When Chipper Jones announced yesterday that he would be retiring after the 2012 season, a nation of cats named Chipper Jones shed a little extra fur in anticipated sadness.

Chipper Jones the cats watch baseball. Chipper Jones the cats have have lost weight. Chipper Jones the cats are under an umbrella. Chipper Jones the cats are entertained by doctors. Chipper Jones the cats are being squeaked. Chipper Jones the cats wanted something different. Chipper Jones the cats have owners who are so glad they named their cats after Chipper Jones, but for all the wrong reasons. Chipper Jones the cats are Mr. Jones and me. Chipper Jones the cats are stuck with you, too. Chipper Jones the cats are broken images. Chipper Jones the cats are animated little fellows (or are they?). Chipper Jones the cats have been fine ever since. Chipper Jones the cats would love to help you with that quilting. Chipper Jones the cats truly are the pimp shit.

Yesterday, Carlos Beltran tweeted this picture of himself alongside two “killer” whales / Orcas who are gratuitously public affecting AKA making out AKA greeting each other in a friendly way. The multiverse implications are obvious here: once you click, you will have turned away from the world without this photo (colder, darker), and walked into the world with it (kissier, happier). Here is an illustration, even more literal than usual:

A couple years ago, I stumbled upon a set of negatives from one of my dad’s boxes full of them. He was a photojournalist and newspaperman in the early 1980s and while I was looking mostly for photos of our family, this one caught my eye. It was labeled “Astros/Cardinals 1980 ‘dome.” Some sleuthing revealed it to be this game, the second in a doubleheader between the Astros and the Cards (who will play presumably their last regular rivalry games this year, the Astros final in the National League). This Astros team, featuring Art Howe, Joe Morgan, Jose Cruz, Cesar Cedeno, and Luis Pujols, must have been a fun one to watch (these were taken two years before I was born; my brother was six months old). Here are a few of my favorites from the roll. As per usual, you can click to embiggen. All photos by my dad, Bill Burton, awesome person extraordinaire in more ways than 100:

Truth: this photo makes me all lump-throated.

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“Happiness is a sad song.” -Charles M. Schultz

Major League Baseball tried out “open mics” during yesterday’s Indians-Diamondbacks spring game, and with it, the beautiful and gentle beast that some call “Jason Kipnis” has unleashed his inner Adele. See, joy:

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This is one of my favorite keepsakes: “Old Timer’s [sic] Baseball Photo Album”, published by JKW Sports Publications in 1961, collecting photographs from the private collections of Robert A. Cutter and William N. Jacobellis. I was flipping through it searching for inspiration for a post when I saw an image that immediately seared itself onto my eyeballs. I will never be the same… To the jump if you dare.

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NEWSFLASH: Girls like sports, y’all! But they’re still girls! And what do girls like more than high heels, amirite?! So, what women must REALLY want is an opportunity to show off their sports loyalties in a pair of suede pumps bearing their team’s logo. This is where HerStar comes in. Their tag line is “HOW CHICKS DO SPORTS.” But, hey, listen:

“Due to demand, these shoes are currently available by Pre-Order ONLY. You should expect to wait a minimum of 8 weeks. On occasion this time can me shorter or longer. We have no control over these time frames as they are set by the manufacturer. Once you complete payment you cannot be refunded, your payment goes directly to the manufacturer to fund production. PLEASE only purchase if you are prepared to wait for this seasons hottest sports item. We want only to satisfy our customers.”

I’m trying to make it to SABR42; if I can swing it and they’ve been kickstarted manufactured by then, I’m definitely going to buy a different pair of these for each day of attendance.

“I never took a drink to avoid life or to discover what was missing in it. I drank always for pleasure, because it made me feel better and easier. I believe that a batter in a slump might sometimes help himself with a drink or two instead of further torturing himself over what he’s been doing wrong. Many years later, I kept a notebook by my bedside to jot down different thoughts I had on batting. One night I woke up and wrote this: ‘There are three ways to get rid of a slump. One is to drink and change the feeling you are walking around with. Another one is to get involved in some sort of hobby do you can forget for a awhile. The third is just to practice and practice again. In order to get rid of uneasiness, the first two ways should be considered. The last way sometimes deepens the feelings of uneasiness. However, the first two have nothing to do with progress. If the monster called slump requires improvement in technique and skill then there is only the road of practice and practice and practice…'” -Sadaharu Oh

The Red Sox decision to ban drinking in the clubhouse seems both gimmicky — fried chicken and beer not actually being why they lost last year — and also appropriate — most employers don’t let you drink beer at work, right? The argument is that baseball has a long and storied relationship with beer, but that relationship is sorta fun at best and tragic at worst. Joe Maddon says that since fans drink beers at baseball stadiums (I can note from experience that this is a true statement), there’s no reason players shouldn’t be able to unwind with a couple drinks themselves. That certainly seems to make sense. David Ortiz says “if you want to drink, drink at home.” That seems like it makes sense too. Point being: this issue is nowhere near being easily answered or cut and dry, and I haven’t even really figured out where I stand on it.
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I participated in my first ottoneu fantasy draft this past Sunday and Tuesday with various other members of the Fangraphs Illuminati, including my inimitable Notgraphs compatriot Robert J. Baumann. You can look at the list of transactions from our draft here, and both our commissioner Chad Young and Steve Slowinski have written intelligently about the draft over at Rotographs. I would like to write about the draft as well, but since I am not really a fantasy baseball expert, no one would or should trust my opinions about the draft. Nor would any of you probably care to read about my feelings regarding how I thought I’d be able to nab my main man Jason Heyward for like fifteen dollars and instead he went for TWENTY SEVEN (they are, in short: F%#^#%^)IREGJKDFG.)

What I AM an expert on — and what, to my great surprise, people seem to still be willing to listen to me talk about — are elaborate metaphors related to baseball that are really about something else entirely. Or, is it the other way around? In any case, I have long been of the mind that building a fantasy roster is about much more than simply getting the best deals and assembling a winning team — a mindset which has probably at least partially contributed to my fantasy efforts being mostly not all that successful, wherein success is measured by “winning.”
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When Trevor Plouffe updated us on Joe Mauer circa 2012, I knew something had gone horribly wrong. Here’s my depiction of the sentiment therein.

Do y’all think vampirism is a PED?

This year’s Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show was held Monday and Tuesday at Madison Square Garden in New York City. A celebration of racial purity and shaved butts, it is a super weird event that I find relentlessly entertaining and fascinating, despite the fact that I have never and will never own a AKC registered purebred dog (since there are really cute mutts being put to sleep every day). Naturally, I spent Valentine’s Day eating failed meringues, watching the televised version of the event, and forming a baseball analogy for your edification (plus YAY DOG PICTURES YAY):

Palacegarden Malachy

Pekinese (Toy Group), Pitcher

2012 WAR: 7.1

Awards: Best In Show, Best In Toy Group, Best Pekinese, Cy Young

Malachy’s performance in 2012 was strong, but there are those in the sabermetric community who feel that he ran away with the BIS (Best In Show) award this year based on some outdated factors (weirdness, front fluffiness). Certainly, he is a dog who seems at first glance to lack the grit or determination necessary for this game, but those who judge him are missing out on this dog’s extraordinary (if a bit unconventional) control from the mound. Those that have questioned Malachy’s “hustle” and drive, consider this: he had the highest K/9 last year for a pitcher with at least 20 starts, and his shape kind of reminds me of Falcor.
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