Democratic congressman / starting pitcher Cedric Raymond. Photo via the National Journal.

A very exciting day in politics on Thursday was capped off by the annual Congressional Baseball Game — for charity! At Nationals Park, the Democrats hit the Republicans hard in an 18-5 victory. Rep. Cedric Raymond was the starting pitcher for the Dems side, and he pitched a complete game win. He also had a multiple-hits game at the plate and was awarded the MVP award by his teammates. Raymond was a varsity pitcher at Morehouse College and apparently he still throws in the early 80s. The ceremonial first pitch was thrown out by an Astros rainbow-guts-era adorned Ron Paul — who you may remember, hit a home run in the game in 1979. Paul was also inducted into the Congressional Baseball Hall of Fame, which is apparently a thing. It’s worth noting that the Democrats have now won the game four years in a row. Baseball also beat out politics, for one night only, as Republican manager Joe Barton (Texas) was quoted as saying “Win or lose, we’re gonna go upstairs after it’s over and have a hotdog.” America!

Ron Paul. Photo via the National Journal.

H/T to Bryce Harper.

Q: How does one become a circus clown?
A: Clown school.

Q: Why are so many people afraid of clowns?
A: Coulrophobes are quite common, but there isn’t any clear data. Several theories exist, including: the childhood trauma of first seeing/meeting a clown and not knowing what is going on, the fact that their human emotions are obscured and impossible to read, and/or the “scary clown” theme in movies and fiction.

Q: Who are some famous people who are afraid of clowns?
A: P. Diddy has a no-clown clause in his contracts. Other famous coulrophobes include: Johnny Depp, Carol Burnett, and Anthony Bourdain.

Q: How does the “clown car” trick work?
A: There is no trick.

Q: How much money do clowns make?
A: Circus clowns make an average of 38,000 according to the internets in 2010.

Q: Why arn’t you allowed to incinerate clowns?
A: They burn funny.

Omar Vizquel’s dancing is chock full o’ life lessons:
– Don’t let rainy days get you down.
– Don’t let your age get in the way of living your dreams.
– Never be afraid of making a fool of yourself.
– Only boring people get bored.
– You can always fall back on “raising the roof” when you run out of other dance movies.

A video:

And an animated gif:

Gif courtesy reddit.

When the Tampa Bay Rays revealed their “throwback” uniforms for a time in which they did not exist, a rip in the time-space continuum occurred, creating an alternate universe in which the Rays did in fact play in 1979. In a NotGraphs exclusive, a peek at some of the members of the 1979 Tampa Bay Rays:

A time-travelling Joe Maddon

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In this video, Kenyan kids re-enact the end of Game 6 of the 1986 World Series. The kid in the long orange tank top is playing Buckner. This just couldn’t be any more heartwarming or baseball-affirming unless you’re Mr. Buckner himself, in which case it might as well be a pitcher of salt poured over an open wound. If you are not Bill Buckner, watch and prepare yourself for a minute and 48 seconds of pure happiness in youtube form:

Personally I recommend bookmarking this video in a special folder to be applied liberally when you’re having one of those “this is not my beautiful life” / “why is the internet so terrible and mean?” / “what if baseball is dying?” / “ahhhhhsfghskfghfghjfg” kind of days.

H/T to Amazin’ Avenue

17-year-old shortstop Carlos Correa has made history by being the first Puerto Rican player selected first in the MLB draft when he was selected yesterday by my Houston Astros. Here’s 20 things you may not have realized about him:
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Part One is here. This is Part Two…

Names from Score’s Baseball’s Hottest Rookies 1989-1990 Book & Card Set.
Words selected via Google search (“__________ is”).
Images chosen from the name’s Google image search results

Chip Hale
chip hale is lurking on the outside

Erik Hanson
erik hanson is upset about the harsh reality of working the web

Pete Harnisch
pete harnisch is the fifth player in franchise history to be named pete

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Warning: this entire post is about my fantasy team. I’ve been told that, like hearing about someone’s dreams, this is something that no one cares about. However, I personally am actually fascinated by reading about other people’s fantasy teams, so I’m going for it anyway:

My “home” fantasy league is a very deep fourteen team 6×6 (normal categories + OPS + holds) roto league with a snake draft and eight keepers with contracts. The league has been going for for nine years but this is only my fourth year after inheriting a terrible, terrible team — my best keeper when I got the team was Bobby Abreu. I didn’t really realize how long it would take me to get to a point where the team felt like it was completely mine, but it turns out that the answer was “three full seasons.” Going into this year’s draft, I knew that I had a collection of keepers that could win the league, and I just had to draft around them correctly. My keepers were, in no particular order

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This one comes from a young gentleman by the name of Trevor Plouffe. Click to embiggen, silly:

There are days when the internet doesn’t provide much joy and I start to think maybe I’m spending too much time in front of a computer screen — that I need to learn more about the different species of birds in my area or maybe finally learn to do a cartwheel or something. Then days like today happen, and I know that I was wrong about the internet. She loves us, she provides for us, and she brings us what we demand:

1. How Many Altuves? is a website designed to measure things in Altuves, which is how I will be measuring everything in my life from now on. For the record, a blue whale is 14.76 Altuves, my couch is 1.66 Altuves, and a trip around the bases is 66.46 Altuves. My heart is an infinite number of Altuves, running like hamsters on a wheel and keeping the blood running through my veins.
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