The best of yesterday’s reader-submitted Rejected Melky Cabrera Headlines:

Muscle Melk

The Melk’s Gone Bad

Melktoast!

Don’t Cry Over Pilled Melk

Land Of Melk and Money

The Melky Way Is Expanding

Vote for your favorite! Or write your own, and I’ll share the best tomorrow!

There’s been a good bit of press coverage about Matt Treanor and his wife Misty May-Treanor, who won the gold in beach volleyball last week, for the third consecutive Olympic Games. The LA Times writes about Treanor’s tearful reaction here.

But there was very little MLB-related coverage of her volleyball partner, Kerri Walsh Jennings, and her husband, Desmond Jennings of the Tampa Bay Rays.

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

There have been about thirty blogs for me to check out so far, so if I don’t get to yours immediately, it doesn’t mean I won’t. I am tempted to add that if you want me to link to your blog, it would help if the blog is written in English. But, based on the blog I’m about to link to, it may actually help if the blog isn’t written in English.

1000 Ballgame Ways is the first blog I’ve ever seen that posts all of the Rangers’ FanGraphs game graphs and then writes about them in Japanese. Google Translate helps me to understand what seems to be an analysis of Yu Darvish’s chances for the Rookie of The Year award:

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Over the weekend, Mitt Romney chose Paul Ryan of Wisconsin to be his running mate on the Republican ticket. I wish to make the case that Romney chose the wrong Ryan.

Paul Ryan: Wisconsin (10 electoral votes)
Nolan Ryan: Texas (38 electoral votes)

Paul Ryan: Chairs the House Budget Committee
Nolan Ryan: Owns a major league baseball team

Paul Ryan: Early jobs included camp counselor, Oscar Mayer Weinermobile driver (seriously, if Wikipedia is to be believed), mail-opening intern, and marketing consultant for a construction company owned by his relatives
Nolan Ryan: Early jobs included pitcher, pitcher, and [Edited to add: Not A] Cy Young Award-winning pitcher [but still a pretty awesome pitcher anyway].

Paul Ryan: Has won 7 elections to Congress
Nolan Ryan: Threw 7 no-hitters

Paul Ryan: One of three founders of “Young Guns” program
Nolan Ryan: Threw fastest reliably recorded pitch ever, at 100.9 MPH [if we ignore Aroldis Chapman, which whatever source I looked at did. Argh.]

Paul Ryan: Makes his own bratwurst and polish sausage
Nolan Ryan: Struck out 5,714 major league baseball players

George W. Bush on Paul Ryan: “This is a strong pick.”
George W. Bush on Nolan Ryan: “Nolan Ryan is one of the greatest pitchers of all time and an excellent role model in sports. He’s living proof that dreams do come true- for anyone with the courage and dedication to work hard to achieve their dream.”

Dear NotGraphs,

Warmest regards,
Usain von Hercules

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Back in the early days of the Internet (2002), I was a law student with a weblog. I remember looking many times a day at my SiteMeter statistics page, hoping someone would have discovered my blog, linked to it, and sent dozens of new readers my way. A book I just read last week insists that the Internet is not a meritocracy, and there are far too many manipulative marketers at work in the background for actually-worthwhile content to rise to the top. (I don’t think this argument is entirely true, but most of the book was pretty compelling, and worth checking out if you’re interested in why some things go viral and how you can manipulate the system to give your content a better shot.)

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There’s the mainstream media, once again underestimating the New York Yankees. Mark Hale of The New York Post wrote a piece this weekend: “Nine current Yankees have shot at Hall of Fame.”

The Yankees could see nine players on this year’s squad be enshrined in Cooperstown — which would match the most by any team — coincidentally, with the 1931, 1932 and 1933 Yankees, who also had nine players make it.

Nine? What in the world is Mark Hale talking about? The Yankees have at least twenty-seven players on their 40-man roster likely to make the Hall of Fame and possibly as many as forty-three. Sure, the nine mentioned in the article (Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera, Alex Rodriguez, Ichiro Suzuki, Robinson Cano, Mark Teixeira, CC Sabathia, Andy Pettitte and Andruw Jones) are all obvious slam-dunks, especially Teixeira, but how in the world could Hale ignore the achievements of the other eighteen HOF slam-dunks on the Yankees roster?

Jayson Nix: Batting .357 since the All-Star Break. That’s Tony Gwynn territory there.

Joba Chamberlain: An amazing comeback from breaking his leg into sixteen pieces after eating a trampoline. He’s struck out more than a batter an inning for his career. He hasn’t hit a batter since 2011. Amazing.

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Red Sox reliever Andrew Bailey, quoted at WEEI.com:

“I don’t give a [expletive], frankly. I just want to play and get to the playoffs,” Bailey said. “Whatever role they see fit, that’s what I’m going to do. If it’s setting up, if it’s doing whatever, that’s fine by me and we’ll address it next spring.”

But that’s only the beginning. Here at NotGraphs, we’ve been able to get our hands on the rest of Bailey’s interview:

Wait a minute. I said all that [expletive] because I assumed the Sox were still in playoff contention. You’re telling me we’re in fourth [expletive] place, ten [expletive] games out? What the [expletive]? I know I said I didn’t care if I was the [expletive] closer, but [expletive]! [Expletive] [expletive] [expletive]! If we’re not even going to make the [expletive] playoffs, it’s a little [expletive] ridiculous for me to take a [expletive] bullet for this [expletive] organization and agree to do whatever the [expletive] they want. I want a [expletive] multiyear contract at the end of this [expletive] season, not a [expletive] minor league [expletive] invite after I throw fifteen [expletive] mop-up innings and don’t [expletive] show anyone that I can still [expletive] pitch. They don’t even show me the [expletive] standings over in [expletive] rehab. They let all of us [expletive] think we’re [expletive] rolling to a division title and now you [expletive] tell me we’re one [expletive] spot from last [expletive] place? The [expletive] Blue Jays are a half game below us? The [expletive] Orioles are three and a half games ahead of us? The [expletive] Orioles? [expletive]! This whole [expletive] [expletive] is crazy, man. Of course I want to [expletive] close. I need [expletive] counting stats. I need to get the [expletive] out of here. [Expletive]. I don’t know what the [expletive] I was talking about. I have to call my [expletive] agent.

This past weekend, outfielder Lew Ford was called up to the Orioles after not playing in the major leagues since 2007. Here is a sampling of the reaction on Twitter.

A story I wrote about Lew Ford a month ago, when he said he would be shocked to be back in majors: bit.ly/QpTOiL #BEscores

— Christopher Dabe (@cmdabe) July 29, 2012

Lew Ford? Unsure if I should be happy for him or laughing at the Orioles.

— Mike Petriello (@mike_petriello) July 29, 2012

Lew ford batting 5th for Baltimore I didn’t even think he was alive twitter.com/michaelsvoss/s…

— Michael Voss (@michaelsvoss) July 29, 2012

NO WORRIES LEW FORD WILL SAVE US

— Fake Oriole Bird (@FakeOrioleBird) July 29, 2012

Love these stories. Congrats @Captainlew20 RT @EddieInTheYard: Lew Ford starting today in LF and hitting fifth. #Orioles”

— CJ Nitkowski (@CJNitkowski) July 29, 2012

Congratulations to Lew Ford for making it back to majors. We’ve made fun of him a lot, but he was and is an overachiever.

— Jim Souhan (@SouhanStrib) July 29, 2012

Congratulations, Lew.

The tougher the battle the sweeter the victory. This is crazy I’m back! Thank you everyone who supported and believed twitter.com/Captainlew20/s…

— Lew ford (@Captainlew20) July 29, 2012