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What a Salvo.

It all started so innocently. Or, as innocent as intense sartorial mocking can be.

A fan site for the Cardinals posted a great shirt idea:
Mike Leake STOLE THIS SHIRT FOR ME.

The response came quickly, a surgical strike:
Tony LaRussa WALKED THE LINE AND FAILED.

Then the Cardinals site dropped a T-Shirt bomb of snark on their opponents, including the genius above. With the balance now obviously shifted in the battle, perhaps the underdogs need a little help?

Incredibly important note: I am not taking sides in this inevitably long and drawn out battle. I’m just making gentle suggestions from afar. Gentle. Suggestions.

Tony La Russa WANTS TO SEE YOUR BIRTH CERTIFICATE
Colby Rasmus MADE HIS FATHER PUNCH TONY LARUSSA
Ryan Franklin FOUND YOUR LOST SQUIRREL ON HIS FACE
Matt Holliday IS TOO BLAND TO MAKE FUN OF
Lance Berkman ATE YOUR ELVIS

I was and am a Topps brand evangelist. Sure, as a kid I had a sherpa’s load of Fleer and Donruss cards lying around, but something about the Topps family of products inspired in me a consumerist loyalty I would not experience again until my discovery of fine Corinthian leather.

Why is this the case? It’s probably hail-fellow-well-met Manny Sanguillen. How can you see this expression of uncorrupted joy at the world about us …

… And not emerge from the experience with a love for everything everywhere? You cannot, say I.

Anyhow, I recently began purchasing Topps cards anew for my male human child, who will one day — provided he agrees not to follow his father into the absurd, toad-like existence of the liberal-arts major — inherit the full complement of my palatial holdings. And now comes this, a Topps innovation like none other …

Sure, I don’t care a whit about the confluence of lowered expectations and bet-hedging known as a “wedding,” and I don’t care about the World’s Leading Preppies and their opulent rituals. But I do care about kings. Why? Because the very mention of such an ancient and now-mythical designation makes me think a unicorn or an elf might show up.

I won’t buy this — holy crap, I will not buy this — but knowing it’s out there makes me think of dragons. So thanks again, Topps. I very much look forward to once again giving you some U.S. currency in exchange for durable goods.

Imagine, reader, that you’re a Frenchman. (I apologize in advance if this offensive to your sensibilities.) You live in France, work in France, and, as is so common these days among the citizens of this most fraternal Republic, speak French exclusively (except for the phrase supercool, which you utter with some frequency).

Now, reader, pretend you — still being French — grow curious about this sport called baseball. (I don’t know why this is happening to you; it just is.) To sate your curiosity, you take to the interwebs — and, specifically, that clearinghouse of all world knowledge, Wikipedia.

After learning briefly, in your native language, about the rules and history of the game, you contrive to understand what is meant by these different positions you keep hearing about: the agile arrêt-court, the more offensively oriented champ gauche, and, finally, the lonely and sometimes heroic lanceur.

Following the internet hyperlink for this last term, you’re met not only with a thorough discussion of the position, but with an image of the pitcher who will be for you — one who’s never, ever, never, ever seen a pitcher before in your life — the Platonic Ideal of All Pitchers, if only momentartily. In short, you are met with an image of

That must be confusing.

As a service to the readership, I took 30 seconds out of my busy schedule to run that paragraph from the image up there through Babel Fish. The results are below.

Does that last sentence seem inappropriate to anyone else?

A launcher is a player of baseball which launches the ball towards the zone of catches close to the beater. Its objective is to withdraw the beater without qu’ it can strike a sure blow nor to profit d’ an automatic base. He seeks to prevent the beaters from marking points. Also, Americans are obese imbeciles.

I’m not sure that I ever considered it possible, until this moment, to feel something like unbridled joy while gazing upon the hirsute visage of Mr. Darrell Porter. But that’s what’s happening this second. And this next second. And now this one, too.

And it can happen to you, bespectacled reader, just by following my seven easy steps to reaching your full potential looking at the images I’ve embedded after the jump.

What you’ll see are paintings by Derek Erdman, a person who, if we’re in the habit of trusting Wikipedia, is a Seattle-based painter and contributes to that city’s generally excellent alternative weekly The Stranger.

All of the following images are stolen shamelessly from Mr. Erdman’s website, where they (i.e. the paintings) are available for what are sometimes very reasonable prices.

Read the rest of this entry »

I have definitely attended SABR meetings before — and even made the acquaintance of a certain National Baseball Editor at one such event — but, owing to a lethal cocktail of poverty and sloth, have never found myself making the commitment to join this most peculiar of fraternities until just recently.

While I’ll share my own experiences with the Society momentarily, here are the official benefits of membership per the SABR website:

• SABR publications, including Baseball Research Journal, The National Pastime, and the SABR Bulletin
• An online membership directory to help you find other members with your interests
• Eligibility to participate in SABR research committees
• SABR lending library
• Eligibility to participate in SABR-L, called by some the “most intelligent general baseball list on the web
• Access SABR Research Exchange
• Access to SABR’s online encyclopedia
• Member discount on annual convention registration
• Regional chapter meetings
• The fun of being part of an international community of baseball fans of all types

As I’m sure is not particularly shocking, some of these things will be more relevant/interesting to one’s experience of the game than others.

What I can say is that, in my week or so of membership, I’ve already used the directory to good effect, having contacted — and been replied to almost immediately — by the co-chairs of the Scouts committee, James Sandoval (who also works as a scout for the Twins) and Rod Nelson. Those connections have already proved quite valuable.

As Justin Bopp of Beyond the Boxscore noted quite recently, the SABR experience is certainly not one saturated in advanced statistics — quite to the contrary, in fact, as most of the presentations I’ve observed have concerned the history of the game more than anything else.

One issue with membership, certainly, is the cost. It’s $65.00 annually for American adults and $45.00 for seniors and people under 30 (a benefit of which I’m no longer qualified to take advantage), which might be expensive for those with only a casual interest in the sport. Whether as a result of the cost or not, meetings are mostly populated by a slightly older crowd — say, 45 and above. I’ll add immediately, however, that I was always treated warmly, and perhaps even benefited from my relative youth.

Friend of the blog — and actual, real-life friend — Dan Lurie made of the above a Christmas gift for yours truly. It’s a book, published in 1961, called World Series Encyclopedia and purporting to have “Game-By-Game Highlights” and “Lifetime Statistics Of All 1136 Series Players [1903-1960].”

Pictured here are the front and back covers, respectively. So far as I can tell, the illustrations on the front are of (clockwise from top left) Joe DiMaggio stepping over “napping” (read: “rather unconscious”) Cincinnati catcher Ernie Lombardi in 1939; 18-year-old New York Giant Freddie Lindstrom watching a grounder deflect off a pebble and over his head in 1924; and a would-be game-winning third strike eluding the grasp of Brooklyn catcher Mickey Owen in the 1941 Dodgers-Yankees series.

The back cover features the following illustrations: a Brooklyn “bum” harboring some grief towards Don Larsen and his perfect game in 1956; Willie Mays‘ uber-famous catch of Vic Wertz‘ center-field fliner in 1954; a metaphorical depiction of Cardinal Pepper Martin (who stole five bases in the 1931 series) “stealing” off Athletic catcher Mickey Cochrane; and Brooklyn Dodger Al Gionfriddo making a catch at the fence off a would-be Joe DiMaggio homer in 1947.

It should be noted that the ’47 Series also featured Dodger Cookie Lavagetto, making it (i.e. the series) an unambiguous victory for Italian-Americans everywhere.

What we have here, objectively speaking, is a photo of Rod Carew on a piece of finished wood — purchased at a thrift store in Madison, Wisconsin.

Because I heard not one mention of it during my many and incredibly challenging art history courses in school, I can’t guarantee that this item is art.

What I can tell you that it stirs something deep and profound in the manbosom.

Note: Thank you to reader MarkW for the depth of his artisitc knowledge.