As International Man of the Internet Eric Freeman noted via the Twitters, Natural Born Enthusiast Nyjer Morgan was yelling “Fuck yeah” even as he approached the mic about to broadcast his voice into a million American homes. It was with zero surprise, then, that Morgan continued to ejaculate same glorious ejaculation as TBS on-field reporter Miss Thang placed same microphone in front of Morgan’s speech organ.

The other obvious point is: no one cares. Nyjer Morgan, man of a thousand flaws, is the best possible Transformer: sometimes man, sometimes Joy personified.

UPDATE: Below is another, clearer video (from SportsGrid). The relevant part is around the 1:20 mark, but it’s all pretty great.

Video stolen from YouTube user pilz42424 via SB Nation’s Brian Floyd.

It is known among the genteel that occasionally a gentleman prefers to take in a game of base and ball not with his wife and progeny, but rather with a paid Detroit whore. And for this very reason, Patrick Henry invented Craigslist. So it is not surprising that a certain well-bred, monocled spice trader recently took to the List of Craig in search of a female companion not necessarily averse to breathy sexual congress in a darkened Comerica Park utility closet:

looking for a reasonably attractive, relatively promiscuous, 23+ yo woman to accompany to ALDS game 4 tonight (10/4) at Comerica Park.

From relatively mediocre looking bald 33 yo man

Section 140, Row 8.

Face value plus sliding scale discount based on attractivenes and entertainment value.

PS – must have driver’s license, breakfast skills optional

True, the “mediocre looking bald man 33 yo man” bit is perhaps not the savviest example of targeted messaging, but, in his defense, those sound like pretty good seats. As well, kudos to this discerning patron for realizing that there is a time for the “relatively promiscuous” (e.g., at a ballgame) and a time for the “unthinkably promiscuous” (e.g., at a Dave & Buster’s in the suburbs).

(Consensual sex: SportsGrid)

Among the Great Orators of The West we count Isocrates, Cato, Cicero, Pericles. Could it be time to add another to the pantheon?

Goosebumps. Are you inspired?

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THIS IS VERY EXCITING.

In my writeup about BlogsWithBalls 4.0 and the future of blogging, there was some discussion of the role of access in a blogger’s life. It’s complicated.

Access to players can harm a writer’s ability to be coldly analytical. How does one dismiss a hot start as a BABIP-driven streak and then hang out with the player in the dugout later? Or knock a contract as too generous and then congratulate the player on signing it? Or point out that a trade brought too little back and then meet the new players in the clubhouse? Access can create a bit of a pickle, especially for the snarky blogger.

But access, combined with analytics, can also be very exciting.

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As the reader may or may not know, the present author has thrown his hat — and other, sexier pieces of his outfit — into the metaphorical ring known as the Pitchers & Poets Reading Club (hosted, if one can believe it, by the gentlemen of Pitchers & Poets).

The first book is Chad Harbach’s very new novel, The Art of Fielding, and the protagonist of said novel is named Henry Skrimshander. Though he makes his way to an elite liberal arts college on the lake coast of Wisconsin, Skrimshander’s only real literary experience is with a book by legendary (and also fictional) shortstop Aparicio Rodriguez called The Art of Fielding.

Rodriguez is essentially the Platonic shortstop, but certain details — the fact that he played for the Cardinals, mostly, and is only recently retired — suggest that the character is based, at least in part, on Ozzie Smith.

Because his peak ended before I was really aware of him, I never got a chance to see Smith with any frequency. But his reputation is obviously excellent and, if one were so inclined to make a top-10 list of defensive players by the numbers — by adding together their defensive runs, that is, to their positional adjustments — then one would find something similar to this:

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The astute and championship gentleman has at his disposal a broad menu of hairstyles appropriate for the merchant and bodice-ripper of distinction and breeding. Among these are the Tousled Authority, the Hesitating Delacroix, the Dead Christian, and, natch, the Hair-Fellow-Well-Met.

One will note, however, that Mr. Jayson Werth’s latest coif does not appear within our Manifest of Acceptables. Bear solemn witness …

Pictured abovely is a look known derisively throughout history as the “Señor Buttcheeks,” and it is to our national shame and injury that Mr. Werth has dragged it howling from the vaults. This, Mr. Werth, is why Oleg Cassini doesn’t come around much anymore.

(Giggly hair-pull: Nats Enquirer)

The conclave of beauty and discernment that is the NotGraphs readership will no doubt recall Brian Cashman’s fondness for the invoking and toking of something called “The Objective Pipe.”

Yes, the Objective Pipe — it is a thing and we are a people of things. And so in celebration of Mr. Cashman’s loosed Id and in commemoration of this thing which has become such a cultural touchstone that it is worthy of measured consideration on the part of all living artists, I present to you a painting of the Objective Pipe.

My preferred medium, as beholders of restaurant-quality artstuffs are no doubt aware, is my kid’s coloring-book app on the iPad. And as is the case with all my work, the tableau that follows is one-half impressionism, one-half abstraction and a bonus one-half of stupefaction.

Now, please and thank you, gaze upon my toil like Cameron Frye agape before a sprawling Seurat. And by all means, click to absorb as the artist intended …

Lo: Brian Cashman’s Objective Pipe being smoked in its natural habitat.

You no doubt noticed that this work of art contained multitudes. So indubitably does it contain multitudes that there is now a NotGraphs category called “Things That Contain Multitudes,” a phylum to which this post now belongs.

And now I shall finsh this carafe of absinthe and then make palliative love to Anaïs Nin.

Recently, we were chagrined to report on the grim inner workings that led to The Logo That Killed America. Today, it is with grievous regret that we must present to you the next deadly step: The Hat That Killed America …

Not since the penis of that man on the subway has there been such an unwelcome reveal. Godspeed, Marlins rooters. Godspeed.

That’s gonna leave a mark.

Earlier in the week, Dave Cameron introduced — and, shortly thereafter, reconsidered — a series entitled “FanGraphs Official Position On…” In theory, the series would use award-voting season as an entree into discussing both the strengths and limitations of advanced stats — and WAR, in particular — in determining the leagues’ MVPs and Cy Youngs and other things.

In practice, the project was more complicated than that. As Cameron noted in a piece on Tuesday, “The titles of the post[s] — and the fact that [FanGraphs is] really a big conglomerate of individuals with their own take on things — probably created more confusion than anything else.”

As usual, Cameron’s remarks are the picture of reason.

While the taking of “official positions” involves painting with too large a brush where our analytical cousins are concerned, the reader should know that, at NotGraphs, we endorse painting with as large a brush as possible — so that one can finish painting more quickly, of course, before moving on to more pressing matters, like inappropriate touching.

It’s for this reason that NotGraphs absolutelydefinitely has some official positions. Though an exhaustive list would be too exhaustive to compose, the author has submitted some representative stances for the reader’s consideration.

Here, then, are NotGraphs’ totally official positions on:

English, Written or Otherwise
It’s rude to communicate in any language besides English — but equally coarse not to festoon one’s sentences with charming foreign expressions.

English, Written or Otherwise, Part II
Whenever possible, use the oldest extant word for a thing. Instead of photograph, for example, use daguerreotype. Instead of Christian, consider lion food.

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Were one to construct a sort of pantheon of modern religious thinkers, it would, of course, be difficult to neglect such personages as Hans Urs von Balthasar, Karl Rahner, and — if you’re the sort of person who considers “Protestantism” a thing — Paul Tillich.

Another name you’d be loathe to forget is the one belonging to White Sox field manager and mouthy Latin gentleman Ozzie Guillen, who yesterday blew the entire world’s mind via his comments (rendered lovingly into tweet form by the Sun-Times‘ Chris De Luca) regarding a sort of cryptic hybrid polytheism as yet unconceived in extant scholarship.

Specifically, Guillen speaks of (a) a personal god belonging to White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf and (b) what Guillen calls the “real” god. Though Guillen clearly differentiates between the two, he fails — or, perhaps, coyly neglects — to note whether any other gods exist in this compelling and rich half-mythology.

It’s for his simultaneous brilliance and stubborn opacity that Guillen has frequently been referred to as “Derrida in a ballcap” and, other times, as “an effing a-hole.”