Photo Caption Contest: Postwall Bryce
Y’all take it from here.
Author Archive
Video Replay Reveals: Angel Hernandez an Actual Angel, of Death
Upon reviewing video of Wednesday night’s controversial ninth-inning hit by Oakland’s Adam Rosales, Major League Baseball has determined that umpire Angel Hernandez is a paranormal and likely malevolent being.
Though the incident occurred quickly enough to escape the notice of most real-time observers, the footage (stills above) clearly shows Hernandez summoning some sort of supernatural power from the sky, turning it upon outraged A’s manager Bob Melvin, and encasing him briefly in ice.
Shocking New Clues in the Gochnaur Case
Here at Notgraphs, where we take an avowed scholarly interest in futility, the name of John Gochnaur holds a certain incomparable cachet. Mr. Gochnaur’s short, miserable career, and most especially his epic 1903 season, stand as an eternal monument to baseball failure. That year, starting at shortstop for all but six of Cleveland’s 140 games, this man compiled a picturesque line of .185/.265/.240, with zero home runs of course, breaking his own modern record for lowest single-season batting average — and setting a new one that would stand for nearly ninety years. And he did it while racking up an astonishing 98 errors, leading the league by more than twenty, and establishing himself as the last major leaguer in history to crack 90. Thanks to these achievements, Mr. Gochnaur has earned himself an all but proverbial status as one of the worst ballplayers, or the worst ballplayer, ever to deface a diamond. A twenty-first century Republican congressman even paid him tribute on the House floor, likening his futility to that of the Endangered Species Act. John Gochnaur, there are some crimes against America that we are eventually prepared to forgive. Yours is not one of them.
Daily Notes: May 2, 1916
FEATURED GAME
New York Highlanders @ Philadelphia Athletics
Matchup: Bob “the Gob” Shawkey vs. Raymond “Rube” Bressler
Shawkey, man of “mystifying hooks and fast ball,” makes his return to Philadelphia after moving to the Bronx last season. Handsome young southpaw Bressler, “among the most accomplished work-shirkers that ever adorned a manager’s bench,” tends to be “a marvel one day and a poor excuse for a pitcher the next.” Nonetheless, he is handsome. “[T]hey do say that the pink teas and the soirees and the bridge fights and the receptions likewise reek and drip with the shape of Heinie Groh’s legs, and guesses as to whether or no the handsome Rube Bressler is engaged…and so forth and so forth ad lib.”
OTHER GAMES
Lycanthropy in Professional Baseball: Some Preliminary Findings
Although it is generally accepted that werewolves make up a certain percentage of major league baseball rosters, the stigma attached to the condition has made data collection difficult, and the anecdotal evidence has thus far been unsupported by empirical study. Here we take a first step towards a new, quantitative understanding of the prevalence of lycanthropy in baseball. Taking as our study population all MLB players above the qualifying threshold for playing time during the 2012 season, we measured their performance during full moon periods (FMP), i.e. periods from three days before to three days after a full moon. Metrics used were weighted on-base average (wOBA) for hitters, and fielding-independent pitching (FIP) for pitchers. A large number of players met our preliminary standards for lycanthropy, with statistically significant positive deviations in performance during full moon periods. Below are listed the five strongest candidates among both hitters and pitchers:
Braves’ Heyward Has Appendix, Human Frailty Surgically Removed
DENVER — Following a successful appendectomy on Monday, a biopsy confirmed the contents of outfielder Jason Heyward’s appendix, leaving Braves fans with renewed enthusiasm over the budding superstar’s future.
“Tell you what, I knew he hadn’t been himself this year,” said Atlanta manager Fredi Gonzalez on Tuesday. “I’ll be darned if all the stuff that was holding him back wasn’t stuck in that one little organ. Organ? It’s an organ, right? Hey, I’m no doctor. Anyway, now that we’ve got that taken care of, hopefully he can get back here quick and help us win some baseball games.”
The Doppelganger All-Stars
Though I certainly did not assemble it with this in mind, I cannot help but admire the collective comeliness and pilosity of this group of gentlemen.
C Carlos Santana, Mexican-American rock guitarist
1B Frederick Freeman, founder of Theta Chi fraternity, and first superintendent of the Pennsylvania Coal Company
The Baseball Scholar’s Digest: April 2013 Edition
In which the author scours The Literature for the most current and stimulating academic work on America’s pastime.
Predictors of Fielding Performance in Professional Baseball Players
GT Mangine, JR Hoffman, J Vazquez, N Pichardo, MS Fragala, JR Stout – International Journal of Sports Physiology and Performance, 2013
“The ultimate zone rating extrapolation (UZR/150) rates fielding performance by runs saved or cost within a zone of responsibility, in comparison to the league average (150 games) for a position. Spring training anthropometric and performance measures have been previously related to hitting performance, however their relationships with fielding performance measures are unknown. PURPOSE: Examine the relationship between anthropometric and performance measurements on fielding performance in professional baseball players.”
The Rap All-Stars
Jay-Z wants to be an agent. Though there may be a certain demographic gulf between the baseball and hip-hop communities, the two also share a long, proud history of casual dalliances. Today we celebrate that history by acknowledging the greatest ballplayers ever to appear in Mr. Carter et al.’s lyrical corpus.
C Johnny Bench
I’m fancy, man, I tickles like the French
Not Johnny but like Bench I press on like Lee
– Ynot, on Common’s “Chapter 13 (Rich Man vs. Poor Man)”
The Ex-Cubs Factor: A Look at Its Implications for 2013
The recent delivery of a goat’s head to Wrigley Field has renewed debate — at least in the circles I travel in, which consist mainly of myself — over the efficacy of the original, now-68-year-old Curse of the Billy Goat. The Cubs themselves are in little danger of overturning it, and yet there is indirect evidence for a weakening in its considerable force. I refer of course to the CBG’s principal corollary, the notorious Ex-Cubs Factor, which states in its purest form: “It is utterly impossible for a team with three or more ex-Cubs to win the World Series.”