Yes, yes, I believe that’s mesh.
Anyone that is a fan of trashy cinema is familiar with the concept. Sometimes, something is so bad that it turns around and is good again. Call it the Last Action Hero law. The Snakes on a Plane law if you’re not into the Gubernator these days.
It looks like the rule applies to some baseball uniform choices as well.
Over at the Atlantic, which is a Serious Journal by and for Serious People and which, as the name suggests, is housed deep within the intrepid waters of the ocean to your right if you’re facing north, Conor Friedersdorf has some ideas about how to make sports more palatable to those among us who prefer that their cultural pursuits not last long and be shitty. Here’s Mr. Friedersdorf’s baseball thought experiment:
Presumably I’ll never persuade purists to eliminate a whole inning. So I’ll offer my next best suggestion: allow managers one opportunity per game to borrow an out or two from a later inning. So it’s the bottom of the third. There are two outs, with men on first and third. Your batter strikes out. And you can decide to borrow an out or two in order to try and drive in those runs… but it’s going to cost you, because once the current inning ends the opposing manager gets to decide at his leisure when to charge you that out or two.
Like most proposals for radical change, this has not a whit of a scintilla of a chance of happening, but it’s decidedly less half-baked than most of its species. Usually, we get indeterminate bleats like, “MAKE THINGS GO QUICKER NOW!” or things like, “PAY CUTS FOR ANY PLAYER WHO IS RUDE TO A DAILY NEWS COLUMNIST!” or, “MAKE PITCHER PITCH BAT, MAKE HITTER HIT WITH BALL!” or “ARGH!” Mr. Friedersdorf’s, at least, sounds like something worth trying in rec-league softball, which means Charlie Finley could’ve come up with it during a Dewar’s bender. (Lest it seem otherwise, that’s totally a compliment.)
As for how to improve our fair game, the NotGraphs Highly Reputable and Totally Real Think Tank needs your help. To get you started, here’s one heavily focus-grouped suggestion: pre-game flyovers by Falcon Heavy.
One way or another.
Borrowing from an excellent thinkpiece by Dave Gershman over at Beyond the Boxscore, I thought it might be fun to imagine a more European approach to the Major League Baseball. In the Premiership, and various other soccer leagues around the world, the bottom teams are relegated to the minor leagues, while the best minor leagues teams ascend to the majors. Gives the bottom of the ‘table,’ or standings, a little juice at the end of the season.
Of course, that would create all sorts of problems with baseball, where the minor league teams are all assigned to major league teams. That sort of relationship would be hard to navigate. For example, Gershman starts by wondering if the Pirates deserve Anthony Rendon – and if they deserve to be in the major leagues at all by extension. But if the Pirates were relegated, they would have been replaced by a minor league team associated with the Royals. Then we’d we be stuck with twice the amount of Royals-based teams in the major leagues – however you feel about the Royals, you probably don’t want that.
This evening, I’m extremely pleased and proud to announce that, after an exhausting and extensive appeal, the NotGraphs Highly Reputable And Totally Real Think Tank has approved, for these very electronic pages, the canonization of active baseball players. It’s a great day to be alive. (Pun intended.)
Now, don’t for a split second think that I can do one of these as well as world-renowned poet – and baseball scholar – Carson Cistulli. But I’ll give it my best shot.
Today, this 18th day of February, 2011 years after the passing of Jesus Christ, the second soul we canonize — and first active — is celebrating his 30th year on the planet.
Life: Born in Coffee, Alabama, and hailing from the island of Puerto Rico, Alex Rios tickled Toronto Blue Jays fans for five and a half years with his potential, accumulating 17.7 WAR from 2004 to August 2009. Until the fateful day he was given –- nay, stolen –- by the Chicago White Sox. Sometimes the best laid plans go awry.
Prayer:
Image courtesy the Alex Rios Fanclub.
Strong mug shot but probably still drunk.
Let’s get a disclaimer out of the way first. In no way are we making fun of alcoholism or driving under the influence, those are serious problems. Miguel Cabrera seems like he might need a little help overcoming a common yet grave addiction.
Still… the circumstances of his of his DUI arrest call to mind some of the worst behavior of famous people in our culture. The feeling of entitlement that pervades that simple phrase – “Do you know who I am?” – is one that deserves to be mocked, and heartily. I mean, really? Really, Mr. Baseball Player Swigging From An Open Bottle Behind the Wheel, Really? Do I care who you are right now?
So, in Mr. Cabrera’s honor, a mixed list of classic “Do You Know Who I Ams?” for your pleasure.
Filed under, Recent
Just this week, NFL Player Legedu Naanee walked through the middle of a homicide crime scene, then cursed officers for questioning his decision, got pepper sprayed and arrested and then screamed the money phrase while being led away. No, dude, you wear a helmet. No-one knows who you are without your jersey on.
Filed under, Scholastic
This urban legend has it that a student taking an exam runs late and continues to to scribble despite the yelling proctor, then calmly walks to the front of the class. He asks the proctor if he knows who he is, and after the proctor says no, throws all the test booklets into the air (mixed in with his own) and runs out of the class. I imagine him laughing hysterically – and getting away with it.
Filed under, Civilian
A suburban mom in a minivan jumped a curb, plowed through a front yard, hit a stop sign, slurred her words, smelled of alcohol and was to be led away by a couple of officers… but first she had to resist violently and utter the famous words. Well, who was she? The deputy coroner.
Filed under, Baseball, Classic
In perhaps the most ridiculous version of this trope, Padres prospect Matt Bush, “fresh” off of a .204/.310/.276 season at high-A Lake Elsinore in 2007, drunkenly attacked some high school lacrosse players in 2009. He, and I quote the story here, “picked up and threw a freshman lacrosse player,” screaming the question of the moment before answering it: “I’m Matt (expletive) Bush,” and “(expletive) East County.” Asked, and answered.
A bountiful source of debate among baseball enthusiasts and fans of other, ickier, less morally upright sports is whether or not it’s acceptable to say “we” in reference to your favorite team. The pro: It’s a harmless bit of unifying tribalism. The con: You do not, in point of fact, play for your favorite team. These are dearly held positions, to say the least. Neither side will yield, and the center cannot hold.
So in the service of a workable peace, I am here to pronounce from on high and with the certainty of Judge Lance Ito that using the first-person plural in reference to your team is acceptable — I do it myself — but only under certain inviolable conditions. Here, fans of stick and ball, are those conditions …
With the recent news that the Boston Red Sox — owners of one of baseball’s more progressive front offices — have signed 17-year-old Kiwi softball-ist Te Wara Bishop, one is forced to wonder: What other inefficiencies might clubs attempt to exploit in their efforts to evaluate, acquire, and develop talent?
Here are some possible avenues for consideration from NotGraphs’ Highly Reputable and Totally Real Think Tank:
1. Elderly People and/or Babies
Sabermetric researchers have become increasingly interested in identifying the peak years for offensive production and, more broadly, the relationship between aging and performance in general. But the problem is that these studies are typically limited to players aged 20 to 40 or so (as the image above indicates). Hel-lo! There are, like, a whole bunch of different ages besides those! Like 57, for example. Or 9, or 81. And that’s just off the top of my head.
2. Not Wearing Pants
Color commentators take pains to note the degree to which a base-stealing threat, when on first, can distract a pitcher from the task at hand — that is, making quality pitches to the batter. What’d probably distract the pitcher way more, though, is if the batter in question just wasn’t wearing any pants — had nothing, in fact, on the entire bottom half of his body. Who has the dangle now, hm, Tim McCarver?!?
3. Hotter and More Bumpin’ Walk-Up Music
Cameron Maybin is a legitimate five-tool player and former 10th-overall pick in the draft, but has posted a slash-line of just .246/.313/.380 (86 wRC+) in 610 major-league plate appearances. The reason? Possibly it’s the case that Maybin just hasn’t, and/or won’t ever, adjust to major-league pitching. More likely, though, is that his walk-up music is “Party in the USA” by Miley Cyrus. Hopefully, San Diego GM Jed Hoyer has taken steps to change this.
4. Bloodletting
It’s so crazy, it just might work.
5. Carson Cistulli
Not for nothing has Carson Cistulli referred to himself alternately as “the greatest mind of this, and probably every other, generation” and also “a preternaturally talented evaluator of baseball, uh, talent.” Front offices of baseball: what are you waiting for? (Seriously: email me at ccistulli@yahoo.com and prepare to get your blank blanked.)
Image courtesy MGL at THT.