I’m sure it comes as little surprise that I am a fan of Star Trek. Although my favorite series of the bunch is “The Next Generation,” one of my favorite moments comes from the “Deep Space Nine” series. Commander Sisko, the first-in-command at the space station Deep Space Nine, was a big baseball fan despite the fact that the sport had largely disappeared between the mid-21st and 24th centuries. In one episode, Sisko leads a band of ragtag Starfleet officers in a baseball game (on the Holodeck, naturally) against a team of hard, logical Vulcans, and they somehow will themselves to a (moral and not entirely by the rules of baseball) victory. In other episodes, legends of the game are mentioned: Tris Speaker, Ted Williams, and Buck Bokai.

Here’s a brief summary of what is commonly known of Buck Bokai’s career.

– Made his pro debut in 2019 with the Crenshaw Monarchs of the Planetary Baseball League.
– Traded to the Gotham City Bats in 2020 in a 12 player deal.
– Plays for Tanis (an Earth city, apparently) in 2022.
– Plays for Seibu in 2023 and 2024.
– In 2025, Bokai joins the team he remains with for the final 17 seasons of his career, the London Kings.
– Breaks Joe DiMaggio’s 56-game hitting streak record in 2026.
– Loses World Series to the New York Yankees in 2032 .
– Hits game-winning home run in final World Series in 2042.
– Played second and third base and switch-hit, and was a prolific power hitter in his early career, hitting 20 home runs from the right side alone in each of his first three seasons.

Bokai must’ve been a first ballot Hall of Famer, but I think it’s possible that such BBWAE (Baseball Writers Association of Earth) curmudgeons as Dave Cameron and Carson Cistulli may have left him off of their ballots in their jaded old age.

Information from Memory Alpha, a Star Trek wiki

(Get it, pitchman?)

Because when I want to advertise a beauty project, I call Randy Johnson!

This advertisement just adds to the legacy created by a previous Just for Men ad, starring Emmitt Smith, Walt “Clyde” Frazier, and Keith Hernandez (all of whom appear in the video above). These two videos truly stand alone when it comes to beard rhymes.

“Your beard is weird.”

“Your stubble’s in trouble.”

“Your ‘stache is trash.”

Sheer poetry. And hey, make sure you watch the petunias on the way out.

In case you’re not familiar with the great north, winters here are cold. This weekend, the heater in my century-old classic college house decided to stop heating the house on nights with lows of -8 followed by a balmy (a weather term which is never used non-ironically) 13.

Naturally, as the temperature indoors fell below 55 degrees, I found my extremities were extremely cold – specifically, my ears. Unfortunately, I don’t own any of the hats above – the Trapper 10 and Dogear styles on Lids.com. Not every team has an entry in these styles – for example, Diamondbacks fans are out of luck here. However, most teams are included regardless of their geography, as the picture above shows.

The Trapper 10 style features a logo on the wool front of the caps. However, the coloring of these logos is odd – multiple feature yellow on white – which makes it difficult to pick out just what the logo is. I do love this Kansas City Royals one, though, albeit not intriguing enough to blow 55 dollars on. The Dogear (44 dollars) is simply a typical 59fifty hat with, you guessed it, dog-ear like flaps to cover cold ears. I’ve found this style intriguing for a couple of winters, but unfortunately, none of the four Brewers styles really hold my fancy. For as much as I like wearing baseball hats, I can’t justify spending 45-55 dollars on an out-of-season, only good for winter hat. If I did, I’d probably be as broke as my heater.

Yesterday, Tim Marchman asked perhaps one of the great questions surrounding the baseball community today: What the f*** is with this Jack Morris s***? It’s a thought-provoking question, as is the rest of Marchman’s musing on the topic, as can be seen here (in case you’re incredibly dense, the language here* occasionally isn’t suitable for children or the weak of heart).

*Marchman’s site has a category titled “Bad Language.” There are six articles tagged in it. The subject of this piece, remarkably enough, is not one of them.

Many people have weighed in on the Jack Morris Hall of Fame issue, but I don’t think anybody has spoken to my inner being quite so well as Marchman does with that single question. The more I think about this Jack Morris s***, the less I can decipher what the f*** it’s about. Is it about people supporting a player based on one exceptional moment? Do people think that Jack Morris is legitimately one of the best pitchers ever? Is Jon Heyman just vindictively going after an “internet zealot”? I mean, what the f***?

Of course, if it were that simple to answer the question of what the f*** this Jack Morris s*** is about, Mr. Marchman wouldn’t have to ask it. Perhaps today, when the results of the Hall of Fame voting are released, we’ll have a better idea of just what the f*** this Jack Morris s*** is all about. Until then, and likely for the foreseeable future, we’ll just have to wonder: what the hell?

In the New Year’s edition of the New York Times, Michael Schmidt wrote an interesting article on Rafael Palmeiro and the hall of fame. Naturally, PEDs are a major theme. The topic of how the writers will treat those players from the steroid era – not just those like Palmeiro who were caught, but players like Jeff Bagwell with whom speculation is all the evidence we have – also came up. On that subject, Ross Newhan a former columnist from the LA Times, said the following:

“Somebody said we are not the morality police, but yet I think we are. If we aren’t, who is? Part of our job is that we are custodians of the game’s history. I do look at the larger picture, and Palmeiro had a lot of good years, but that brings back to my feeling that otherwise he would be worthy of the Hall of Fame.”

The merits of Newhan’s viewpoint can be debated – I, for one, stand in the “innocent until proven guilty” court – but that’s not why we’re here. We’re here because the image of Ross Newhan as a Custodian of Baseball is funny. See?

Read the rest of this entry »

Bobby Jenks and Ozzie Guillen are no longer co-workers, and Bobby Jenks sure isn’t broken up about it. On joining the Red Sox, Jenks said that he is “looking forward to playing for a manager who knows how to run a bullpen.”

Although one could hardly be surprised that a Guillen would swiftly and forcefully respond to Jenks’s comments, I don’t think too many people expected that it would be Ozzie’s son Oney with the comebacks. On his twitter feed, Oney railed against Jenks, calling into question his manliness, pointing out his weight problem, and even claiming that Jenks is a “yellow beard dipper.”

That’s all very interesting and exciting, but this story is not what I’m interested in. No, I was more intrigued by the way this story was reported. In the story linked above from ESPN, Oney’s twitter feed is quoted. Like many younger people, Oney doesn’t always use proper grammar or spelling or punctuation or whatever other convention of English you can think of in his tweets. As a result, we have the following fascinating paragraph appearing in print on a national sports site:

Oney Guillen called Jenks an ungrateful “punk” in a series of Twitter posts. In one, he wrote that Jenks should “be a man and tell the manager or the coaching staff how u feel or the organization when u were with the sox not when u leave.” In another, he wrote that Jenks “cried in the managers office bc u have problems now u go and talk bad about the sox after they protected u for 7 years ungrateful.”

It’s not like there was really anything for the reporter to do about those tweets, unless you want everything to read with bracketed corrections every other word. I, for one, find it beautiful in its current form. The paragraph is a stunning merger of the formal and the casual; of the impassive and the emotional; of the edited and the unfiltered. Only here do we see the opposing styles of the convention of the journalistic world and the uncaring typings of the young American communicator laid out in such stark contrast. Indeed, this is life as art.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yC6TbH_Yzd4

(Hat tip to Deadspin for the video)

The above video comes from comedian Norm MacDonald’s legendary set at the 1998 ESPYs, the last time the ESPYs have been worth watching.

If you haven’t watched that set, do so immediately. Its baseball relevance includes a classic Hideki Irabu joke as well the introduction of Michael Jordan’s baseball nickname, as seen in the picture below.

I wouldn’t want that on my hall of fame plaque either.

Outside of the comedy, the most remarkable part of this video, particularly for baseball fans, is Ken Griffey Jr.’s reaction to MacDonald’s set. First, after Norm makes a Hideki Irabu joke (around 1:05 on the video), the camera pans over to Griffey, who is not pleased at all.

We don’t see Griffey again until the end of the video, right after Norm finishes with a deadly O.J. Simpson joke. Although I’m a bit young to remember everything about the O.J. trial, I do know that it was a bit contentious, particularly along racial lines, so perhaps it’s not shocking to see this reaction out of Junior and those sitting around him after the joke.

In the interest of full disclosure, this post was mainly just an excuse to post the Norm video, with the added bonus of using the name “Señor Crappy” thrown in. But hey, isn’t it kind of crazy to know that Ken Griffey Jr. hates Norm MacDonald?

One of the most underrated aspects of the blockbuster trade which brought Zack Greinke to Milwaukee is the potential clubhouse relationship between Greinke and Brewers superstar Ryan Braun. Both of these players have remarkable personalities, and they aren’t exactly kindred spirits. If they are peas, they certainly live in separate pods, if you will.

Greinke’s quirks are pretty well known, particularly in the saber community. His quote after winning the Cy Young Award in 2009 is especially famous among statheads: “That’s how I try to pitch, to keep my FIP as low as possible.” Some of his quotes can come a bit out of left field for different reasons. For example, another quote about the 2009 Cy Young, this time on whether he had thought about the award after the conclusion of the regular season: “Not really. I’ve been playing this World of Warcraft game.” This quote probably best sums up Greinke’s social adeptness:

“Zack,” a teammate once said to him, “I’m having this charity golf tournament. Was hoping you might play in it.” Greinke paused, as if considering the request. Then he said, “No. Why would I do that?”

On the other hand, we have Ryan Braun. The Ryan Braun who says “I’m kinda known for my confidence.” The same Ryan Braun who was described by the USA Today as “a mixture of SoCal and South Beach cool, with a New York flair for the bravado and a business mind that belongs on Wall Street.” He looks like this:

Who knows what will happen when these opposites share a locker room over the course of 162 games? I’m not sure we’ll ever see Greinke in a Remetee or Ryan Braun playing World of Warcraft, but perhaps each can learn a little bit from the other.

MLB released the 2011 Chase Field All-Star Game logo yesterday.

I find the color scheme interesting, but aside from that, this logo is flat out boring. It’s a desert… with a mountain… and a sky. The lettering is done in, naturally, the font of the Arizona Diamondbacks. It’s not a terrible logo or anything, and it doesn’t affront the eyes by any measure. There’s not really an easily identifiable problem with the logo. It’s just… there.

The drabness and overall corporate feel of the logo are represented perfectly in Diamondbacks CEO Derrick Hall’s take on it.

“It incorporates a little bit of the mountains, it’s got our font, a Diamondback feel about it,” Hall said. “I’m very pleased with the way the logo turned out. It looks good on merchandise, it looks good on baseballs, it looks good on caps.”

I guess it’s hard to say what else we really should be looking for in a logo, particularly one like this which is essentially only used to market this three day event. As I look at the list of past All-Star Game logos, however, I can’t help but feel like this is one of the least inspired of them all. Almost all of them have some sort of baseball related or city related icon that makes it feel like the logo is part of something besides a marketing campaign. This one, though, just feels like it’s there to move some hats and get this whole thing over with.

To which I say: Whatever.

On Monday, the Brewers released a multitude of minor leaguers, including Steve Braun, a 25-year-old second baseman out of the University of Maryland. In three minor league stints all below AA, Braun only managed an OPS above .500 in a 41 PA stint in Low-A. In his other two stints, Braun hit .175/.214/.263 and .140/.252/.178.

So, Braun is just another terrible minor league free agent whose career flamed out in the low minors. Except for one thing: Steve is the brother of Brewers star and Jersey Shore moonlighter Ryan Braun. Sure, Steve may not have shown any semblance of MLB or even MiLB talent, but hey, he’s related to Ryan, so why not. In fact, I’m willing to bet that his addition to the Brewers system was at the behest of Ryan, the Brewers Deputy GM. The only reasoning given by Doug Melvin was that “Helena was short of infielders.”

That Helena club with Braun is effectively the cast of the movie Werewolf, a 1996 movie about (you guessed it) werewolves starring Joe Estevez, brother of Martin Sheen and uncle to Charlie Sheen and Emilio Estevez (prompting the riffers of MST3K to call him “One of the lesser Estevezes”). I was introduced to this classic flick via the always fantastic Mystery Science Theater 3000. In this case, Braun plays the part of Estevez. Estevez’s character in the movie doesn’t really do much, kind of like Braun and his .477 OPS. The rest of the movie is filled with actors that barely know how to speak English, much less act, kind of like rookie-level minor leaguers and professional baseball.

It was a short lived career for Steve Braun, but hey, it’s not all bad. Most people don’t even get the taste of professional baseball that he got, and maybe Ryan will give him some of the cash he’s making off of his awesome t-shirt line. Most importantly, Steve Braun now becomes a trump card in everybody’s favorite game, “Who would you want in your werewolf movie?”, where you cast your own werewolf movies with brothers of actual stars.

Personally, my werewolf movie would have a baseball slant (naturally), casting Steve Braun along with Billy Ripken, Randy Wolf’s umpiring brother Jim Wolf, Robin Yount’s brother Larry, and, of course, Fred Molina.