It is noteworthy that the sulfonamids, penicillin, came in about simultaneously with Ted Williams, Ralph Kiner and the rubber ball. We want home runs, antibiotics to “cure” man with a single shot in the buttocks.
– William Carlos Williams, “Autobiography”
What I remember was sheer adulation. There was one girl who worked in the Kansas City Royals office who had what we would now call a large reaction to George Brett. Her eyes melted just gazing at him. He had star power.
Does the mere sight of George Brett cause you to develop hives, wheezing, or hot flashes? Do you have to leave the room during reruns of the 1985 World Series? Does the mention of “pine tar” induce an unaccountable burning in your loins? If so, you may suffer from LRGB (Large Reaction to George Brett). The good news is that you are not alone: LRGB afflicts an estimated 15 million Americans! Though some display no visible symptoms and can be treated with simple lifestyle changes, for others life with LRGB is a continual battle and requires careful, vigilant attention.
Thank goodness for @RealCJ10 ! Saved me on a 4 wheeler! pic.twitter.com/ljXDEULJC9
— Freddie Freeman (@FreddieFreeman5) January 29, 2014
Imagine, if you will, getting stuck for five hours on a jammed, snowbound freeway. Imagine your frustration slowly curdling into panic. Now imagine glancing in your rearview and seeing a lone four-wheeler materialize from the whiteness. Then imagine nestling your face into the broad, camouflaged shoulder of Larry Wayne Jones, as the frigid wind whips past and faces gape from stranded cars. If you can capture that feeling, reader, then you have known an inner peace of which most men can only dream.
After signing his new contract, Clayton Kershaw is approximately equal in value to the Gross Domestic Product of the Republic of Palau. To avoid any confusion between the two entities, I’ve prepared this handy table of comparisons.
At the time of his now-legendary demise, nineteenth-century pitcher Jim Creighton was already one of the superstars of the fledgling sport of baseball. Creighton’s exploits on the diamond (which included hurling the first shutout in history, and being put out only four times in an entire season) were remarkable enough to begin with, but — as with Shelley, or Hendrix, or Princess Diana — his shockingly premature death catapulted him from star to mythic hero. Later generations looked back with awe, unable to fathom how he had attained such dominance on the mound.
Until now.
Using a cutting-edge tool known as Image Enlargement (IE), a team of researchers has now uncovered conclusive evidence that Creighton used not a baseball, but rather fresh produce, to stymie contemporary batters. That the onion seems to have been his vegetable of choice certainly helps account for a few mysteries surrounding Creighton’s pitching — including reports of unusually irregular movement on his pitches, allegations that balls sometimes “flew apart” before reaching the plate, and anecdotes involving the peculiar stench that often accompanied the young hurler.
“Rules about equipment were notoriously lax during that period,” says Nerdley Wentwhistle of the Society for American Baseball Research. “Creighton could have gotten away with using just about any roughly globular object. His genius was in picking just about the last thing anyone would have expected. The element of surprise is a powerful thing.”
As my colleague Mr. Reynolds observed earlier today, the Chicago Cubs have just unveiled a new club mascot for the first time in over a hundredyear, which is a term for “century” that I believed to be real until I Googled it ten seconds ago. I’m sure I am not alone in finding the Cubs’ choice to be a controversial one. Was anyone consulted on this? Were any alternatives considered? Now that “Clark” (or, as Mr. Reynolds more aptly christened him, “Coked-Out Bear Child”) has been unilaterally instated as the face of the franchise, it’s clearly too late to offer our own suggestions. How sad it is, then, that I had so many good ideas — visions of Cubs for which costumes already existed: ideas now fated to shrivel like desiccated fruit, as do all dreams deferred. You are welcome to vote on the following, if you enjoy exercises in futility.
Lion Cub
bostoncostume.com
“I guarantee you that if Mad Dog was pitching today,” Leo Mazzone, Maddux’s vaunted former pitching coach with the Atlanta Braves told USA TODAY Sports, “he would never give up a run all year.”
In addition to our Steamer and Oliver projections, we’ve now added projections based on the MAZZONE system to our player pages. Though these numbers, which are entirely based on the off-the-cuff opinions of former pitching coach Leo Mazzone, have been criticized by analysts on several counts — notably, for being weighted toward retired Atlanta Braves players, and for being insane — we’re including them on our site as an important resource for fantasy owners, especially those who have abandoned all faith in the scientific method.
First things first: I’ve accepted that this is a hopeless case. Abraham Lincoln won’t make it into the Hall this year, or any year. The pointy-headed math-geeks who have hijacked our culture have no time for an Honest Abe; they glance over his stat sheet, note the blank spaces with a sneer, and conclude that the rest of us ignoramuses are suffering from a sad delusion. No matter how much we might revere the guy, the numbers reveal the truth: the Great Emancipator just didn’t put up the “value” of a Tim Raines or an Alan Trammell or whatever sabermetric darling they’re mooning over lately.
Dedicated to Cal Emery (1937-2010), whose 14-year professional playing career took him to Bakersfield, Des Moines, Asheville, Indianapolis, Chattanooga, Rochester, Arkansas, Hawaii, Seattle, San Diego, Buffalo, Eugene, Reading, and Osaka, Japan — and, for 19 proud at-bats, to the Philadelphia Phillies. Mr. Emery also served as the batting coach for the Chicago White Sox for a year, in addition to logging time as a minor league manager. At Penn State, where he won the Most Outstanding Player Award at the 1957 College World Series, he is remembered as one of the all-time greats. Here’s to you, Cal Emery.
