It has come to this author’s attention – via the above tweet and article by ESPN personality/banal number-producer Darren Rovell – that the Blue Moon beverage company has come up with a new beer/wine hybrid. Apparently, the taste for this “drink” was perfected at Coors Field in Denver, CO. Knowing this, the NotGraphs Investigative Reporting Investigation Team searched for, and discovered, other tastes perfected at Coors Field:
The flag of Metropolitan Toronto flies politely over the region.
As FanGraphs managing editor Dave Cameron noted over the weekend, the Blue Jays’ acquisition of right-hander R.A. Dickey is merely the latest in a series of aggressive, but reasoned, offseason maneuvers that have positioned the club as a legitimate contender in the usually competitive AL East.
Now, the Blue Jays’ marketing department is tasked with spreading the word about what promises to be an exciting season for Toronto. However, as the five following proposed slogans — acquired by our very secretive Investigative Reporting Investigation Team — as they indicate, it is not necessarily within the Canadian nature to brag or boast or otherwise champion one’s own virtues.
To wit:
1. Come Out and Watch Us — Unless You Already Have Plans, No Problem!
2. We’ll Win a Lot — But Not by an Unsporting Amount, Don’t Worry!
3. You’ll Enjoy This Team — Not That We Presume to Know Your Tastes!
4. What a Great Team — Although, All the Teams Are Great in Their Own Way!
5. Let’s Go, Toronto — And All Other Area Municipalities, Too, Like Halton!
As my beleaguered comrade Eno Sarris has already emoted, R.A. Dickey is leaving the fair city of New York. The casual fan might assume that the Blue Jays-Mets swap is one of those unfortunate deals necessary for a rebuilding club to get younger. They might then accidentally go on to miss the intelligent, witty veteran with the lovable knuckleball. Fortunately, the New York Post is there to dispel these illusions, and remind the reader that R.A. Dickey is in fact a clubhouse cancer and possible convicted felon, who has fled north to escape his inevitable tarring/feathering.
The Post’s Mr. Davidoff doesn’t actually supply much hard evidence for the selfishness of the 38 year-old pitcher whose performance the past three seasons has has surpassed his pay six times over. Fortunately, we here at the NotGraphs Investigative Reporting Investigation Team have uncovered a list of some of Dickey’s petulant demands and grotesque personal charisma. An anonymous source revealed the following unforgivable sins:
Last Friday, on these very electronic pages, one Carson Cistulli talked about things no one is talking about, one of which being the Hall of Fame status of former Blue Jay third baseman and tastemaker Kelly Gruber.
(Kelly Gruber, last known photograph.)
One might dismiss this sort of inquiry as media satire, and sleep easy at night; one might, that is, if one were a lazy-minded rapscallion. For there are mysteries that lurk within the heart and hair of Kelly Gruber, mysteries that are easily tangled among his cascading locks. Why is nobody talking about Kelly Gruber? Dare we call it… conspiracy?
What else could explain the fact that despite the fact that Gruber fulfilled the requirements for being elected to the Hall of Fame, having played ten seasons in major league baseball, and yet never saw his name on the ballot? Could it be that the commissioner feared the hypnotic effects of Gruber’s shiny golden mane, enchanting writers into voting the hair and not the man?
Why is no one talking about this, indeed.
After all, he may be no Lloyd Moseby, but a vote for Gruber would hardly bring shame upon the Hall. Since his eligibility in 1998, no less than 26 players have appeared on the ballot with a WAR lower than our outcast (16.9). Seven of those twenty-six even received at least one vote. Three of those seven are card-carrying members of the American Communist Party.
Jack Z: Don’t get your coffee without him.
Early this morning, Jim Bowden tweeted that perhaps the Mariners’ motivation for inserting themselves into the rumored multi-team Justin Upton trade scenarios was to ensure Texas was out of the running for Josh Hamilton.
Mariners involvement in 4 team blockbuster proposals is to utilize prospects to make sure TX gets Upton so they can actually sign Hamilton
— JIM BOWDEN (@JimBowdenESPNxm) December 6, 2012
Most teams have 6 to 8 starting pitchers listed on their official depth charts at this early point in the 2013 MLB offseason, but few teams list one player as a starter at three locations on the field. And that is because few teams — only one, as far as league records show — have Ben Zobrist on their roster:
Here is the team’s projected lineup:
Read the rest of this entry »
INDIAN WELLS, Calif. – The Toronto Blue Jays have found their next manager, and it’s a man few expected: Philip Seymour Hoffman, who’ll make the unprecedented jump from Hollywood to the big leagues.
NotGraphs’ Investigative Reporting Investigation Team, making the most of their time at the hotel bar at the general manager meetings in Indian Wells, California, is working on confirming that it’s a three-year deal Hoffman has signed with Toronto. Financial details haven’t been disclosed.
The surprising news comes only days after former Oakland A’s manager Art Howe, who Hoffman portrayed in the Oscar-nominated “Moneyball,” expressed an interest in managing the Blue Jays.
Toronto general manager Alex Anthopoulos, normally tight-lipped on matters of, well, anything and everything, was noticeably pleased about his most recent acquisition.
“Philip really impressed us in his interview. His scope of knowledge really blew us away. He has a vision. And that’s not to say we weren’t impressed by Art Howe, who we of course interviewed, as well. It’s just that Philip was more Art Howe than Art Howe was Art Howe. It was a remarkable performance on Philip’s behalf, and we’re really excited to see it continue over the next three years.”
The NotGraphs Investigative Reporting Investigative Team has acquired, through means readily accessible to anyone with an Internet connection, this photo tweeted by former baseballer Dmitri Young, featuring he and also-former baseballer Maglio Ordonez attending the World’s Series. In the picture (which is, of course, embiggenable) the two former Detroit players are bookending what appears to be an unidentified vagrant they discovered on the way to Comerica Park. It is easy to tell this man is a transient for the following reasons;
1.That beard and haggard face are classic identifiers of a man of the rails.
2.He is wearing upwards of three layers on his torso, whilst also being indoors. This is very typical for street people, as they have no closets for storing their unneeded layers.
3.Who wears a Diamondbacks hat to a game between the Giants and Tigers? A vagabond who found said hat in an alley, that’s who.
Credit should be given to Young and Ordonez. They were lucky enough to score some sweet luxury box tickets, and, instead of inviting another former Tiger or a perhaps lady of the night, they gifted the game of baseball to a scary old man in a Canadian tuxedo.
My sources are unable to provide details as to how the evening ended, due mostly to the fact that my sources are either dead or camels. However, you are permitted to speculate as I pound the pavement, looking for the factual ending to this totally factual situation I have presented to you, fair NotGraphs readers.
Jason Bay and the New York Mets have agreed to part amicably. Bay issued a statement about still having something to give to the game (i.e. a walking example of “replacement level outfielder” (amirite?)). MLBTR has an excerpt from the statement here.
Shuffle, Kick, Hum a Tune…
We’ve one-upped them: Thanks to the NotGraphs Investigative Reporting Investigation Team — which, powered by the MLB Patriot Act, is able to climb into homes through any available orifice (and should no orifice be readily available, it shall make one) and snatch shit off of desks, from under beds, out of cradles, &c., in the name of news — we have the original draft of Bay’s statement. (If you’re curious, it was printed on a dot-matrix printer and stained with what appears to be grape soda.) Here it is, then, in its entirety:
With the rousing success of his projection methodology in a second straight presidential election, proprietor of the internet’s Five Thirty Eight and former baseball-projection savant Nate Silver has captured the attention of Americans everywhere. The NotGraphs Investigative Reporting Investigation Team has learned just this morning, however, that Silver will turn his attention away from politics for the moment and attempt to use his skills to reflect upon some other, perhaps more obscure, questions and concerns.
Questions and concerns such as these five:
Who’s Coming to Dinner
Stanley Kramer’s 1967 drama asked the question. Over 40 years later, Silver will endeavor to answer it.
