Omar Vizquel and his magic car take flight toward Opening Day
Past the downtrodden January, where the blankets of snow do lay
All the players have found their teams
The fans are ready, too, it seems
To grass and sun and won-pennant dreams
Omar will show us the way.

The car is the color of marigolds, an illicit reference to Spring
‘Tis the color of his gilded trophy gloves and AL Championship ring
He obeys his lease down to the letter
The less miles that it incurs, the better
His shirt — a silken Cosby sweater
Both shiny and wondrous things.

Fly away with Vizquel, this night, to a place where batted balls soar
He’ll buy you a beer and a nacho plate, he’ll even let you keep score
A place where the pastime is always forever
Where shortstop can be played by whoever
Where stabbing ground balls is an easy endeavor
You’ll swear you had been there before.

(h/t to Internet baseball wizard darenw)

COOPERSTOWN, NEW YORK — In a tradition that now has spanned 75 straight years, the voting process for the National Baseball Hall of Fame — and all the shit throwing, posturing, statement making, and overall pissy attitudes that go along with it — has succeeded in turning pretty much everyone into an asshole.

“We could not have asked for a bigger outpouring of dickish attitudes and self-absorbed douchebaggery for our 75th anniversary,” said Jeff Idelson, president of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum. “I mean, have you been on the Internet lately? They’re using language my father wouldn’t have used when he served in Vietnam. This blogger is calling this columnist a name, then the columnist fires back but misspells a word and everyone goes bananas over that. One dude let a website fill out his ballot, then that dude got freaking suspended. Oh man. This is really a display of toxic vitriol and human degradation befitting our great organization. It’s like everyone is screaming at each other while jerking off on a picture of themselves. That’s the way we like it here in Cooperstown.”

“Who do you write for?” asked a national baseball writer when approached for comment. “How did you get this number?”

“What, you think you’re better than me?” one blogger responded when asked for a statement.

When asked if the Hall will possibly make some suggestions to the Baseball Writers Association of America — the voting body for the hall’s museum — to prevent future backlash and shitty behavior, Idelson was indignant.

“Why should we? When this great institution and induction process was founded, it had one goal. To get a whole subset of people to behave in the most childish, selfish, arrogant, and idiotic way possible. When you start something like this, I don’t care what it’s for, you want everyone involved to act one way, like a bunch of pompous fucking assholes. I may be biased, but I’m really proud of how we were able to accomplish that feat.”

The hall of fame ballot for next year should be just as contested, with almost-certain shoo-ins like Pedro Martinez and Randy Johnson becoming eligible for induction for the first time. Regardless of the outcome, Idelson is certain the voting process will be just as horse-fucked.

“Oh yeah, total shit show. We can’t wait.”

I ain’t to proud to admit it — I was slightly bummed out by the Hall of Fame results today. So, to cheer myself up, I do what I usually do when I’m feeling glum — read the Wikipedia list of inventors killed by their own inventions.

It is here that I stumbled upon Karel Soucek, a sort of professional stuntman from Canada. Soucek had an idea for a barrel that was padded, so he could survive inside of it when he took it over Niagra Falls. It worked, as he survived the trip. Then, Captain Smartguy got it in his head to one-up himself and drop himself and his barrel from the ceiling of the now ill-fated Astrodome into a tank of water — a 180 foot drop or so. It did not go well. He died on site.

You heard me, the Astrodome is a murderer. And when it is torn down, the ghost of Karel Soucek will rise above the wreckage, only to float into the greater Houston area, softly uttering his catchphrase.

“There is no heaven or hell; there is no God. It’s all a myth. You’re born, you live, one day you die and that’s it.”

For Soucek, that one day was January 19th, 1985. And that’s it. I somehow feel less bad about Craig Biggio now.

(h/t to my skip Adam Derkey, who’s whose incessant nagging regarding my curling sweeps has prompted me to buy a horse hair broom.)

Cliff Lee refreshes MLBTradeRumors. Nothing doing. His nephews told him this was the place to find any and all trade rumors. But it is not the place to find Cliff Lee trade rumors.

He types his name into the search bar. The corner of his mouth curls when he sees words like “available,” “movable,” and “in flux.” He scrolls down some more. Bad news. “High salary,” “requesting huge return,” and “very little chance.”

Why do they keep writing my God damned age?

He opens another window. Google.com. phillies should trade cliff lee. The results are all over the place.

The Dodgers? Oh man. Nice weather. Good team. That would be cool.

Boston? I could play in Boston. I wouldn’t have to hit. They just won a World Series. I want to win a World Series. That would be cool too.

His eyes hurt. He should go to bed. His dog sighs from the floor of the adjacent room. He echoes it. He continues clicking and scrolling.

Lee would have to waive his no trade clause to be moved.

He picks up his phone and sends a text to his agent.

i told you that id waive my no trade right?

Is he up? Probably not.

He refreshes MLBTradeRumors again. Nothing new. His phone vibrates. A text from his agent.

yes

Because now is an agreed-upon time to do such things, and because there is very little baseball to discuss as we hang new calendars, this seems like a good time to thank all of you fair NotGraphs readers for your continued support.

Nearly anyone can create a web site these days, making jokes and poems and heartfelt observations to an absent audience. It takes a community of writers and readers to make something like this possible. It’s a place for jabs and hastily-crafted Photoshops, yes, but it’s so much more. It’s a place for Hopeless Joe, for Dubuque’s and Baumann’s ventures into the sports ephemera, and dumb reviews about dumb TV shows that are kind of about baseball. It’s a place for philosophy and prose — parody and pontification. It’s a place that allows Dayn Perry to post what seems like annotated opium dreams, but what are actually perfectly-crafted imagination exercises that are so well done I get mad every time I read one, because I know I’ll never be at that level.

But our fine writers are just part of the story. There’s a popular Internet chunk of groupthink that advises people to not read the comments of basically any web page. And certainly, on a CNN or an SB Nation or certainly a Yahoo! News, these sections are best left avoided. They are often full of vitriol and ignorance and self-hate pointed outward. The NotGraphs comments are, in comparison, a delight. It’s a gentle mix of back patting and attempted one-upping, but it’s done in a way that’s neither brown-nosing nor disingenuous. There’s also a shared experience of “getting it,” of messages that hit their mark and massage the part of our brains that don’t get massaged that much — especially when dealing with sports.  It’s obvious that the content here is reaching its intended audience, and that the audience is happy to find what they’ve stumbled across.

NotGraphs was my first “real” writing gig. I’ve found my way onto other avenues, both on the mother site and on upcoming ventures, but I will never forget my roots, to use an already-overused phrase. I plan to write for NotGraphs for as long as they’ll have me, and I hope you continue to come back to participate in our truly-unique section of the World’s Wide Web. Here’s to goofiness and thoughtfulness and the way our site tends to blur the lines between. Here’s to a happy 2014 for all of us.

NotGraphs Forever.

From all of us here at Team NotGraphs, a very happy holiday to you and yours. Be excellent to each other.

Whenever there is a resounding support of a person, place, or thing — an almost universal appreciation — there inevitably comes the backlash. The collection of people who — due to lack of parental love or proper medication, perhaps — find a need to attempt to take something down, to curtail the fire hose of love being applied to said person, place, or thing. They look down and scowl at all the people looking up and smiling. They tamper with the lug nuts on the bandwagon.

I have yet to see that happen to Vin Scully. He gets mentioned a fair deal in this dank corner of the Internet. Certainly, he’s not every single person’s favorite broadcaster — in fact, there may actually be one person on Earth who doesn’t care for him — but he’s managed to avoid the pitfalls that bacon and American Idol and Carson Cistulli could not. People never got sick of him, or his hype. Even people who say they hate Vin Scully don’t hate Vin Scully. They hate themselves.

Vin Scully is famous enough that he could have just walked in to Wrigley Field this day, wheezed some words, and everybody would’ve gone crazy. He pays tribute to Harry Caray in both name and action. He sings — really sings. He modulates his voice to approximate the necessary pitches and he enunciates the words. He gives a flying fuck. This song and what it represents is too important to the game and that ballpark and to him to be half-assed.

It will be a while before we hear Vin Scully again, and soon it will be forever. I can’t help the latter. But perhaps attempting to truncate the former will help us all trudge through the snowbanks of this off-season. Just step in the old foot holes. It will make it easier.

(h/t to Joe_TOC)

Gavin Floyd–the most average pitcher of our generation. He has a 70-70 career record, 100 ERA+, and has allowed 1150 hits in 1151 innings.

— High Heat Stats (@HighHeatStats) December 16, 2013

• Gavin Floyd’s 2006 Honda Civic still gets 32 MPG, thanks to a rigorous schedule of oil changes and a good dose of fuel additives.
• Gavin Floyd’s favorite meal is boiled chicken breast with white rice and a little bit of parmesan cheese. If he’s feeling randy, he’ll add some onions.
• Gavin Floyd’s favorite song is that one by Kelly Clarkson. No, the other one. I dunno, sing it.
• Gavin Floyd has water delivered to his home. He finds city water too spicy.
• Gavin Floyd’s favorite color is clear.
• The ratio of cigarettes smoked by a 14-year-old Gavin Floyd to confessions of smoking by Gavin Floyd to his priest is precisely 1:23.
• Gavin Floyd clicks Like for every post he sees on Facebook, so as to not make anyone feel left out.
• Gavin Floyd’s favorite restaurant is the Applebee’s at the airport.
• Gavin Floyd’s favorite Star Wars movie is Episode I.
• Gavin Floyd has seen every episode of NCIS at least twice.

Tiny Ben Revere would like you to take the picture now. There is a chest of Ninja Turtles back home that needs playing with. Michelangelo is his favorite, of course. What a silly question.

When adults ask Tiny Ben Revere what his favorite subject in school is, his responses include running, running fast, sprinting, jumping, and science. And recess.

Oh these books here? These are just for show. Tiny Ben Revere reads chapter books. Big boy stuff. These books are for little kids. He did bring this ladder from home, however.

Tiny Ben Revere rolls down his right sock only, just like his friend Joe taught him. The girls like it, not that he cares. He’s had a long-standing, well-publicized stance on the current cootie situation. Sometimes one needs to take a stand, and Tiny Ben Revere is no different. He puts his blue shorts on just like everyone else — lying on a bed with both legs sticking straight up in the air.

What’s that? Oh, astronaut. Yes, Tiny Ben Revere will grow up to be an astronaut. All his friends want to be cowboys, but Tiny Ben Revere realizes that the market for cowboys will have dried up by then. Don’t let this shirt full of handprints fool you. Tiny Ben Revere has business savvy.

Tiny Ben Revere doesn’t need to smile for the camera. This is just how his face looks.

(h/t to Internet superstar Aaron Gleeman)

C’mon Doug. I mean, what are you doing? How can you not see a man doing a remote right in front of you? I mean, you walked by him like ten times. Do you know who Ken Rosenthal is? He’s a big deal. And I’m sure he’s on like two hours of sleep, so it’s in your best interest to get out of his damn way. Ugh. Just … try and pay more attention OK?

Look, I know you’re still rattled from when Walt Jocketty yelled at you today. But that was hours ago, and you need to put it behind you. Remember, I’m only doing this as a favor because you’re married to my sister. I know you’re having trouble finding work, and I’m trying to help you out here. Getting another media pass to the Winter Meetings wasn’t easy. But you need to stay out of the way, like we talked about. If you do a good job, I can try and recommend you to my boss when something opens up, but now your face is on TV looking like a dope. You just better hope that some dumb blogger doesn’t find it and make some shitty jokes about you.

OK, OK. Calm down. It’s fine. Let’s go grab a drink at the bar. I need to find Jon Heyman anyway. If we see him, though, remember — let me do the talking. Gammons already thinks you have some sort of brain damage or something.