I got to thinking: how much damage could I do to a major-league offense? I don’t mean some idealized version of my “wildest dreams” self. I mean me as I exist within the disappointing constraints of reality. Thanks to the way-cool lineup analysis tool over at Baseball Musings, I can take a stab at this.

The operating assumption … I didn’t play baseball past the ninth grade. I had a pretty good line-drive stroke, but because there was no loft to my swing I didn’t have a lot of power. I drew a lot of walks (never mind that this was mostly because I was scared of the ball and preferred to stand in the demilitarized fringe of the batter’s box with lumber on shoulder) and could run the bases well enough. Take those modest skills and throw in the fact that I soon turn 39 and put me up against major-league pitching, and you have a hitter that challenges the boundaries of incompetence. How bad? I don’t really know, but I’m assuming at the plate I’d be half as good as the worst hitting pitcher in baseball. Last season, that was Hiroki Kuroda who “hit” .036/.070/.036. So I’ll give me a batting line of .018/.035/.018. That’s something like one seeing-eye Texas League-er or instance of charitable score-keeping per month. Let the free-agent bidding commence!

On that point … Even in the universe of the hypothetical I can’t fathom playing a defensive position. Doing so at anything above the rec-softball level would yield an outcome too horrible to contemplate. I am a DH. Also, I live in Chicago and don’t feel like relocating, so I’ll be DHing for the White Sox and necessarily taking Adam Dunn’s job. I’ll be sure to run hard out of the box so people like me.

Anyhow, here’s what happens … I took those Bill James projections of ours and plugged them into the lineup tool. The Sox’s lineup plus me at DH, using the worst possible batting order (an arrangement that always entails my batting leadoff), scores … 3.54 runs per game. That’s not good!

And at what cost? Give Dunn his job back and escort me — bloodied and shamed — off the premises, and the Sox, using the best possible lineup, score … 5.26 runs per game. The difference? Over the course of a full season, the Dunn lineup would outscore the Perry lineup by, oh, roughly 280 runs.

Conclusion: I suck!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yC6TbH_Yzd4

(Hat tip to Deadspin for the video)

The above video comes from comedian Norm MacDonald’s legendary set at the 1998 ESPYs, the last time the ESPYs have been worth watching.

If you haven’t watched that set, do so immediately. Its baseball relevance includes a classic Hideki Irabu joke as well the introduction of Michael Jordan’s baseball nickname, as seen in the picture below.

I wouldn’t want that on my hall of fame plaque either.

Outside of the comedy, the most remarkable part of this video, particularly for baseball fans, is Ken Griffey Jr.’s reaction to MacDonald’s set. First, after Norm makes a Hideki Irabu joke (around 1:05 on the video), the camera pans over to Griffey, who is not pleased at all.

We don’t see Griffey again until the end of the video, right after Norm finishes with a deadly O.J. Simpson joke. Although I’m a bit young to remember everything about the O.J. trial, I do know that it was a bit contentious, particularly along racial lines, so perhaps it’s not shocking to see this reaction out of Junior and those sitting around him after the joke.

In the interest of full disclosure, this post was mainly just an excuse to post the Norm video, with the added bonus of using the name “Señor Crappy” thrown in. But hey, isn’t it kind of crazy to know that Ken Griffey Jr. hates Norm MacDonald?

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.”

I have long had a rather bizarre fascination with the inside-the-park grand slam. It has forever eluded me. I’ve seen Albert Pujols hit three home runs in a game, I’ve seen Melky Cabrera hit for the cycle, and I’ve seen Randy Johnson and Zane Smith flirt with no-nos. Yet not in person, not even from my couch — the sacred place from which I have witnessed so many of civilization’s miracles — have I seen the elusive ITPGS.

Anyhow, Wikipedia, which is an unassailable source of true facts, tells me that there were but 40 ITPGS’s through 2007. Then this thread from 2002 lists them. It’s on the Internet, so I assume pristine accuracy.

Some random amusements to be found therein …

– Honus Wagner hit five ITPGS’s in his superlative career. Five. I declare: that’s a lot.

– What I find to be more amazing is that teammates Joe Kelley and Jimmy Sheckard each hit one in the same game in 1901.

– Then Sheckard went and hit another one the very next day.

– Bombo Rivera hit one in 1976. Bombo Rivera is such a great name that all of God’s children should be named Bombo Rivera.

– And here’s what gobsmacks me the most of all: Ron Karkovice — Ron Slapping Karkovice! — somehow pulled off an ITPGS in 1990. Kark was slower than a Bergman film, so I can’t rightly fathom the absurd tapestry of events that led to his clumping around every base and then, I am forced to assume, collapsing face first onto home plate. I would give up multitudes to have been there.

So what’s the coolest baseball event you’ve ever witnessed in person?

On Monday, the Brewers released a multitude of minor leaguers, including Steve Braun, a 25-year-old second baseman out of the University of Maryland. In three minor league stints all below AA, Braun only managed an OPS above .500 in a 41 PA stint in Low-A. In his other two stints, Braun hit .175/.214/.263 and .140/.252/.178.

So, Braun is just another terrible minor league free agent whose career flamed out in the low minors. Except for one thing: Steve is the brother of Brewers star and Jersey Shore moonlighter Ryan Braun. Sure, Steve may not have shown any semblance of MLB or even MiLB talent, but hey, he’s related to Ryan, so why not. In fact, I’m willing to bet that his addition to the Brewers system was at the behest of Ryan, the Brewers Deputy GM. The only reasoning given by Doug Melvin was that “Helena was short of infielders.”

That Helena club with Braun is effectively the cast of the movie Werewolf, a 1996 movie about (you guessed it) werewolves starring Joe Estevez, brother of Martin Sheen and uncle to Charlie Sheen and Emilio Estevez (prompting the riffers of MST3K to call him “One of the lesser Estevezes”). I was introduced to this classic flick via the always fantastic Mystery Science Theater 3000. In this case, Braun plays the part of Estevez. Estevez’s character in the movie doesn’t really do much, kind of like Braun and his .477 OPS. The rest of the movie is filled with actors that barely know how to speak English, much less act, kind of like rookie-level minor leaguers and professional baseball.

It was a short lived career for Steve Braun, but hey, it’s not all bad. Most people don’t even get the taste of professional baseball that he got, and maybe Ryan will give him some of the cash he’s making off of his awesome t-shirt line. Most importantly, Steve Braun now becomes a trump card in everybody’s favorite game, “Who would you want in your werewolf movie?”, where you cast your own werewolf movies with brothers of actual stars.

Personally, my werewolf movie would have a baseball slant (naturally), casting Steve Braun along with Billy Ripken, Randy Wolf’s umpiring brother Jim Wolf, Robin Yount’s brother Larry, and, of course, Fred Molina.

Before I post the video, some observations …

At this point, what can I do but roll tape?

While baseball is my favorite human endeavor, I’m also a college football fan on the side. For those reasons (and as part of my ongoing recovery from yet another Nebraska loss that challenges the dimensions of the absurd and because — as Kid Rock hastens to remind me on those rare occasions when I cross paths with popular music — I was born free), I decided to see what things would look like if baseball operated under the widely maligned BCS system.

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There’s not much need for introductory throat-clearing: Baseball has an impossibly rich history when it comes to player nicknames, and what follows are the 10 very, especially, most greatest of all …

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Some younger fans might think of Keith Hernandez as nothing more than the guy who sawed logs in the Mets’ broadcast booth. But back in the day, Hernandez was — and affected eloquence has no place here — a genuine bad-ass. Not only does he have a strong HoF case, but he was also something of a cultural touchstone.

On that point, Rob Perri’s short film “I’m Keith Hernandez” must be seen to be fathomed. It’s not particularly new, but it is particularly awesome. And is it hard to believe or decidedly easy to believe that, among other things, nudity makes this video not safe for work unless your place of work is a permissive den of iniquity?

I’m Keith Hernandez from water&power on Vimeo.

Ever since “Mad Men” and, more relevantly, those Fred McGriff/Tom Emanski spots nudged their way into the Zeitgeist, I’ve been ruminating at length about baseball’s place in the culture of advertising. And by “ruminating at length about baseball’s place in the culture of advertising,” I mean, “contriving a way to post a couple of YouTube videos that I think are pretty funny.”

Anyhow, how has our beloved sport been best used in the service of selling crap? I would submit that the two spots that follow are examples of the sub-genre of baseball advertising at its most penetrating, its most hauntingly excellent. Come with me, won’t you?

First up, Mark Littell for the “Nutty Buddy” …

Money quote (among many): “You don’t feel it directly in the, uh, testi-cleez.” – Chris Sabo

And next up, Bronson Arroyo for some perhaps still-solvent Ford dealership trapped (shielded?) within the loving arms of greater Cincinnati …

Money quote: “!@#$, would you believe a double?” – Bronson Arroyo

Can these be topped? Your move, readers …