Coming soon to a minor league park near you!

Replacement level players are, by definition, valueless. They are available in massive quantities, so cheap as to be practically free, and so bad that they can be easily replaced by picking a random player out of a hat – in short, they’re the baseball equivalent of a Twinkie. They may look and smell like baseball players, but you’d much prefer to have your 2 TAR (Twinkies Above Replacement) Ho Ho if you hadn’t dropped it on the floor.

But despite this, replacement level players do have an important role in major league baseball. No, it’s not that they’re necessary organization fillers: it’s that they’re some of the most entertaining, likable goofs this side of Bertie Wooster. I don’t know what it is – the interminable bus rides, the copious amounts of junk food, the prolonged exposure to minor league mascots – but something has a way of making them a bit….odd. Just look at what’s happened to career minor-leaguer Dirk Hayhurst. He’s progressed to the point where he must paint himself with polka dots before every game, and he won’t trot to the mound without his antlers in place.

And that’s why despite the overwhelming un-reception that Casey Fossum’s signing received from most Mets blogs, I want to come out and applaud the Mets for this signing. Yes, Casey Fossum stinks. Yes, he has long since left his heady days of youth and effectiveness behind him. Yes, he posted a 5.72 ERA in Japan last season and got demoted to their version of the minor leagues. BUT, Fossum dominates the league in three key areas: nickname, novelty pitch ability, and pitch face.

Nickname: According to his Baseball-Reference page, Fossum’s nickname is “The Blade”. Its etymology has been lost to the depths of time, but I’m sure it’s referring to his chiseled, badass 160 lb. frame.

Novelty Pitch: It’s not every day that you stumble upon a pitcher that throws a 50 MPH eephus pitch, let alone one that calls this pitch a “Fossum Flip”.

Pitch Face: I don’t know how Fossum’s face and body can contort into such shapes, but it’s truly a thing of beauty.

So Mets fans out there, don’t despair. Even if Casey Fossum reaches your major league club and loses you every game he pitches in, he’s still a more likable player than Oliver Perez and Francisco Rodriguez combined, right?

You’ll die as you lived
In a flash of The Blade
In a corner forgotten by no-one
You lived for the touch
For the feel of the ball
One man, and his Eephus.

– The Casey Fossum Anthem, also known as “Flash of the Blade” by Iron Maiden.

A Garfoose was perhaps involved (and not harmed) in the taking of this picture.

We ponder the difficult questions here at NotG. What should it be like to attend, get dressed for or even play in a baseball game – these questions have occurred often so far in these pages. One thing we have yet covered is what sort of wild animals should be allowed loose in the bullpen.

Good thing Dirk Hayhurst, relief pitcher and author of the Bullpen Gospels, was out there imagining things for us before we ever existed. Well, what is a Garfoose? Hayhurst explained in an interview with DRaysBay arranged after the news that he’d be joining the team for spring training at the very least.

…I started kind of fleshing out this character. What would he look like? What would he be like? And so I started drawing pictures of it and wrote a story about it. Then it kind of caught on from there, and people started asking me to draw pictures of Garfoose on their cards or their baseballs and stuff like that, and I just started doing it.

All the sudden everyone wants this autograph from me. And it’s like, “Okay, sure, I’ve got like this really popular autograph now,” and it’s not because I’m a good player; it’s because I draw this thing on my autograph. It kind of came from that.

Now, the Garfoose of the present is nature’s perfect predator. He lives in the Tibeten mountain groves that you can’t find unless you were born there, or something. And there’s these tops of trees in this grove were the MLB gets its perfectly grown baseballs — because the best baseballs in the world are organic-grown from trees in the baseball grove. And the Garfoose protects the grove from intruders. Very few people that have seen the Garfoose in the wild live to tell about it.

The more you know.

Today, via twitter, the NBA fired a salvo at the MLB.

Although the NBA swiftly deleted the potentially incendiary tweet, the ever-vigilant denizens of the internet world were, as always, ready. Jon Bois (of Progressive Boink and SBNation) captured the tweet and posted it on his own twitter.

The MLB appears to have induced this fiery behavior on the part of the NBA because of their assertion that the completion of the Super Bowl and the NBA season represents the transition point between football season and baseball season – tweets here, and a disgustingly over-the-top ode to the oncoming season here.

Of course, the NBA season is in full swing and will be until June (or whenever the playoffs end this year, might be August by now). By no means would NBA fans around the country be happy with the idea put forward by the MLB that the only two American sports seasons are football and baseball.

Regardless of how you feel on the issue, I think we can all agree that there is only one legitimate way to solve any potential struggle that may erupt between the two leagues: the cage match. NBA Commissioner David Stern in one corner. MLB Commissioner Bud Selig in the other. Two men enter, one man leaves, and then the other man leaves. But one of them will be hurt, very badly. And then, once and for all, we can determine what season it is in mid-February.

Here at NotGraphs, I like to think we’re in the business of educating. (Like most educators, we’re also paid very, very handsomely.) We’re here to educate on some of the less nerdy wonders of baseball, the game we all hold closest to our bosom. To educate on, sometimes, certain wonders found on the internet that are tied to baseball in only the loosest of ways.

Like what you’re about to watch. (See what I did there?)

Below is the transcript of a recent instant message conversation I had with a good friend of mine, who I’ll call NotKien …

NotKien:

Bro. Go to YouTube. Search “Teach me how to Dougie Chris Brown.” Watch the video. Tell me what you see.

I, of course, obliged.

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Last week, in these very electronic pages, in a post entitled Declarations of Loyalties and Disloyalties, the legendary Dayn Perry, among other questions, asked:

In your dreams, what position do you play?

Center field, yo. There’s no doubt.

Growing up, I was a portly young lad. As much as I wanted to play second base, and emulate my idol Roberto Alomar, I didn’t have the speed, or the range. And probably not the arm. I wouldn’t know; I never got to the ball. In the brief time I spent wheezing around the middle infield, my UZR was Jeter-esque. It wasn’t long before I found myself behind the plate and, finally, at first base.

Years later, having shed the excess poundage, I’m a beer league center fielder. I’m the captain of the outfield. And I wouldn’t have it any other way. Is there a better view? The catcher’s, maybe. But that’s hell on your knees.

I live for the chase. That moment the baseball meets the bat; when the ball is launched into the air, and the center fielder is pressed into duty. There’s nothing quite like getting the perfect read on the ball, and making a catch in stride, at full speed. There’s nothing quite like making that split-second decision to dive, to get your uniform duty, and nothing quite like sliding on fresh grass, the baseball in your glove, another out made.

Watch, from the corner of your eye, a baserunner head back to third base on a fly ball to center field, readying to tag up. Beg him to test your arm. Make the perfect throw.

Climb a fence and bring back a baseball destined to leave the yard. Meet, in mid-air, for one fleeting moment, the Baseball Gods. It’s the height of defensive baseball consciousness.

Center field. It’s where I want to be, and want to remain. There’s no better position.

Image, of undoubtedly a future center fielder, courtesy Erica McDonald.

Yes, the above beard is more “maladjusted IT guy” rather than “elite ballplayer,” but I’m going with it. Anyhow, Internet computers have been buzzing for a while over news that Nats outfielder Jayson Werth might be forced to shave his “at work on my manifesto/buying canned food and ammo for my bunker” beard. Werth’s lamewad new employers have a facial-hair policy, and last month team pit boss Mike Rizzo dropped this bomb: “When I last saw him, he had no beard.”

Google Images is sadly lacking in photographic evidence, so we must take Mr. Rizzo at his word. Yes, near and dear, it is time to mourn Jayson Werth’s beard. To that end, nothing I could say, do or perpetrate will match what the Beard of Truth has to say on this urgent matter.

And what of the second-most famous baseball beard of the contemporary era? Fear not for it. As Beard of Truth reminds us, “I think you know this sweaty bastard needs me.”

(Curtsy: Reader Jordan Shapiro, who’s there for those who have nowhere left to turn.)

There’s a not insubstantial bloc of folks who long for the days when men wouldn’t leave the house without a necktie and stylish fedora. What follows might cause that not insubstantial bloc of folks to ponder taking a hostage …

As you can see, the Forever Lazy makes your standard-issue, ketchup-stained sweatpants look like the finest your finest haberdasher has to offer. It’s basically a hoodie bodysuit, and — since advertisers have always been and will always be yoked to the truth — it’s clearly great for crapping! It’s also clearly great for watching sports, whether in person or in a darkened living room just after receiving divorce papers!

So if you’ve ever been at the ballpark and thought, “Instead of this sensible knit polo, I wish I were wearing something that made me look like a guy named ‘Cookie’ who pans for gold and or cooks gruel for a wagon train,” then you’ll want one of these posthaste. If this thing catches on — and, honestly, how could it not? — then the Forever Lazy, much like its Snuggie progenitor, will soon be festooned with your favorite team’s logo. At that point, we all win.

History teaches us that Patrick Henry, armed with nothing but a tuning fork and a sense of mission, killed Stalin in Las Vegas. I like to think that Mr. Henry did so in the hopes that one day we as a people would soar beyond the dimensions of the possible and invent something like the Forever Lazy (although archival documents suggest he wanted it to be called “The Smock of Dignity”).

Know this, patriot: Your dreams have been realized.

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!

After a rookie campaign that saw him slash .282/.388/.599, post a 2.6 WAR in just 374 plate appearances, and win ROTY honors, Bob Hamelin has been of little use to the common baseballing fan.

However, were one ever to get curious about Hamelin’s career stats, and were one to search for said stats on FanGraphs, and were one — instead of typing Hamelin’s entire surname into the search box — were one to type only the first three letters of it, then one would find a rather peculiar and LOL-able thing: namely, that there have been seven players with the first name “Ham” in the history of the Majors.

Here they are below, with very, very, very, very, very important notes.

Player: Ham Allen
Given Name: Frank Erwin Allen or Homer S. Allen
Years Active: 1872-1872
Teams: Middletown Mansfields
PA / WAR: 66, 0.1
Notes: Was born either in Augusta, Maine, or Hamden, Connecticut. Died either in Natick, Massachusetts, or Hamden, Connecticut. Died either on February 6, 1881 or January 7, 1892. Is generally mysterious.

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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.