What is the best baseball-themed Manga or Anime?

Gracias,
Yu Matsuichiro

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As the calendar turns from April to May, perhaps the biggest surprise in all of baseball has been the batting performance of Colorado Rockie Tyler Chatwood. With an on-base percentage of 1.000, Chatwood is tied for the major league lead– and, a tribute to Chatwood’s extraordinary batting eye, neither of the players he’s tied with has walked even once. This flawless performance by Chatwood was hinted at last season, when he went 2-for-3 with two sacrifice hits in five plate appearances. And, indeed, his 1.333 OPS was among the best in baseball last year. But, without even a single walk to his credit, no one could have been prepared for his amazing performance thus far in 2012. Each of the one times he has been to the plate, he has emerged with a walk. For that, Tyler Chatwood wins the NotGraphs Player Of The Month Award for the month of April. Also, he has one save, which I guess is cool too.

1. Harper wears #34 in tribute to Rockies pitching coach Bob Apodaca.

2. Harper’s older brother, Bryan, is half-mermaid.

3. Harper has been featured on the covers of Sports Illustrated, Baseball Digest, The New Yorker, and Every Day With Rachael Ray.

4. In 2008, Harper was Batting Average Leader for the State of Israel.

5. Although Harper played catcher in high school, the Nationals drafted him as a pitching coach.

6. Harper is in the middle of a 5-year contract worth more than the gross national product of over 80 countries around the world.

Courtesy of reader Big Daddy V:

Wikipedia can give you more information about the 1995 episode of The Simpsons that inspired such a thing (“Homer The Great”).

Just to worry Pujols owners and Angels fan a little bit more: through Saturday, there are actually only four players with at least 90 plate appearances and no home runs. Pujols, Daniel Murphy, Rafael Furcal, and Michael Bourn. Have Pujols, Murphy, Furcal and Bourn ever had anything else in common?

I did not expect the deluge of e-mail I received following my Miguel Batista piece on Tuesday. (Okay, it was one e-mail.)

Jon Daly of the excellent Designated Sitter blog linked me to his post about Batista, which reminded me that Batista is a writer– of a novel (with two excellent Amazon reviews), and a book of poetry (currently unavailable). And perhaps more, which we might know about if Batista had renewed the registration on his website domain. Millions of dollars in career earnings and he can’t throw GoDaddy $10 (often even less with a coupon code!).

Here’s an interview with Batista that includes a poem, his first in English, written in the Braves bullpen in 1998. Here’s the first stanza:

Do you remember?

The quiet nights under the moon
The holding hands in late September
The prettiest days of my childhood
I ask myself do you remember?

More on Batista’s writing from the Wall Street Journal last month. And he tweets. But, unfortunately, not very often.

Impressive, although Carson is far more qualified to actually pass critical judgment on the poem than I would be. I’m mostly just impressed by the mere production of writing from someone who is also a professional baseball player. I wish I could be in a writing group with Miguel Batista, Fernando Perez, and R.A. Dickey.

(And, yes, all you need to do to get me to mention your blog on NotGraphs is send me an e-mail.)

Dear NotGraphs,

Sincerely,
Die Hard Angels Fan With Future Kids That MUST ALSO BE DIE HARD ANGELS FANS

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As I notice that 41-year-old Miguel Batista started the first game of yesterday’s Mets-Giants doubleheader…

Batista’s first game was as a member of the Pirates in 1992, where he pitched two innings (and gave up two runs). In the lineup against the Pirates that day, playing for the Phillies– although out of the game by the time Batista came in– was a 36-year-old Dale Murphy, on his way to a .161/.175/.274 season.

Murphy’s first game was in 1976, as a 20-year-old catcher (!), in the second game of a September 13th Braves doubleheader against the Dodgers. Making a pinch-hit appearance in the game for the Dodgers was a 38-year-old Manny Mota. He got a hit.

Mota’s first game was as a 24-year-old Giant in 1962, against the Dodgers. In the lineup with Mota was a 27-year-old Felipe Alou.

Alou managed Batista with the Expos from 1998-2000.

Also, Lincoln was shot by a man named Kennedy and Kennedy was shot by a man named Lincoln. Or something like that.

MLB Network should have a night of sitcoms. I’ve done them a favor and come up with some ideas. Vote for your favorites and for anything that gets a substantial number of votes, I’ll write up a whole ridiculous treatment with some episode summaries and a sample scene or two. It’ll be fun. And silly. If you have better ideas than the ones in the poll below, add your own answers!

Dear NotGraphs,

I leave my question to your capably pondering mind.

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That was the date of Jamie Moyer’s first win. Retrosheet’s box score and play-by-play here. Steve Carlton, now 67 years old, was the opposing starter. Kent Tekulve, now 65, made a relief appearance for the Phillies. Davey Lopes, now 66, was Moyer’s third baseman and the leadoff hitter for the Cubs (he went 0-for-2, walked 3 times, and stole a base).

A week after Moyer’s first win, a man named Eric Thomas developed LISTSERV, the first e-mail list management software. Two weeks after the win, Lindsay Lohan was born. Three months after the win, The Oprah Winfrey Show premiered. Four months after the win, President Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev met in Reykjavik to discuss scaling back their missile arsenals. Six months after the win, Desi Arnaz (I Love Lucy) died.

The #1 single when Moyer won his first game was “On My Own” by Patti LaBelle and Michael McDonald. Five days before the win, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off was released in theaters. Theaters were places people watched movies, and paid money to do so.

[The FORTUNE cover in the photo was from a month after the win, July 1986, and the full article about Microsoft’s IPO is here.]