Money can be exchanged for goods and services, like beer and pretzels, but it can also be used, apparently, to honor Americana through the design and minting of commemorative coins. I don’t know why anyone would want to collect money, when they could spend said money to acquire baseball cards, but that’s neither here nor there. I will not criticize someone else for their hobbies, at least not publicly.*

*Note: for these purposes, Carson Cistulli’s drinking and slothful lethargy are considered an activity and a non-activity respectively, not actual hobbies. I, and you, remain free to criticize these at length. For we live in raucus, bacchanaliac democracy, where our movements are still not monitored and regulated by a benevolent, paternalistic monarch. Yay, America.

Anywho, the United States Mint and the Department of the Treasury would like our assistance with designing three coins “to recognize and celebrate the National Baseball Hall of Fame.” There are so many directions a coin designer could go to truly convey everything the Hall of Fame was, is, and will become in the future. There are baseball’s greats who embody the Hall itself, players like Babe Ruth, Christy Mathewson, Jackie Robinson, and Satchel Paige. There are images that one generally associates with the game itself, balls and bats and ballcaps and athletic cups and the like. There’s the building itself, a beautiful structure in a picturesque town that provides a stately home for baseball’s most exclusive club and the primary keeper of the game’s history.

None of these seem to get at the heart, though, of what the Hall of Fame has become. And thus, being of sound mind and body, possessing naturalized American citizenship, and having a passing interest in baseball, the United States, and what my money looks like, I thought I would offer the following options that I think more accurately reflect where the Hall is today: Read the rest of this entry »

Have you considered going to a Marlins game this year? Of course you haven’t. You are a person of taste and discernment. It’s why you frequent all the best websites and also NotGraphs. You know that attending Marlins games only serves to prop up the failing tyrannical regime of Jeffrey Loria, the very antithesis of the benevolent despot we generally prefer to the chaotic meanderings and whims of a government by and for the people. For while the tyranny of the majority is terrible, truly the tyranny of the art dealer turned sports mogul is even worse.

So no, you will not be attending any Marlins games this year. And neither, frankly, will anyone else worth his or her salt. For the Marlins are actually having to resort to a two-for-one Groupon ticket offering to get people to show up on Opening Day. Opening Day is amateur hour, when every Tom, Dick, and Harry who likes to claim they’re a baseball fan but who constantly complains that the games are too long and boring commute to the park to get drunk with like-minded rabble, and then slosh homeward for the rest of the season. The Marlins can’t even fill their ballpark with those dillweeds.

As far as I can tell, the Marlins didn’t even come up with a marketing slogan for 2013 (unless “Single game tickets on sale now!” counts. Sean Flynn (the Marlins’ vice president for marketing) promised we would have one over a month ago. Not that I want to encourage anyone to attend Marlins games going forward, but I do want Flynn to be able to keep his job (especially since he’s probably losing his pension). So he should totally feel free to use any of these to entice people to come out to the ballpark: Read the rest of this entry »

This is Eric Chavez. Eric Chavez is a bad dude (just look at that evil twirly mustache that I totally didn’t draw myself). Eric Chavez is a murderer. He’s not a murderer of people. No, Eric Chavez is guilty of murdering something far more defenseless and expensive.  Eric Chavez killed my laptop.

Last Friday, I was minding my own business, covering my first game as a credentialed member of the sports media (how hard could it be if they let Carson do it?) from the Salt River Fields press box. Eric Chavez came to the dish against Bartolo Colon in the top of the first and lined a pitch back at me. Fortunately for my beautiful face, but less fortunately for my beloved laptop, Eric Chavez’s line drive ricocheted off the back of my laptop screen and rolled to a stop at the feet of the MLB stringer working the game.

The baseball, which was so negligently launched backwards by Eric Chavez, had cracked the bevel of my laptop and filled a third of my screen with spider-webs of shattered dreams. What looked like black electronic oil leaked from around the spreading cracks and white vertical stripes obscured much of what had once been a glorious view of my desktop.

After the game, I used my newfound media power to bully my way into the clubhouse to confront Eric Chavez, Destroyer of Computer and Scourge of Electronics. Not intimidated by the fact that he is considerably bigger and stronger than me, I asked him how he could live with himself for assaulting my property like that. He was, I am disappointed to report, remarkably unrepentant:

“If I had any type of control over where the ball went, I definitely would not be hitting it into the press box…. You know, I hit a kid about two years ago when I was in Boston and I broke his eye socket, and he had to have surgery. Now that I feel sorry about. Laptops can be replaced, but eyes can’t.”

Read the rest of this entry »

As you read this, I am undoubtedly sleeping in after flying to Phoenix for Spring Training and the great FanGraphs Jamboree with my two beloved, wretched children, ages 6 years and 17 months respectively. I’m staying with my mother in Scottsdale, which is why the kids are along. I don’t have to pay any money for accommodations, but I will be paying in other, more subtle ways. Agreeing to bring her grandchildren with me across the country, through the air, in a tiny cylinder with small seats that are easily kicked at a time of day when both of them are typically asleep,  is part of that cost.

Nevertheless, I’m excited to be here. I’d be more excited if I was credentialed for this week. I had dreams of standing shoulder to mid-thigh with guys like Jonathan Broxton and Brandon McCarthy, and peppering them with questions both insightful and inane. But alas, somewhere along the way, a ball got dropped and I won’t be cornering Vin Scully and demanding to know how he stops time and apparates like a Harry Potter villain to startle Don Blasingame.

Sure, this is a loss to me, and I feel terrible about it. But I don’t feel bad for me; I feel bad for you. Because while I will still be tremendously important and generally terrific even without my credentials, not needing the external validation they would provide, you will never learn the answers to the answers to the burning questions that I was all set to ask.

Unless…unless I posted them here and intrepid reporters across this great land banded together to locate the interview subjects I won’t be able to get to, and demand answers to these important questions! Yes! Yes, this is what we will do. Here, my friends, is what I was planning to ask at Dodgers camp on Thursday. Feel free to share anything you discover in the comments below. Now, go forth my minions, and seek answers to the following:

1) (To Andre Ethier) You French or sumthin’?

2) (To Zack Greinke) Who would win in a pillowfight, you or TJ Simers?

3) (To Juan Uribe) Why are you?

4) (To Clayton Kershaw) You’re a lefty, and everybody says all lefties are junkballers. Show me your junk.

5) (To Don Mattingly) How come you never shaved your sideburns?

6) (To Nick Punto) Really? You think tearing the clothes off of athletic young men isn’t even a little gay?

7) (To Ned Colletti) How much of your ability to convince others you know what you’re doing do you attribute to your mustache?

8) (To Alyssa Milano, who appears without warning next to me in the locker room) How the hell did you get in here?

9) (To Josh Beckett) TJ Simers and Dan Shaughnessy strip down to the waist and engage in a spirited boxing match according to the Queensbury Rules. Who would win, how many rounds would it take, how much joy would America derive from the proceedings provided it was streamed live to the Inter Nets, and how much beer could you consume in the interim between the first punch and one of them collapsing dead to the delight of millions?

10) (To Vin Scully) Will you adopt me?

You have previously been made aware of the baseball prowess of perpetual Presidential candidate (I’m fairly sure he’s still running, somewhere) and spritely elf Ronald Ernest Paul, former congressman from Texas’s 14^th district. Paul’s performance in the annual Congressional Baseball Game is legendary, as it includes the first out of the park home run in the game’s long history (it’s been held at least 79 times since 1909) and still just one of two. He was 45 at the time.

Three years later, at 48, he almost did it again, as the following video, uncovered by Steve E. over at Whiskers on a Stache (where you can find the finest admiration of Kevin Bass) demonstrates:

What else do we learn about Representative Paul during the 1983 game at Four Mile Run Park in Alexandria, Virginia?

• Ron Paul has the range to play centerfield. (0:35)
• He is “the best long-ball hitter on the [Republican] club, who has stroked a number of homeruns, not only in practice but during the course of the games.” (0:40)
• Representative Barney Frank “would add he’s probably one of the best gynecologists you’ll find out on this ball field today.” (0:53)  Ladies, take note.
• Actually, he’s “the only gynecologist in attendance tonight.” (1:03)
• The Republicans are incompetently managed by Silvio Conte, as Ron Paul is batting seventh in part in favor of Rod Chandler, R-Washington, a freshman congressman who was seven years  Paul’s junior. But the strategy backfires, as the Republicans have chances to score early, but don’t capitalize without their star at the dish. (1:06)
• Ron Paul looks damn good in his rainbow Astros uni. (2:31)
• His double off the left-center field wall demonstrates he still has legitimate gap power and a smooth right-handed swing from the right side of the aisle. (4:00)
• He’ll lay down a bunt anytime. Nobody should get to tell him what he can and can’t do with their unwritten rules. (5:00)
• You can fool him with breaking stuff, but he’s patient enough to wait for the fastball, as he lines another hit to left. (6:02)
• The shadow government doesn’t want to create a martyr and won’t let you see him get plunked, note the interference on the video. Nevertheless, Paul won’t be intimidated and stays in the game. (7:05)
• Presumably, he took advantage of baseball’s strict and intrusive regulations to get to first base on catcher’s interference. Hypocrite. (8:45)
• He will never be elected President of these United States, but he can rest easy knowing he still is a sure-handed flycatcher. (9:05)

Ultimately, Conte’s egregious managing probably costs the Republicans the win in 1983, as the game ends in the first ever tie, 17-17.  Clearly not as good at running a ball club as he was at acquiring defense contracts for Western Massachusetts. On the day, Paul officially goes 2-for-3 with a single, double, HBP, reached on catcher’s interference and at least a run scored and two RBI. Hits for average, power, runs, fields, and throws like a boss. And he’s the best gynecologist on the field. He’s a rare six tool player.

Last Wednesday, in one of my weaker moments, I asked for your opinion regarding which headline you would be most likely to click on. The winning headline is, of course, above. I regret this decision, as democracy remains a profoundly stupid thing.  As we all remember from last year’s Ron Swanson Hall of Fame debacle, if you want a decision made right, you need an enlightened despot and absolute sovereign to do it.

Nevertheless, I refused to impose my will on you all as I should have, and we devolved into the depraved preferences of the common public. Indeed, let it be forever remembered that the rabble will gladly choose mindless dance competitions populated by familiar, vapid faces,  police procedurals, and (worst of all) The Big Bang Theory over unparalleled genius like Breaking Bad and the first three seasons of Community.

Damn you, the plurality decided they would like to watch a billionaire (a modern day monarch who, by rights, should rule us all if there ever was one) flattened by an blacksmith’s anvil, as strumpets gyrated  in celebration of his bloody and painful death, rather than the exquisite beauty of a perfectly performed nutshot on TJ Simers. You stupid souls would rather see the tragic end of a tone-deaf titan, rather than see a boorish, whiny, ungrateful relief pitcher deservedly cast into a pit of alligators during a picnic.

Well, the 20.5 percent of you who voted enthusiastically to witness wholesale slaughter and titillation will get your wish.  I am a man of my word, having entered myself into a binding social contract to provide you the base entertainment you crave like decadent Romans eager to see early Christians disemboweled in front of you.  Here then. Are you not entertained? Is this not why you are here?  Very well. Feast your eyes:

Read the rest of this entry »

Thanks to Deadspin yesterday, we discovered perhaps the greatest headline ever devised by manbrains and ladyfingers, as the Philadelphia Daily News’s David Murphy tried to entice you to click with the following:

 Note how David spruces up a post explaining why the Phillies are never going to trade for Giancarlo Stanton with the name of the local nine, plus both iterations of Stanton’s name, plus boobs and Donovan McNabb, simultaneously attracting Philadelphians who are angry and horny. That’s just good headlineing. But I think we can do better. I think we have to do better, especially if we are going to compete for scarce online resources. So please, help us to help you decide what to click on so that we can better serve you, and “earn” more money. Answer the following poll question and/or suggest alternative headlines you would click on in the comments, on which I’ve been told all the finest discourse on the Internet takes place.
[polldaddy poll=”6908179″]

Get ready, because I’m about to do you a tremendous favor.

It is really freaking hard to get on Jeopardy!. I mean, I’m the smartest person you know, and I haven’t been on it, so you just know it’s incredibly difficult. First, you have to pass an online test, and get invited for another round of testing and auditions, and even if you make that cut, there’s no guarantee you’ll make it onto the show in a given season.

Indeed, the entire process is set up just to remind us that, as smart as we are, we’ll never graduate beyond being the most obnoxious person at bar trivia. It’s unfair and a little mean.

And so, it’s with great pleasure that I present you with a Jeopardy! answer that none of the contestants got right but that will fill you with an abundance of joy and pride and a false sense of accomplishment and superiority:

“This ‘fishy’ outfielder put up huge numbers for the Angels in his 2012 Rookie of the Year-winning season”

The answer is, of course, Tim Salmon.

There, now aren’t you filled with pride. For once, you are smarter than the Jeopardy! people. Suck on that, Ken Jennings.

Huh? Wrong?  Oh man, I didn’t phrase that in the form of a question, did I? Oh well, everyone’s dad Ted Kluszewski is still proud. Aren’t you Ted?

Yes. Yes, I do.

“Curiosity is one of the permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous intellect.”
Johnson: Rambler #103 (March 12, 1751)

Despite this innate curiosity Johnson describes above, there are some things that it’s better for you not to investigate. To forgo your natural curiosity is not a sign of a weak intellect in such cases, but is a testament to your understanding that some shit will straight up kill you, and you should probably not try it.

Just because your brain wonders how it feels to jump out of an airplane, or mix cotton candy and Scotch, or get hit in the face with a t-shirt fired from a mascot-wielded t-shirt cannon, doesn’t mean you’re going to do it. That’s where I come in. To resolve, then, the conflict between your natural innate curiosity and the wiser angels of your nature, I am offering myself as your avatar to try things on a semi-regular basis that you should not, and to tell you about the results. That way, your curiosity is satisfied, and the only one in harm’s way is a 34 year old father of two who should really know better.

And so it was that a couple of weeks ago I was getting lunch and playing nerdy baseball board games with Gentleman of the Internet and Shame of the BBWAA Carson Cistulli and the impossibly young Jackie Moore when Carson laid out three packs of tattered, ancient baseball cards before us. “Take one,” he murmured, seductively. Read the rest of this entry »

Imagine two Kodiak bears, each walking alone through the forest. Strong, powerful, furry. They have no fear, no predators from which to run, and seemingly no enemies. Then, a twig snaps, and one bear looks up to find himself within 20 yards of the other. They growl at each other. They stand on their hind legs, they bare their teeth, and they roar menacingly. When these two bears meet in the woods, it is a scientific fact that they will fight, the fight will be epic, and that one of them will limp off to die alone.*

*Do not look this up.

I had never seen two bears walking through the forest until last weekend, when at the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome for TwinsFest. You are skeptical, obviously. How could a bear even make it into the Twin Cities, let alone into a pressurized, domed stadium with revolving doors? “Chillax,” I say. “These are metaphorical bears.” These are bears in the form of circa 1973 Luis Tiant and Willie Horton, whose baseball cards I located glaring across from one another in a binder at the largest baseball card show in the Upper Midwest on the Metrodome field, their forced colocation adding to what was already a tense scene. Feel it:

Those are some intense staredowns and some very intimidating mustaches. As Tiant and Horton stared each other down from across the book, I worried for what would happen if they faced each other any longer, so I purchased one of them and David Temple, oft of this space, also purchased one and we separated them before any damage was done to the surrounding cards.

But we never resolved the question of which bear would have won the inevitable conflict. And as gentlemen of science and fine breeding, coming to a satisfactory conclusion was compulsory. Thankfully, we know that Tiant pitched against Horton’s Tigers five times in 1973, and Horton played in three of those games.  And so it was when Willie Horton dug in against Luis Tiant in 1973 that we learned who was Ursa Major, and who was Ursa Minor, for here are the results of their struggle: Read the rest of this entry »