Those amongst the readership who’re both (a) comfortable with advanced metrics and (b) facile with the Twitters, are perhaps aware that Buster Olney is not entirely convinced of the Power and Glory of WAR. While our Full-Time Cancer Destroyer, Dave Cameron, addressed some of Olney’s concerns back in the beginning of August, Olney dedicated some portion of his AM on Friday to WAR-related handwringing.

While I don’t claim to understand the urgency behind Olney’s Inquisition-in-Miniature, I’m also positive that there’s more than one way to skin the cat called Being a Fine Person — a cat that Olney appears to skin more often than not. For let us not forget, reader, that even though Olney cares little for our particular brand of nerdery, that he is also not above sustaining reasonably-toned dialogues with people who have willingly (one expects) adopted the Twitter handle Sex Cauldron. This represents a sort of benevolence of which the present author is largely incapable — and I, as you will know, am neither (a) on TV nor (b) an expert in anything beyond my own personal weaknesses.

To date, Phillies right fielder Hunter Pence has mostly distinguished himself for his ability to hit and catch and throw a baseball. On account of he does all these things pretty well, it would be bad form to begrudge him a lack of expertise in a second field.

And yet, it appears as though this is the exact thing upon which Mr. Pence has designs. For what other reason, I ask the reader, would CNN have cited Pence in their preliminary report on this afternoon’s earthquake along the Eastern Seaboard — an area populated by some 100 million people, many of them, no doubt, with degrees in journalism?

If you answered “No discernible one” you’re quite likely right. If you answered, “Because their early coverage of the ‘quake was strangely baseball-centric,” that might be correct, too: one of the other sources cited by CNN was Tribe Insider, the official Twitter feed of the Cleveland Indians.

Apropos rumors that the earthquake was a result of this afternoon’s giant and shocking trade between the Blue Jays and Diamondbacks, NotGraphs is unable to confirm or deny same.

H/T devoted reader, commenter, and (one imagines) spirited layabout Yirmiyahu.

I make no secret of my soaring admiration for all things Jose Bautista, for whom my love is both boundless and without bound. As such I was pleased to learn that Joey Bats is as adept at Internetting as he is at smiting cowhide orbs over fencing.

If you follow Mr. Bautista on Twitter — and, oh, you should — then you’ll be familiar with his frequent use of the #beastmode hash tag. I don’t know what the mode of beasts is, but when Mr. Bautista proclaims he is in said mode, I take him at his word. However, an unfortunate lil’ buckaroo named Tyler Broderick would very much prefer that Mr. Bautista not enter beastmode ever again:

@JoeyBats19 stop using beastmode in every tweet. Only members of the SH goon squad are aloud to do so you faggot

I have no idea what the “SH goon squad” is, but my working assumption is that members in good standing can’t read Dropkick Murphys liner notes without moving their lips. Take it away, Joey Bats …

Douchemode, indeed. Back to you, Tyler!

@JoeyBats19 I didn’t spell anything wrong bro SH stands for South Hadley. My boy Ryan Horstman is gonna be striking your ass out in 4 years

At this point, the discerning observer will discerningly observe that young Tyler is being ridiculed for confusing “aloud” with “allowed,” and not for abbreviating the name of his facking hometown.

What’s next? Naturally, young Tyler, after calling Mr. Bautista an English bundle of sticks, will enter #mewlingbabykittenmode and meow about how Jose Bautista was mean to him.

At this point, I declare, in my finest Judge Lance Ito fashion, two things: One, Jose Bautista is much better at Internetting than Tyler Broderick is, and , two, Ryan Horstman will never, ever strike out Jose Bautista.

Also, despite declarations to the contrary, no, young Tyler, America does not have your back in this one.

I am a Cardinals fan. Our own Jack Moore is a Brewers fan. These are well and good facts and signifiers of a healthy Republic. Still, these allegiances have put us at cross purposes this season, despite the NotGraphs ties — sexy, buckled latex ties — that bind.

Generalissimo Cistulli is fond of calling Mr. Moore “America’s Kid Brother,” but of late I sense a darker side to Jackie Hazelnuts — a side that will be laid bare by the following exchange of Twitter Tweets. I present this unfortunate brannigan with a touch of formality that will call to mind either an Ionesco playscript or Atticus Finch cross-examination of titillating righteousness …

@daynperry Does anyone really doubt that the Brewers will win tonight?

@jh_moore Suck it, Perry. RT @daynperry: Does anyone really doubt that the Brewers will win tonight?

@daynperry @jh_moore I vaguely compliment your team’s hot streak, and that’s the thanks I get?

@jh_moore @daynperry Apparently.

@daynperry @jh_moore You just cost the Brewers the vastly more lucrative People’s Championship.

@jh_moore @daynperry I thought Nyjer Morgan did that a long time ago.

If you know nothing else about our traffic-contriving strategies here at NotGraphs, please know that a Call-to-Action Poll is forthcoming forthwith …

No true child of the 80s is able to hear the words “sweep the leg” without feeling inside his heart and his mind and his other, more sordid, parts a sense of loathing for so-called “sensei” John Kreese and his unethical karate tactics.

The five months that Madison Bumgarner spent in the 80s were, very clearly, not enough to produce within him this same aversion to leg-sweeping, as last night, in the first inning of the Giants-Braves affair at Turner Field, he felled not Daniel Russo, but Daniel Uggla, via what appears to be a cut fastball — the footage of which has been GIF’d and embedded below for your pleasure.

It’s only a matter of time, of course, before Uggla himself utilizes a metaphorical crane kick to knock out this metaphorical Johnny Lawrence and win the metaphorical All Valley Karate Tournament.

Read the rest of this entry »

Much like ESPN’s Buster Olney, I love anecdotes. Especially  baseball anecdotes. And most especially  if said baseball anecdotes are about, or have anything at all to do with, Joe West. The above, that’s a pretty good Joe West baseball anecdote.

I can’t help but wonder what Joe West was thinking, his tunes playing over Fenway Park’s speakers. I wonder if the fans were frightened. Massholes, help a brother out: Were you there? Do you remember this incredible occasion?

I also can’t help but wonder if John Smoltz had to do everything in his power to keep a straight face during his warm-up. And, most of all, I wonder if the tribute helped Smoltz’s strike zone.

Smoltz took the loss that fateful night, July 26, 2009. To Baltimore, no less. He allowed six runs in five innings, and gave up nine hits. He struck out six, and walked one. But it hardly mattered. Thanks to his warm-up, Smoltz had already won.

Around 2pm ET yesterday, amid the experiment in exhaustion that was the author’s Twitter feed ahead of the 4pm ET trade deadline, Arizona pitching prospect Jarrod Parker reminded us all of what’s really important in life — i.e. Shark Week on the Discovery Channel.

The observant reader will also note that Parker’s tweet was RT’d by Arizona starting pitcher Daniel Hudson. I’m not sure if Emily Post has addressed this in the most recent edition of Etiquette, but I’m curious if it represents an honor of sorts for a minor leaguer to be recognized by a major leaguer. Sociology, what?

Mike Schmidt is a mustachioed former third baseman for the Philadelphia Phillies. A different Mike Schmidt is Madison, Wisconsin’s funniest comic and the author of the joke you see embedded expertly above.

In point of fact, I’ve heard Schmidt tell this joke in a slightly different (and, depending on your tastes, perhaps slightly more offensive) way, as follows.

My friend asked me to participate in a fantasy draft with him. He chose Alex Rodriguez and I picked two Korean girls.

Now that I’ve told the joke that way, let me tell it this way…

My friend asked me to participate in a fantasy draft with him. I picked two Korean girls. He chose Alex Rodriguez.

It should be noted both that (a) Schmidt tweets a number of his jokes and (b) those same jokes are frequently hilarious and entirely sans taste. Futhermore, he can often be seen in real life at Madison’s Comedy on State.

After the injury to Brian McCann, the Braves found themselves searching for depth at catcher. The Brewers were only too happy to oblige, sending Triple-A catcher Wil Nieves to Atlanta. The return? One dollar. That’s right.

Come on, Doug Melvin. You couldn’t even wrangle a washing machine out of the Braves? Frank Wren would make Jackie Moon proud — the same Jackie Moon who acquired key point guard Ed Monix for a mere washing machine:

Announcer: Welcome back to Tropics Weekly. The ABA has announced that the top four teams will merge with the NBA after this season. Seizing the opportunity owner/player/coach Jackie Moon has already made the first move acquiring Ed Monix from the Kentucky Colonels.

Moon: Yeah! I’m a pretty aggressive owner. Uh when I heard Kentucky needed a washing machine I looked at ours even though we need ours. Uh I said “I gotta pull the trigger on this.”

I await Frank Wren telling Nieves he wishes the catcher was still a one-dollar bill.

The bespectacled reader is assuredly familiar with that phenomenon known as the double entendre. Fewer, but still a sizeable portion, of the readership will have a working knowledge of the single entendre, utilized most recently/notably by Dirty Southerner Lil’ Wayne. In addition to these two, my grandfather claims to have once encountered, when he was serving in the Philippines, an instance of triple entendre — although he admits readily that it could’ve just been something on his glasses.

For all that, though, there have been no instances recorded by modern man of however many entendres Logan Morrison was able to capture in a single tweet this past Thursday. Scientists, in conjunction with the ghost of Milton Berle, are working round the clock to determine the specific number, but the general consensus is that Morrison’s tweet contains no fewer than four — and perhaps as many as seven — entendres.

It’s truly a shining moment, I think we can all agree, both for humans and sexy sex jokes.