It was a different time, you understand — 1987, or ’88. A time when men like Billy Jo Robidoux and Mark Funderburk were the flying buttresses in the architecture of baseball — beautiful appendages that distract from the innermost works of the structure. Or something.

It was also a time when baseball cards like this were possible:

They gaze on, each to no great end.

The random pairing of players, the dissimilar orientation of the photos, the misspelling of Billy Jo’s name, the prospect emblem in Johnny Rocket’s font — all of these were only possible in the 1980s, when anything went up one’s nose.
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On October 28th of this year, longtime Cardinal right-hander Bob Forsch threw out the ceremonial first pitch for that team’s World Series-clinching Game Seven victory. Less than a week later, Forsch was dead, having suffered an aneurysm at his Tampa-area home. He was 61.

Though his corporeal form has passed, Forsch assuredly lives on in the memory part of the brain of the few Cardinal fans who’ve come equipped with that organ.

He also lives on for those of us who derive some pleasure from the growth and maintenance of superlative mustaches. The image which accompanies these words (courtesy Andy Gray of the SI Vault Twitter feed and clickable for ample embiggening) accounts for about a thousand of the words I would have composed on the matter.

The remaining words are these: Bob Forsch had a mustache… or did he?

To answer that question, follow these instructions:

1. Become a father.
2. Wait until such a time as your child, upon seeing fog for the first time, asks if the clouds have come down to earth.
3. Take note of your answer. It will reveal your feelings about The Forschadow.

Or, phrased differently:

Dear readers of poetic inclination, as you’re undoubtedly aware, Robert Frost teaches that “Style is that which inidcates how the writers takes himself and what he is saying.”  If indeed that’s the case, then what must beleaguered and unappreciated former Twins reliever Ron Davis think of himself, and what is he saying?

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As a Google Image search has quickly revealed, Ryan Barry — that’s Barry with an a — is an underwear model with a seriously devout gay following.

For all of Barry-with-an-A’s muscular muscles, however, I feel very comfortable in stating that Baltimore Oriole right-handed pitching prospect Ryan Berry — that’s Berry with an e, America — is more photogenic than both (a) his quasi-namesake and (b) basically everybody else.

Allow this click-and-embiggenable image (courtesy Gallery 2) to serve as Exhibit A:

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Reader, take a trip with me.  Back to the mid-1980s.  Ronald Reagan is running for reelection in between naps.  Prince is complicating heterosexuality by being at once sexually virile and a little pixy of a man.  Pastel is the new black.  And John Hughes rules the world with an iron fist.

Into this landscape saunters Steve Balboni, who blesses you with his divine image below:

Click, if thou wouldst dare embiggen Him.

Steve Balboni is more than a man. He is a legend. A muscle-bound, mustachioed misanthrope who raged against American League pitching in the mid-’80s, but who was ultimately doomed by his refusal to do anything but swing really really hard and hope he made contact, but not before hitting 181 home runs and inspiring the greatest opening line of any AP article ever: “If Steve Balboni knows Steve Balboni, American League pitchers had better take cover for a while.” Read the rest of this entry »

There’s power in your pine tar.

The newest bombshell in social science is actually the oldest story in any book: dude made up his results. It turns out we don’t know any more about the relationship of power to infidelity, or the link between chaos and prejudice, than we did last year. It turns out that Diederik Stapel made up all his results.

A more serious corollary to the baseball world might take note from the social scientists on the matter — we might start talking about the danger of massaging data in general. We could talk about the pressure to find salacious results, and how that changes the way we look at our numbers. We could talk about all the biases that get ignored, and so on.

But that’s no fun.

Let’s instead open up that drawer in my desk where I hastily stuffed all my research as soon as this scandal broke. As you can see, Mr. Stapel has scared me straight.

More Pine Tar Means More Power: A study of the relationship of pine tar levels on batting helmets to isolated slugging percentage.

Green Means Go: Do team colors impact team statistics?

Strippers For Losers: A look at the impact of the availability of professional women of the night on the local team’s winning percentage.

High Socks Rock: Do sock heights alter four-component speed scores?

Mustaches a Must-Have for Closers: A correlation between facial hair and saves totals in major league baseball.

Ritalin or Greenies: A subjective study of baseball uppers new and old and their effect on hand-eye coordination.

Will White was — and in some senses, still is — this man:

You, dear reader — likely bespectacled and alone in a little gray cubicle of life — will notice a strange tingling sensation in the anterior chambers of your eyeballs as you look at yonder picturegraph. This is the feeling of MAJESTY enrapturing your ocular cavities. Do not be alarmed, but do know you will likely require the visitation of a physician and/or mortician at some point today.

For above we have featured:

THE VERY FIRST EVER
GREAT MOMENT IN SPECTACLES HISTORY.

Yes, the faint, white circles around the honorable Will White’s eyes are nothing less than Baseball’s First Glasses (according to this spurious site). And couched appropriately beneath those darling rounds — why, the curled mustache of king.

Also he’s bald.

That, in the biz, is what we call, “A Grand Slamming.”

Will White was a pitcher for Red Caps, Reds, Wolverines, and Red Stockings, and pitched as old as age-31, which in modern years, is about 65 years old.

White’s career reached an obvious down-slope, however, when in 1885 he twirled a scant 293.1 innings of 3.53 ERA ball. A clearly broken man at that point, he pitched only three more games before presumably spending the rest of his days crawling through the depths of some grimy coal mine, drowning the sorrows of his ever-failing vision on cocaine-laced, alcohol-rich Coca-Cola.

The brother of this man, Deacon White, obviously got the first hit in the first inning of the first professional game in history.

And, unsurprisingly as Science has led us to understand that the Mustachioed Gent is in every wear Superior to the Smooth Lipped Ninny, the good Deacon White sports a lip fur salaried not only to catch soups, but fast- and curve-balls as well:

Why of course Deacon played for the Forest Citys, Bisons, and Alleghenys. What else would you expect?

Michael Franks’s “Baseball,” from his album “One Bad Habit” (1980, Warner Brothers).

Today, we answer some important questions: Is baseball really that much like love? Did the Pittsburgh Pirates look awesome in 1970? How can I keep control of my nerves with the way you wind up when you throw me those curves?

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Greg Maddux crafted a Hall of Fame career using pinpoint control, changing pitch speeds and release points, and by out-smarting hitters, among other non-STUFF-based stuff. One can hardly say that he failed to fulfill his promise.

Except when it comes to the Matter of Moustachios.

Whiskers of what could have been.

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Your Daguerreotype of the Evening is (allegedly) not former major-league catcher Biff Pocoroba …

But I have my doubts about that.

This has been your Daguerreotype of the Evening.