My grandma passed away last week at age 96, having lived a long and, at least to me, quite remarkable life. Until she had a stroke at age 92, she lived independently, and went out almost every day, to the senior center, the library, the botanic gardens, museums, restaurants, the movies, everywhere. She took classes, wrote poetry, and probably over the course of her life watched at least a thousand Mets games on TV, and maybe quite a few more than that.

In the year or two before her stroke, she and a couple of her friends found themselves in the habit of going to the movies pretty much every weekend. At one point, I had the idea to blog her movie reviews, which, looking back on them now, make me happy I wrote down so many of her words and sad that she’s gone.

I came across one passage about the Mets, from 2008, about a month after Willie Randolph was replaced by Jerry Manuel. I found her take on the Mets at the time to be pretty amusing:

I’ve been watching the Mets game. They’ve been doing so well lately. Maybe they were threatened they would lose their jobs. All of a sudden they all got so good. I know they have the new manager, but he stands in the dugout, he never smiles, he seems like he is not enjoying himself, so I don’t know if he is the one motivating them, but something must be going on because all week they have been winning every game.

I was hoping I’d unearth more baseball-related content from the archives of my posts about her, but, alas, the only way I can post more about my grandma is to venture seriously off-topic.

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I almost feel bad for Bobby Valentine. Today’s piece in the Boston Herald (the latest in a string of articles itemizing everything terrible or could-be-interpreted-as-terrible-if-you-squint that Valentine has said or done) discusses a breakfast meeting Valentine had with owner John Henry yesterday, where, contrary to the hope of perhaps everyone, he did not get fired.

Asked if the meeting brought him any sense of nirvana, Valentine said, “I always feel good after breakfast. It’s one of my favorite meals.”

Yeah, this is probably going to end soon.

Asked what he and Henry talked about, Valentine said, “What do you think we talked about? Art? Liverpool? We talked about baseball, our team, what he’s concerned with, what I deal with.”

(Other favorite meals of Bobby Valentine: Lunch, Dinner, Snack After Loss, Brunchholz, and Fettucine Alfredo Aceves)

Here’s the latest in a series that takes a look at some NotGraphs reader blogs and points you toward some interesting things I find. Read about how this series started in this post.

1. Clean and simple, and a very nice scroll-through, Dante Bichette’s Inferno features pictures of baseball cards and quick factoids. As the Red Sox trade their entire team away… a reminder that hitting coach Dave Magadan’s lifetime .390 OBP ranks #100 all-time.

2. A celebration of the long-term relationship between the Braves and Peter Moylan. Can you name the seven relievers since 2006 who have made more appearances with one team than Moylan? Two are named in the post.

3. An interesting comparison of player height at different positions. Did you know that right fielders are the tallest outfielders?

4. Great headline: Red Sox Decide To Quit Playing Baseball, Might Open a “Laundromat or Something” Say Team Owners. And the post ain’t bad either. “If anyone turns on NESN in the next few days after having avoided the Internet, it will be like watching Scrubs after the show went to ABC, with Turk and JD nowhere to be found.”

5. Also from the blog listed at #4, a link to this interesting Paris Review piece about Rays AAA manager Charlie Montoyo.

6. A post about baseball jargon from 1943. Seriously:

Because the Texas-Leaguer caused such exasperation for fielders, in 1943 if one occurred during a game, sports writers around the nation could describe it as a “Sheeny Mike, banjo, humpback liner, plunker, Japanese liner, drooper, looper, special, leaping Lena or a percentage hit.” Leaving aside the somewhat racist connotations of the “Japanese liner,” and the fact that I have absolutely no idea what half of these phrases mean, they are still undeniably entertaining.

7. Finally, highlights from a radio interview with Lou Gehrig.

“@zombeels: @mrlecure you suck.” couldn’t agree more, tonight was not my finest, cost us the game. I’ll do better the next time

— Sam LeCure (@mrLeCure) August 19, 2012

Colon Leaves a Black Mark on the Sport

Oakland Gets Mandatory Colonostomy

Roids Found in Swollen Colon

Colon Blown Out in Oakland

Is 50 Games Enough Punishment for A’s Colon?

Dirty Colon Not Fooling Anybody

A’s get caught with a Colon Full of PEDs

and the winner:

Colon Busted by MLB Probe

Kind sir,

Warmest regards,
Hurricane Superfly

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Another week, another opportunity for rejected headlines.

Last night, I had an interesting dream. In the dream, I found a pile of reimbursement checks that had been written to me, from the Mets, compensating me for attending seven of their games. The checks were for $20 each, which seemed like an appropriate amount that the Mets should have to pay someone to watch them play. But, sadly, the checks had expired, and I needed to call the Mets’ offices and ask if they could reissue them. (There was a picture of Terry Leach on the checks. I don’t know why. I’m pretty sure Terry Leach hadn’t crossed my mind since 1987.) As I was waiting on hold, I turned toward the TV and saw a headline scrolling at the top of the screen: “Jason Kipnis traded to the Mets for four players.” And then I woke up.

I immediately started to wonder — who were the four players?

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I told readers in a recent post that if you followed me on Twitter, I’d check out your blog. Here’s the latest in a series that takes a look at some NotGraphs reader blogs and points you toward some interesting things I find. If you’d like to potentially be included in a future post, it’s easy.

1. Here’s a fun book review of Curious George at the Baseball Game. Are there other children’s books about baseball that could benefit from a sabermetrically-minded analysis? That could be a fun series for someone to write.

2. Here’s a very nicely Photoshopped collection of MLB catchers with goat hands, which makes (slightly) more sense if you read the post.

3. Six weeks too late, but this “do I have the ball?” trick played by Ryan Zimmerman to catch Carlos Gonzalez off third base is pretty cool, and a nicely done GIF.

4. Some solid-looking analysis of whether Nick Swisher ought to remain a Yankee next season.

From the New York Daily News:

In a bizarre attempt to avoid a 50-game drug suspension, San Francisco Giants star Melky Cabrera created a fictitious website and a nonexistent product designed to prove he inadvertently took the banned substance that caused a positive test under Major League Baseball’s drug program.

Cabrera associate Juan Nunez, described by the player’s agents, Seth and Sam Levinson, as a “paid consultant” of their firm but not an “employee,” is alleged to have paid $10,000 to acquire the phony website. The idea, apparently, was to lay a trail of digital breadcrumbs suggesting Cabrera had ordered a supplement that ended up causing the positive test, and to rely on a clause in the collectively bargained drug program that allows a player who has tested positive to attempt to prove he ingested a banned substance through no fault of his own.

1. Where’s the link? I want to see this website.

2. Why can’t I get $10,000 to create phony websites? I have actual experience in this department! Attention, baseball players: If you want to pay $10,000 for a phony website, I am available for hire. Bulk discount if you need sites for multiple illegal products.