Unless you have been without internet access for the last several weeks until this exact moment, or are somehow reading these words from the flickering monitor of a hollowed out office building where you are scavenging supplies while attempting to survive in the post-apocalyptic wasteland, you are no doubt well aware of the website Matthew Carlins described as “the most important blog on the internet today.” I am, of course, talking about the website of NotGraphs’ very own Carson Cistulli, Getting the Paper.
Getting the Paper is a statement of the human condition, reduced to the combination of sunshine, newsprint, weeds, and Craftsman-style porch. It flies in the face of our expectations, hurling paradoxes at our feet and forcing us to re-evaluate the societal norms that have, without our explicit permission, created the foundations of our knowledge. Why does this website exist? the website asks. Why am I viewing it? By viewing it, have I already validated its existence? Have I validated mine? How can we track the location of newspapers when newspapers stopped existing back in 2009?
These are all important questions that I leave to the reader; there is no time to answer them now. Instead I raise a separate but equally vital issue to your attention. None of us exists in a vacuum, Paul Simon notwithstanding; one cannot get a paper unless it is given. We are bound to look up to the heavens and ask, “Who is delivering Carson Cistulli’s newspaper?”
You may say to yourself, “My God, what have I done?” – Talking Heads, Once in a Lifetime
This piggybacks off Mr. Baumann’s post, I suppose, since I never met I good idea I didn’t want to steal.
Most every baseball fan thinks they can run a team better than a given group of current general managers. Article commenters and radio show callers pull no punches when exalting their genius ideas for turning a team around through free agent acquisitions and trades. Save for the ridicule of other commenters and hosts of said radio shows, there are no ramifications for these plans. No trade is too outrageous, no signing too extravagant.
We, the statistically inclined (I refuse to use the term sabermetric community), are no different. We take a dissimilar approach, no doubt, but the result is the same. We create plans and strategies for turning hypothetical teams into hypothetical winners. We write articles about how a GM made a poor decision based on a set of historical data, or praise another for his forward-thinking approach to crafting a team.
Though the ideas of traditional and statistically-minded fans may differ, they do have something in common; they have absolutely zero experience running a professional baseball team. I am not breaking any new ground here. I doubt anyone needs to be reminded that they’ve never had a particular job in the past. But if I’m writing about a trade, or reading an article breaking down free agent signings, I sometimes have to remind myself of just how difficult it would be to be a below-average MLB GM, let alone a renowned and respected one. Do I still think I could do it, though? Of course. Don’t we all?
Tommy woke up in the dawn of just another day. It was one of those middle-of-the-day weeks that pretends to be another – a Wednesday masquerading as a Tuesday, a Thursday acting like a Wednesday. After some moments of contemplation, Tommy came to the conclusion that it was indeed a Wednesday, though the holiday weekend caused him to think twice. He woke his computer from its nightly slumber, and went to work on his regular digital routine. Browser tabs were dedicated to the usual – news site, bank account, email, social networks. The final tab was dedicated to baseball. Tommy’s interest in the children’s game had waned years ago. Even when a new team moved to his native Washington, D.C., he couldn’t muster enough interest to catch up on the years lost to him. But he always checked the standings and box scores, just like his father taught him to do with the daily paper. It was more out of habit than concern, a 30-second pause in his morning and nothing else.
That can’t be right. The Orioles are in first place? How is that possible? The team from Baltimore, whose games his father toiled over nightly during Tommy’s childhood hadn’t been relevant in over a decade. When was the last time they contended? The late 90s? Surely, MLB.com was in error. Tommy deleted the URL from the address bar and went to USA Today. They said the same. So did Sports Illustrated, FOX Sports, and ESPN. Something wasn’t right. He thought he’d been paying at least a modicum of attention to the goings on in the baseball world. Was it possible he just overlooked a historically bad team of late rising to contention so far along in the season? He connected to a different wireless network, one that his neighbor didn’t have locked down. The results didn’t change. His smartphone echoed everything he’d seen so far. For some reason, the Internet was convinced that the Orioles were tied for the lead in the AL East. Something most certainly wasn’t right. He packed his laptop in his backpack and headed to work. Further investigation was needed.
What began as a nagging inconvenience turned to an obsession around 2 p.m. Tommy found himself refreshing the standings page on his work computer every minute. The information never changed, and Tommy was beginning to get worried. He’d seen enough movies and read enough books about technological warfare to remember that there were always small glitches in the network before the shit really hit the fan. These infections and viruses and whatever always made tiny changes here and there as they spread to other servers and workstations. The genius hero of the book would always recognize these errors early, but his warnings would always fall on deaf ears. And as soon as anyone could blink … BAM! Global Internet chaos was upon the entire civilized world. He checked the standings page once again. The knot in Tommy’s stomach tightened.
He never remembered having a panic attack before, but Tommy was convinced he was in the throes of one when 4 p.m. rolled around. Visions of crashing jetliners and standstill traffic flashed through his mind. He pictured the news coverage of people cashing out their bank accounts and knocking over gas stations. The entire world would flip into survival mode. If he didn’t act now, he would be left behind – the last dog to the bowl.
As he sped away from his office, Tommy couldn’t even remember if he gave his boss an excuse for leaving early. He doubted his boss would notice, and didn’t care if she did.
The parking lot at the Walmart had more cars in the late afternoon than Tommy had expected. He was worried that others had caught on too. Time was of the essence. He quickly exited his Volvo wagon and briskly walked to the front doors.
The crowd in the store seemed calmed. Perhaps they were playing it cool, perhaps they were unaware of the impending global disaster. He checked the standings on his phone again. No change. He wheeled his cart through every aisle, looking for anything that could help him survive until this coming storm passed, if it ever would. Non-perishable food, camping gear, gas cans, medical supplies, crop seeds, batteries, matches, and a gas-powered generator filled his cart. Were it not for the mandatory waiting period, Tommy would have purchased a gun.
The cashier asked no questions at the checkout line, which relieved Tommy since he hadn’t been able to come up with a believable story. He checked his phone again. He wanted to warn the cashier. She probably had family, and maybe even kids. As terrible as it made him feel, he couldn’t raise warning to her. He needed the roads to be as clear as possible as he made his way out of town. He’d fill his gas cans and his Volvo, then travel to the most rural place he could find. He’d look for an abandoned farm, or a densely-wooded area. The further he got from any semblance of population the better.
As he loaded his car in the parking lot, Tommy had a thought. He closed the hatch and headed back to the Walmart. He made his way to the men’s apparel section, and found the sports portion. Amongst the plethora of Nationals memorabilia, he found a small end cap devoted the Orioles. Baltimore being about an hour away, the O’s were still considered somewhat of a local team. He picked up a black hat with an orange cartoon bird on the front. It flashed him a knowing smile. He would keep this hat for the duration of his plight. Perhaps it would provide him protection. The Orioles had been looking out for him so far.
Something rolled, not unlike waves of grain, into my inbox:
First of all, congratulations to Messrs. Cloyd and Ruf for what’s a genuine honor. Second of all, thank you to Messrs. Cloyd and Ruf for giving one the occasion to imagine new dimensions of the hard-nosed procedural …
It may be hard to imagine, fair readers, but baseballers didn’t always live the luxurious lives they do now. Before the contract boom of the later 20th century, members of local nines made a fairly modest living, all things considered. Many don’t know this, but before Lou Gehrig came to prominence, his weekly pay consisted of $11, a handshake, and a coupon to a house of ill repute in Sacramento. John Thorn told me that story.
Many players of yesteryear actually held other jobs in the offseason to supplement their meager earnings. Many did manual labor in shipyards and warehouses, while others would travel north for lumberjacking jobs. Some players would try to cash in, if you will, on the fame attached to their names by opening their own businesses. While this plan was not flawed in concept – people have been capitalizing on their 15 minutes of fame for a very long time (see: Christ, Jesus) – the execution and/or business plans of some of these establishments left quite a bit to be desired. Behold:
Dusty Baker, the manager of the currently-first-place Cincinnati Reds, came from a long line of bakers, hence the name. His pastry lineage goes back to the 1700s, and his parents expected him to continue the family business when he came of age. But Dusty had a penchant for baseball, and showed some skill at the sport, so he defied his family’s wishes and signed with the Atlanta Braves. Years later, he tried to appease his father, now on his deathbed, by starting his own bakery. He hoped this gesture would make amends, and repair the relationship broken for so many years.
But there were hundreds of bakeries in Los Angeles, and so Dusty tried to make his stand out by incorporating his name into the theme of the business. It did not work. Customers complained of the air quality, and the atmosphere made all the goods sold taste like a fireplace or construction site, depending on the day. The bakery shuttered a mere two months after its opening. The day after it closed, Baker’s father died of scurvy.
Whitey Ford’s Whitey Ford Dealership (est. 1955, closed 1960)
Whitey Ford was an All-Star pitcher for the New York Yankees. This did not, however, provide him with the luxuries he thought he deserved. Hoping to benefit from America’s new love affair with the automobile, he and his business manager “Racist” Pete Henderson opened a sprawling dealership in Stony Point, NY. Though the clientele was limited by choice, Ford’s dealership did well initially, becoming the best-selling dealership in the county after its first year. They sold a record number of Fairlanes after running ads in the local paper stating “The Ford Fairlane: A Superior Car for the Superior Race.”
Ford’s dealership closed shortly after the 1960 World Series, when the Yankees lost the series to the Pittsburgh Pirates in dramatic fashion. Fans, upset that Ford was unable to relieve in Game 7, blamed Ford for the series loss, because Yankees fans have always been the worst, apparently. The costs to remove graffiti and repair the constant damage inflicted upon his business became too great, and he sold his assets off in November.
Giants pitcher and celebrated fop Woody Abernathy knew he didn’t quite have the stuff to last in the Majors, so he moved quickly to establish his clothier featuring garments made exclusively from wood.
Though he found a modicum of success with a line of underpants made from birch bark, Abernathy ran through his life savings quickly, and struggled to stay afloat. Despite the fact that he was in a great deal of debt, he was lucky enough to be current on his insurance payments, as his shop mysteriously (and quite easily) burned to the ground in 1947. Three casualties were reported as result of the blaze.
Ugly Dickshot’s Ugly Dick Shots (est. ?, closed ?)
No image found since I refuse to do a Google Image Search for Ugly Dick Shot
Johnny “Ugly” Dickshot hardly made any money as a player, but was given coins as charity by people who simply felt sorry for him. He saved his nickels and he saved his dimes, and eventually opened Ugly Dickshot’s Ugly Dick Shots. Little is known about this establishment, including what it actually did. This author provides the three following possibilities:
It was a portrait studio selling photos of ugly people named Dick.
It was a place where one could, if one were so inclined, get kicked in the crotch for a small fee.
It was a film studio, specializing in capturing footage of grotesque male genitalia.
—–
Though large contracts and sponsorships have curtailed named-based businesses amongst current baseball players, there are still opportunities to be had. Possible endeavors include Andre Ethier’s House of Ether, Hunter Pence’s Fences, and Mikes Trout and Carp’s Mike’s Trout and Carp.
The year is 1989. Milli Vanilli has invaded the airwaves. People are excited about the new Batman movie. Michael Dukakis is off crying, cold and alone somewhere, probably hiding from bears. Prospective athletes everywhere are buying Chris Sabo goggles in droves. Baseball cards have surpassed precious metals as the most convenient and failsafe investment in America.
Baseball cards are now, of course, worthless; the ink used to produce them is universally recognized as poisonous, and many foil-stamped parallel sets are faintly radioactive. Certain states have outlawed the sale of baseball cards and many hobby owners, who once made millions profiteering from hapless collectors during the junk wax era, have been driven into hiding in the Mojave Desert, only surfacing to socialize with each other at card shows housed in middle school gymnasiums.
But O, in that innocent time, with its afternoons stitched into endless tapestry! Huddled together in playgrounds, sipping their juice boxes after soccer practices, they spread their anonymous, clandestine rumors. The Billy Ripken, it was told, could be found in the pack second from the bottom on the top left corner of the box. Andy’s brother’s friend Chris found one there, so it was undeniable fact. They bragged to each other about the number of Gregg Jefferies rookies they owned, and which brands.
I’ve been a married gentleman longer than I care to remember. My ankles were ensnared long ago by my metaphorical ball and chain, to whom I am destined and legally obligated to love.
But this in no way means that I do not remember the life of a gallivanting bachelor. Vivid are my recollections of “cruising for chicks,” if you will. These were, indeed, dark times. It is within our human nature to find a companion, someone with which to share our greatest accomplishments and most demoralizing defeats. We yearn for a person of substance, a person with whom we can connect on a higher plane of consciousness. This proves to be a difficult task. I speak not only of the prototypical shut-ins and nonentities. There are people out there of a presumably-normal intelligence and hygiene level that need to make this connection. Some of them are baseball fans.
I took to the Missed Connections section of Craigslist in search of stories from such people. I searched in every city that hosts a major-league stadium, and have hand-picked the most heart-wrenching stories of love found and subsequently lost. I submit them to you, fair NotGraphs reader. I give you permission to weep.
Clarke passed earlier this week from an all-consuming malaise. In spite of his slow, almost mocking descent into non-existence, the very end was said to be a shock to those near to him. This raises the possibility that Mr. Clarke was actually killed in an auto-crash pyre, or perhaps murdered by a desperate criminal. Upon reflection, the cause of his death scarcely matters.
His young son, now fatherless and forever arrested in so many ways, thought, upon seeing the body of his father, that he looked at once as though he were asleep but also hopelessly beyond the reach of anything like sleep. Years later, while drinking alone in the dark, he will utter to no one, least of all himself, “There was nothing peaceful about my father’s body.”
Mr. Clarke leaves behind a wife. She is comely enough to remarry, but she will be reduced to a mate she never would’ve considered in an earlier, childless state. Mr. Clarke also leaves behind a daughter. You can imagine how things will go for her.
It should be noted that, despite a practiced image to the contrary, Mr. Clarke was not a religious man. If his booming pastor is right about that which he booms on Sundays, then Mr. Clarke is not now at rest and never shall be. Or it’s possible that, at the moment of Mr. Clarke’s passing from relentless disease or something less permissive of absurd, at-marathon-length goodbyes as terminal as his final slaughter, the lights simply went out. Others will remember him until they have to go to the store, but Mr. Clarke? Given his current station, Mr. Clarke might as well have been a stone for all these dumb years.
In his playing days, Mr. Clarke brought illusions of joy to a narrowly defined segment of those who watched him. Some of those are long-dead central bankers or union machinists. One of those died weeping so ferociously that he continued weeping for several seconds after his physical death, which was owing to cancer or falling ice.
Mr. Clarke enjoyed nothing that didn’t distract him from other things he failed to enjoy. His favorite hobby was staring vacantly at something he needed to take care of at some point. He was more respected than respectable.
The cold avenues of his city are astream with mourners. Or perhaps they are people going to work or lunch. A local funeral home — an ugly, low-slung building surely not up to code — will be the staging point for whatever it is we’re going to do next. His awful pastor will say things with a strange degree of curricular regimentation. On pain of ridicule, some will believe him. Outside, the red lights of those cold avenues will be turned to a salmon color by the fog and mist. Or perhaps it will be sunny, being that this is not a movie.
Mr. Billy Clarke played baseball. He is now dead. He leaves behind remnant urges and other people who themselves will die soon enough.
Since the beginning of time, man has desired to read syllogisms concerning Cuban outfielder Yoenis Cespedes. As for woman, she hasn’t desired it for nearly as long — but at least since the 80s, probably.
Today, for the first time, both genders find themselves entirely satisfied, as NotGraphs presents, apropos of nothing…
Three Syllogisms Concerning Yoenis Cespedes
Syllogism No. 1
Yoenis Cespedes eats hanging sliders for breakfast.
Breakfast is the most important meal of the day.
Hanging sliders are the most important meal of the day for Yoenis Cespedes.
Like many a reader or writer of NotGraphs, I’m a fan of wacky facial hair, and this here beard-thing is pretty bitchin’.
You know what else I like? Cats! And bitchin’ness aside, there’s no question that said beard-thing causes Mr. Boggs to closely resemble a Persian cat. The question, dear readers, is which of the following Persian cats does Mr. Boggs most resemble? Please weigh your options carefully, then cast a vote via the embedded poll below.
