ATLANTA — In a move that was both surprising, yet right in line with recent activity, the Atlanta Braves have signed Colton Jackson, a baby, to a 29-year contract extension. Jackson was signed to his initial contract by the Braves a mere month and half prior, forty eight days after his birth.

“We are excited to continue our tradition of committing to our promising young talent,” said Braves general manager Frank Wren. “Colton here has shown a lot of potential in these last two months. He’s been very responsive to our jiggling of keys, and has really upped his performance in peekaboo. We like his makeup, and with some time we feel his fingers won’t look so weird. All in all, it’s a great day for the Atlanta Braves organization.”

Wren said that the signing of Jackson, along with the recent extensions of Freddie Freeman, Andrelton Simmons, Julio Tehran, and Craig Kimbrel will help solidify who the Braves are for many years to come. He would not comment on the rumors that the team is in talks to gain exclusive signing rights to Freeman’s first born son, but the so-called “sperm retainer” has been discussed heavily within the front office, sources say.

“I’m excited to see Colton take his position around 2044,” Wren said. “We should be in our fifth or sixth new stadium by then.”

As fans, when Spring Training comes round, we thirst for any whispers coming from down south. The more we hear about baseball, the more real it becomes. Reporters know this, and have taken to tweeting out pictures from Spring Training camps to feed our insatiable hunger. Some aren’t so great. They can be blurry, or taken from a far distance, or not really actually of anything of note. There is a whole Internet web site devoted to this. We may poke fun, but I still consider these art. With that idea in mind, I have created my own Bad Spring Training Pics using nothing but Google and a free image editing computer program. I’m not at Spring Training yet, but that does not mean I can’t partake in some of this good-time action.

The entrance to Salt River Flats in Arizona

Byron Buxton’s elbow

Salvador Perez’s ear

Joe Girardi’s swimsuit area

The brim of Carlos Marmol’s hat

This week, as part of their Superb Owl coverage, the Colbert Report invited guests from the world of sports to come on and talk about the Big Game. One such guest was Nate Silver, a flag bearer in the world of statistical analysis who has since moved on to create his own nerd empire at fivethirtyeight.com. His entrance on the show brings us to today’s uncommon phrase GIF-ustrated: The Struggle of the Statistical Movement to Break into the Mainstream Personified by One of its Most Successful Advocates’ Difficulties Breaking Through Some Paper on National Television. Behold:

Bronson Arroyo takes one last, long drag of his Pall Mall then puts it out in the ashtray that now holds seven butts. He has been there for 23 minutes.

“I already told you,” he says as he exhales smoke out his nostrils. It melds with the steam coming from his coffee cup. “I’m not doing it, Walt.”

“Come on, B.A,” says Walt. “We need you. Just this one last time.”

“I’m retired.” He taps his cigarette pack against the side of his index finger until one stick emerges from the group. He brings the pack to his face and pulls the straggler out with his lips. His Zippo flips open.

“I know you are,” says Walt. “I wouldn’t ask you to do this if I weren’t desperate. This crew I got lined up, they’re good. But they need to be great to pull this thing off. You can make them great. And wait ’til you hear what this score pays.”

“Don’t care.” His mouth said it. His eyes let Walt know he meant it. He ran his yellow fingers through his yellow hair.

“There’s gotta be something I can do to convince you, something you want. Name it. Name it and I’ll get it. Come on, B.A. I need this. Do it as a favor to me.”

Bronson Arroyo slid to the end of the booth, and stood up. He slung a weathered leather jacket over his shoulders and reached into the right-hand pocket. He pulled out four crumpled dollar bills and tossed them on the table.

“Sorry, Walt,” he said through his cigarette. “I stopped doing favors a long time ago. Nothin’ good comes from them.” He turned and walked toward the door.

“It won’t last you know,” Walt projected.

Bronson Arroyo turned around slowly.

“This feeling of superiority, of finality, it won’t last. You have more money than you’ll ever need, and you got out of the game alive, but that calm won’t last. What are you going to do now, huh? You’re gonna sit at home and watch old movies? Get that stupid rock band back together? Grow those fucking dreadlocks again? No way. Just when you think you have a normal life again, it will come back. Not all at once, but over time, that itch will come back. And soon enough, you won’t be able to fight it any longer. You might catch on with that crew in Tampa or Oakland or Chicago. Just for something to do. To feel like you’re alive again. But it won’t be the same. They aren’t your crew. You HAVE a crew. And that crew needs you. Joey, Chappy, Billy, Tony — they all need you. Fuck, I need you, man. So I’m asking, one last time. But if you walk out, you’ll never hear from me again. You might see our names in the papers, but you won’t hear from any of us anymore. It’s your choice. It’s your chance. Your last chance.”

Bronson Arroyo walks back to the table. He puts out his eighth cigarette butt. His eyelids lower. He exhales deeply.

This has been One Childish Possibility for Greg Maddux’s HOF Cap.

Important Update: Twitter-user to the stars Ryan Dunsmore has graced us with an artist’s rendering of Maddux’s plaque donning such attire. Observe:

As there is no baseball of note to be played today, nor will there be any played tomorrow or the next day or the next, we must fill our baseball-craving minds with whatever baseball-related slurry is kicking around up top. An example of these things, a very specific David-G-Temple-related example, are as follows:

• Base stealing
• Prominent base stealers
• Cocaine
• Spreadsheets/Charts related to baseball
• Writing creatively about baseball
• Switching chairs, in a sad effort to hopefully enable writing creatively about baseball
• Pete Rose
• Transportation to Spring Training in Arizona
• My being too fat to fit in the clothes I wore to Spring Training in Arizona last year
• A self-imposed diet to enable me to fit in the clothes I wore to Spring Training in Arizona last year
• County Stadium in Milwaukee, Wisconsin
• The baseball-related podcast I have to re-edit due to computer issues
• A baseball-related short story I promised to someone
• How I haven’t written something creative about baseball in a while
• Making a list about baseball-related things about which I’ve though, today

Writing about baseball, especially writing about baseball in an attempt to be humorous/whimsical can be difficult when buried in the doldrums of the offseason. A large contract extension — not unlike the very large, quite-recent extension signed by Dodgers southpaw Clayton Kershaw — would seem like just the kind of news that would spark a modicum of creativity upon which hilarious and thoughtful Professional Writers like myself could build. I’m not so sure that is the case. And if it is, it hasn’t happened yet. What has happened, it seems, is that I’ve taken the sum of Kershaw’s deal — $215 million — and envisioned it as a physical thing. Specifically, as a very large pathway made of $1 bills.

If Clayton Kershaw saved all $215 million, and had that sum converted into $1 bills, that would equal 215 million bills. A dollar bill, according to Wikipedia, is .0043 inches thick. If one were to take 215 million crisp $1 bills and glue them back-to-back, the result would span just over 14.5 miles. That is the distance between Kershaw’s home ballpark of Dodger Stadium to Inglewood, CA via the 110 and Manchester Ave.

This is would be a silly thing to do. Not the gluing of all the currency — I speak of course of not taking Alvarado to Venice to La Brea to get to Inglewood. Everyone knows traffic on the 110 is a nightmare.