Brawlin’ Brouhaha.

The word embraces two sides of an invisible line somewhere. A ‘brouhaha’ is a uproar and hubbub of some sort, there’s no doubt about that. But, even if the word might make you think of cold brews and a good laugh, the particular shade of that uproar, however, is up to debate. It’s not all bubbles and blow jobs.

Many definitions focus on the sounds and sights of a brouhaha. But most contain a hint of the negative, though. Here it’s a “commotion” or a “confused noise”, there it’s “clamor” or “confusion” over a “minor or ridiculous cause.” There are other signs of the dark side. Synonyms like “fracas” and “melee,” for one. And the origin, from French:

Origin:
1885–90; < French, orig. brou, ha, ha! exclamation used by characters representing the devil in the 16th-cent. drama; perhaps < Hebrew, distortion of the recited phrase bārūkh habbā ( beshēm ădhōnai ) “blessed is he who comes (in the name of the Lord)” (Ps. 118:26)

There’s definitely something to this. To call something a brouhaha is to belittle it slightly.

We can follow the same path of discovery if we start our game of google baseball: brouhaha. Plenty of uproars. Fights! Cheating! Violence against old men! Angry old men doing violence! You know, your typical baseball-related uproars.

But then you run into a few references that give you pause. The sort of thing that makes you think “they’re using this silly word because this whole thing is not very serious.” Like, to talk about the brouhaha between Dusty Baker and Bobby Valentine about icing a reliever while on a goodwill tour in Japan, that is to take slight digs at the whole situation. Or when the word is used to as a transition between a World Series win and a Quidditch match, you know it means the author is laughing inside just a little bit. But when you see the word used to describe a fictional tournament between “the most scandalous juice-heads in the business,” you hear the derisive tone loud and clear.

In the end, though, we know that alliteration wins the day, even (especially?) when used in a derogatory fashion. And so therefore, this poem from Schech’s Place represents a home run in today’s google: baseball brouhaha.

BASEBALL BROUHAHA
When beer hits brain
in Fenway’s bleachers,
that bellicose breed of
bragging, banging,
bare-chested beer bellies
begin bellowing and bleating
like beached, blubbery belugas
boiling to breed.

Alas, there are no endangered species
in Section 41.

September 22, 1991

Thanks to Hannah for the word. Shenanigans and hogwash came before.

What was that you were saying again.

Walk up the first base side of the 100 level at ATT Park and you spot the premium brew stands every once in a while. Sierra Nevada. Heineken. Anchor Steam. Blue Moon. Meh. Better than the alternatives but nothing to really pen the proverbial letter home (or beer review) about.

Turn the corner towards the outfield and your appraisal of the park shifts more positive immediately. For one, you’re looking out at the bay, down at McCovey Cove. And then you scan left and you get a view like the cameraphone snapshot above. Does it really matter what beer you have in your hand when appreciating that view?

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Jazz hands.

It can’t be that easy being good-looking. You get your garden variety jealousy from the men, and the fawning (oh the fawning!) from the women must get old at some point too. You have to spend so much of your hard-earned cash on beauty products (like Pomade!). You have to worry about things that your co-workers don’t even think about (cuticles!), liking losing your luscious locks or what sort of accessory goes best with your shoes. You get asked to do events that you just aren’t well-suited for (runway?). Your tiny flaws get magnified. Everyone laughs.

Then again, the alternative is not that easy either.

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In the last #2/#7 battle of the tournament, Sparky Lyle triumphed. His ‘stache was not trash, and it overcame Don Mattingly’s strange over-sized comic-strip-backed entry into the competition. Twirl those ends!

And so we move to the #3/#6 battles. If the tourney seeding committee, comprised of me, has seeded these things well, the voting will be tight. This week, both cards come from the same set, but the players are found at very different points of their career.

1989 Topps Andre Dawson
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New sports and culture site Grantland has a commercial on ESPN. A television commercial for a web site full of advanced analytics, popular culture criticism, and Bill Simmons screeds. This has to be some sort of milestone. Either it’s a high-water mark, that moment when the dorks of the web got so close to the mainstream that they appeared, for sixty seconds at a time, on a major cable sports network — or it’s the beginning of new possibilities for cross-platform advertising.

Either way, as the supreme navel gazers that we are here at FanGraphs, it’s time to turn inward. It’s time to storyboard the FanGraphs commercial.

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Dude I’ve got great tickets for the game tonight.
Sweet! When are you picking me up.
Well, uh…
Dude. You are NOT bringing Nick. He doesn’t even like baseball.
Yeah, well, you like it a little much.
Whatever. What time are you picking me up.
I was thinking about asking Jen.
She’ll hate you for it.
Fine. I’ll get you at six. Be out front.
Thanks dude. You won’t regret it.
I already do.
…
Look, I can see the pitches man. Right down the pipe.
What are you taking out of your – No. Put that away.
Steeerike one.

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Well, that was a trouncing. Gorman Thomas and his flowing locks cared not for the young upstart mustache of Moose Haas, especially with the kid’s lack of a hat. Thomas moves on to the next round. Up is up and down is down in the Brewers world. Time to move along.

Now it’s time for our final #2/#7 pairing. We’ll reach across decades this time, and though the visual contrast is jarring, this might be the most mild-mannered matchup of the tournament. Which way do you hang? It’s time for another edition of Baseball Card Tourney!

#2 1981 Topps Sparky Lyle
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So you put it on the hogs or in the hogs?

It may sound like hogwash is meant to clean hogs, particularly right after castration. Most likely, though, the term was coined to describe a pig swill that was intended to feed our porcine friends. In the same way, we might get all up in arms about the hogwash in our national pastime, and yet we eat it up. This week in Google Baseball, we’ll tackle the dual meanings of this old-school word.

The true nature of the nuance in this word is not about feeding an appetite, though. It’s more about the cleanliness or legitimacy of the thing being described. Hogwash is ridiculous — because the word sounds laughable — and anything is therefore rendered silly by being paired with the adjective. Even when John Thorn says something serious about steroids, the use of the word brings a hint of a smile with it.

“This whole thing about McGwire simply permits sportswriters to imagine themselves to be Woodward and Bernstein, people who see themselves as guardians of a sacred portal, the last best hope for truth and justice – and it’s all hogwash and baloney.” – John Thorn, baseball historian

What do we find when we play Google Baseball with the word? We find the unwritten rules of baseball. Ridiculous! We find spray charts. Ludicrous! The derby jinx. Debunked! Weekly highlights of the Lehigh Valley IronPigs. Clever! Dirk Nowitzki as a pitcher? Clearly farcical. Most of these examples use the word to emphasize the absurdity of a thing.

Instead, how about Team Hogwash, a slow-pitch softball team giving up about 13 runs a game on average? Or an oyster topping called “Hog Wash” from Hog Island? Clearly these two entries into this week’s edition of Google Baseball are a step above. They show a sense of pride in the word, an enjoyment of the zany. They own it.

Clearly we’ve learned one thing from today’s game. If that thing wasn’t the true nature of the word, it was the best way to find nourishment from hogwash.

Embrace the hogwash.

From the inimitable Royals Review comes this transcript, a quote from Dayton Moore at a blogger get-together Wednesday night in Kansas City.

We’re never gonna out-talent anybody here. I understand it goes with the territory, but there was a lot of criticism deflected about why we would sign a guy like Jeff Francoeur. But the truth of the matter is we’re not going to out-talent anybody here in Kansas City. It’s impossible to do.

We’ve got one of the smallest markets in all of sports, period. Our owner is a terrific owner, but he’s not going to go out and spend a $100 million payroll and a $100 million payroll when we can only sustain a $55 million or $60 million payroll in this market.

So we’ve gotta, our team has to be better than anybody else. We have to have synergy. We have to have togetherness, very similar to what the Colorado Rockies had three years ago. They had some young, talented players. But they played together, they loved each other, their families got along, and they went out and played hard every single night.

Of course, this quote describes a fault line between sabermetrically-inclined and old school baseball analysts. But let us pretend for a while that we all agree that synergy is very important to baseball success. Since Mr. Moore has suggested that the Rockies had this essence three years ago but don’t any longer, it is something that a very similar group of players can have and lose. So, it follows that synergy is something that is almost independent of the players themselves. And, therefore, it can be manipulated.

So! A list of activities for your synergy-less team that needs to find togetherness! All to completed with family in tow, of course.

1) Viagra Ice Cream Socials
2) Red Rover
3) Simulated Broom Hockey
4) “Never Have I Ever”
5) Extreme Egg Toss
6) Sack Race
7) Three-Legged Relay Race
8) Reggae Hum That Tune
9) Human Taco
10) Surprise Trust Falls

A southpaw of suds.

Beer is worth traveling for. Most times its to your nearest bar with crafts on tap, but many times its to your nearest beer festival with brewers plying their wares.

Some times it’s worth traveling to a ballpark for a non-baseball-reason. Not all of the ballparks boast only mass-brewed urine waters. Your rare stadium makes beer a priority and features suds worthy of a pilgrimage.

San Diego’s PetCo Park is just one such stadium.

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