There’s something beautiful about it — something haphazardly Van Gogh-ian. It may have been made by someone who had never decorated a cake before or perhaps an experienced pastry chef newly encumbered by hot-dog fingers. Lo, the pastiche!

Were it not so rough-hewn, were it more touched by choosy artifice, then it would not be what it is, which is Your Johnny Damon Cake of the Day …

Even though I don’t need to tell you that NotGraphs now has a category called “Cakes,” I am nonetheless going to tell you that NotGraphs now has a category called “Cakes.”

(Cake smash: She Walks Softly)

Science has proved that inanimate objects, despite not having auditory systems or cognitive faculties, can hear, absorb and contemplate human expressions of anger. The gentleman rises for his morning ablutions, crunches his toes on the leg of his paramour’s museum-quality antique dressing table, calls the museum-quality dressing table a “!@#$%&$#@!%&” and promises to “!@#$%&* kill you if that ever !@#$%*& happens the !@#$ again, !@#$-face.”

As you will soon see, however, Pablo Sandoval, the only hitter in the entire Bay Area, has discovered that one may also extract favors, graces and happy accidents from inanimate objects by directing a few kind words toward them …

The secret to better results at the office, in the gym and in the bedroom? Desires whispered to things made of the dead and the never alive.

The NL Central-champion Milwaukee Brewers recently commemorated their final 2011 trip to Houston by doing what people in Texas so often do, which is dress up like ranch hands and walk around in public. Regard, pilgrim:

Paula Cole once inquired, “Where have all the cowboys gone?” The first and most obvious answer is that, much like anyone else who reached adulthood in the 19th century, they are dead. The second answer, no less obvious on this day, is that they live in Milwaukee and herd not little dogies but rather our fondest dreams.

In any event, a couple of Milwaukee Cowboys merit special recognition. Prince Fielder’s large and provably in charge belt buckle suggests he will soon top the country charts with a song that celebrates the values of the Republic through a homespun narrative of family, God and country. And Ryan Braun — I think that’s Ryan Braun in the fetching boot-length duster — opts for the “High Plains Drifter” look, a look that says, “After I shoot someone at the poker table, I do believe I shall take on a whore.”

(Delicious wagon-train gruel: HBT)

Since the last time we visited the NL Central through the prism of the animal kingdom, things have changed without actually changing all that much. By that I mean, the Cardinals enjoyed a spirits-buoying sweep in Milwaukee, but their odds of making all of this worth anyone’s while continue to hover around the stupid-face 1% mark. In other words, the Brewers are still going to win the NL Central despite this week’s happenings and at great hazard to the Republic.

With that said, those Brewers, presumptive and future NL Central champs, may have felt a little something recently. Clicky-click!

You shall win this thing that we both covet, Brewers, but you shall carry the wounds of war with you always.

(Playful bite: IHC)

For those of us who prefer altered states of consciousness, in which awesome things are even more awesome and awful things are not half-bad at the moment, to soulless arbitraging, today is a good day …

It’s the best rivalry in media softball: the notorious potsmokers vs. the financial power brokers. High Times swept the season series with Wall St. Journal Thursday, eking out victory in the 11th inning and making themselves favorites in the upcoming NYMSL playoffs.

The resin at the bottom of the bowl — now that’s my kind of derivative! Amiright?!

Jung Bong!

You can tell Brandon Belt is a gentleman because he wears his Giants jersey over a collared Van Heusen. You can tell he’s America’s sweetheart because of his loving ways with a baby giraffe …

Brandon Belt: I could just eat him up.

(Giraffe hug: With Leather)

While Gentleman Zack Hample is the acknowledged expert on retrieving foul balls, tonight’s Daguerreotype of the Evening reveals the true secret to finding one’s way to a valueless cowhide souvenir. Regard …

If you are the paterfamilias, becapped in blue and pictured above, then you may have taken your son to the tobacconist, introduced him, and said that he too will one day be a Winston Man. You know as well as anyone that Smooth, Delicious Winstons are the elixir for maladies ranging from the blues to Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever to catarrh to the sexless existence. Nothing will conduct you up the ladder to a better life quite like Winstons on your lips and at the ready in the breast pocket of your camelhair blazer. The steely snap of a Zippo means that Gentlemen are about to do Business.

Men do lots of things. Gentlemen smoke Winstons.

If you are the fresh-faced lad pictured above, then you smoke Winstons because good things happen to those who smoke Smooth, Delicious Winstons. Good things like … a foul-hit base ball!

Boys do lots of things. Young Men — Young Men who get invited to the cotillion — smoke Winstons.

The video that follows, which is action-video footage of the greatest Lincoln-Douglass/Webster-Hayne blah-blah ever to grace the diamond, will not be safe for work unless your place of employment is a dirty-word factory, in which case I shall now search for you on LinkedIn.

This video has also been viewed more than a half-million times, so it’s quite possible you number among those lucky, teeming thousands. Still, some things, like the Uffizi or the liquor store, are worth visiting again and again. And so we shall …

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kl-4FSRYagc

The melodic progression of the debate peaks at the 2:04 mark, when the two gentlemanly combatants make love to the listener-viewer by discussing whether Earl Weaver will go to the Hall of Fame for winning games or for “f*cking up World Series.”

There is a small, good, round miracle to be found in the moving video images that follow. The miracle is not that Derek Lowe has finally hit his first major-league home run. No, the miracle is that the ball that Mr. Lowe smote for his first major-league home run, through a series of adventures and fortuities, managed to beat Mr. Lowe back to the dugout.

Once more, for the deserved emphasis: Derek Lowe hit a ball for a home run, and the ball made it back to the dugout before he did. While I am very much a liar, in this instance I do not lie:

I care not to plumb the relevant databases, but I attest that this has never happened before. On this, I would bet the lives of millions of strangers.

The following image, which comes to us courtesy of Pergamon’s library on the Acropolis or TMZ (can’t recall exactly), is worth your time and eyes …

Contrary to appearances, this is not a “Sopranos” character of peripheral importance who will be gruesomely over-murdered by mid-season. This is retired base-ballist Samuel Sosa enjoying, as Gentlemen of Distinction are wont to do, some exposed midriff and hard-workin’ hips.

Those who embiggen will no doubt be surprised by the sight of the $100,000 bill that Mr. Sosa is placing in (surely not removing from!) this lucky coquette’s shimmering harem pants. The U.S. dollar is a fiat currency these days, and not even Federal Reserve Banks use the $100-large paper when doing business among themselves. The lesson here? Sammy Sosa is a Federal Reserve Bank — a handsome Federal Reserve Bank — who stopped playing by the rules before you even learned them.