Hey all, just wanted to tip you off to an upcoming event of potential interest. Anyone who’s in the NYC area over the next several months should be sure to check out the new exhibition at the Guggenheim. It’s called “(R)Ejecting the Status Quo: 600 Years of Joe West Images,” and though the title pretty much speaks for itself, here’s a bit from the official description as well as a few of the works included:

This landmark exhibition gathers works spanning six centuries, from Renaissance Florence to postmodern London, that together comprise the first major overview of representations of the umpire Joe West. In addition to tracing Western art’s evolving engagement with West, that most compelling and elusive of subjects, “(R)Ejecting the Status Quo” maps previously uncharted, tectonic shifts in cultural attitudes towards umpiring, baseball, and the nature of public personhood.

Joe West by Marcel Duchamp

Joe West by Andy Warhol

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Recently when scrolling through baseball news I glimpsed the following extraordinary headline: “Booty Wins Knuckler Show.” I probably shouldn’t have pursued this any further, since any additional information can only dilute the pure joy of such a perfect sentence. But pursue I did, with the help of the Google, and after a few false steps:

– Urban Dictionary’s definition of “Booty Knuckle”: “The skin or fold that the butt creates when standing up, and dissappers when bending over.” (Filed next to “Monkey Knuckle,” “Penis Knuckle,” “Nut Knuckle,” “Knuckle Hugger,” and “Knuckle Trumpet.”)

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“There are true baseball fans in Texas, but it’s not a true baseball town” – Josh Hamilton

If Mr. Hamilton desires a true baseball town, may I suggest one of the following:

Bag, Hungary

Balk, Netherlands

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Puns welcome.

In an ongoing effort to scientifically clinch the correlation between longitude and awesome, I present to you — without comment, but with hearty pleasure — the following gems mined from Tumblr, where they were tagged thusly: “japanese baseball.”

From user 1863-project:

From user thefuzzden:

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Does anyone dispute that this is a team that needs to exist? Preferably in the NL Central?

You know Henry Aaron, who was born on this very date in 1934, for his legendary assault on the most cherished record in baseball. You know Carl Pomerance, who was born in 1944, for his legendary quadratic sieve algorithm and his nearly-as-legendary Adleman–Pomerance–Rumely primality test. But did you know that the lives of these two legends are forever intertwined? Consider:

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Here is a list of the current walk-up songs used by the Tampa Bay Rays, to the best of my knowledge.

Ben Zobrist: “Behind Me” – Julianna Zobrist
Desmond Jennings: “Mercy” – Kanye West
Evan Longoria: “Down and Out” – Tantric
Elliot Johnson: “Foxey Lady” – Jimi Hendrix
Jose Lobaton: “We Are Young” – Fun
Matt Joyce: “I Can’t Stop” – Flux Pavilion
Sam Fuld: “Electric Feel” – MGMT
Sean Rodriguez: “I’m A Believer” – Tedashii
James Loney: “Wild Boy” – Machine Gun Kelly
Yunel Escobar: “El Animal” – Gente De Zona
Kelly Johnson: “Bulls on Parade” – Rage Against The Machine
Jose Molina: “Suave y Lentel” – Jowell and Randy
Luke Scott: “Rock You Like a Hurricane” – Scorpions

These are lame, as I’m sure you will agree. In fact, the vast majority of walk-up songs in Major League Baseball are lame. This is not surprising; baseball players are paid to play baseball, not to cultivate sophisticated aesthetic tastes. They need help, and I propose to give it to them, via a campaign I call “Walk Up, Walk Tall: Purging Illiteracy in Music from Professional Sports (PIMPS).” Because the Rays, with their reputation for studious innovation, seem like especially promising candidates for assistance, I am kicking off this campaign in Tampa.

Now, one of the basic tenets of my philosophy is that in the interest of solidarity, major league lineups should share a musical theme. For the Rays, the theme I suggest is “Rays.” Where I need your help, readers, is in pairing each hitter of Tampa Bay with the most appropriate song by a Ray. The sampling of tunes below should get you off to a running start.

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Three score and seventeen years ago, on this very date, the first group of inductees to the Baseball Hall of Fame were announced. You all know those five names, and you’d recognize most of the ballot: of the 47 guys who got votes, 40 of them eventually wound up in the Hall (and one of the other seven is Joe Jackson). This post is about one of the guys who didn’t. Norman Elberfeld got a single vote that year, and dropped off the Cooperstown radar altogether after picking up two votes in 1945.

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Earlier this offseason, Melvin Emanuel “Bossman Junior” Upton decided to take his talents to Atlanta. Now his brother, Justin Irvin Upton, appears to have done the same. For those of you keeping score, that amounts to two Uptons on the same team. What adventures and/or misadventures will ensue? Stay tuned…