Archive for Discovery

As every survivalist knows, it’s not always possible to offload your pressing emergencies onto the broad-shouldered likes of John Buck. Sometimes, one must take matters into one’s own hands. So what follows is useful for the fan of base and ball who is also concerned about the rise of a global currency, a resident of any Michigan city center, suspicious that the other shoe is about drop, of the steadfast belief that the Rubicon has been crossed, and or a damned loon:

Post-modern side table or instrument of a homesteader’s righteous and bloody justice? Yes, it would seem.

(Ham radio and canned foodstuffs: Dwell Well)

Earlier today, Bradley Woodrum treated America not only to his prose stylings, but also to that peculiar joy that only a snowman-shaped mouse cursor can cultivate in a man’s (or, ideally, a woman’s) bosom.

Which, that gave the present author an idea — an idea to which the reader can become privy by meeting me on the other side of the jump.

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As you all undoubtedly know, I spend about half my waking hours researching my Fangraphs pieces, which means about 5 of the 20 daily hours I spend working at the computer go the sole scouring of Wikipedia, our culture’s depository for generally agreed-upon knowledge. Anyway, for reasons somewhat beyond me, I ended up recently at the Wikipedia entry for the Caribes de Anzoátegui, a top baseball team in the Venezuelan Winter League, wherein I spotted this subtle typo:

I dunno, perchance it’s just society, but I am not certain whether (1) the author merely misplaced a G, or if (2) the author — likely an ESL such person — tried to sound out “foreign” and ended up with a meng-like solution. And therein lies the quandary: Does the mere doubt make me a racist?

Yes. Probably.

I take comfort in assuming, however, that my colleague Dayn Perry — Mississippi native — would have only considered the second option, while Boss Carson Cistulli (Boss ‘Stul for short) — who spends literally half his time in France, the other half travelling to France — would not have even noticed the error in his French-addled mind.

Reader: Also take note that Dmitri Young is no longer on the Caribes. Which is sad.

🙁

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Not Babe Ruth, no. Not Lou Gehrig or Barry Bonds. Not even Neifi Perez.

No, the hitter with the best statistics in the history of baseball is none other than Scott Munninghoff, a right-handed pitcher who participated in only four major league games in his playing career. Munninghoff, or Muney, as I secretly call him, had one career plate appearance — in 1980 — and in that PA he cracked a triple.

This brings us here:

Munningham is not the only player to hit a triple in his only major league at bat, but he hit his tripz in 1980 — just the right environment to get an edge over Eduardo Rodriguez, who cracked a triple in 1973.

Here, dear baseball brethren, is you MLB wRC+ leader:

Batting 1.000 is kind of impressive, I guess. But hitting 1008 with wRC+ is easily far more impressive. Quantitatively, 1008 is precisely 1007 better than 1.000.

Eat it Barry Bonds, there’s a new daddy in town — and he’s a triplin’ daddy.

  If Vin Scully asked you to do something, would you refuse?  Of course you wouldn’t.  Not unless you were a God-damned Communist.  You would do whatever the golden-voiced Vincent asked of you and you would not ask questions.  It should be apparent by now that Vin Scully is our nation’s greatest treasure, and that to refuse him is to refuse America.  “Why do you hate America?” I would ask if Vin Scully asked you to run out and murder a hobo and you refused.  “Vin Scully has done so much for us, and you won’t do this one little thing for him?”  Then I’d put your name on my list and I’d drop it off at my nearest police precinct as one of literally dozens of Stalinist-sympathizers who are still, even today, in our midst.  I miss Joe McCarthy is what I’m saying.  (Note: Joe McCarthy the Senator, not the Manager.  Double Note: Of the US Senators, not the Washington Senators.  Though the US Senators also play in Washington.  You are smart people; you know who I mean.)

Anywho, Vince tests our devotion today in yet another early commercial for Gillette razors, in which you can see his magical powers of teleportation and miraculous ability to avoid commenting on Wally Moon’s eyebrow: Read the rest of this entry »

As we learned previously in these yellowed and courtly pages, board-certified Aqua Velva Man Vic Tayback has a proud history of Giving the Business to ballplayers. So it should come as no surprise that Mr. Tayback once put ink-dispensing stylus to cowhide orb. Clicky!

Sure, Mr. Ed — with his stupid, thumbless hooves — and Kate Hepburn — with what was surely a fetching pantsuit — are also signatories, but there’s everyone and thing else and then there’s Vic Tayback.

This is his grave:

“You’re out of your depth.”

Okay, so I may have called the Moneyball movie “boring.” Perhaps it could have been spiced-up a bit by adopting Bradley Woodrum’s excellent suggestions. But I may need to revise my opinion now that I have happened across one of the many revisions of the script. This particular reivision was done by noted directory Paul Thomas Anderson. One unfilmed scene from Anderson’s script between Brad Pitt’s Billy Beane and Anderson-favorite Philip Seymour Hoffman Art Howe really stood out to me.

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INT. A’s OFFICES – THAT MOMENT

BILLY BEANE and PETER BRAND emerge from Billy’s office and walk done the hallway…. PETER’s eyes widen and he ducks into the video room… BILLY keeps walking…. ARTIE H. approaches…

ARTIE H.: Hey, Billy.

BILLY: Artie, hey, what’s up, man?

ARTIE H.: Freaking lost again, y’know, right?

BILLY: Four in row.

ARTIE H.: Right. Hey, did you see my new lineup for tonight’s game?

BILLY: You have a new lineup?

ARTIE H.: Yeah, you wanna see?

BILLY: Sure.

Read the rest of this entry »

If you carefully read the terms of service printed on every MLB game ticket, you’ll notice the following bit of muddled legalese:

XXIV(f): If Major League Baseball (hereafter, PROFESSIONAL BASEBALL CONCERN) can’t have you, then no one will.

A bit troubling, no? Indubitably so, but you might be left wondering how MLB wields such far-ranging plenary powers. The answer, which is also the correct answer? They take pictures of you at the ballpark and allow anyone with an Angelfire Internet Computer to ogle you and your native indignities. From the Computer Link:

Below are panoramic photos taken from the 2011 MLB postseason. Each panorama was created by stitching together hundreds of photos taken over a 20-minute span. By logging in via Facebook Connect, you can tag yourself, as well as friends who attended the game. You can even zoom in to identify individual faces. (Emphasis and bloodcurdling font mine, but should totally be theirs, too.)

Each of us is special, but each of us — above all, this writer — is also a misshapen idiot. If we wanted to be seen doing what we do at a ballgame — i.e., sweating, grunting at dot races, drooling on our foul-smelling shoes, screaming in tribal unison at the mascot with the t-shirt cannon, catching our breath from eating too fast, picking at scabs, idly probing our own orifices — then we’d log on to Chatroulette between innings. Some things, however, are best left unseen, and those things are we, the stinking people of the world.

So thanks, MLB, for ruining everything.

This one comes to us via the Answer Man himself, Yahoo! Sports’ Big League Stew’s Dave Brown. And, holy shit, the resemblance is, as they say, uncanny.

So you can imagine my disappointment reading Lookout Landing late last night, where Jeff Sullivan — who always brings it, one of my favorite writers — declared likeness comparisons to be so yesterday:

I’ve done it myself – I’ve done it a bunch – but I’m trying to stop, because everybody does it all the time, and it’s annoying. Rarely are the comparisons thought through, so they usually fail. Yet because people make bad comparisons so often, the occasional good ones suffer, because nobody wants to hear them anymore. It’s like a bunch of years ago when I was at school and Chappelle was still on. Drunk assholes would walk around loudly reciting the same lines over and over, and it killed the better Chappelle references for the rest of us. Just let us pretend to be funny by repeating somebody else’s funny!

Damn, Jeff. I feel you on Chappelle, but the beauty of the likeness comparison, at least to me, is that it requires little thought, both in it being put together, and in it being enjoyed. One of my life’s mottos is: “Enjoy the silly shit.” I try to. Every single day.

But Jeff understands. He knows that sometimes, even against better judgement, likeness comparisons must be done. Must be told. Must be shared. Which is why he compared Zack Greinke to Ron Roenicke last night. This, above, Yukon Cornelius and Jason Motte, frigging twins, is also one of those times.

Cornelius and Motte more than just look like one another, though. They also share the same line of work: they’re both prospectors. Yukon’s looking for gold and silver, and Motte’s looking for hitters to put away, and for saves. Almighty saves.

See, Jeff, a likeness comparison and some thinking through. It’s beautiful when it all comes together.

Thank you both, Dave and Jeff. May the two of you write about baseball forever.

Crabs are generally known to be zany, and that’s probably what the Giants were thinking back in 1984 when they were willingly represented before God and country by The Crazy Crab.

Unfortunately, the Giants hired not a zany, crazy crab but rather a disconsolate crustacean crippled by the unsparing demands of this, our stinking existence:

What you see is a crab among cardboard boxes. This suggests that he was recently a foreclosure victim or perhaps worked in thankless, stricken misery at a dank warehouse. Or perhaps he was freshly murdered and dumped onto a loading dock. Whatever the grim backstory, this crab is “crazy” only in the sense that this nihilistic journey into the abyss (some call it “life”) can easily drive one to the brink of madness.

If Crazy Crab is indeed dead, then no more does he feel pain.

This has been your Daguerreotype of the Evening.