Hey kids, this is Eric with a very important public service announcement.

Moving can be a difficult process — especially for teenagers. Being uprooted from an environment in which you have learned to thrive and saying goodbye to the friends with whom you have developed strong relationships for a strange new place where you don’t know anyone is an extraordinarily trying undertaking at such a critical juncture in your social and emotional development.

Often times, in such a situation, you may find yourself feeling pressured to compromise your values in an attempt to gain the approval and acceptance of a new social group. It may start with them asking to borrow your Algebra II homework at lunch so they can copy your answers. Then you may be tempted to have a drink — or many drinks! — at a party. Then you may meet a cute girl or  boy who manipulates you into sending revealing photographs of yourself to her/him over the phone (typically, in cases of “sexting” it is girls who are pressured to send photos). Then you may be offered illegal drugs under the bleachers of the school baseball field.

As much as you may desire to once again feel that sense of belonging you had at your old school, it is important that you remain true to yourself and resist the aforementioned temptations. In other words, don’t be like Jed:

“Kerry Wood” is a depressant commonly prescribed to treat anxiety associated with late-inning high-leverage situations. Taken recreationally in larger doses, however, it is addictive and known to produce effects similar to “Mark Prior” — a drug in the benzodiazepine family.

Just because you suddenly find yourself in an uncomfortable new environment does not mean you should abandon the principles that made you the person you are. If the people you aim to make your “friends” are pressuring you to do so, perhaps you should reevaluate your desire to establish friendships with them in the first pace.

Walter James Vincent “Rabbit” Maranville would have been 120 today. We here at NotGraphs would be remiss if we did not take a moment on this special day to pay our respects to a man who blazed a trail for the generations of David Ecksteins that followed him.

Born in Springfield, Massachusetts in 1891, Rabbit played shortstop and a bit of second base for 23 seasons from 1912 to 1935–the majority of them with the Boston Braves. He wasn’t a very good hitter (career .314 wOBA and 84 wRC+), but FanGraphs really likes his fielding (career 130 fielding runs above average). If he had retired after the 1924 season, his 42.5 WAR up to that point would have looked perfectly decent. The problem was that he played another ten seasons and finished his career with 50.5 WAR, which makes his career averages look rather Ecksteinian. Still, owing to the fact that he played for a long damn time, he made it into the Hall of Fame in 1954.

He was like Eckstein in two other important respects.

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A leaked recording of Ron Washington’s profanity-laced pep talk from before game seven of the World Series has caused quite a stir on the web (NSFW):

Ron Washington’s Game 7 Clubhouse Speech from JoeSportsFan.com on Vimeo.

The Texas Rangers are reported to be livid that this speech — second only to the St. Crispin’s Day Speech from Shakespeare’s Henry v among the greatest inspirational speeches of all time — was released for public consumption.

Little does anyone know that Washington actually borrowed large portions of his speech from a speech given by NotGraphs’s Steadfast Guardian, Carson Cistulli, before the baseball action of game 162 on Wednesday, September 28.

As you will note, however, Cistulli’s speech struck a slightly different tone:

Cistulli: Hey fellas, I just want to take a minute and, um, this is what we waited for all f***ing year. To get to this point. You know, when the season started I told you guys to keep your titles to one line. One f***ing line! We followed this convention the whole goddamn year and there’s no reason to not do it now. If you don’t know how close you are to running over onto a second line, please use the preview feature. This is one of the most tremendous baseball blogs that I’ve ever had the pleasure of being a part of. I hope you guys feel the same way. There are a lot of champions at this website–those f***ing guys at FanGraphs are champions too and good champions also. They’re blogging for a modest sum. They ended up keeping their titles to one line. Tonight, this is what it’s about. We’re gonna go back out there tonight and I’m gonna expect you guys to stop doing anything different than what you’ve been doing all f***ing year. Enjoy yourself, have fun, do what you gotta do, and like I told you, at this point it’s all about focus. And you’ve been great at that and you’ve always had each others’ backs. That’s what we gotta continue to do: have each others’ back. That’s all it is…We can keep our titles to one motherf***ing line. Ain’t no doubt about it. We can beat those motherf***ers over there. No doubt about it. But I can tell you this: they over there saying the same motherf***ing thing. Why? Because they a champion too. And we’re a motherf***ing champion. But we know we can outblog those c***s***ers. They’re not so sure about outblogging us.

Readers may recall that I was quite unsparing in my ridicule of the last T-shirt I was tasked with reviewing. The shirt was so hideous that it soured me to shirts in general. For the past 4+ months I have gone topless, patiently waiting for a great T-shirt to come along and redeem the whole species for me. So, with winter fast approaching, the above shirt couldn’t arrive at a better time.

Made by Nike, this “St. Louis Cardinals World Championship King Tee” can be yours for just 20 bucks. Whereas the Cliff Lee-designed T-Shirt was an abject failure of both form and function, I am pleased to say that this shirt is a rousing success in each of these essential areas.

Form: 

What a cool looking shirt! The “card” motif (which, if you’ll forgive my momentary joke-killing, has a double meaning) is seamlessly integrated with the baseball aspect, with neither ingredient overpowering the other. For example, rather than overdoing it with Cardinals logos, “St. Louis Cardinals” appears once in the middle of the shirt in a reasonably sized font and the King (the symbol of supremacy) dons a Cardinals hat. The beauty is in the subtlety. You’ll notice also that where the suit would normally appear on the playing card is instead a home plate. Details like that are what make this shirt so cool that it almost brings me to a point of possibly maybe entertaining the notion of wishing I was a Cards fan so I could wear this shirt. Kudos are in order for the Nike design team. Simply put, the vast gulf in quality between this shirt and Cliff Lee’s atrocity illustrates why they are paid to do this and Cliff Lee is not.

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Last night’s game was riveting. But, you see, I am a Phillies fan first, a Peter Gammons fan second, and a baseball fan third. Which is why this snapshot provided me with a great many minutes of enjoyment:

There’s really not much more to say about this except that sometimes God gives Josh Hamilton the strength to hit home runs and sometimes God gives me pictures of Peter Gammons that just LOLGammo themselves.

To you, Holland may be a country

between Belgium and Germany.

Wooden shoes and Amsterdam benders

with booze, hashish, and prostitutes.

To me, Holland is a lefty;

fastball between 93 and 96.

Baby faced, with a pubescent ‘stache

sitting atop his lip like a caterpillar.

Is it just his hipster-ironic statement

on how “uncool” he thinks mustaches are?

Or does he drink chocolate milk in the dugout?

(Is Hamilton allowed to have chocolate?)

Oh, Mr. Holland, Sunday was your magnum opus.

But all I want to know is

why I expect Chris Hansen to emerge from the ‘pen

whenever I watch you pitch?

Perhaps you just rebel, earnestly,

against the restraints placed on you by nature.

Break free from your genetic shackles.

The razor is merely a social construct!

Which is only to say:

when life gives you lemons,

egg yolks, and butter,

make Hollandaise.

As you might have already realized, we here at NotGraphs are quite fond of Dick Allen. I posit four basic reasons for our endless fascination with Dick:

1. On-field excellence

2. General badassery

3. Tones that are the dulcet-est

4. Connoisseur of mustaches and spectacles

It was with this in mind that I included Dick in my MLB Halloween costume catalog last week. Of course, I never actually expected to see anyone follow through with my suggestions.

And then reader scout1222 offered this brilliant idea:

Please, will some NotGrapher do the Dick Allen idea and submit a photo in the same pose as we see on the literature entries! That would be awesome.

Awesome indeed, scout1222. Which is why I am pleased to announce the NotGraphs Dick Allen Daguerrotype Contest.

Here’s what you need to do to enter:

Step 1: Dress up as Dick Allen

Step 2: Strike your best Dick Allen pose

Step 3: Photograph yourself

Step 4: Send photograph to not+tips (at) fangraphs (dot) com with “Dick Allen Contest” in the subject line

I have no idea what to expect with this, but I can promise that all entries will be featured on NotGraphs, where they will be carefully scrutinized by our panel of expert judges for the overall quality of the costume and the true-to-Dickness of the pose. Daguerrotypes will be accepted until 11:59 PM on Halloween — Monday, October 31st. 

The winner of the contest shall receive the abiding admiration of the NotGraphs staff and, perhaps, a small token of our respect.

Update: The honorable Mr. Dan Szymborski raises an important concern:

Please don’t be racist, people!

Halloween is less than three weeks away, NotGraphers. Have you chosen a costume yet? If not, you are in luck. We’re here to advise you.

Vampires, witches, zombies, ghosts, mummies, and sexy nurses are all so passé, you see. It’s time to add some pizazz to your All Hallows’ Eve getup by going as your favorite MLB personality.

I have saved you the trouble of going out of your way (to that seedy seasonal Halloween store in the bombed out shopping center in the building where the Blockbuster Video used to be with that cashier with his forehead pierced) by listing the necessary components for each respective costume along with links to online stores from which they can be purchased. Mindful of our tough economic times, these costumes are carefully constructed to cost you no more than $100 (before shipping).

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Hi Bud! It’s me, Eric.

I know we haven’t always seen eye-to-eye on things. That’s okay. I’m willing to let bygones be bygones if you are.

The reason I’m writing today is because I have some ideas which I believe represent improvements on your own ideas. This is not to say that I think your ideas aren’t already good. Rather, I think I can make them even better.

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As the Senior Baseball Reporter for Sports Illustrated, Jon Heyman spends a lot of time on airplanes chasing scoops and so forth. Jon Heyman is also a quite prolific Tweeter. For what should be obvious reasons, this is an unfortunate combination. If there is anything worse than airline complaints, it is Jon Heyman airline complaints.

See, it would be one thing if Jon Heyman were to express his (frequently unlettered) thoughts to close friends and family. So long as we don’t have to hear it, it is not a problem. But the trouble with Jon Heyman being on Twitter is that it is quite literally the only medium in existence through which he can instantly broadcast his airline aggravations to 100,000 people.

For example:

Dare to see more? Click here.

And yesterday we were treated to this:

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