Let us delve once again into the rich mine of baseball’s greatest names and nick’d names. Though I am partial to the spectacular names of unspectacular careers, let us pause for a moment to consider the moderately impressive career of a one

Bill Knickerbocker.

Knickerbocker, as we all know, means “New Yorker.” Naturally, William Hart Knickerbocker was born and later died in California. Of course.

Ol’ Knickers played 10 seasons, got some MVP consideration, served in World War II, and finished his career with more caught stealings than steals — even once, in 1936, leading the league with 14 whoopsies and only 5 pilfers. He was basically David Eckstein 0.1.
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WHAT PARTY CAN YOU GO TO WHERE I AIN’T THERE
YOU BITCHES ACTING LIKE YOU DON’T CARE

Ol’ Dirty Bastard shows up in the strangest of places. Like when you’re trying to find a new statistic to evaluate the old, dirty bastard-ness of baseball players. That’s a place where he shows up.

Good thing we got the dudes at SabeanMetrics (tagline: When the Best of the Worst Combine) to resuscitate (bad choice of words?) the hip hop icon. They recently unveiled wODBPS — weighted Ol’ Dirty Bastard Plus Slugging. Apologies to Bobby Abreu, the AL champ in 2011, because the Carlos Lee photoshop just makes too much sense not to post.

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Hans Urs von Balthasar: Not just a leading 20th century theologian anymore.

Each year, a number of new terms enter baseball’s colorful lexicon. Below are the twenty new words and phrases for curveball. To gain entry, each term has to have been used or overheard in a “legitimate” baseball situation — that is, either on a diamond, in a press box, or in one of Craig Counsell’s numerous and vivid erotic dreams.

Here are this year’s entries, arranged in alphabetical order:

Breathtaking Short Film
C Cup
Crotch Winder
Freudian Slip
Furious, Spinning Lap Dance
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Despite the fact that it happened only just 15 years ago, many people have forgotten Wade Boggs’ overthrow, by force, of the New York government and his brief and frightening reign over that same city.

The photo you see here captures Boggs in 1996, just moments after having wrested — along with a small but loyal faction of the city’s police — wrested control of the city from then-mayor Rudy Giuliani.

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When a meme beckons, we are powerless to resist its mandate.

So Tony La Russa seizes the horn during the most fraught moments of Game 5 …

And …

As any good baseball man knows, “Motte” sounds a lot like “Lynn” to a screaming Englishman in the echo-y confines of the stink lodge.

In celebration of both the World Series and video games, I will be playing at least four and, if, necessary, five, six, or seven games of the World Series on various excellent Major League Baseball video games. We’ll start it out with an old standby: Ken Griffey Jr. Presents Major League Baseball for the Super Nintendo.

Remember kids, illegal emulation is wrong, except when it feels oh, so right.

Now, to the game:

As Player One, I decided to choose the lesser of two evils and pick the Texas Rangers. This means I, as the Rangers, am the home team. That’s not how the real World Series will go. Deal with it

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Briefly, between pitches, please take note:

Now, fans of baseball, back to the game, as the urgent breaking update suggests.

Jimmy Piersall utilized “kicking” more often than is usual in the sport.

As noted by Dayn Perry earlier today — and the whole internet over the past 12 or so hours — a squirrel found its way onto the field of play and into our hearts yesternight during Game Four of a heated NLDS battle between Philadelphia and St. Louis.

While last night’s sequence of events certainly has its owns charms, it’s hardly the most notable instance of an animal making its way onto the baseball diamond. Some research in the Annals (that’s with two Ns, reader) of Base-and-Ball reveals the following, entirely unfabricated instances of animals on the field.

1921: In an effort to address poor attendance numbers, Detroit fields a team of all actual tigers. Eight fans are mauled — seven of them, it turns out, by Ty Cobb.

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“Why the eff not?” says Mets owner Fred Wilpon, all the time, before doing anything.

At Mets Police on Tuesday, Shannon Shark asked the readership which statue they thought might be most appropriate — and most representative of the team’s history — to greet fans outside Citi Field.

Just today, the NotGraphs Investigative Reporting Investigation Team has learned that the Met front office has not only considered such a project, but has actually devised a list of five “finalists,” as it were, for the hypothetical statue.

The five approved concepts are as follows:

1. William Shea, his hand raised — as if to say, “My bad, New York.”

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I break no news when I tell you that the sign of a successful and vigorous gentleman is a carefully cultivated smoking habit. The modern gentleman does four things daily and with tidal regularity: ties a flawless double-windsor on the first attempt, makes love to ladies, conducts business, and smokes delicious cigarettes.

Given these incontrovertible facts, it should come as no surprise that the mellow, rejuvenating taste of Camel was central to Joe DiMaggio’s lionized hitting streak. Indisputable photographic evidence:

If the reader of these panels is left with the impression that Mr. DiMaggio’s choice in cigarettes had much to with his fame and material uplift, then that’s because Mr. DiMaggio’s choice in cigarettes damn well had much to do with his fame and material uplift.

It strikes me — as it surely will all sensible, right-wise folk — that, so long as we’re in the business of making schoolchildren memorize and recite things like the Pledge of Allegiance and various series of Arabic numerals, the Sons and Daughters of America can surely spare the time and brain space to commit to memory these sacred utterances:

My cigarette is the milder brand with less nicotine in the smoke — Camel. I’ve smoked them for eight years. They always taste great.

Remember, Sons and Daughters of America: You don’t have to smoke Camel, but you do have to smoke. That is, if you want nice things.