Transaction: Approved. And, for the record, I hope Ol’ Jim Jam mashes taters forever.

But on to more pressing matters, with the help of NotGraphs’ Highly Reputable and Totally Real Think Tank.

If the Cleveland Indians are using Mastercard …

– The New York Yankees are rolling with an American Express Centurion Card.

– The Los Angeles Dodgers no longer have their credit cards. They were taken away, and cut into pieces, as the Dodgers watched. It was awful.

– The Boston Red Sox are all about the Visa Black.

– The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim are using a whole whack of Amex Corporate and Platinum cards, mostly to pay for Vernon Wells’ salary.

– The Florida Marlins have decided of their free will to not use credit cards. Cash only, yo.

– The New York Mets and Chicago Cubs are using their own team-inspired Bank of America Mastercards. They really wanted the free duffel bag and blanket that came with signing up.

What’s in your team’s wallet?

A.J. Burnett got rocked. Again. By the Baltimore Orioles, no less.

Burnett’s August numbers are straight ghoulish. He’s allowed 30 runs in 22.2 innings, and 44 hits. Forty-four. So long, WHIP! August opponents — Baltimore, Minnesota, Kansas City, Los Angeles, and Chicago — have teed off of A.J., to the tune of a .415 batting average.

While the New York Yankees remain a lock for the postseason, Burnett’s teammates have had just about enough. In the second inning of Friday night’s game in Baltimore, NotGraphs’ omnipresent Investigative Reporting Investigation Team overheard the following conversation between Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez:

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Tuesday’s 5.8 magnitude Virginia earthquake sent no one to the grave, thankfully, and minorly injured only a handful of people. It caused an estimated $100 million in damages. Chump change.

I felt it, up in Toronto. It was honestly a bit thrilling; a party in my cubicle. And after watching the video below, one that you may or may not have seen elsewhere along your travels, I’ve come to the conclusion that the earthquake was, in fact, a gift. Witness:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2hiyLID1sY

My favorite quotes, in chronological order:

Hang on.

What’s shakin’?

Holy shit.

Is there a building shaking?

Should we … go somewhere?

This is it. This is what an earthquake is, guys.

Did you know that most of Manhattan is built on landfill, not on granite, and if there were like an 8.0 earthquake then parts of Manhattan would just disintegrate. Did you know that?

I did. I’d like to … not be worried about that right now.

Priceless. The whole thing. But especially Jeremy Brisiel’s loosening of his tie, and repeated clicking of his pen. And shout-out to Corey Schwartz: He never broke character. At a time of great fear and confusion, he continued to do what he does: Drop knowledge. What a man.

I don’t know about you, but I’m all for another minor earthquake. Maybe a few minor earthquakes. Mostly because I want to see how Brisiel, Schwartz, and Mike Siano Nando DiFino — Thanks, Paul, from the comments — are going to react the second time around. Godspeed, gentlemen.

Moments after NotGraphs reader, and future Nobel laureate, Ethan S. let us know about the very special video above, I followed him on Twitter. You should probably do the same. And, last but certainly not least: Thank you, too, Deadspin. For all that you do.

Many, many tears have been shed at the Little League World Series. A bit too many, for my liking. But even I have my limits. Even I understand when someone’s gone too far, and when crying in baseball is completely acceptable.

Sure, Cumberland, Rhode Island’s young Christopher Wright struck out to end the game, his New England squad went down in defeat, again, and their dream of a Little World Series title died a gut-wrenching death. But that did kitten really have to die? How many kittens will be sacrificed in the Little League World Series until we all stand up and say, “No. Enough!”

Even Joe West thought the umpire, caught in the despicable act above, went too far. When reached for comment by our Investigative Reporting Investigation Team, West said only this:

He’s gone!

At this time, we’re unable to determine whether Cowboy Joe meant the umpire, or the kitten. Both, perhaps.

H/Ts: The Score’s @JerkInTheCorner for the lovely Photoshop-age, and The Associated Press, via daylife, for the original image. Keep up the great work. All of you.

Watching him — Jacksonville Suns pitcher Graham Taylor — round third base, you knew we were in store for a grand finale. The bottom line: Safe. But yet another reminder for the National League to join us in the 21st century and embrace the designated hitter, so that the above nightmare never happens in the major leagues.

H/Ts: The Twitter feed of soon-to-be Toronto Blue Jay Logan Morrison, and ScoreBuzz.

Me too, Mr. Morrow. Me too.

The most excellent quote comes to us from Seattle’s The News Tribune, via the foul-mouthed, but always informative, Drunk Jays Fans. Here’s another:

Some of those [2011] numbers don’t look so hot, but if you look at the nerd stats, I’m having a pretty good year. I’m not always sure how they come to those conclusions, but I like them.

Again: Me too. Math is crazy. And I can’t help but wonder whether Morrow knows he scores a perfect 10 according to the most recent Pitcher NERD Leaderboards of Pleasure.

I can picture Morrow, though, almost vividly, in his downtown Toronto condo, on his laptop, perusing FanGraphs.com.

“Honey, guess whose FIP is now under 3.00, and good for sixth in the American League? Beast mode! And, whoa, my SIERA’s third in the AL, behind only Verlander and Sabathia. Double beast mode!”

Brandon Morrow is one of those guys with electric “stuff.” Now, I don’t know about you, but I love that the word “stuff,” so banal, is used to describe a pitcher who throws a baseball a remarkable number of which ways, who makes a baseball dance, who strikes out the most batters per nine innings in all of the game. But more than just his “stuff,” Morrow, as evidenced, is a highly educated man. He’s like me, like you, like us. He appreciates advanced baseball statistics. He’s a nerd. Brandon Morrow is the thinking man’s A.J. Burnett.

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It’s the little things that make baseball, to these eyes, the best damn game on the planet. Like Peter Bourjos catching a fly ball he has no business — none, whatsoever — getting to, one that his teammate, right-fielder Torii Hunter, dove for and missed. Or back-to-back nights of triple plays on the diamond, one a 4-6-3-2 effort, the other an amazing 5-4-3 number. Baseball, man, isn’t she great?

Tuesday night, I was up late on the east coast, watching the Blue Jays play the Mariners in Seattle, and I was struck by more of baseball’s little things. Like the taking over of Safeco Field by Blue Jays faithful from Vancouver, and other parts of beautiful British Columbia. The boisterous — but extremely polite — Canadians got Mike Carp’s attention Monday night:

We were talking about it in the dugout. I mean, it was getting annoying. This is our ballpark.

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You’ve heard the news by now, surely, the cat having been let out of its proverbial bag. As reported by ESPN on Wednesday, the Toronto Blue Jays are sign stealers; the Toronto Blue Jays are cheaters.

I found the report deeply disturbing. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not troubled by the undeniable facts that prove the Blue Jays are cheating. Not at all. What’s most troublesome about the revelations, to me, a proud Blue Jays supporter, is that Toronto, the sign stealers, can’t even get cheating right. They’re obviously not very good at it, as evidenced by their 30-29 record at the Rogers Centre this season. In 2010, Toronto’s .569 home winning percentage was good for third in the AL East. In 2009, that number was .543, good for — you guessed it — fourth in the division. It’s always third or fourth place, man, and I’m sick of it. If the Jays are going to go to the trouble to cheat, I mean really cheat, allegedly going as far as to put someone — a spy — in the stands to steal signs, I’d much rather they be successful. Cheat, but cheat well, my beloved Blue Jays! I can only hope that general manager Alex Anthopoulos, in his retooling of the franchise, is pouring resources into the Cheating Department as well as the Scouting Department.

But this isn’t about me, and my fandom. It’s about the Blue Jays stealing signs, and where we go from here. The analysis, reactions and rebuttals to the ESPN piece are out there, have been written in spades. And what’s important, here and now, at this moment in time, is that the NotGraphs Investigative Reporting Investigation Team has scored, as you were probably expecting, an exclusive interview with Toronto’s Rogers Centre’s mysterious Man In White. Actually, our bold investigative reporter was honest: He stumbled upon the Man In White by chance, running into him outside the ballpark after Thursday’s matinee between Oakland and Toronto, the Man In White smoking a cigarette outside Rogers Centre’s gate eight. Dressed in immaculately white Adidas runners, black pants, and a tight, white, Anderson Cooper-esque v-neck t-shirt, when asked whether he was actually the now-infamous Man In White, the man responded, “I am he,” blew five cigarette smoke rings, “And he is I.”

The Man In White agreed to sit down with our one man NotGraphs Investigative Reporting Investigation Team at St. Louis Bar and Grill — if we were buying, and we were — across the street from the Rogers Centre. Below is a transcript of the exclusive, bombshell interview:

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Click on the above image, and view it in all its embiggened glory. That’s the least you can do for that lady; she deserves it.

If that’s her reaction to Dan Uggla extending his hit streak to 30 games, and it was, imagine how she might celebrate, should Uggla get there, a 40-game hit streak. Or 50-game hit streak.

I don’t even want to think about 56. I worry. I can’t help it.

Photo credit: The Associated Press, via daylife.

I tend not to worry about the fate of the United States of America. Through two bungled wars in the Middle East, Hurricane Katrina, a mortgage and financial crisis, the debt ceiling fiasco, the most partisan of partisan politics, and today’s threats of another recession, I’ve never doubted the American spirit. When faced with adversity, America endures. I’ve always believed that.

Until yesterday, when I watched video of two grown men tussle for a foul ball that landed in a trash bin at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg. There was nothing exceptional about those two Americans, and their despicable actions forced me to ask a most difficult question: Where did America go wrong?

After much deep introspection, I know that America hasn’t gone wrong. It might be on the brink, but I still have hope for you, our southern neighbors. Because those two clowns at The Trop don’t represent America. Not the one I know, and have experienced. I still believe in America.

The foul ball episode in Florida reminded me of one I had at the ballpark about a week and a half ago. I was at the Rogers Centre SkyDome with two of my mates, the Texas Rangers in town, on a brilliant summer evening. We were seated in section 116, first base side, row 37, only three rows from the section’s entrance. The game began, and immediately we knew: We were in foul ball territory. A couple of screamers landed to our right, and our left, and I told the boys to stay alert. I had a feeling we’d get a turn, that there’d be action.

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