This post is weird.

1. Fellow Writer I Met On the Internet

Fellow Writer I Met on the Internet is my top new friend prospect for 2013. Despite a low on-time percentage (OTP), he has a strong willingness to help with annoying errands (HLP) and easy-to-accommodate regular (R) eating habits. He scores very highly on e-mail response speed, averaging just under 60 minutes. Though he shows a low conversational depth score (30 on the 20-80 scale), the hope is that this will further develop as he grows more and more comfortable in the friendship. Putting it all together, he is a solid 1.5 Wins Above Replacement Friend (WARF), and looks to be a loyal and worthwhile addition to the 2013 lineup.

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A while back, a certain “Carson” “Cistulli” wrote a short piece about wit as it is reflected in sport, employing both Zinedine Zidane and Brandon Phillips as examples of the satisfaction we feel when a player uses creativity to succeed where he might otherwise fail. Having established the phenomenon, he refuses to elaborate further, his need for sandwiches mightier than his need for truth. I face no such obstacle.

I would refine Cistulli’s definition of wit by adding necessity and result. It is not enough that Brandon Phillips makes his spectacular toss to first; it must be the only necessary means of achieving the desired result. If Phillips makes this play and beats the runner by three steps, he would be called flashy at best and perhaps far worse. At the same time, if his throw arrives a half-second too late, we quietly applaud his efforts and then forget them an inning later. This last aspect is troubling; we want to believe, I think, that our virtues are inherent and not tied to our success or failure.

No, the more narrow the out, the more we feel satisfaction in its completion. This is what drives us to the paradoxical conclusion that it is the athletes with the least physical prowess that we find most endearing, those who must rely most heavily on their creative powers to compensate for their natural ability. Talent, after all, is arbitrary. Talent is fascist. And though this admiration for the unfortunate can admittedly reach fetishization, and the exploits of the appointed Ecksteinian heroes can become exaggerated to the point of lore, there is an undeniable pleasure in the success of the little guy. Few people, after all, identify themselves with Goliath.

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Click to (ahem) embiggen.

Which is to say, I never considered myself the sort of guy to visit the Caribbean.

“You can’t sit on a lead and run a few plays into the line and just kill the clock. You’ve got to throw the ball over the damn plate and give the other man his chance. That’s why baseball is the greatest game of them all.”
––Earl Weaver

“When rain interrupted matters for an hour and a quarter in the third, with the Cardinals ahead, 4-0, the bleacherites set up a chant of ‘Rain! Rain! Rain!’ hoping for a postponement. This didn’t work, so in the fourth and fifth, with the score now 6-1, the Tigers tried their own methods – long pauses for spike-digging and hand-blowing by the batters, managerial conferences, and inexplicable trips to the dugout, all conducted while they glanced upward for signs of the final and reprieving deluge.”
––Roger Angell, The Summer Game

Angell’s passage describes Game 3 of the 1968 World Series, where the precipitation had drastically altered the dominant strategies of both teams. The Cardinals, in a hurry to complete five innings, saw their odds for winning paradoxically increased with every out they gave away, while the Tigers, while in the field, had every reason to run the score up to a million to one and make fools of themselves in the process, as long as they failed to record an out.

1968 wasn’t the only year to see raindrops ruin a playoff game. The Braves led the Cardinals 1-0 in the first game of the 1982 NLCS, and were three outs from an official game, when the umpire called the game. They started over the next day, and the Braves ended up being swept. It wasn’t until 2008 that baseball finally decided to resume postseason games at the point of their postponement. Regular season games, however, are still bound by Rule 3.10 and the five inning rule, even those that have playoff implications.

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Last Friday, in these electronic pages, I discussed the entirely fictional and computer-generated baseball league I’d recently joined — specifically, Aaron Gleeman’s Hardball Dynasty league at WhatIfSports — and considered both (a) the significant pull of that fake baseball world on my powers of concentration and also (b) the subsequent emotional reaction (guilt, mostly) to that pull.

Four days later, the lure of the game hasn’t particularly waned. Were I to estimate how many hours I’d spent thinking about my entirely fictional team (the Burlington Aristocrats, they’re called) since last Thursday, I’d say four or five hours. I’d also be lying when I said that — like, by kinda a lot — lest my wife read this and inflict harm upon my person.

So far as the league itself is concerned, commissioner and real-live hermit Aaron Gleeman has managed to replace all the owners who departed after season 24, and now season 25 has officially begun. Among an owner’s obligations at this point are (a) the setting of the budget and (b) the re-hiring of the coaches. The first of these tasks isn’t unpleasant at all; the second is mildly tedious.

The budget for the author’s fictional baseball team.

Simultaneous to both of these events is the commencement of trade discussions among the league’s owners — and it’s to this point that I’d like to speak briefly.

It goes without saying — although I’ll say it, anyway — that, to begin the process of discussing potential trades, one must first understand the value both of his players and those of his various opponents’. Anyone who’s made the questionable decision of navigating his or her (although, most likely his) browser to this site probably has a pretty good sense of what basically every major leaguer is worth — like, what sort of contract he’d receive on the open market and what he’d fetch in a trade. Approximately, at least.

That isn’t the case in Hardball Dynasty, though. Individual owners have maybe developed methodologies for assessing value, but there is nothing so comprehensive as WAR available publicly. More than that, however, it isn’t even particularly obvious how a player’s various ratings correlate to his subsequent production. Part of playing the game, of course, and deriving joy from it, is discerning in which the manner the sim engine utilizes and weights the player ratings in question. It is a weird and giant logic problem, essentially, dressed in the trappings of baseball.

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It’s November 26, and that means that the holiday season is upon us. Black Friday has passed, Cyber Monday is already in its twilight, and Sign a Former Rockies Starter Wednesday is just around the corner, which means that those of you who haven’t arranged your seasonal festivities had best put your lives in order. The helpful staff at NotGraphs, naturally, are here to help you with your baseball-oriented commercial/spiritual/socially-required Christmas shopping. Today, our focus lies in that outdated, impersonal, yet time-consuming art, the Christmas card.

Christmas cards contain the sole function of sharing unwanted information about yourself to people you would rather avoid communicating with directly. And despite the fact that said task is now completely fulfilled by Facebook, you may find yourself in need of an expensive piece of cardstock to convey the emotions you wish to appear to have. This can be a daunting task! Empathizing with other people is always a rigorous and demanding affair, even with people you know well and care something about. Fortunately, baseball is recognized for its ability to being people together and give them a common bond without providing any regrettably personal or intimate contact with your fellow man.

In this spirit, then, the marriage of personalized greeting card with the expressed written consent of Major League Baseball is long overdue. Simply click on these virtual samples below to read the heartfelt messages inside!

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The nominal ace of the Burlington Aristocrats, Pedro Garces.

It is typically the practice of the present author to perform, at some point ante meridiem, a sort of bastard version of what’s known as Lectio Divina — that is, to dedicate about an hour or two to some combination of reading and writing with a view to letting the mind enjoy itself. Contemplation in various forms has been shown by capital-S Science to have beneficial effects on the brain. In my experience, my own practice nurtures a certain flexibility of thought and also cultivates a healthy perspective on some cares and worries that might otherwise have taken a more prominent place in my life.

Over the last two days, I’ve sat down each morning with the intention of performing this morning ritual. In each case, I’ve taken a place at my in-laws’ dining-room table with a cup of coffee, the sort of green-papered and narrow-ruled notebook for which I particularly care, and a pair of improving texts (in this case, Daniil Kharms’ Today I Wrote Nothing and Nancy McPhee’s The Book of Insults) for further consideration. Instead of diving headlong into Pure Thought, however, what I’ve moreso done is to reach for my iPhone and to spend the time previously designated for Careful Introspection — to spend it acquainting myself with a team of fictional baseball players of which I’ve recently become, after the surrender of 25 decidedly non-fictional dollars, the general manager.

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The Brewers of Hot Hard Milwaukee recently held a contest that allowed the Internetter to design a uniform for said Brewers of Milwaukee. The winner — to the extent that anything is won in the this life — would have his or her uniform brandished for a spring training game.

Therein you’ll find any number of fetching entries — notably one that prominently features Bernie Brewer, that disowned Vuckovich brother …

Most excellent! Most excellent if you cow before the threat of Real Talk, that is …

You see, I have no doubt that the Brewers will find a winner that best represents their preference for varnished municipal lore. However, being as I am nightwatchman at the Museum of Truths, I’ll abet no such myth-making.

Milwaukee, as the name of their hometown nine suggests, is a town for Drinking Men and The Things They Drink. One does not go to Milwaukee unless Men Are About to Drink. Business? Conduct it in Dallas. Cultural tourism? New York and Chicago are there for you. Restorative escape? The Bay Area will see you now. Cocaine in a hot tub? The San Fernando Valley serves no other purpose. But Milwaukee exists for the drinking of drinks. “Let us drink these drinks,” people in Milwaukee say, “and then try to throw this clock radio all the way to Michigan.”

In light of those authenticities, this is my entry, Brewers of Milwaukee.

On the front we have a Milwaukee Journal celebration of the Wisky electorate’s decision, in the late 1920s, to embrace wholesome, nutritious alcohol in defiance of both federal meddlers and awful Protestants. The shoulder patch is the regeneration liturgy known well to the Hands That Built America. On the back we have bon vivant, man of letters and drink and secret native of Fond du Lac Kingsley Amis astride a familiar and always near-at-hand cock-and-tail. The cap? The front boasts a rendering of the hepatic rot that will be the death of all of us at the bar — that bar in Milwaukee. And on the back is the shitty omelet you make after a night in Milwaukee, U.S. the fuck of A.

Take me not for a knave, Brewers of Hot Hard Milwaukee. I know the score, and, yes, I’ll have another.

Mitch, some notes on your recent paper for WR 122:

• Your enthusiasm for your subject is apparent throughout. Successful writing requires, first and foremost, the engagement of the author. If he or she isn’t engaged, then the reader definitely won’t be.

• Be careful about rhetorical fallacies. For example, you imply early in your piece that supporters of Mike Trout’s MVP candidacy — and particularly those supporters who offer quantitative analysis as evidence — never watch games. The danger with absolutes (never, all, always, etc.) is that even a single exception to your characterization can dismantle the rest of your argument.

• Your essay includes a number of ad hominem attacks. Abusing a person or group is, at best, irrelevant; at worst, it undermines the nature of your argument by suggesting that you, as an author, are forced to resort to name-calling owing to a lack of actual, substantive material.

• Not entirely separate from the above, but also worthy of note here, is the question of tone. An effective argument relies upon the author establishing a trustworthy tone or voice, the voice of one who would give credit to the “opposition” (itself even perhaps an extreme characterization) when it’s due. The tone of your piece (see: “I mean, did you do the math? I didn’t. I like to actually see the sun once in a while.”) skews shrill with some frequency, which hurts your credibility.

• Regarding your conclusion: your instinct to “mirror” or “echo” your introduction is a good one. It certainly signals to the reader that the piece is nearing its end, and also gives the impression of a meaningful structure. However, it’s also important to avoid the trite. Merely returning to the paper’s opening line (“The eyes have it”) is facile and perhaps even insulting to the reader.

Grade: C+

Note: if you’re interested, I’d be more than willing to discuss your paper at greater length during my office hours. How are Tuesdays for you?

Dispatch from an alternative universe…

BISMARCK, 2020. As the one-term Presidency of Jeffrey Loria comes to an end, we take time to reflect on his accomplishments. The United States in 2016 was of course a far different place than it is now. It’s hard to remember that there used to be fifty states. And the President’s house used to be painted white. And people lived here. President Loria swept into office promising to make the U.S. great again. And, indeed, for the first six days of his administration, he pretended to try to do just that. He hired the leaders of over two hundred other nations to come work for America, offering compensation far greater than they deserved, even to the old and decrepit ones. He appointed Ozzie Guillen to run the State Department. And he designed a brand new flag, with sparkly colors and real live fish on it. (Don’t think too hard about the details there.)

But then some kid somewhere failed his math test, and so Loria decided to cash out before the whole thing collapsed. So he traded our most expensive states — California, Texas, New York, and about thirty more — to Canada for a couple of uninhabited islands off the coast of Newfoundland, fired Ozzie Guillen and replaced him with a backup catcher, and convinced the taxpayers to fund a brand new Capitol Building in Bismarck, North Dakota, with a retractable roof and shiny sculpture that would shoot off fireworks whenever a bill was passed.

C-SPAN also canceled its coverage of Congress, because no one cared anymore.

And now the only remaining American of note, Justin Timberlake, is kinda pissed off.

Good luck to our incoming President, Mr. Fred Wilpon, as he looks to find a way out this mess.