For Sale: Tiny, Dancing Ichiro

– Great for parties

– Housetrained (tiny toilet not included)

– May need to put towel over cage to get him to sleep

– A tiny, national treasure

– Eats Powerbars and cigarettes

Will accept all reasonable offers.

Jeff Karstens knows many things. He knows how to throw a fastball. He knows how to operate a door to a hotel room. And Jeff Karstens certainly knows how to conquer women. His sexual exploits are things of yet-to-be-discovered lore. When it comes to the realm of the opposite sex, and the subsequent mounting there-of, Jeff Karstens prefers quantity to quality. You don’t stare at the hearth when you’re poking at the fire, you know?

Now, you too can possess the same prowess once only known to Jeff Karstens. Introducing DERP: A new fragrance for men. (The next section requires, nay, DEMANDS, that you read the italicized words with an internal whisper.)

A fragrance by and for known gallivanters and fornicators.

DERP.

Also works well as a hair tonic.

DERP.

Featuring the essence of animals unknown to our civilization.

DERP.

Can be used to unclog pipes and as emergency lawn mower fuel.

DERP.

May cause internal bleeding.

DERP.

Do not use near open flame or mammals.

DERP.

Creating a scent that is somehow audible.

DERP.

Ladies will come running, though they may not stop when they reach you.

DERP.

DERP is can be found at all major truck stops across greater western Pennsylvania, and wherever fine taxidermy is sold.

As noted in our parent pages a while back, Red Sox infielder Pedro Ciriaco never met a pitch he didn’t like. But are his wild-swinging tendencies limited to just baseballs?

It’s time to play the game show sensation that’s sweeping the nation:

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Point: Pitching Machine

St. Louis, MO – The entire roster of the Houston Astros was fined Thursday by the Commissioner’s Office of Major League Baseball for what are being described as “actions detrimental to the team.” Details of the fine, including the actual amount and how it would be dispersed, were not disclosed.

Warnings had already been passed down to the Astros this season, after the team was caught performing lewd acts on the baseball field in August, but this is the first time an actual fine was put in place. This is also the first reported case of an entire team being levied a fine by Major League Baseball.

“We need to send a message that behavior like this will not be tolerated,” said Commissioner Bud Selig during a conference call with reporters regarding the incident. “We need to be firm in our stance that such actions are unacceptable and reflect negatively on the club, the fans, and all of Major League Baseball.”

“This is obviously very disappointing,” said Astros General Manager Jeff Luhnow through a veil of tears. “While we disagree with the punishment, we want people to know that we meant no disrespect by our actions on the field.”

Luhnow continued on, but his words were not distinguishable, as he was speaking directly into the mouth of a bottle of Jack Daniel’s whiskey.

Interim Manager Tony DeFrancesco chose not to speak with reporters, opting instead to bellow a laugh/cry hybrid in his office behind a locked door.

Team sources say that the Astros will appeal the ruling. Failing that, they will request that they be allowed to pay the fine in Altuves.

Those of you who follow the news of baseball regularly – and I expect that to be most of you, fair readers – might have been made aware of something that Yunel Escobar did the other day, and the subsequent fallout. I will not use these pages to convey my feelings, as I feel nearly every baseball writer and consequent Internet commenter – my God, the commenters – have put in their two one-hundredths of a dollar.

I will, however, bestow upon you some additional knowledge of the situation learned by the NotGraphs Investigative Reporting Investigative Team. As it happens, Mr. Escobar’s  suspension will not be the only penance he must pay. Nay, he will also be required to wear an apology on the same eye black that cause such a ruckus.

This humble author offers a few opinions:

1. Hit ‘em where it hurts, by pointing out he is really not that good of a baseball player.

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Perhaps it is the addition of the extra Wild Card. Perhaps it involves the improbable campaigns put together by teams long-ridiculed, such as Baltimore and Oakland. Perhaps the fact that no contenders for the last playoff spot in the NL actually seem to have any interest in winning it.

Whatever it is, baseball fever is spreading, fair readers.

We, as ardent fans of the game, may have a heightened sense of this, considering the people and electronic pages with which we engage are probably discussing such things on a regular basis. But have these excitement tendrils reached down and ensnared the huddled masses? Does Joe Sixpack understand that this is turning into one of the most engaging final two weeks in recent memory?

It appears so:

My cousin – who’s kinda in between jobs right now – saw this image whilst watching Thursday’s episode of The Price is Right. The producers of this game show, which features a subset of games contestants play to win fabulous prizes, have tried to capitalize on the buzz surrounding the end of this baseballing season. The game in question (and in image) is Cliff Hangers which entails, according to my cousin, “guessing the prices of stuff, and if you’re off by too much, the guy falls of the end or whatever.” As you can see, the producers have switched out the typical and boring flat mountain side for the climber statue to scale with the win probability graph from Wednesday’s exciting Rays/Orioles contest.

Since this game show is played by and for the lower crust of our society, I consider this evidence that all of America is vibrating with anticipation over how the rest of this baseball season will play out.

Maybe now, even if for only a few short weeks, you and your dad will have something to talk about.

As much as Twitter has been brought into the foreground of our social consciousness, it is still in its relative infancy. We use it, we engage it, but are we entirely sure how we should be using it? Moreover, can we glean meaning of our world – and of ourselves – from it?

Twitter user SC_078 offers an attempt to heighten the self-awareness of our Mothersite through this new player in social media:

Mr. _078 – the self-proclaimed “Pussy eating champ of Southern Ohio” – a man who spends most of his Twitter-hours using poor grammar to engage porn stars, raises an interesting question. However, before we can answer it, we must chew it down to the bone. He wouldn’t ask this question at all if he didn’t have some inclination that FanGraphs — blessed be thy name — is actually gay. What would prompt him to jump to such conclusions? We must assume that he believes one of the following to be true:

1. FanGraphs, through its use of advanced metrics and forward-thinking baseball analysis, is somehow championing a homosexual agenda.

2. The writers at FanGraphs, either collectively or through a simple majority, are homosexuals.

3. Mr. _078 finds it proper to use the term “gay” as an adjective to describe having a happy, cheerful demeanor.

4. Mr. _078 finds it proper to use the term “gay” as an adjective to describe something he deems un-useful, unlikable, or uncouth.

I don’t particularly subscribe to any of these credos, but what am I to do? The huddled masses have spoken.

So let us, fair NotGraphs readers, engage in a little self-reflection. It is good for the soul. Let us take a moment, introspect, and conjure the exact reason we are all so gay.

[polldaddy poll=”6528427″]

You may say to yourself, “My God, what have I done?” – Talking Heads, Once in a Lifetime

This piggybacks off Mr. Baumann’s post, I suppose, since I never met I good idea I didn’t want to steal.

Most every baseball fan thinks they can run a team better than a given group of current general managers. Article commenters and radio show callers pull no punches when exalting their genius ideas for turning a team around through free agent acquisitions and trades. Save for the ridicule of other commenters and hosts of said radio shows, there are no ramifications for these plans. No trade is too outrageous, no signing too extravagant.

We, the statistically inclined (I refuse to use the term sabermetric community), are no different. We take a dissimilar approach, no doubt, but the result is the same. We create plans and strategies for turning hypothetical teams into hypothetical winners. We write articles about how a GM made a poor decision based on a set of historical data, or praise another for his forward-thinking approach to crafting a team.

Though the ideas of traditional and statistically-minded fans may differ, they do have something in common; they have absolutely zero experience running a professional baseball team. I am not breaking any new ground here. I doubt anyone needs to be reminded that they’ve never had a particular job in the past. But if I’m writing about a trade, or reading an article breaking down free agent signings, I sometimes have to remind myself of just how difficult it would be to be a below-average MLB GM, let alone a renowned and respected one. Do I still think I could do it, though? Of course. Don’t we all?

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