Archive for Actual Thing

Needed: Discerning Critics

I need your help. I’ve pondered the pros and cons of both, and even allowed time for the darkened penumbras of my subconscious to have their say. Yet I still can’t decide which is more awesome — the t-shirt once worn by freshly minted Hall of Famer Bert Blyleven …

Or that the otherwise banal Fathead product line blessedly allows you to festoon your living room with the Milwaukee sausage-race contestants …

I simply can’t decide. Blyleven in a fart shirt or an addition to the home that adds more equity than a stylish backsplash and the full complement of Energy Star appliances? I don’t want to minimize the gravity of Sophie’s Choice, but this is far more difficult than choosing which spawn to save.


David Aardsma – Country Strong

The Mariners’ David Aardsma is more than just a quality reliever and the guy whose aardvark-like surname bumped Hank Aaron from alphabetical pole position in The Baseball Encyclopedia. He’s also pretty good at the whole convalescence thing:

Still under orders to put no weight on his surgically repaired left hip, the Seattle Mariners closer is none-the-less taking on two rehab sessions a day, and will start throwing in another three weeks.

From his chair.

“I’ll focus on the arm motion, just throw without using my legs,” Aardsma said. “Then by the time I can throw standing up, my arm will have a little more strength, and will have stayed loose.”

Big hairy deal. One time I checked the mail while hung over.

Anyhow, the piece notes that Aardsma was on an exercise bike within an hour of waking up from surgery, so none of this should be especially surprising. Fittingly — untrue fact forthcoming! — this will be the chair from which he throws:


For Your Viewing Pleasure: “Cleat Chasers”

Western Civilization seems to be circling the drain these days, so baseball might as well get in on the act. To that end, we have “Cleat Chasers,” the latest offering from the ubiquitous sub-genre of reality programming (curtsy: Hardball Talk). The executive summary:

“It’s a reality show about girls who stop at nothing to score with athletes while they are away from their wives and girlfriends during baseball spring training,” a source close to casting told RadarOnline.com exclusively. “It’s about girls that have gone pro in the sport of ‘cleat chasing.'”

Objectification en masse and calculated erosion of the family unit? I’ll take two!

Item!: A highly placed source tells the NotGraphs Investigative Reporting Investigation Team that the “Cleat Chasers” pilot will feature Snooki giving Ichiro a “Happy Clancy” in the men’s room of a Del Taco in Tucson!*

(* – Patently untrue, and the NotGraphs Investigative Reporting Investigation Team has no idea what a “Happy Clancy” is or whether such a sordid indulgence even exists.)


Your New Favorite Taiwanese Team

Lucky-best breaking news from the fair isle of Taiwan! The La New Bears are being renamed the Lamigo Monkeys!

Sure, I had never heard of the La New Bears until 15 minutes ago, but a baseball team named the Monkeys? Color me impressed. And if you find that revenge-minded silverback pictured on the flag above to be a bit disconcerting, please know that on the Lamigo Monkeys Facebook page (of which I am now a fan … please join me) we have a rendering that should satisfy you …

The big ears and smile are for the kids; the pompadour, natch, is for the ladies. Most of all, though: Go Monkeys!

Anyhow, I can now cross “Monkeys” off my non-exhaustive list of team nicknames I’d love to see used by actual franchises. A sampling:

– Hamburgers
– Cowards
– World Champions
– Commodore Vic-20s
– Security Guards
– Monster Lobsters
– Kevin

What am I missing? Go Monkeys!


Check Your Head, Not Adrian Beltre’s

It’s been a good week for Adrian Beltre, what with the reigning AL champs sending all that guaranteed cheddar his way.

There’s also a lot to like about Beltre. He’s an acrobat at the hot corner, that “home run swing from one knee” thing (pictured above, gloriously) is objectively awesome, and one must admire the flinty resolve of a man who rose again from the unspeakable horrors of a torn testicle (shudder).

Also adding to Beltre’s appeal is what appears to be a bizarre and preternatural loathing of having his head touched. Dig it. Dug it? So Beltre’s part Brooks Robinson, part Howard Hughes.

Conventional wisdom says Beltre chose not to exercise his player option with the Red Sox because of the allure of the market and the promise of millions. Video evidence, however, suggests it was because Victor Martinez wouldn’t leave his precious dome the hell alone.


The Hall of Fame of Halls of Fame

Walhalla, The Actual First Hall of Fame

There’s much handwringing today in Baseballville as the vote for this year’s Hall of Fame class is set to be announced at 2pm ET.

Certainly, the National Baseball Hall of Fame is important — not just to fans of the sport but also, owing to the meaning of the sport, the country generally.

But there are other some other pretty great halls of fame in this big, wide world. Below, please find a list of the more notable ones — a Hall of Fame of Halls of Fame, if you will.

Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences Hall of Fame (Video Games)
Last year, Mark Cerny, inventor of Marble Madness, was inducted.

Burlesque Hall of Fame
Yes, please!

Cuban Baseball Hall of Fame (Salón de la Fama del Béisbol Cubano)
From Wikipedia: “With the discontinuation of professional baseball in Cuba in 1961 and its replacement by the amateur Cuban national baseball system, election of new members in Cuba ceased.” Another organization, the Federation of Professional Cuban Baseball Players in Exile (Federación de Peloteros Profesionales Cubanos en el Exilio), has held elections in Miami more recently.

Dance Music Hall of Fame
From Wikipedia (emphasis so mine): “When the nominees were selected the ballots were sent to an international voting committee of over 1,000 dance music experts.”

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Adventures in The Google

It’s hazardous work we do. I mean, go spelunking through the Google news feed using “baseball” as your search term and you can turn up some unfortunate stuff. Mostly, I attribute this to the fact that the baseball bat — otherwise a totem of childhood innocence — can double as a murder weapon or sex toy. So every now and then you run across a tale of felonious assault, or, on those occasions when I find myself deep into an image search for “baseball bat,” (disclosure: this has happened exactly once) you can stumble upon photos that afterward make you want to boil your computer. Such is life.

Anyhow, this is the sort of thing that led me to this wondrous find, which has nothing to do with baseball save for this:

She was fearful for him and followed. She reported that she saw him “levitate” for about 10 feet across the room. She feared he was going to go over the balcony, so she shoved a table across the door.

He picked up a knife and she defended herself with a curtain rod, she said. Then she grabbed a baseball bat. He began chanting “Red, green, go” over and over and “flying” around the room, she said.

He was flailing his arms and hit her, the report states. She struck him with the bat, she said. He began speaking in a language she didn’t understand.

By the way, the headline, which, in the full light of the story, is as understated as an English butler, is: “Man’s Behavior Turns Strange.” Yes, it seems it did.

I’m fond of using the “Apropos of Nothing” category. Sometimes I damn well earn it.


In Praise of: The Brobdingnagian Sports Chair

The holidays compelled me and mine to travel by plane, and traveling by plane always means I drink deeply of SkyMall, the first and last word in consumerist porn. Although SkyMall is always rich with absurdities, nothing I ever find will top what you see above. And what you see above is a miracle called the Brobdingnagian Sports Chair.

The person you see sitting in the Brobdingnagian Sports Chair is, lest you think your eyes deceive, a grown damn man. The chair, you may surmise, is stupidly large. Why? The Skymall write-up says (yes, I actually tore out out the ad and kept it — also to be found in this issue: a robot tarantula and a plastic zombie designed to look like it’s punching its way out of a shallow grave underneath your garden!):

“… The portable chair that elevates your stature at any sporting event … Measuring 5 1/2′ tall, the chair is certain to provide stadium seating at any venue, and its 9′ sq. seat affords ample room for full-body gesticulations … The lofty seat elevates the feet well above the ground, where they’re free to dangle and sway instead of merely floundering in dirt or sand … Step stool not included.”

I have no words. Nonetheless … “full-body gesticulations”? Mostly, I feel sorry for the poor bastards seated behind this guy. And if he’s at a Little League game, then I most assuredly feel sorry for his kid. There’s no surer way to embarrass your spawn than to show up at one of his games with a sprawling throne that looks like it was designed for a minotaur with a glandular disorder.

None of this, however, is to say that the Brobdingnagian Sports Chair isn’t awesome. Because it obviously is.


Baseball Team(s) For Sale


Baseball Team For Sale?

You’ve always wanted to get into baseball. You’ve bothered all your friends for years about your ideas for making a team hum. You read all the cutting-edge websites and have theories of your own. You have some money saved up, and your day job is pretty successful, but you’re not willing to start at the bottom of the baseball hierarchy. You won’t bring your resume and hound the execs.

There’s opportunity for you around the next corner. Try jumping into baseball by owning your own minor league baseball team. The Sports Advisory Group, a sub-sector of the W.B. Grimes and Co., a boutique media, sports and entertainment mergers and acquisitions firm, has a classified section you may never have seen before. They list, for your pleasure, the minor- and independent-league teams that are available for purchase.

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“It Was Easier to Pitch with the LSD …”

If I’d been around these parts two years ago when Dock Ellis passed, then I would’ve posted this back then. Since I wasn’t, I’m posting it now. And what follows, friends, is baseball greatness captured by cinematic greatness …

Most resonant line: “What happened to yesterday?”

Damn, Dock, what did happen to yesterday? Actually, guys and things like Dock Ellis happened to yesterday, which is partly why everyone loves and is haunted by the yesterday of his or her choosing.

Oh, and the hair-curlers thing you no doubt observed and momentarily cherished is not some sort of directorial flourish …

Bowie Kuhn, who didn’t seem to like anything, predictably didn’t like Ellis’s curlers look, which, it would seem, was just a rolling pin, bathrobe and terry-cloth slippers away from something greater … Anyhow, Kuhn decreed from on well-groomed high that Ellis cut it out and affect a more baseball-y appearance. And then Dock: “They didn’t put out any orders about Joe Pepitone when he wore a hairpiece down to his shoulders.”