Archive for Discovery

As students of history and Uncle History himself are well aware, Hall of Famer Nathan Hale (class of 2002) long insisted that paper dolls have nipples. Now, for the first time since Antiquity, when Hale was CEO of Activision and King of All He Surveyed, a paper doll has nipples. Notable for our purposes, the paper doll is of Dock Ellis, who, besides playing baseball, drank deeply of the good and worthy …

In equally uplifting news, you may purchase this at Etsy, where durable goods are made into art and then sold over the Bald Eagle Computers of this fair land.

(HT: Me, for finding this)

The real problem with Daniel Bard — certainly way more pressing than any velocity or command issues (ahem, Dave Cameron) — is that he’s in space without a space suit. According to Wikipedia, Bard’s flesh will expand to about twice its size in the hard vacuum of space, and he’s likely to lose consciousness within the next 15 seconds due the effects of oxygen starvation. Hopefully, he didn’t just hold his breath, either, because apparently that can cause explosive decompression, which’d basically ruin his lungs.

Hi! I’m Kent Tekulve! I’m being reborn! Right now! Out of the very fabric of NotGraphs!

I’ve been to the other side, and I have a lot of neat things to tell you. Like, baseball, over there, on the other side? Way different! You wouldn’t believe it! Like for instance, over there, on the other side? The bases are filled with things. They’re actually bags full of stuff! But that’s not the differentest thing about the bases even. What’s even differenter about the bases over there is that the stuff that they’re filled with, well, one never knows what they might be filled with! Like, you can be running and step on a base and POW! Landmine! There goes your leg! But sometimes they’re just filled with jelly and stuff, so they pop and you slip and then you and the infielder nearest to you just roll around laughing getting covered in jelly. For minutes! They stop the game just so you can laugh and roll around in jelly! Boy howdy, that’s something, over there, on the other side.

Look how happy I am! Look how happy I am to have never stepped on a landmine! I’ve had my share of jelly though. It actually even tastes okay. It’s also funny when the bases are filled with whoopee cushions. Let me tell you, as a pitcher, that sure takes the sting off giving up a homerun: here you just gave up a homerun but then the batter has to round the bases and cause four big old farts before he even gets to homeplate! I tell you, if I knew when the bases were going to be filled with whoopee cushions, I’d throw meatballs all day and pray they’d hit ’em out. I’d die of laughter! I’m Kent Tekulve! Look at me!

Wanna know another thing that takes the sting off a homerun when you give one up over there, on the other side? When they hit home runs? The balls vanish not into the bleachers full of fans, but into a interdimensional cesspool, where they (the balls!) end up in new universes where they lead new lives! One of them ended up back here and became the President of the United States! What a country!

The coolest thing about the interdimensional cesspool, though, is that all the balls have cameras built into them, so when they arrive in a new universe and begin their new lives, a reality television show automatically begins about them! You can follow the new lives of all your favorite homerun balls! MLB FanCave has nothing on the promotional tactics over there, on the other side, let me tell you. No, sirree!

Well, time is a little different over there, on the other side. It’s actually been four days since I started talking to you. I wish I had more time to tell you all the cool ways that baseball is different over there, but now it’s my turn in the rotation again. I hope the bases are filled with whoopee cushions today, or quicksand, or mayo. That’s always funny. Mayo! Gee whiz! Okay, gotta run.

Oh geez, I seem to be stuck here, in the very fabric of NotGraphs. Oh dear, haha…

So today I realized/learned that Detroit Tigers manager Jim Leyland is 67 years old. Seriously? Just 67? Look at this guy:

Stunned by my discovery, I did what any sane person would do: I expressed my shock and dismay to the approximately two dozen sad, lonely souls and spambots who follow me on Twitter.

Wait, Jim Leyland is only 67 years old?

— Matt Klaassen (@devil_fingers) May 8, 2012

America’s response tells us something about something, I tell you what.

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Perhaps the reader will feel inclined to file this under Old Effing News, Asshole, but the News in question is New to the present author, and thus it is rendered here in the important and electronic pages of NotGraphs.

The New News is this: the Marlins’ new center-field camera angle (pictured above) is excellent — and joins the Pirates’ new center-field camera in the totally fictional and not-real Most Improved Camera category.

That gives us seven straight-on center-field cameras now, as follow (see all camera angles here):

• Atlanta
• Baltimore*
• Boston
• Miami
• Pittsburgh
• St. Louis
• Tampa Bay

*Mostly straight-on. Like, 95%.

Rolling Stone’s Matt Taibbi in 2009: “Whereas a guy like Teixeira was born with a swing so gorgeous you want to paint it, Youkilis fighting a middle reliever to a nine-pitch walk looks like a rhinoceros trying to fuck a washing machine.”

Rolling Stone’s Matt Taibbi in 2012: “Tim Tebow trying to throw a forward pass is like a moose trying to fuck a washing machine.”

Mr. Taibbi is a fairly prolific lad, so in some ways it’s excusable not to have a running mental catalog of the jokes one has cracked. Still, Taibbi’s dragging a simile howling from the vaults is like watching a washing machine trying to fuck sports.

This is one of my favorite keepsakes: “Old Timer’s [sic] Baseball Photo Album”, published by JKW Sports Publications in 1961, collecting photographs from the private collections of Robert A. Cutter and William N. Jacobellis. I was flipping through it searching for inspiration for a post when I saw an image that immediately seared itself onto my eyeballs. I will never be the same… To the jump if you dare.

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Much about the Internet is disappointing. This for instance. Also disappointing is that there exists a person who claims to hate Pablo Sandoval. Pablo Sandoval plays baseball well and is happy, large and furry. Ergo, one should not hate Pablo Sandoval. However, an exhaustive search of HotBot and Lycos and Ask Jeeves has turned up this Internet exchange:

When did the Internet turn into the Internet?

The Internetting Gentleman conducts a search …

The Internetting Gentleman unearths a notable search result …

The Internet is: ON.

Oakland Athletics Tickets

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