I make no secret of my admiration for Brian “Sounds Delicious” Wilson and his objectively delightful maniac’s beard. So it concerns me to know that sinister forces are seeking to do him harm. Indeed, if you were about to head over to Network Solutions or — if you are not a gentleman — GoDaddy and lay claim to the hotly sought domain name iwannafightbrianwilson.com, then know that you are sadly tardy in your exploits. It is already claimed, and claimant is not effing around …

So this is a formal invite for Brian Wilson to spar me in a legal boxing match in a boxing gym. Any gym he wants any time he wants. It would be a legal sparring match with full headgear and other safety equipment so there is no risk of him getting “seriously” hurt. There would be a ref, and all amateur boxing rules would apply. So if Brian Wilson is a real “tuff guy” like he tries to promote himself to be, and wants to challenge me to fight in a situation where i would get arrested, then I’m sure he is tuff enough to take on this challenge and get into a ring with me and have a legal boxing match! The ball is in his court now!

And just for those who think Im trying to gain anything from this, If Wilson does man up and we have a boxing match, I will donate half of all proceeds to a local childrens charity and the other half Wilson can do what he wants with. He can donate to his favorite charity if he wants( The Tool Academy).

If you’re wondering how all this started — and I know you are — this eager young man is an A’s fan, and he asked Wilson to autograph a broom following an Oakland sweep of Wilson’s Giants. According to A’s fan’s version of events, Wilson took umbrage at such a request and challenged said A’s fan to a fight on the field. At this point, please keep in mind that, a, his account might not be true and, b, even if true Wilson — no stranger to whimsy, hijinks and frolicsome madcappery — might well have been kidding.

Still, a couple of things … First, if you’re hoping to keel-haul a member of the defending champs, then perhaps you should target Pat Burrell, who, if given an easily recalled safe word, seems likely to be up for some ritualized abuse at the hands of a complete stranger. Second, if fighting ballplayers is suddenly a thing, then I get dibs on Eddie Gaedel.

At the end of the day, though, if professional athletes won’t agree to show up at a darkened boxing gym and brawl with randomly aggrieved fans they neither know nor remember, then I’m not sure why John Wayne wrote the Constitution in the first place.

(Curtsy: ‘Duk)

As you have no doubt heard by now, the Angels have traded useful parts Mike Napoli and Juan Rivera to the Blue Jays for Vernon Wells and his hulking, cumbersome contract forged in the wild of Canada. To say the least, it’s an inexplicable deal from the Halos’ standpoint.

And this brings us to the mostly piqued commenters at Halos Heaven. Understandably, they are not pleased. And to best capture their displeasure, I’m going to brazenly steal this beautiful idea from Royals Review.

So what comes out of the sausage-maker if we concoct a poem using nothing more than the comment headlines found within the Halos Heaven thread linked above? I’ve rearranged the order, capitalized in places and tweaked punctuation, but otherwise the words are all theirs. By the way, I do this in empathy, not mockery …

A Poem About the Vernon Wells Trade

Call me crazy, but this trade makes us better.

This slice o’ genius over at DRaysBay is the best bit of Internetty-sportsy deconstruction I’ve run across since this … or maybe this.

Anyhow, this blessed little photo mash-up tells the story better than I can …

That, folks, is GomesRage, and despite what Reds fans might tell you, GomesRage is alive and well at the Trop. I don’t want to over-summarize and dull the wonders to be found within this featured link, but let’s just say the 2011 Rays, despite a talent exodus and budget so tight that a strategic default on a delivery pizza is a realistic possibility, can still throw the beefs. As you’ll see and savor, the post’s author, CBJones, proves it with fancy numbers, including Acronym of This and Any Other Millennium BRAWLFENSE. Even if it weren’t an acronym, BRAWLFENSE demands to be capitalized!

In a related matter, the NotGraphs Investigative Reporting Investigation Team has uncovered footage of the 2011 Rays at work and play in the mean streets of St. Pete:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXPiIuKBiVA

(Thanks to cherished reader Cooper Toledo and his awesome name for the heads-up. And, yes, it’s apparently On-Field Violence Day here at NotGraphs. Celebrate it with someone you loathe!)

If you squint and tilt your head and stay very quiet and have a heart as pure as driven snow, you can sorta kinda see Opening Day headed for us. That’s a blessed thing, of course, and, in keeping with the spirit of the season, the royal we here at NotGraphs would love for you to oblige us with your declarations of loyalties and disloyalties. Since you asked, I’ll start …

Read the rest of this entry »

Dig:

Contrary to appearances, a reanimated Highpockets Kelly did not punch his way out of the grave and find the nearest diamond. That’s actually Arnie Beyerler, new manager of the Pawtucket Red Sox.

I don’t know much about his dugout chops, but Mr. Beyerler certainly has central-casting appeal: the fully germinated mustache, the plunging sleeves, the exposed socks, the weapons-grade leather belt that seems better suited for determined Catholic spankings rather than holding up a man’s trousers, the stevedore’s jawline, the vaguely menacing “hunter-gatherer” way in which he carries the bat … He seems like a man who knows a thing or two about a thing or two but won’t tell you about any of it.

From this point forward, he shall be known as … “Blast Furnace O’Dwyer.”

Ol’ Blast Furnace may never win a World Series, but I fully expect him to take back the streets in his spare time.

(Curtsy: Heard It From Hoard)

Yes, this is going to be one of those meditations that attempts to find things wrong with Jesus’s favorite sport. If I were a newspaper columnist out of ideas and averse to reason, I’d call for a salary cap. If I were on a message board and had a poor grasp of tenability, I’d call for soccer-style relegation of the Pirates. I, however, am neither. So I propose this:

No, I’m not calling for more Chad Paronto (although that would be fine). Rather, I’m calling for the use of championship belts in MLB. On this point, I am as unyielding as a large, resolute, unyielding thing. You see, despite my occasional use of hifalutin prose and my New Yorker subscription, I am at heart something of a rube. And this rube — as a native of the fair state of Mississippi — was raised on professional wrestling.

Read the rest of this entry »

There’s a not insubstantial bloc of folks who long for the days when men wouldn’t leave the house without a necktie and stylish fedora. What follows might cause that not insubstantial bloc of folks to ponder taking a hostage …

As you can see, the Forever Lazy makes your standard-issue, ketchup-stained sweatpants look like the finest your finest haberdasher has to offer. It’s basically a hoodie bodysuit, and — since advertisers have always been and will always be yoked to the truth — it’s clearly great for crapping! It’s also clearly great for watching sports, whether in person or in a darkened living room just after receiving divorce papers!

So if you’ve ever been at the ballpark and thought, “Instead of this sensible knit polo, I wish I were wearing something that made me look like a guy named ‘Cookie’ who pans for gold and or cooks gruel for a wagon train,” then you’ll want one of these posthaste. If this thing catches on — and, honestly, how could it not? — then the Forever Lazy, much like its Snuggie progenitor, will soon be festooned with your favorite team’s logo. At that point, we all win.

History teaches us that Patrick Henry, armed with nothing but a tuning fork and a sense of mission, killed Stalin in Las Vegas. I like to think that Mr. Henry did so in the hopes that one day we as a people would soar beyond the dimensions of the possible and invent something like the Forever Lazy (although archival documents suggest he wanted it to be called “The Smock of Dignity”).

Know this, patriot: Your dreams have been realized.

I need your help. I’ve pondered the pros and cons of both, and even allowed time for the darkened penumbras of my subconscious to have their say. Yet I still can’t decide which is more awesome — the t-shirt once worn by freshly minted Hall of Famer Bert Blyleven …

Or that the otherwise banal Fathead product line blessedly allows you to festoon your living room with the Milwaukee sausage-race contestants …

I simply can’t decide. Blyleven in a fart shirt or an addition to the home that adds more equity than a stylish backsplash and the full complement of Energy Star appliances? I don’t want to minimize the gravity of Sophie’s Choice, but this is far more difficult than choosing which spawn to save.

That, near and dear, is Ed Wade viewed from behind — or what he’ll look like to his doomed Houston Marathon competitors!

Yes, the Astros’ front-office lever-puller is in training to run that aforementioned Houston Marathon, and earnest props to him. Running that far without stopping is impressive enough, but doing so at Wade’s age of 54? Nifty indeed. I’m substantially younger than Ed Wade, and last night all I did was drink a sherpa’s load of Two-Buck Chuck and then set up an email alert to remind me to clip my toenails.

Really, though, I exercise regularly and have a treadmill that does not presently double as extra closet space, yet if I tried to run 26.2 miles my hips and groin would fly off after about mile 10 or so and annihilate everyone within the blast field. So congrats to Ed Wade for defying age and doing something not many of us have the will to achieve. And congrats to the Astros for having an AARP-eligble GM who’s in better shape than their left fielder.

Although his max-effort delivery would make me hesitant to hand out a multi-year contract, there’s no doubting the raw stuff. Fathom:

'http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ulp6dsF4iVA&feature=player_embedded'>watch?v=Ulp6dsF4iVA&feature=player_embedded

I played a fair amount of Wiffle Ball games back in the day, and I can say that — were the young Sudden Sam you see above one of the neighborhood kids — after our initial amazement subsided we’d hold games in secret just so this guy wouldn’t show up and make a shameful hash of us all. He would probably have a way-cool bike, too. Like a Kuwahara or a custom-made Hutch or something. Big jerk.

(Curtsy: TedQuarters)