Sitting here at primanti bros. about to crush a Pitts-burgher cheese steak for you. Thank you fans, for all your support. #thisonesforyou

— Travis Snider (@Lunchboxhero45) October 3, 2012

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This San Francisco Chronicle article discusses the A’s refusing to remove the tarps from the upper deck stadium seats, even for the playoffs, leaving 20,878 of O.co Coliseum’s 55,945 seats covered and unable to be sold.

From the article:

Longtime sports marketer Paul Siri of Redwood City, a former executive with IMG, said he’d never seen an owner say “no” to the chance to sell more tickets, hot dogs, beer, T-shirts and other merchandise at a high-profile game that’s sure to sell out.

The move makes sense only if Wolff is trying to convince Major League Baseball he can’t build a successful team in Oakland, Siri said.

“Looking at this from his point of view, this is the worst thing that could happen,” Siri said. “His team wins, media exposure increases, the stadium sells out, and suddenly he loses his leverage to move. It kills his argument. … I don’t blame the fans for being upset.”

Not from the article:

In further attempts to keep fans away, and convince MLB that the A’s must move, Wolff has refused to make any attempts to capture the thousands of bees that have found a home in O.co Coliseum. Wolff denies releasing the bees into the stadium in the first place, and emphatically denies spending a long September night covering all stadium armrests with honey, produced locally (in San Jose).

Or it may just be that the two people they found to quote in the article are the only two people who think anyone will buy the extra tickets. This thread at Baseball Think Factory makes the point that there likely is no demand for the seats anyway.

(But how much could they get for the tarps on eBay?)

Q: Mike Moustakas: Did he hit 20 home runs?

A: Yes. Exactly.

Q: Who do you think led the league in saves?

A: Jim Johnson. Hold me to it.

Q: Adam Dunn: Good bounce-back candidate?

A: Definitely. He was. Guaranteed.

Q: Was Gio Gonzalez a good pickup now that he was in the National League?

A: Without a doubt. I’d stake my reputation on it.

Q: Will Travis Snider have been traded as of the end of the season?

A: Yes, to the Pirates. So if you were in an AL-only league, you should have watched out.

Q: Can Jake Peavy really have been a useful starter for a whole season?

A: Indeed! I will make the bold prediction that he was have been would be is!

Q: Tim Lincecum: big dropoff, or bigger dropoff?

A: Big dropoff.

Q: Can I have won with Josh Beckett and Jacoby Ellsbury leading my team?

A: Probably not.

Q: Sleeper picks of the year?

A: Mike Trout. He would have been my number one pick, if the 2012 draft was today.

Q: What do you predict for 2011?

A: Much better season for Roy Halladay and Cliff Lee, among others.

Q: Any long-term projections?

A: Take Maris in ’61.

Was your team terrible in 2012?

Now that the regular season is over, it’s not too soon to start thinking about 2013, and finding even the thinnest of reasons to be optimistic.

Like this guy, plucked from Twitter:

So, the expansion #Mets seem to reach the WS every 13 years or so (’73-’86-’00) 2013 is David’s & “Cy Young” R.A.’s contract year… #amazin

— David Malantic (@dmalantic) September 28, 2012

“every 13 years or so!” Wow. 13, 14, what’s the difference? But, really, if the pattern holds, we should be thinking about 2015, not 2013. 13 years, 14 years, x. Everyone who has ever taken an IQ test on the Internet knows that x = 15 years in this case.

The first in a new series:

What happens if you only read the first half of a headline?

In this case… poor Chase Utley.

Much-consolidated excerpt from actual article:

MIAMI – In the end, there was too much risk and too little time. [For] one month… the Phillies staved off formal elimination. [But] before the Phillies dropped a 2-1 decision to the Miami Marlins that ended their postseason chances, GM Ruben Amaro Jr. and manager Charlie Manuel informed Utley… [h]is work [on Earth]… was done.

“I don’t know if it’s a matter whether or not he can [recover],” Amaro said. “I think it’s more a matter of practicality and what’s really best for the team overall.”

Amaro, for one, said [Utley] was… “dead.” … [I]t appears the team is fully headed in another direction.

“It’s tough to put the guy in that position right now,” Amaro said.

I decided to type in “Manny Acta” followed by each letter of the alphabet (“Manny Acta a,” “Manny Acta b,” etc.) to see what Google Autocomplete thinks about the recently-fired Indians skipper. Here are the results. (I’ve bolded some highlights.)

Manny Acta all star coach
Manny Acta all star game
Manny Acta all star
Manny Acta and wife
Manny Acta bio
Manny Acta bowling
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Three weeks ago, the New York Times ran an incredibly important article about Keith Hernandez’s mustache that, of course, we here at NotGraphs had to cover.

This past weekend, the crucial follow-up story.

Keith Hernandez shaved his mustache.

He might grow it back.

The Earth is still spinning on its axis.

Dear NotGraphs,

Many thanks,
Anonymous Emailer

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From two of Jose Canseco’s columns at Vice.com:

The issue is very simple: If you’ve got friends and family, the more money you make the more you spend on them. So let’s say you spend half your money on them and the rest on yourself and the cost of living. It may so happen that during all of that you forget to pay your taxes. And then all of a sudden penalties and interest start to add up, and you’re in a pool of quicksand from which you cannot escape.

When you owe the government—whether it be state or federal—they are relentless when it comes to getting their money back. They institute incredible penalties and interest that almost makes it seem like they want to enslave you.

Let me tell you something: I hate politics. In fact, I’m very anti-politics. I don’t even vote because I think the current US government is involved in the worst form of corruption and legal extortion imaginable.

In my view, the last president who was fully respectable and good for the nation all-around was Abraham Lincoln, and that was a long time ago. Besides unifying the nation and outlawing slavery, he was also great in that movie where he fought all of the vampires and zombies. He is the baddest bad-ass president ever, no doubt. I mean, how can you not like a president who slays vampires? It’s impossible. I think all presidents—and everyone in government, really—should be forced to see Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. It’ll show them how it’s done.

Everything in his column archive is bizarre.

From Rotoworld:

Adrian Beltre (illness) has returned to the Rangers starting lineup on Saturday.

Beltre missed Friday’s contest after undergoing “invasive” GI tests earlier in the day, but was fully expected to return on Saturday. He’s hitting an incredible .374/.415/.929 with 15 homers and 27 RBI in his last 26 games.

There are no photos.

Well, until now.