Over the weekend, The Worldwide Leader In Sports put it up to a vote:

Which team will win the AL East?

Five teams in the division, therefore five voting options. Or so you’d think. Instead, and please click to embiggen:

Yep, only four options:

Yankees
Red Sox
Rays
Other

Other? Other.

According to ESPN, the Baltimore Orioles and Toronto Blue Jays barely exist. They certainly don’t matter. Now, I know the Orioles are half a team in a good year, but, as a supporter of the Blue Jays, I took this one personally. Where’s the love?

Actually, I wasn’t looking for love from ESPN. I was looking for acknowledgement. Some respect. The Blue Jays won 85 games last year; four fewer than the Red Sox. And if I can be brutally honest: No fan wants his or her team lumped in a group of two with the Orioles.

My emails and phone calls in protest to the highest levels of ESPN got the job done. The laziest of polls, I can no longer find it over at ESPN.com’s SportsNation. I like to think it’s been erased from the Internet forever, and that the person in charge of creating it is, as I requested, out of a job. Other? We won’t stand for Other in Canada.

One more thing (embiggen!):

As of early Saturday morning, other than New York State and Wyoming, and tiny Connecticut*, the American people had spoken: Red Sox.

New York State I understand. Wyoming, not so much. What’s the deal, Wyomingites?

*Oops.

I love baseball. And I love hip-hop music.

And after listening to the brilliant track below, “My Oh My” by Macklemore and Ryan Lewis, I think I’ve finally realized what Dave Niehaus truly meant to the city of Seattle.

My city, my city, childhood, my life, that’s right, under those lights.
It’s my city, my city, childhood, my life, Niehaus, My Oh My.
Rest in peace …

Addendum: You can read Macklemore’s thoughts on Niehaus, and download the track for free, here.

Sleep easy tonight, my friends. According to Louisville, Kentucky’s FOX41 News, The Baseball Cap Bandit, responsible for keeping store owners in Kentucky and Tennessee up into the wee hours of the morning, has been captured. William Cunningham’s reign of terror is over.

Hillview Kentucky Police say 62-year-old William Cunningham was caught on surveillance tape at the Cracker Barrel restaurant gift shop in Bullitt County. They say you can see him taking collegiate caps, stuffing them in his jacket, and leaving.

Police believe the Nashville resident has a routine — traveling from Tennessee to Kentucky, normally on Tuesdays.

Detective Danny Cook explains, “Repeatedly traveling from Nashville where the gentlemen is from, up to Louisville, once a month, doing these kind of thefts is kind of unusual. But we see shoplifters hit the same locations that are local, but this is the first time where I have seen them travel from out of state.”

Shoplifting out of state. Every Tuesday. You know, there’s something to be said for routine.

This just in: The NotGraphs Investigative Reporting Investigation Team has learned that Hillview Kentucky Police, after being granted a special request by Albany Police, had Ken Griffey Jr.’s rookie baseball card work The Baseball Bandit’s interrogation. Mr. Cunningham refused a laywer, and admitted to his crimes. In record time, according to Hillview Kentucky Police.

Authorities are in the process of determining just how many baseball caps were swiped, but of this they’re sure: Cunningham was selling the caps on the streets.

Ken Griffey Jr.’s rookie card, lover of baseball caps, was naturally pleased with the outcome of the case.

“We’ve got to keep dirty baseball caps off the streets, man,” it said. “Or at least the clowns who wear them like douchebags.”

Image courtesy craniumfitteds.com.

It’s a pretty sure thing that the player’s bat is what speaks loudest when it’s contract time, but there are moments when the glove has the last word.
– Brooks Robinson

Over at The New York Times’ website, you’ll find an interesting little interactive feature they’ve put together called Gloves of the World Series.

Photographs of 16 baseball gloves are available to be looked at in stunning detail, from 1910 through to the year 2000. Ever wondered what Babe Ruth’s mitt looked like back in 1926? You can find out without visiting Cooperstown.

Baseball’s gloves have come a long way. Johnny Murphy’s 1941 mitt looks like a short, fat person’s winter glove. By 1965, the modern baseball glove had arrived, and Minnesota Twins left fielder Bob Allison was rocking “The A2001,” Wilson’s nylon-stitched beauty.

The final glove in the interactive feature is from the year 2000, and belongs to Edgardo Alfonzo. A Rawlings number, it serves as a reminder that the New York Mets — yes, the New York Mets — actually made the World Series 11 years ago.

Glove tap — see what I did there? — to The New York Times, and the image aboves comes courtesy of Flickr user mgdms.

The following comes to us via the Twitter feed of Baseball Prospectus’ Tommy Bennett. Sometimes, there are no words. Prepare to be wowed …

Of course, no YouTube video experience is complete without a quick perusal of the comments section. And to nobody’s surprise, the highest rated comment offers some sage advice on a cold Friday afternoon in early January.

Shut the f*** up, learn to appreciate retarded s*** like this.

I did.

Thank you for sharing, Mr. Bennett. And most importantly: Thank you, Japan.

For a generation of Toronto Blue Jays and Canadian baseball fans, it is the home run. The home run that forever changed Toronto’s baseball destiny. The home run that represents, perhaps defines, one’s fandom. And I’m not talking about Joe Carter’s 1993 World Series-winning walk-off.

What made Roberto Alomar’s call to Cooperstown this week so enjoyable for me was the reliving of past glories. Up here, they’re all we’ve got.

I was 10-years-old when Alomar sent a 9th inning 2-2 Dennis Eckersley pitch into right field for a two-run home run, to tie game four of the 1992 ALCS between Oakland and Toronto at six apiece, completing a rather miraculous 6-1 Blue Jays comeback. I don’t remember watching Toronto take an early 1-0 lead on a John Olerud home run, or watching Jack Morris get tagged for five runs in the Oakland half of the third, but for some reason, I remember Alomar’s home run. Vividly.

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New Year’s Resolution: To tolerate fools more gladly, provided this does not encourage them to take up more of my time.
— James Agate

The best part about writing for NotGraphs, a relatively new project still in its infancy, is — let’s not kid ourselves — the money. Capitalism’s a beautiful thing, and my piggy bank will soon be overflowing.

In all seriousness, what excites me most about NotGraphs is the potential of this here blog as we settle in and prepare to wow you in 2011. I’m anticipating one of those teary-eyed, Hillary Clinton-like moments when I announce that I have indeed “found my own voice.” Can’t wait!

What I’m interested to learn from you is: What makes an alternative baseball blog? What’s in an alternative baseball blog? We’re not going to repeatedly hit you over the head with our sabermetric hammer here at NotGraphs; that’s what FanGraphs is for. So what, if there is anything in particular, would you like to see from us in this corner? From me? I’d love to know. As Victor Borge once famously put it: “Usually I don’t do request numbers, unless of course I have been asked to do.”

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If you’re like me, you’ve read more about Jeff Bagwell over the past two weeks than you have in your life. Naturally, this is another Bagwell piece. I may or may not have dreamt about Bagwell last night. (I did.)

It’s that time of year: The Hall of Fame Debates. And much like holidays spent with the family, it isn’t a lot of fun anymore, and alcohol helps. Alcohol always helps.

Jeff Bagwell. “BagPipes.” Worthy of Cooperstown? We’re about to find out. As his résumé was thoroughly debated over the past fortnight, I thought it would be useful to take a trip down memory lane. To July 19, 1999, the summer of one of Bagwell’s finest seasons, when Sports Illustrated’s Tom Verducci, admittedly one of my favourite writers, wrote about the One Of A Kind slugger. To the SIVault …

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I won’t lie to you, reading The Baseball Stadium Turned Clunker Graveyard almost made me weep. I couldn’t help but think of Field of Dreams; Kevin Costner, and Shoeless Joe Jackson. And James Earl Jones, too, because, man, that baritone voice of his is the one I wish was inside my head.

Anyway, once home to Negro and minor-league baseball teams, Bush Stadium in downtown Indianapolis, an Indiana Landmark for crying out loud, is now a parking lot. A parking lot for rusting and beat-up cars. For shame. As a proud Canadian, I need to know who I’m supposed to blame for this travesty. The Democrats? Republicans? John McCain? President Obama? I’m rather fond of Obama, so I’d much rather blame McCain.

On an aside, did you know you can actually visit the Field of Dreams from Field of Dreams? It’s in Dubuque County, Iowa, about 100 miles from Madison, Wisconsin, where I’m headed next summer for a wedding. You better believe I’m going to make the drive, stand at home plate, and yell at the top of my lungs: “If you build it, they will come.” And they must sell If You Build It, They Will Come t-shirts, right? They have to. Because I’d totally buy one.

While Indianapolis has found one way — an awful way — to put their downtown stadium to use, so has Cleveland, and the Indians, albeit only for the winter.

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What do you think: How would the School Sisters of Notre Dame, a Baltimore-based order of Roman Catholic nuns, celebrate the sale of their ultra-rare Honus Wagner baseball card for a cool $220,000?

Actually, don’t answer that question. It’s best left to the imagination.

According to The Associated Press, beacon of journalism, the T206 Honus Wagner card is “the most sought-after baseball card in history.” Produced between 1909 and 1911, only 60 of its like exist. Back in 2008, one in mint-condition sold for a whopping $2.8 million, the most loot ever dished out for a Cardboard God.

I know what you’re thinking: How the hell — please pardon the pun — did the School Sisters of Notre Dame end up with one of the cards? It was left to the order after the brother of a deceased nun passed on earlier this year. He’d held on to it since 1936.

For the bizarre story of what happened to the Wagner T206 after it was put up for auction, and how in the end it found its way into the hands of CARDiologist Dr. Nicholas DePace, I turn it over to the AP.

More importantly, have you ever had a look at Honus Wagner’s résumé? A career .414 wOBA, and 159 wRC+. What “The Flying Dutchman” did in 1908 was nothing short of absurd. Over his storied career, Wagner was worth 149.8 WAR. Jesus! (Sorry.)

Wagner also once famously said:

I don’t make speeches. I just let my bat speak for me in the summertime.

It spoke, alright. Loud enough for Wagner to rightfully become one of the first five men to be enshrined in Cooperstown.

Back to the Wagner T206. About Dr. DePace, who stepped up to the plate — that’s one pun I won’t apologize for — and bought the card after the original auction winner went AWOL, Sister Virginia Muller said it best:

God bless him.

Amen.

Image courtesy The History Bluff.