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Charlie Blackmon’s Dream, Interpreted via Science

“Via science” is probably an optimistic description of how the author proposes to interpret Charlie Blackmon’s dream with a turtle in it. “Interpret,” itself, is also not quite accurate.

“By copying down entries from The Little Giant Encyclopedia of Dream Symbols (ed. Klaus Vollmar) that belongs to the author’s wife — and then allowing the reader to reach his or her own conclusions”: indeed, this is much more precise.

Here, for the benefit of the readership, are five entries relevant to Charlie Blackmon’s dream of late — reproduced in the exact order in which they were referenced by the present author.

Turtle/Tortoise: Hiding behind a character trait (according to Wilhelm Reich). Patience, wisdom; or hiding something essential.

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Carlos Gomez: Friend & Foe to Animals

As my colleague David G. Temple discovered yesterday, the Twitter account of Milwaukee Brewers CF Carlos Gomez is a veritable visual muse.

In addition to revealing an unlikely friendship with Manny Ramirez, The TwitPix of CarGoII reveal his enigmatic relationship with animals. Bear witness:


W/ Emú: Hunting buddy or future prey?

Emú, I will soon decide
to shoot you or make you
my friend.
So much depends on
whether you can smell better
animals than you
to eat
because if I shoot you
I will not want to eat
your nasty flesh —
your feathers are too sharp
to wear.
I have such smooth skin,
Emú.

So, what can you sniff,
coarse-wingéd friend?
Rabbit? Duck? Turkey or cow?
Tell me now, because too soon
what you sniff will be hot metal dust,
your own blood,
wasted meat,
champaign.

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Spotted: Soup Bones, Sans Dayn Perry


“Whither Dayn Perry?” America asks in unison.

Listeners of FanGraphs Audio will know — and not-listeners of FanGraphs Audio will be dressed down verbally beside all America’s office water coolers for not knowing — that frequent guest and 24-hour patriot Dayn Perry has made a habit, on that program, of referring to his fighting fists as “soup bones.” Among those upon whom Perry has threatened violence by way of soup bone are right-handed pitcher Roy Oswalt, FanGraphs writer Jeff Sullivan, and (if the author is remembering correctly) “all cowards.”

What concerned reader and U.S. ambassador to LOLs Les Carter has found, then, is of some note. In the photo here, submitted by same concerned reader, what we find are soup bones. What we don’t find, however, is Dayn Perry attached to one or the other end of those soup bones.

What we have here, reader, is a plot that’s thickening. At one point, there wasn’t a plot. And then there was a plot, but it was pretty thin by plot-standards. But now that same plot is thickening, like I say. After that, at this rate, it might become turgid. There might be a turgid plot in all out futures, is the point of this post.


Totally Unaltered Tweet: Nate McLouth Double Dare

The following tweet is entirely and in-no-way altered from the original (click to embiggen):


So No One Told You Life Was Gonna Be This Way

On a broad scale, Carlos Gomez and Manny Ramirez are very similar, in the fact that they both are one of the lucky few who get/got  to play baseball for a living. They were both born in the Dominican Republic, and they even play the same general position of outfield. However, if you zoom in strictly to the world of baseball players, Carlos Gomez and Manny Ramirez aren’t very similar at all. They are separated by thirteen years of age, 511 home runs, and probably around 40 pounds. They have never played on the same team, and have a moderate discrepancy in career salaries – somewhere around $201 million. Even in their tiny, inevitably-meaningless world, there aren’t a whole lot of reasons for Carlos Gomez and Manny Ramirez to, like, hang out.

And yet, Carlos Gomez and Manny Ramirez will not let social norms and societal precedents guide them. They will march to the beat of their own drummers. They will blaze their own trails, carve their own niches, answer to no one but themselves. They’re gonna get all Dead Poets Society up in this bitch. We are not their dads, and we can’t tell them what to do.

So, yeah, if Carlos Gomez and Manny Ramirez want to hang out, they will. If they want to go to what looks like some sort of quinceañera held in the unfinished back room of a banquet hall, they’re going to do it. If they want to pose for a blurry picture with a card table full of salads, baked beans, and what appears to be a slow-roasted human leg, they will, damn it. And if Carlos Gomez wants to tweet that picture, then no one is going to stop him. Because life is short. You should spend as much of it as you can at a cannibal party with players too washed-up to catch on with the Oakland A’s. Carpe diem, indeed, Carlos Gomez and Manny Ramirez. Let us all raise a glass to this most curious of friendships.


David Price Reverses Roles, Creeps on Fans

David Price is active on Twitter.

Today, one so-called “Italian” might be thinking that David Price is a little too active on twitter.


@LoTheGooner, the Innocent Creeped-Upon
(Photo Credit: David Price)

Mr. Price, this behavior is not becoming of a Cy Young Award winner, a professional athlete of your caliber, a man of your social standing and education, a specimen of your cut! 😉

How dare you violate the privacy of an everyday person! You, a professional athlete, whose privacy is surely never violated, pics of whose uniformed ass are surely never tweeted by common folk!

I think you should be stripped of your Cy Young Award, Mr. Price. In fact, I think you should be stripped and then photographed and then those photos should be tweeted to the whole world! Tit for tat! Next time let a Goon enjoy his Hollandaise-soaked crepes in peace, Mr. Price!

Rally the @LoTheGooners of the world! Take back Twitter from jerks like David Price! Huzzah and bully!


A Brief Interview with Zack Greinke’s Money

As noted by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s Tom Haudricourt on Tuesday in some number of characters fewer than 140, Zack Greinke’s decision to sign with the Los Angeles Dodgers — despite whatever affections the right-hander might have had for Milwaukee — was likely influenced by the giant, giant contract available to him from the coffers of that West Coast team. “Money talks,” Haudricourt writes starkly.

“What does it say, though?” the present author wondered idly — and then, owing to how he’s contractually obligated to produce content on a daily basis, imagined (poorly) in the style of a David Foster Wallace story.

***

As a concept, mostly. Trying to locate the actual physical me would be pretty difficult. Impossible, maybe? I don’t know. There’s an idea of me, only. An idea corroborated by the Federal Reserve, foreign exchanges, etc. Not only is it complicated, but I also explain it poorly.

Q.

He only just signed, of course, so I haven’t been distributed into his accounts — nor the accounts of his employer, even, the Dodgers. Nor, so long as we’re following the chain of supply backwards, the account of the Dodgers’ contractual partner, News Corp., from whom the bulk of me will come — so far as I understand, I mean. Ticket sales and merchandising, of course. That, too. I’m all over the place, really.

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Davey Johnson Pitches Idea for New Coen Bros. Film

Q. Describe the plot of a non-extant Coen Brothers film in fewer than 140 characters.

A. Ahem:


What the Tigers Should Do at the Winter Meetings

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Congratulations to Eno Sarros

Congratulations to FanGraphs’ Greekest contributor, Eno Sarros, on his admission to the Baseball Writers Association of America.