)

Look at Stan Hack. Just look at him. The hacks are necessarily drawn to him, but ol’ Stan smiles anyway. Bless that Stan Hack and his Job- and Frodo-like burdens.

This has been “Stan Hack Surrounded by Hacks.” This has been your Daguerreotype of the Evening.

The following image, snapped and developed inside the camera itself by a Hollywood Polaroid at the Coachella music festival, which sounds just awful, contains truths. Foremost among these truths is that the Baltimore Orioles are the team of the those with big studio contracts at RKO Radio Pictures:

What does a young starlet need besides lifeless eyes and the love of a misunderstood Morrissey-Vampire? She needs for Hollywood’s hometown nine, the Hollywood Orioles, to win that base-and-ball match.

The Orioles name is surely on the list, won’t you check again? The foul line is really a healthy dusting of cocaine, and the Orioles will have some in the bathroom like now.

The Orioles just touched home plate, and home plate is Buddy Ebsen Karate Movie.

In which images of the base-balling Reuschel brothers, Rick and Paul, are paired with befitting movie titles …

It was with a sense of both agency and sexual uplift that I recently introduced the loins-first category known as “Men Surrounded by Things.” And then it was with a sense of almost imperceptible disrupt — like a godhead, phallus tensed, vaguely and amusedly aware of a fly in another universe’s outermost unmapped regions — that Mr. Cistulli’s unfortunate, flaccid, oozing, splotchy, papule-ridden prose — prose lampreyed on to an otherwise fetching image — caught my attention. There are things in this world that I am resigned to abide, but this is not one of them. And so I shall not. I dipped into my trillions and commissioned a rejoinder, since I can scarcely be bothered to do it myself.

And so Chris Cwik, known around the NotGraphs office as “Murray St. Gorgeous,” has saved the day, perhaps a genre once adored and most assuredly the streets. All at my bidding, of course. With the pride of the proud, I present his masterwork, “Chipper Jones surrounded by Chips”:

And the saints, people and dearly departed say: amen.

Dick Allen surrounded by … Allen wrenches!

Allen wrenches! Although, I suppose, if one were so inclined, one could view the above adornments as peckers of a certain crudity — “dicks,” in the parlance of the Teenage Thunderclaps who roam the streets of America in defiance of local curfews — but, no. No, these are Allen wrenches. Dick Allen is surrounded by Allen wrenches.

And may I say he seems content to watch them go by. “This is not so bad,” he seems to be saying. “I’m going to hang with these wrenches for a while and then go do something amazing.”

The nomination process, which requires a credit card number for automatic renewal, is complete. But, lo, there is news!: The Iron Council of Patriots Speckled with the Blood of Quislings has ruled that, in this instance, an entire team is eligible for the nickname in question, which is “50 Free Quality Sales Leads.” So you are encouraged to vote your conscience, so long as your conscience is right-wise and informed by sanctioned holy texts.

So, land-owning Episcopalian citizens, you may now cast ballots on who — or what! — should forevermore be nicknamed “50 Free Quality Sales Leads” …

Thank you for exercising the franchise.

What we do is assign cool nicknames to players rather than perpetuate the tired, lamewad practice of assigning cool players nicknames. Last time out, Jamie Moyer narrowly out-napped Jim Thome for the nickname “Opening Day” and celebrated by surveying his lawn from a comfy chair. So Mr. Moyer has been added to our Hall of Honouur, which is so stately, so regal, so much itself a celebration of the Norman Conquest, that an extra British-English unstressed “u” is required for proper spelling …

Read the rest of this entry »

If you’re one of the five people you meet in Heaven or one of the measurably smaller number of people reading this, then you may have encountered this breathless petition from NotGraphs reader/thief of hearts RamboDiaz:

Request: Cookie Rojas surrounded by cookies.

Because in this space we are for the people (if not automatically so) and because Rabbit Maranville Surrounded by Rabbits is lonesome, I present to you in general and RamboDiaz in particular Cookie Rojas Surrounded by Cookies:

Like you, I once entertained dreams of something more.

This is a map — a map not yet revealed to be shocking — of driving directions from Matt Kemp’s hometown of Midwest City, Oklahoma to Saduharu Oh’s hometown of Tokyo, Japan, U.S.A. Admire …

As you can see, this route has tolls, the bulk of them presumably on the Tom Wopat Pacific Ocean Tollway. As you can also see, it’s 8,732 miles from Kemp’s hometown to Oh’s hometown. And this is where things get … shocking.

What’s the significance of the number 8,732? Well, you say, 8,732 is the number of beautiful ladies in a town of 8,732 beautiful ladies. While that’s true, it’s also the number of Kemp’s career plate appearances coming into Sunday, April 15, 2012 added to his career at-bats coming into Sunday, April 15, 2012 added to his career total bases (again, coming into play on April 15, 2012) added to his plate appearances for 2007 added to his triples for 2008 added to Oh’s career home runs. Or should I say: !. (I’m pretty sure all of this is correct; I shall do things, but I shall not double-check this dumb shit.)

That map I said was not yet revealed to be shocking? It’s now shocking.

Shocked, are you? Shocked by the relevant numerology? Yes, you are so, and you are such.

As I survey the ratscape of my lousy life and work, I shall remember that the numbers have an unseen power over us. Specifically they have the unseen power to make the number of Matt Kemp’s career plate appearances coming into Sunday, April 15, 2012 added to his career at-bats coming into Sunday, April 15, 2012 added to his career total bases (again, coming into play on April 15, 2012) added to his plate appearances for 2007 added to his triples for 2008 added to Sadaharu Oh’s career home runs equal the number of miles, by car, from Midwest City, Oklahoma to Tokyo.

Now go and rage against the will to rage against the dying of the light.