It is entirely by coincidence, and not, as some conspiracy theorists would have you believe, by design, that the title of this post is uncannily similar to that of Monday’s apocalyptic bombshell regarding the imminent demise of NotGraphs, a blog soon to be known as NotNotGraphs, or, for short, Not.

That post, titled This Weblog Will Expire in Three Months, detailed history’s most cataclysmic development by explaining that the blog’s majordomo, Monsieur Carson Cistulli, wants to spend more time with his family, or maybe with Bruce Jenner’s family. I don’t know. I didn’t read it.

Whatever the case, the timing could not have been more adventitious for me, personally, with regard to the post that you are currently reading – and might be reading for the next two-plus minutes. Why? Because for the past three days, while circling want ads for Unamusing But Punctual Comedy Writers in the local PennySaver, I’ve been drinking a lot – a LOT – of the eggnog left over from the most recently concluded yuletide season. It is not so much for the milk, eggs and nutmeg that I’ve imbibed this frothy concoction, but, rather, the bourbon, the better to ease the pain of impending unemployment.

The problem, as you know, is that eggnog is plagued with a shelf life, perhaps not as rate-specific as the decay of a radioactive isotope but still pretty rigid. Though sensitive to a variety of factors, including exposure to heat, light and Satan, most canned eggnogs last for a period of four to five months. That time has come and gone. And, according to Science, the nog will not submit to an eternal lactose return. It ain’t coming back.
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The network didn’t show it, but in the bottom of the third inning of that recently contested contest of All-Star contestants, a group of protesters hung a large sheet sign that read, LOVE WATER, NOT OIL.

Though radical, and arguably a waste of a good bed sheet, the action hardly qualified as unprecedented. Indeed, on the occasion of five previous All-Star games, activists hung similar, if equally untelevised, signs of civil protest.

LOVE WALKER, NOT EARL

In the summer of 2011, with the wedding of Prince William now behind them, Americans turned their attention to syndicated TV. The stakes were high, as cooking- and trucking-school commercials competed for advertising time in the coveted 1 p.m.-4 p.m. “total burnout” slot. Competition went cutthroat as the summer wore on, and in efforts to sway viewers from a quirky sitcom starring Jason Lee, the producers of Walker, Texas Ranger body-slammed a Chase Field gate attendant and leg-whipped an usher in the commission of hanging their sign.
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That hole you felt in your life last week?

A hole so vast that you might even describe it as a black hole?

Yeah, that was me. Better put, that was not me. That was my absence.

Let me explain: Once in a blue moon, the higher-ups here at FanGraphs allow the lower-downs here at FanGraphs to sweep the change from beneath the vending machine – it vends pithy quotations from Master Cistulli, if you’re curious – and put it toward a brief vacation from these the salt mines of jocular prose. Having collected a fair amount of the aforementioned coinage, I filled my tank and headed to the mountains of West Texas, careful to leave behind a pair of Paschalian NotGraphs posts in efforts to thwart any War of the Worlds-style panic that might result from my leave-taking.

Still, the emptiness you experienced – a vacancy, like dark energy, that you couldn’t quite explain – must have been terrible, and for that I apologize.

To the point: Upon one high mountain I visited the McDonald Observatory, whose various telescopes are directed at the celestial sphere that enfolds us, embraces us, connects us to its luminaries in ways that remind us that we too are stardust; we too are golden; we too are Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young.

Who we are not, however, are Cabrera, Sale, Neshek & Yoenis.

Indeed, they are stars of a different magnitude, powered by the five-tool fusion that mocks our earthly restraints, and now during All-Star week I honor their glory by presenting a catalogue of eponymous constellations that the telescopes somehow missed.

Editor’s note: It’s best that you do this at night.

Editor’s other additional note: You might as well grab some beers.
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Today I received the following letter from my Uncle Cletus.

Well, me and the missus finally went to our first professional baseball game last night and boy let me tell you what, it’s no wonder them boys don’t have to sell possum meat to Roy Bob at the Kountry Kitchen. They can play themselves some ball! How much do you think they make? I bet it is upward of 40 dollars.

Say, speakin of money, Kountry Kitchen’s got 2-for-1 garden burgers.

Anyhoo, as you know, Mama and I have always listened to games on our transistor radio, the one the bank done give us for payin back the outhouse loan on time, but no, we never seen a game till last night. Now that was a miracle in itself, due to us gettin pulled over on the way to the park. You don’t ever think a raggedy old truck is gonna get pulled over, especially when a team of mules is tuggin it, but pulled over is what we done got! Course it was our fault. Last week on the way to church we shot that stop sign down with pair of double-barrels, mostly for shits and giggles but also cause we needed the metal on account of the hole in the side of the house. Frankly we didn’t mind the breeze so much as the neighbor watchin us poop.
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Now that the season has entered its merciless grind, we often hear players praise the stolid nature of their manager by saying, “Yes, you’re right, insightful post-game reporter: He doesn’t let us get too high or too low.”

Well, thanks to our crack historical research team – and by the way, fellas, you really should focus more on baseball’s past than on the golden age of buttocks cleavage – we know that whenever managers do allow players to get too high or too low, the consequences can get pretty consequential.

– In July 1866, Boston skipper Cornelius “Corny” Joak responded to an eight-game win streak by allowing his players to climb the tallest building in nearby New Hampshire. The result? Catcher Poppy Popperlin suffered a sprained right wrist when he tumbled the 10 feet from the observation deck.

– In June 1872, New York manager Talleopholous “Tally” Wacker responded to a 12-game losing streak by encouraging his players to do the limbo at an afternoon luau. What followed was not the “squad cohesion” that Wacker had envisioned but, instead, a bloody brawl that began when shortstop Bendy Bender accused pitcher Stiffy Stiffler of having “twisted to the side, like this” when he went beneath the limbo stick. Per the archives, Stiffler further defrauded his foes by shouting, “Look over there!” and then blind-siding them with a pair of pineapple-beef kebabs.
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In a recent summer stock production, he starred as North America.

He once offered to un-lean the Tower of Pisa. (Italy refused the offer.)

Along with various dams, highways and cities, he is one of the few manmade objects visible from space, unless he is in the restroom.

He once won a Havana competitive eating contest by downing 52,673 of Fidel Castro’s lightly seasoned ear hairs.
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As a loyal reader of NotGraphs – and again, thank you for that; turns out, the number of boats one can ski behind isn’t six but seven – you might think we NotGraphs writers spend each day bathed in boundless laughter, our scant few problems (i.e., which tux should I wear to the awards dinner?) erased by the giddiness that distinguishes our lives. Well, I am here to tell you that that is pretty much true … although I wouldn’t say the bathed in boundless laughter.

Of course, as with any rewarding profession in this our American experience, there is the occasional hazard. What follows is a list of those hazards. (Note: List of hazards does not include making lists of hazards.)
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Update: The new Oakland A’s shortstop, known to teammates as Kit, has just led off the game with a towering, 460-foot home run to left-center field.

Story first posted at 1:30 p.m. EST

OAKLAND – In a highly publicized move last week, the first-place A’s picked up left-handed starter Brad Mills from the Brewers for the sum of $1. The result: a 4-3 Oakland win. On the heels of that economic success, A’s GM Billy Beane journeyed to an Oakland-area Dollar General this week and purchased right-hander Gertrude Polankovich, a 72-year-old Alameda housewife who enjoys unfiltered cigarettes and short walks in the park.

The result: Not only did Polankovich start each of Oakland’s two games in its short series against the Mets, the grandmother of eight won each in shutout fashion, including Tuesday’s one-hitter and Wednesday’s three-hit effort.

Said Polankovich after Wednesday’s 2-0 win: “Having pitched nine high-leverage innings the previous day, I did find myself tiring in the seventh. Keep in mind that I suffer rheumatoid arthritis and sciatica, and also that I smoke unfiltered. But after giving up a pair of bloopers and an infield chopper, I bore down and made the pitches I needed to make. It felt really good to blow that 96 mph two-seamer past ol’ what’s-his-name with the bases loaded, even though I had to miss back-to-back episodes of Murder, She Wrote. Did Jessica catch the killers? I’m guessing she caught the killers.
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First baseman: “Nice poke!”
Base runner: “What?”
FB: “I said, ‘Nice poke!’”
BR: “Thanks! I didn’t hear you at first! I guess the crowd is pretty loud!”
FB: “Yeah, they’re definitely proud! And why not? They love their Rays!”
BR: “Who got a raise?”
FB: “What?”
BR, after a pause: “Looks like your skipper is removing the pitcher!”
FB, after a hard squint: “Yeah, I guess it does!”
BR, after a longer pause: “So, how’s the family?”
FB: “The what?”
BR: “I say, the family!”
FB: “Pretty good, but I prefer the Corolla!”

This has been the recent Old-Timers’ Game at Yankee Stadium.

First baseman: “Nice poke.”
Base runner: “Thanks.”
FB: “No. I mean, ‘Nice poke.’”
BR: “Oh. How do you know about that?”
FB: “Dude. Baseball’s a small fraternity.”
BR: “Right. Well, do me a favor and keep it quiet, will ya?”
FB: “What’s in it for me?”
BR: “Next time you hit a ball in the 5.5 hole, I’ll ‘dive’ for it. Know what I mean? Olé!”
FB: “That’s not enough.”
BR: “What else do you want?”
FB: “Her number.”

This has been the recent Two-Timers’ Game at Yankee Stadium.
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I saw you, shirtless man.

I saw you in the stands, a few rows behind the dugout while a professional athlete pitched. I saw you and I shuddered. I saw you and I giggled. I saw you and I pressed rewind, and on your meaty physique I paused the TV image.

I wondered: What possessed you, shirtless man? What possessed you to remove your garment – the lone barrier between your torso and the rest of the civilized world – during a nationally televised game at Camden Yards? Had your man boobs felt confined – perhaps pent-up or even claustrophobic, as if prisoners of our prudish times – by the shirt that you had selected just hours before your display? Had your “huddled masses” yearned to breathe free, to break the weave of oppression and wobble unfettered near our nation’s Eastern shore? Did you crave the libertarian bliss of defying decorum – of rejecting convention – in proximity to our nation’s capital, or merely enjoy the idea of a stranger gazing downward, into the mysterious recesses of your butt crack, and wondering if you had ever enjoyed the ministrations of a Parisian bidet?
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