So I picked a fight with the Internet, and the Internet is beating me as though it entered a cheat code. The blow-by-blow …

Yesterday, I threatened to Ruin Everything^TM by posting the same thing as Eno Sarris, a mere hour later. Content redundancies are frowned upon, particularly by Dear Leader, so after I spent a sleepless, unmentionable night in the NotGraphs Dungeon of Citizen Reprimand, one would think the scales would have fallen from mine eyes. One would think …

Yet, lo, I awoke, fired a Tweet through the Internet, and watched disaster unfurl before me like Dave Cameron’s rolled-up knapsack of Medieval torture devices …

I thought Jose Reyes’s projected stat line was pretty cool, but it did not rise to the fleetingly rare level of “cool enough to repeat this four or five times in succession.” I don’t repeat things like that. I repeat drink orders just to be sure. And I repeat, usually in moments that don’t seem to occasion it, my refusal to quarter soldiers in my home during wartime because the third amendment means that much to me. But I don’t repeat Jose Reyes’s projected stat line. At least, not unless the Internet makes me.

So what does one say at this point? This? “I’m sorry, Internet. Please leave me alone.” Also: Et tu, Firefox.

Via Deadspin, we learn that a most interesting paying customer recently graced CitiField. To the daguerreotype …

I’m not going to suggest that world would be a more interesting place if more adult bodies were topped with grimacing baby heads, but —

Wait, that’s precisely what I’m suggesting. Controlling powers of the universe: More Baby Heads Now!

It’s come to the editors’ attention that Dayn Perry has, in fact, posted this video despite the fact that it actually appears in Eno Sarris’s work of only one hour earlier. Perry’s implication is clear: “I have no idea what I’m doing.”

It’s Rain Delay Day here at NotGraphs! And what follows is a fine example of whimsy! Rain descends upon a college game of base and ball. How to entertain the flinty souls still in the stands? As with all things, the penetrating wisdom of the renaissance fair is always near at hand …

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkuhqsnZF7Y&feature=player_embedded

I promised whimsy, and whimsy you have received.

(Sweeping bow to m’ lady: With Leather)

Unless you’re freshly murdered, you had a better go of things tonight than Vin Mazzaro did. Here is what Mr. Mazzaro and, one must assume, the vengeful Old-Testament God who has it in for him have wrought:

2.1 IP, 11 H, 14 R, 3 BB, 2 K

The list of people I’d wish that upon consists mostly of bloodthirsty dictators. What’s perhaps most harrowing is that Mazzaro had a better FIP on the night than did Kyle Davies, the Royals’ starter. Success!

The following two daguerreotypes provide, I should like to think, a sherpa’s load of whimsy while — conveniently enough for the purposes of this series of World Wide Web Site Internet pages — both being at least somewhat about baseball. Please enjoy Ozzie Guillen and his better half quaffing fermented grapes and taking in views of a fetching hillscape!

Now please enjoy Yogi Berra in an Astros uniform!

Now please enjoy having enjoyed these!

Ahem:

And I believe we have a winner. That is, unless you know of someone else in the world of baseball who boasts a tickler the size of an oak limb.

Part the thickening gossamer of times bygone and remember, two days ago, when we asked you to declare, from on high and with a patriot’s starch, your second-favorite team. Lo, the results are in, and the second-favorite team of the NotGraphs collective (and, by extension, the world about us) is …

The Toronto Blue Jays.

Indeed, the Jays fought off stouthearted challenges from the likes of the Dodgers, Mariners, Cardinals, and White Sox, but in the end we had the warmest feelings for Canada’s last squad standing. So exult, Jays fans: The rest of us do not love you, but we do like you.

And here, Jays fans, is your handsome reward …

Please imagine the preceding as a Canadian flag, and then commence rallying ’round it.

Astros hurler Brett Myers (Throws: Right; Bats: Right; Breathes: Mouth) has a bobblehead. The discerning observer who discerns will notice that Myers and his totem-self share the innermost wrath that makes the larger, more ambulatory Myers at once an intimidating hurler and smoldering menace. Absorb:

As renderings go, it’s impressive. Also impressive is this sneak preview of the forthcoming Ryan Theriot Bobblehead:

Bobble of head: Alyson Footer

Yes, Jayson Werth, he of the lycanthrope’s beard in Philly and the turgid contract in D.C., once allegedly looked like this …

My only hope is that Detective Edmund Exley, that crass careerist, redeems himself by the end of the movie …

While we fans spend a fair amount of emotional currency on our favorite teams, many of us also adhere to a more leisurely form of tribalism. I speak of that thing called “The Second-Favorite Team.” It is liberating, this thing. While the fates of Cardinals can drive me to behave like a colicky infant or street murderer with nothing left to lose, my Second-Favorite Team inspires in me no such moron’s inclinations.

So without further throat-clearing: My Second-Favorite Team is the Pittsburgh Pirates. Why? The stovepipe hats of my youth helped, as did the dancing on the dugout during the ’79 run at the belt and the title, as did Pops Stargell, who is so cool that he simply must be the eldest son of the Statue of Liberty. Also entered into evidence is the fact-pinion that PNC is the best ballpark around. As well, longstanding is my weakness for cocaine-dealing bird-men.

And now I yield the floor to you, page viewers. What are your Second-Favorite Teams?

Second-Favorite Teams! Let us loosen these, the chains of giving a shit!