Archive for Actual Thing

It is with a heavy heart that I must report, based on the reporting of others, that Marlins utility man and former Braves All-Star Omar Infante has sustained a devastating injury. To wit:

MIAMI — Florida Marlins second baseman Omar Infante has broken his right middle finger diving for a grounder against the St. Louis Cardinals.

Infante appeared in pain but stayed in the game Thursday night after his unsuccessful attempt to field the grounder by Skip Schumaker. The ball deflected off Infante’s glove and rolled into right field for a two-run double in the third inning.

This injury will severely limit Mr. Infante’s ability to make obscene gestures and play baseball for a yet undisclosed period of time. As of now, we can only hold our breaths and hope for the best.

Many may believe that this injury can be understood only as a freak occurrence that can simply be chalked up bad luck. I reject that. Every calamity must happen for a reason, after all, and (as NotGraphs’ foremost expert on the supernatural) I believe that Omar Infante is yet another player to fall victim to the infamous “Curse of Old Hoss.”

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Pete Rambo
Ol’ Rambo pitched in one game, just 3 and 2/3 innings, with the Phillies in 1926. There’s not much more known about Warren Dawson Rambo (somehow “Pete” for short). He pitched for the Cumberland Colts minor league team for a pair of seemingly strong seasons in 1926 and 1927, but never made a significant imprint on the majors.

Here is an artistic rendering of what Pete Rambo may have look liked:

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I’m going to go out on a limb and say that isn’t Yunel Escobar’s thigh in the image above. No way.

As much as I want to say that the cat who had that done, who actually paid for someone to tattoo Bobby Cox’s face on his thigh, now and forever more, is certifiably insane, I can’t. Because the team I root for has never won 14 straight division titles under one manager. I’m going to go ahead and assume that if and when that does happen for my  team, all bets are off.

Does that mean I might end up with John Farrell’s Presidential mug tattooed on my arm? Maybe. Like I said, I can’t in good faith rule out the possibility of it happening. I have to admit, though, that right now, I’m leaning more towards an Alex Anthopoulos tattoo. Yeah, definitely an Anthopoulos tattoo.

But you, dear Braves fans, you tell me: From 1991 through 2005, Atlanta racked up divisional titles. Other than Bobby Cox, because, well, it’s been done, which player’s face are you tattooing on your thigh: Greg Maddux, John Smoltz, Chipper Jones, or Tom Glavine?

Image courtesy of The Associated Press, via Sports Illustrated. And a tip of the cap to Scott Carefoot, one of The Score’s many basketball gurus, whose Twitter account led me to the photo.

It is a widely accepted fact that Wikipedia is the pulse of all that is humanity. It provides a compendium of both the key elements of our history, as well as an archive of fun facts. However, many Wikipedia users are unaware of the secret underbelly of Wikipedia, the sacred texts of the history section.

Next time you are looking up the history of the crepe or the works of an American Poet, consider taking a gander at the history tab.

Inside the history section, one finds a deluge of deliberately confusing nerd code, but if you randomly click around for a little while, you may end up with dandy’s like this one from an old Todd Hollandsworth entry:
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Anyone who’s played the backyard variety of base- or wiffle- or even kickball will be acquainted with the idea of the ghost runner. This sort of ghost, second in friendliness only to the very famous one employed by Paramount Pictures, happily replaces us on base, content with moving station-to-station like a phantom Molina brother.

For all the popularity of the ghost runner, however, the ghost swing remains a rare sight, utilized by only the avantest of sporting’s garde. Yet it was just such a swing that Milwaukee pitcher Randy Wolf employed in the top of the third inning of Saturday night’s contest against the San Francisco Giants.

As you see in the footage above, San Francisco’s Ryan Vogelsong begins the at-bat with a four-seam fastball to Wolf — to which Wolf responds by leaving the actual bat on his left shoulder and taking a pretty substantial cut right-handed with his invisible bat. The result? That depends. The baseball that you and I see lands in catcher Chris Stewart’s glove for a strike. The one that Wolf was swinging at appears — if we assume that Wolf follows its path with his eyes — appears to land foul somewhere down the first-base line.

Some will call it madness; others, genius. As you might imagine, both parties are right. For now, it’s our duty merely to appreciate Randy Wolf’s brazen declaration on behalf of the whimsical.

Thanks to the hirsute likes of Oscar Gamble and John Henry Johnson, baseball has a proud history when it comes to the Afro and the rocking thereof. More recently, Coco Crisp is to be praised to the heavens and back for keeping it impossibly real.

All that is well and good, but the gauntlet — a hairy, awesome gauntlet — has been thrown down at the feet of those who take seriously the fusion of baseball and Afros …

And the people say: Your move, Mr. Crisp.

Have you ever wanted to see a helicopter play baseball? Yea, verily. Have you also dreamed longingly of spicing up said game of helicopter baseball with bad baserunning, German brogues aplenty and a soundtrack that quite possibly features Yngwie Malmsteen? Well, despite the lessons of the past, present and future, dreams do come true! But only this one time …

The only thing I know about marketing is that if you use each letter of your company’s name to spell out a positive attribute, it’s golden gold. Thankfully, the Chiba Lotte Marines, to cite but one example, know more about marketing than I do. I introduce this into evidence …

As Zig Ziglar teaches us, cast the opposition as giant, spiteful golems who destroy urban infrastructure and endanger children, and you’ll sell tickets. The Chiba Lotte Marines have taken this lesson to heart, and that heart is beautiful and mighty.

By all means, collect the whole set.

Here’s newly minted Nats skipper Davey Johnson!

The discerning discerner will observe that also in this photo is a white orb of cowhide, something known in industry parlance as a “baseball.” It seems there are but a finite number of possibilities to explain the presence of the baseball in this picture …

A) Mr. Johnson, blinded by the klieg lights, is unable to see the baseball hurtling toward his unsuspecting chompers. It goes without saying that Jim Riggleman, just off stage and concealed by a fake Cardinal Richelieu beard and his best Slovene brogue, is the author of these unfolding horrors.

B) Mr. Johnson, after an intense and character-shaping apprenticeship, is dancing not the Tango, but rather the Calcaterra.

C) The ball has descended from the firmament above and is now fluttering about Mr. Johnson. Much like the magical-realist butterflies of a certain Garcia Marquez novel, a flock of hovering baseballs will now and forever trail Mr. Johnson wherever he goes. It is at once a portent of the dugout miracles to come and a stinging rebuke of the electoral college.

D) That’s not a baseball. That’s the haunting, lingering spectral presence of Tony Plush.

E) Mr. Johnson has the Uri Geller-like power to levitate baseballs, outerwear made from fine Corinthian leather, and beautiful ladies.

What other explanations could there be for the sorcery before you?

(Righteous gratitude to Dangerous Don Hammack.)

Jobu’s power-ade.

Eliezer Alfonzo was 32 and had 545 major league plate appearances stretched across six seasons. So far he’d been the perennial third catcher for the Giants, Padres and Mariners. Then last year he put up a ‘solid’ 1.166 OPS in 71 Triple-A games and everything was going right for once. He might just have had a performance-enhacing liquid to thank for his most recent call-up.

Snake juice.

All those years in all those parks, and Alfonzo has developed quite the pre-game ritual. Once he settles down just a little from his usual loud and jovial self, Alfonzo begins his preparation for action. Pull on the uniform, one step at a time. Pull on the cleats. Check the catching gear. Once the sliding shorts are up to the armpits, there’s one last thing before he heads out of the locker room.

That’s when Alfonso pulls out his glass bottle with semi-clear liquid. Floating near the bottom is a large dead snake. Not a garter snake. Not a worm. An impressively large, very dead snake.

“Snake Juice time!” he declares to the room whether or not they care. This time, a staffer nearly vomits. Justin Smoak spits “that’s f*ing gross” into his glove. No-one moves closer. No-one wants a taste. A few people hold their noses, literally.

But Eliezer Alfonso is not fazed, and his smile does not fade. A few strong swigs of the potion and one more proclamation — “Ahhhh, Snake Juice gives me power!” Then the journeyman heads out the door.

Ready to be ready to catch.

Thanks to Ryan Divish for providing the insight and clubhouse access for this report.