Above you see Yankee both-hander Pat Venditte. Yes, Mr. Venditte is a switch-pitcher, which is beautiful and angelic on a number of levels. As someone whose left arm is barely prehensile — it’s more of a lobster claw that on a good day could maybe pen an untraceable ransom note — I am ceaselessly amazed by anyone who can do anything with both hands. But Mr. Venditte can get professional hitters out with both arms, and that, in purely objective terms, is the greatest accomplishment in the annals of human history.

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Did you know that Major League Baseball 2K10 is available for the PSP game console?

In case you did not, I’m here to help. What follows will be an exhaustive, penetrating review of this gaming product. It will be rich in tech-speak, measured and sober in its appraisals and free from any whiff of mixed motive. If there’s one thing on earth I take seriously, it’s my ability to provide expert guidance when it comes to gaming, gaming machines, and the gamers who game them. If games and gaming are your River Styx, then I am your Charon, and I propel and steer our ferry not with a mere boatman’s pole, but rather with something long and electronic and related to playing video games. Otherwise the metaphor wouldn’t work. Anyhow, without further throat-clearing, please enjoy this REVIEW among reviews.

First, the packaging. It’s sensible, adequate and even charming in its tethered exuberance — early adopters like us won’t be surprised that the modest bifold laminate sheathing evokes a Hockney painting glimpsed in the gauzy half-light of late morning —

Actually, no. Nope. Nope. Nope. No, I’m not going to review this product because I’ve never played it. I don’t play video games. Putting me at the switch of the contemporary video game would be much like watching a howler monkey trying to open a coconut.

No, all of this strained and affected video-game talk on my part has been nothing more than tidy baseball-y rationale to post this: some guy who batters, deep-fries and then tries to eat a PSP …

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E81j9M64Ssc&feature=player_embedded

And the people say: apropos of nothing!

Men’s fashion — it’s so often a rich union of the awful and the too clever by half. The same, of course, goes for the male sports fan, who seems to take preternatural delight in assaulting good taste about the head, neck, shoulders, and groin. This enduring truth places before us a challenge, a bejeweled gauntlet if you will: what’s the greatest possible fan outfit that can be concocted using items presently available through the bellwether fashion portal that is MLB.com?

Since my professed loyalties are to the St. Louis Cardinals, I’m going to restrict myself to the fetching threads available at their designated Internet haberdashery. Come with me, won’t you? And don’t forget your Player’s Club cards!

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On the afternoon of April 29, 1983, Cubs skipper Lee Elia treated Americans to the most gorgeous, most resplendent managerial tirade in the history of history. Please, drink humbly, thankfully and deeply of his perfect words, which will forevermore redound through the vaulted halls of this fine Republic.

Now fast forward to the year 2083, when Robot Lee Elia will regale the adoring Chicago crowd at Panda Express Ballstadium (formerly Wrigley Field) with a dramatic reading of Human Lee Elia’s sacred, inerrant utterances. By the way, the video that follows, because of Human Lee Elia’s sacred, inerrant utterances, is so not safe for the conventional workplace that I have not the words to warn you sufficiently.

Now, the power and the glory …

You may recall yesterday that you read of Padre Cameron Maybin’s gastrointestinal pratfalls that came to him courtesy of Panda Express. You may also recall that Mr. Maybin took to The Twitter to express his disdain for Panda Express, and finally you may recall that it subsequently came to light that a prominent member of the Padres ownership hootenanny spends his downtime, presumably under cover of night, as CEO of Panda Express. From that point, the plot, much like a Chinese entree made with too much cornstarch, thickened.

The NotGraphs Investigative Reporting Investigation Team undertook rigorous delving (i.e., I happened to run across what follows in my Google Reader) and, well, behold what Mr. Maybin now says on The Twitter:

Man just got back on the wagon panda express was great today, now I’m ready for action…. Best oriental cuisine around… Let’s go…!

That kind of cynical capitulation should lead you to a couple of assumptions: one, Mr. Maybin received a talking-to or at least a hard, knowing glance; and, two, he’s not yet eligible for salary arbitration.

In related news, I can’t say enough good things about Dave Cameron’s line of handcrafted origami hobbits! My shelf is overflowing!

Padres fly-catcher Cameron Maybin recently enjoyed a leisurely, industrial-grade meal at Panda Express. He then tweeted about the, um, lasting residue of said meal:

Never eat panda express sh*ts had me feeling awful for 2 days back on my grind tomorrow,, We got action…

Nothing surprising so far. If you eat meal with a higher sodium content than the tears of the Dead Sea — chow that’s best left to the iron-gutted frequent flyers and Food Court loyalists among us — then you risk violating your non-aggression pact with the digestive system.

At this point, you might be wondering why I didn’t just post an image capture of Mr. Maybin’s rather unremarkable tweet. However, examination at its most cursory has led me to believe that Mr. Maybin deleted said tweet. Why would he have done that? Gaslamp Ball, presumably after filing a daisy chain of FOIA requests, has arrived at the answer:

At some point Panda Express has left us all feeling, lets say, not so fresh. But when Cameron Maybin, the Padres new Center Fielder, complains of its sickening after effects and warns his twitter followers never to eat it… hilarity ensues. That’s because Tom Davin, the CEO of Panda Restaurants, is a member of the Padres Ownership Group.

Well, that’s a shame. It’s one thing not to be able to trust flesh lovingly prepared outside the service entrance of a Hot Topic. It’s another thing entirely not to be able to complain about it on your Internet computer.

Anyhow, if any “Cameron Maybin is in the best shape of his life” articles come your way in the near future, please be skeptical. Is it the new Charles Atlas workout that left him lean and angular, or is it the case of Montezuma’s Revenge perpetrated upon him by his employer?

A bountiful source of debate among baseball enthusiasts and fans of other, ickier, less morally upright sports is whether or not it’s acceptable to say “we” in reference to your favorite team. The pro: It’s a harmless bit of unifying tribalism. The con: You do not, in point of fact, play for your favorite team. These are dearly held positions, to say the least. Neither side will yield, and the center cannot hold.

So in the service of a workable peace, I am here to pronounce from on high and with the certainty of Judge Lance Ito that using the first-person plural in reference to your team is acceptable — I do it myself — but only under certain inviolable conditions. Here, fans of stick and ball, are those conditions …

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Hey, that’s Peter Buck of R.E.M. and three other musician-y types with whom I am measurably less familiar! What are they doing in this space usually reserved for matters at least tangentially related to baseball? Well, if, like the kids today, you’re a fan of the Rock and/or Roll music, then you should know that those four above plus others have cut an album (CD? Gathering of mp3 files? What do you call albums now?) of songs about our fair game of ball and base. The dirty:

The Baseball Project is a band featuring R.E.M.’s Peter Buck, Young Fresh Fellows’ Scott McCaughey, the Dream Syndicate’s Steve Wynn, and his wife, drummer Linda Pitmon, who geek out about their favorite baseball players and teams over power-pop riffage. See, indie nerds can play sports.

Their new album, Volume 2: High and Inside, is on deck for a March 1 release via Yep Roc, and it features an all-star lineup of collaborators, including Yo La Tengo’s Ira Kaplan, the Hold Steady’s Craig Finn, the Decemberists’ Chris Funk and John Moen, and Death Cab for Cutie’s Ben Gibbard.

Hey, some names I recognize and enjoy! Best of all, follow the link above and you can hear a song from this musical All-Star team (see what I did there!) — a track wondrously titled, “Ichiro Goes to the Moon.” It sounds like something the Ramones would’ve written if they had surfed, which is to say I like and approve, which is also to say I wish the Ramones had surfed. And by all means, please take a jaunt through the lyrics of every song on the album.

Speaking of those lyrics, this, plucked from “Panda and the Freak,” is as fitting a description of a certain Giants third baseman as I’ve ever seen:

When it comes to kung fu fighting, he’s no better than Hong Chi Quo. He’s kind of like Bruce Lee if you cross Bruce Lee with a buffalo. He barrels round the bases; he scrambles for ground balls. Zito named him Kung Fu Panda — that’s our Pablo Sandoval.

Respect, yo.

You’ll recall that not long ago thinking-man’s powerlifter Leo Martin gave us a walking tour of Safeco Field’s latest culinary offerings. New to the menu was a delightful little pie known as the “Apizza.” Indeed, it looks like my kind of slice — thin crust, pleasingly blistered, and a sauce-to-imported-cheese ratio calibrated to please anyone who’s fond of Bach and cats. (Though I prefer Guided By Voices and dogs, please allow me to traffic in stereotypes in peace.)

But what about the others? What about those not cosseted away on the enlightened Coasts, those forgotten, teeming denizens of America’s Heart Attack Belt? Those who view a trip to the ballpark mostly as tidy rationale for a shootin’ match between their LDL and triglyceride levels? The Apizza, unlike brawling in churches, does not speak to them. Perhaps this will …

That, best friends, is a pizza topped with cheeseburgers, fries and McNuggets. So a little respect, please. If you’re interested in the evolution of this pizza, from this point forward known as “The Conway Twitty,” then please, please, please click here.

In the final photo, you’ll find that this pie is of course best served with Dr. Pepper, a tape measure, a throwing knife, a votive candle, what appears to be a 9mm semi-automatic, and barbecue sauce. I’m not sure what local ordinances will say about the constituents of such a “full-meal deal,” but everything’s a negotiation.

So, enterprising team owners who fear the turnstiles won’t click often enough during the upcoming season, know that The Conway Twitty is here for your measured consideration. If you put burgers, fries and chicken offal on it, they will come.

But they might not leave.

Handsome kickboxer Dave Cameron has already, in these very pages, explored the “Best Shape of His Life” phenomenon, which, much like tax software, is too much with us this time of year. You know the routine: this guy lost x number of pounds on a diet of nothing more than falcon’s livers and melted snow, this guy now makes love only in a hyperbaric chamber, this guy had tiny robots put in his eyes, this guy went to a Tony Robbins seminar at the Ramada by the airport, etc. Mostly, these re-stoked innermost fires we hear about amount to nothing.

So it is with great relief that we learn of at least two baseball-ists who are bravely resisting, doughtily storming the Bastille of wellness. Particularly inspiring is the story of young Pirate phenom Pedro Alvarez:

It will take a big man to carry the Pirates offense next season, but not quite as big as Pedro Alvarez happens to be at the moment, sources indicated. Alvarez has put on a few pounds this off-season. At last report, the third baseman had ballooned in excess of 240 pounds, at least 15 pounds more than he finished last season.

If the reports are to be believed, then Latin food and buttercream frosting are the supporting heroes of this story. One player, though, does not make a movement. But two players? Two players make a revolution:

[Joba]Chamberlain appeared to be about 10-15 pounds heavier than last season. That is going to cause alarms to go off in the Yankees universe, but Chamberlain said he feels as if he’s in shape. He even built a gym at his home in Nebraska.

Chamberlain, of course, was already no stranger to the business end of the BMI scale, and now he’s stuffed himself with a few more pounds? Welcome news, yo.

Given the recent disappointing life decisions of CC Sabathia, someone needed to step up and assume the role of “Porcine Robespierre of the Worst Shape of His Life Resistance Movement” — a proud lineage that includes the hot dog-fingered likes of Babe Ruth and Terry Forster.

While hope may not walk among us, thanks to Messers Alvarez and Chamberlain it may well shuffle and trudge and take frequent rests among us.