For as long as anyone can remember, Billy the Marlin has been the standard bearer for men’s fashion. However, as you will soon see, this is no longer the case. Bear chagrined witness:

The billowy moo moo of a shirt; the black clod-hoppers wedged onto his stupefied, bloated fish feet; the desecrating Zubaz pants — they add up to the clowning of a once-proud fish-man. Based on appearances — and nothing should ever be based on anything but appearances — we are forced to assume that Billy the Marlin is now an asshole who needs angioplasty.

This has been your Daguerreotype of the Evening.

(Thanks or something like it to Eye on Baseball)

Yu Darvish, like most Great Men of History, is going through a healthful and replenishing divorce. The soon-to-be discarded is a young thespian named Saeko:

As you can see, Saeko, whose name, one assumes, is a homophone to the brand identity of those stylish and durable wrist timepieces, is rather very lovely and possibly even talented. But loveliness cannot overcome a gentleman’s introduction to the world! As Jeff Passan reminds us, Mr. Darvish, insofar as this relationship is concerned, set the proper tone and established the relevant harbingers back in 2007:

Following a victory last season, Yu Darvish, the winning pitcher for the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters, stood in front of a microphone inside a packed stadium, thanked his teammates and fans for their support, and announced that he had knocked up an actress who he met three months earlier and would marry her to preserve his family’s name.

For too long, we have regarded premarital liturgies as things to woo and reassure. As Mr. Darvish reminds us, they are and should have always been a means to forewarn, harrow and ideally ruin the better, deadlier and more treacherous half.

So, married NotGraphs readers, please go and tell your wives you are leaving forever.

(Shotgun Hat Tip: BTF)

Recently, abiding reader jcxy floated a Sketchy Internet Rumor of a Rich Garces bobble-belly. Needless to say, upon hearing said rumor the NotGraphs Investigative Reporting Investigation Team sprung to handsome action. After 12 or so tense seconds of Computer Googling, “Sketchy Internet Rumor” became “Internet True Fact.” Bear fat witness:

This has been two things: the last time I doubt anything on the Internet and your Daguerreotype of the Evening.

Young Curtis Granderson’s mustache has been described as “effortful.”

While others see in Young Curtis Granderson’s choice of collars faint hints of militarism or marchingbandism, Young Curtis Granderson wears this particular shirt because the menswear at Chess King is both affordable and stylish.

The chain around Young Curtis Granderson’s neck is not a fashion accoutrement; it is there in case Young Curtis Granderson wins a medal. Most likely this medal would be awarded for triumph in competitive pursuits known variously as “AP calculus” or “kissing” or “sports” or “life in general.”

Underneath Young Curtis Granderson’s shirt there is another chain, one choker-length in design and execution and one you cannot see. It is there because Young Curtis Granderson’s mighty heart needs a friend.

Young Curtis Granderson finds it difficult to listen to New Jack Swing because Young Curtis Granderson is New Jack Swing.

Young Curtis Granderson smiles not to ingratiate; Young Curtis Granderson smiles because Young Curtis Granderson is Young Curtis Granderson, which makes for happiness.

Sometimes, Young Curtis Granderson daydreams of having a catch with Jean-Jacques Rousseau or Tevin Campbell.

To Young Curtis Granderson, the future is a consenting adult. Young Curtis Granderson will first buy the future a nice dinner.

(HT: Snakkle and Todd’s championship Twitter feed)

If you prefer your news to be five days old, then you’ll be gobsmacked to learn that White Sox GM Kenny Williams had his posh Chicago townhouse robbed and violated recently. This of course sounds like bad news, but thanks to the efforts of a certain plucky urchin we’ve learned a few things about Mr. Williams. To damn wit:

• Mr. Kenny Williams drinks beer.
• Mr. Kenny Williams enjoys the occasional lobster dinner, and, yes, you may box that up for him.
• Mr. Kenny Williams owns a fur.
• Mr. Kenny Williams drives a Cadillac.
• Mr. Kenny Williams owns a fur and drives a Cadillac.
• Mr. Kenny Williams will wear a championship ring even if it has recently been worn by a smelly hobo.
• Mr. Kenny Williams does not have a record of “sexual abuse charges dating to the 1980s,” but SOMEONE WHO HAS BEEN IN HIS HOUSE DOES.

The great Bill Veeck had a habit of referring to front-office execs as “operators.” In light of this and those, you may now regard Mr. Kenny Williams as a “smooth operator.”

The convention floor is now more appropriately described as a killing floor, what with all the gutted hogs, chickens, turkeys, ducks, and idealistic campaign volunteers. Yet despite the blood and gristle, sally forth we must. The names placed into nomination have been reviewed for fitness and acceptable levels of contributions to The Ruling Party, and now it’s time to vote carefully and under watchful eyes …

Vote like a voter, yo.

Our ongoing quest, in the manner of a noble knight-errant, is to assign cool nicknames to players rather than indulge in the tired, lamewad paradigm of assigning cool players nicknames. Before we launch the latest installment, however, a trip through 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. …

“Bad Miracle” – Wily Mo Peña
“Captain Black Tobacco” – John Danks
“$45 Couch” – Yuniesky Betancourt
“Liván Hernández” – Liván Hernández
“Frog in the Pot” – Carlos Zambrano
“Aqua Velva Man” – Chase Utley
“Victorian Sex Rebel” – John Axford
“Good, Round Friend” – Prince Fielder
“I Am Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass” – Kyle Farnsworth
“Interrobang” – Adrián Beltré

And the nickname now available for purchase? It’s “Turbaconducken”!

Denotations, Connotations, Implications, Intimations, and Incriminations:

Obviously, this is in honor of the holiday devoted to three of the seven deadly sins: gluttony, sloth and Dallas Cowboys football. And that brings us to Turbaconducken. A pleasing mash-up of delicious fowl and piggies from Disney movies or uniquely American abomination?

In baseball terms, is it a player who boasts a combination of skills and bestowals that was previously unimaginable, like, say, Babe Ruth? Or is it a player who is so awful at so many things that he induces dry heaves in the discriminating fan, like, say, Marv Throneberry? He is either very good or very bad, depending upon how you, the Thanksgiven reader, feel about Turbaconducken. And that’s why the blast field of the forthcoming nomination process figures to be wide and awful to behold.

Prototypes from Baseball’s Gauzy Past:

I’ve already given you Babe Ruth and Marv Throneberry. Another possibility is a player who looks like he would be delicious if wrapped in bacon and served as a main course. Jeff Juden, for instance. Or Rich Garces.

Guiding, Determinative Query:

What current major-league player should be nicknamed “Turbaconducken”?!

The convention floor, which is filled with innards and Episcopalian landowners (but, as of yet, not the innards of Episcopalian landowners), is open for nominations …

There is a sense of inevitability about a baseball card that features a player attempting to call a timeout at the plate. The inevitability is that this player can be no one other than Adrian Beltre …

For this and countless other reasons, Mr. Adrian Beltre shall be known, from this moment until we return to ash and primordial soup, as “Interrobang.”

If you tuned in to this writer’s most recent appearance on FanGraphs Audio — and you surely did not — then you’ll know that when it comes to new Cardinals manager Mike Matheny, I could just eat him up. Mike Matheny — Handsome Mike Matheny — stirs up such feelings in me that I must put those feelings to American images and French song …

I don’t normally wear a tight-fitting bodice, but if I did it would’ve just ripped on its own. All thanks to you, Handsome Mike Matheny.

Ol’ Chuckles Hatcher would like nothing more than for you to think he was the first to brandish a giant glove, but the great Al Schacht would like a word with you …

That’s how it’s done, you whipperbuckaroosnappers.

Moreover, given the derivative nature of Mickey Hatcher’s prop-comedy routines and his tacit refusal to honor the pioneering models of the past, it’s fair to ask whether the scoundrel Mickey Hatcher is, at this very moment, committing high treason. Signs point to yes.