Archive for Real Talk

Each day this week, the author is recounting notable home runs he’s conceded during his life as a nearly decent baseball pitcher at various levels. Read the first installment here.

Date: June, 1993
Level: Prep League (13-year-old Babe Ruth)
Place: Rollins Park in Concord, NH (Link)

Frequently it’s been the case in my adult life that people have mistaken me for longtime reliever and Dominican Republic native Octavio Dotel. “Excuse me, but are you Octavio Dotel?” people will often ask me, for example, on the streets of this or that American city. Or “Mr. Dotel,” they’ll say, catching up to me as I finish my afternoon jog, “could you please sign this baseball I happened to be carrying for some reason that I don’t even know?”

Read the rest of this entry »

Each day this week, the author is recounting notable home runs he’s conceded during his life as a nearly decent baseball pitcher at various levels.

Date: May, 1990
Level: Little League
Place: Sanel Field in Concord, NH (Link)

Like a liar, is how I’ll begin this series of brief anecdotes — owing, I mean, to how this particular one (i.e. this anecdote) doesn’t concern an actual, but only a would-be, home run. Sue me, is what anyone offended by this is invited to do.

Read the rest of this entry »

The performance of Mike Trout over his first two seasons in the major leagues has prompted suspicion among all manner of fan that the young Angels outfielder has perhaps benefited from the ultimate PED: god-like omnipotence. In what follows, famous world philosopher and also possible deity Jesus of Nazareth comments on the allegations regarding Trout’s divinity.

Part One:

Read the rest of this entry »

In addition to the very English and talented Craig Robinson, the editoriat of NotGraphs is pleased also to announce the debut here of John Paschal, who writes additionally for The Hardball Times under the pseudonym Azure Texan. Here, Paschal attempts to render into prose the thrill of speaking over the phone with the actual, real Carson Cistulli — an experience of which literally even zero presidents have had the pleasure.

So, due to several dark-alley bribes and trench-coat meetings in the underground parking garage of the United Nations, you suddenly have a chance to write for NotGraphs, which is exactly like writing for FanGraphs except, you know, not. The first order of business, though, is to field an introductory phone call from His Eminence Carson Cistulli, probably because you are a shadowy figure on the Internet and so he wants to make sure you’re not a potted plant or a set of twins named Ripper and Shank.

Scheduled time of call: Noon Eastern. This is problematic because you don’t live in the East, you live in the NotEast, but he assures you via email that it will work out because these things almost always work out, phone-wise.

Still you are nervous, or, put differently, NotNotNervous.

Read the rest of this entry »

Class. In a glass.

It’s very possible that certain readers of the present site are entirely comfortable with the intensity of their baseball fandom. It’s also possible, however, that other sorts of readers harbor the notion that the resources which they’ve customarily allocated to the pursuit of base-and-ball expertise might actually have been better utilized in the foundation of better and more renewable energy resources or, alternatively, cleaning the bathroom just once ever.

Read the rest of this entry »

In these difficult times, there are many decisions to make: what to wear for work, where to eat for dinner, how hard to cry about all of the day’s myriad failures. At NotGraphs, we understand this. That’s why, with a view to aiding our small but constantly beloved readership, we’d like to make you aware of a decision you don’t have to make.

Sometimes, when signing up for a credit card, a client of this or that bank has the opportunity to select a card featuring a graphic of his favorite baseball team’s logo. Like the Red Sox, for example, which are a baseball team. Or the Cardinals, which are a different baseball team.

Read the rest of this entry »

According to the records kept by interpid weblog The Deadball Era, no fewer than three ballplayers have been shot and murdered by bartenders.

Here are no fewer than those three (each player listed with career WAR, click images to embiggen):

Frank Bell, -0.5 WAR (Profile)
From an unspecified paper on April 15, 1891:

Read the rest of this entry »

If asked to characterize his life at the moment, the author might very well suggest that it’s full largely of despair and also blackest despair. “Why go on?” he’s been compelled to ask recently of the stupid, unblinking moon. “Is it not just a carnival of sorrows?” he’s inquired just today, in fact, of (apparently) quite an unfriendly crow perched on the sill. A sorry state of affairs is what one finds at Chez Cistulli, is the point.

Read the rest of this entry »

One imagines that the diagnosis of an inoperable brain tumor is a particularly harrowing one for a 50-year-old person to receive — especially the sort of 50-year-old person who, by all appearances, derives fulfillment both from his private and professional life. Indeed, the only response of which I can personally conceive involves merely assuming the fetal position and cursing capital-F Fortune until such a time as my body stops functioning.

This doesn’t at all resemble late union head Michael Weiner’s particular strategy for dealing with his own diagnosis and subsequent illness. Indeed, it’s difficult to find news coverage of him in which he’s not expressly conceiving of life as a sort of luminous mystery.

Read the rest of this entry »

It is not the reader’s concern what specific question I was moved to ask Mademoiselle Google — a question regarding perhaps the human condition and or the author’s current straits. What is of interest is that Mademoiselle Google anticipated the query to come. She was incorrect in her anticipations, but they cast light upon what shall henceforth be known as “The Four Hot Mysteries”:

The call is coming from inside the house? To that I would say, “The Cubs are inside the Internet.”

Also, to answer The Four Hot Mysteries above:

1- In either case, to what end?
2- There is no place that does not see you.
3- Sometimes.
4- Four.

This sort of thing is precisely the reason I typically use HotBot.