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Young Yu Darvish doesn’t know what all the fuss is about.

Young Yu Darvish lost his hemp necklace that time he was caught reading some poems he wrote to Kumiko in Yoyogi Park and they had to run away from her aunt. He went back to look for it, but only found her underwear.

Young Yu Darvish once did get caught that time he was smoking cigarettes in the pachinko parlor with Keiko. But he knew that all it would take to get excused without incident were some furrowed eyebrows and a firm “Su-Me-Ma-Sen.” He’s nothing if not polite.

He’s never seen a gyroball, but he’s thrown a gyrocutter before.

Young Yu Darvish was never the same as the other kids, but that’s on them.

Young Yu Darvish’s chain says “love” in Japanese. He has one that says “hate” in Persian that he wears sometimes when he’s feeling a little different. He tells people they both say “love.”

When John Legend says “This ain’t a movie no / No fairy tale conclusion y’all,” young Yu Darvish knows what he’s saying. Like, deep down in his soul. Also, he thinks it’s a great thing to say to girls in English when he’s breaking up with them.

Young Yu Darvish has only been learning the guitar for three days but can do a great “Sunbeam” already. One time he was playing it in Harajuku and a girl just slipped him her number and ran away giggling. He plans to keep playing guitar, but worries about his fingernails. He needs them for that knuckler that he’s working on.

A teacher once told young Yu Darvish that he had an old soul. Once everyone left the room, she also gave him his first kiss.

He once played hockey, for kicks, for a couple of years. They won a county championship. Young Yu Darvish then quit because he didn’t like the way the pads chafed.

Young Yu Darvish wonders what’s out there.

Favored first prodigies, creation’s darlings,
mountain ranges, peaks, dawn-red ridges
of all genesis, — pollen of a flowering godhead,
links of light, corridors, stairs, thrones,
spaces of being, shields of rapture, torrents
of unchecked feeling and then suddenly, singly
mirrors: scooping their outstreamed beauty
back into their peerless faces.
-Rainer Maria Rilke, from the Second Elegy
(translated by Edward Snow)

List from Score’s Baseball’s Hottest Rookies 1989-1990 Book & Card Set.
Words via Google search (“__________ is”).
Selected images chosen from the name’s GIS results.

Jim Abbott
Jim Abbott is NOT a newt.

Kent Anderson
Kent Anderson Is A Powerful Narrative Of Uncomfortable Circumstances.

Eric Anthony
Eric Anthony is no longer eating dairy.

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In 2002, I joined the Cuban national baseball team, and I was instantly a superstar. .324, 21 home runs, 82 RBI, and I even pitched in a game. I set seven rookie records. In my second season, I hit .391. Then they banned me for talking to an agent. I didn’t talk to an agent. But once they banned me, what choice did I have? Twelve times I tried to escape to the U.S. I ended up in jail. Finally, I got to Florida, but then I needed to establish foreign residency to avoid the MLB Draft, so I went to the Dominican Republic. The Angels scouted and signed me. The Dominican Republic delayed my paperwork. Finally, I was allowed to play ball in the U.S. And so what if they thought my name was Kendry instead of Kendrys? After all I risked to come here, what does one letter of my name really matter?

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Presented with limited commercial interruption:

It’s pretty obvious that Mo Rivera is a straight-up classy dude. He’s also aged well, beginning as a novice starter, and morphing into an established closer, if you know what I mean. And this picture oozes machismo, no?  Power khakis, power belt, power polo. Wind-up wrist watch. Oh-bay-bee.

So Mariano, I know your voice isn’t working so well. You had that surgery, and we’re all so happy you’re doing well. Allow me to play wing man here.

Any ladies want a dance with the relief Romeo? Step right up.

The Internet teaches us that A’s catcher Kurt Suzuki is attempting to gain weight this offseason by shoving down his gullet at least 4,000 calories each day. As Aaron pithily notes, Suzuki is being a crashing bore about the whole thing by choking down things like smoothies and turkey burgers. Clearly, Mr. Suzuki, in his bid to become larger and more in charger, needs some help.

So, in the interest of making Mr. Suzuki a more compelling Leisured Gentleman, we present these alternative routes to consuming four score and 3,920 calories in a day:

• – 34.5 Bud Light Limes (Bud Lights Lime?).
• – 61.5 shots of vodka.
• – Unlimited portions of intravenously applied Angel Dust/PCP, which might also help the hoisting gentleman in the gymnasium.
• – 2.2 pounds of deboned human flesh. To this end, some helpful Internet hotlinks!
• – By extension and in the service of a logical end-game, 2.2 pounds of deboned Nancy Grace cutlets.
• – 133.3 ladles-full of Old Country Buffet’s rabies-free chicken gravy.
• – 1.6 cans of snuff tobacco.
• – 33.3 tablespoons of motor oil vinaigrette.

So, Mr. Suzuki, as you can see there’s really no cause to soldier on with banalities like “vegetables” and “meats not likely to lead to a CDC-declared Hot Zone encircling the blast field.”

John Autin over at High Heat Stats Blog pointed out that the length of the average save is dwindling. Watch it disappear:

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Those of us who have been raised with the Internets in our mouths (or who have arrived at it later in life and still allowed it to ruin marriages and sundry other relationships) have come to expect these Internets to store and retrieve for us whatever the heck we want to look upon.

Expect the Internets to waste your time.

I assumed that the Carlos-Santana-(Cleveland-Catcher)-Carlos-Santana-(Guitar/Headwear-Prodigy) meme had been fully played out via the [potentially life-ruining] tandem of Photoshop and Blogger. Perhaps this is solipsistic, as I myself am have more than dabbled in said combo. Still, you think that a Google image search for “two carlos santanas” would return something better than this:

Sometimes, the Internets disappoint.

Really, Internets? REALLY? I guess the Baumer (that’s me) is going to have to step up yet again and start what you should have beaten dead long ago. Let’s get this trite: Read the rest of this entry »

ESPN reports that Greg Maddux will be joining the Rangers as a part-time special assistant.

From the article:

“I appreciate the Cubs and how they treated me,” Maddux said. “Now I’ll hopefully help the Rangers out. I’m really not ready to take anything full time anyway because retirement is too good. Whoever said they don’t like retirement probably isn’t doing it right.”

Or maybe they just didn’t earn $153,845,000 during their career, and get to retire before they’re 45. Good grief. If you can’t enjoy retirement with a hundred and fifty million dollars, then, sure, you’re probably not doing it right.

It’s common practice for one, when dancing, to shake what his mama gave him. If the video here — from a Detroit-area benefit held in August — is any indication, Tiger reliever Jose Valverde is the sort to shake not only what his mama gave him, but also quite a bit of what he’s given himself courtesy a diet rich in lipids.

Choreographed dance handshake for Jeff Zimmerman and, it appears, Twitter-er RationalSport.

That cheering you heard yesterday afternoon was my enthusiastic endorsement of the offer that was bringing one James Tiberius Patrick Quirk from Houston to become the bench coach for the Chicago Cubs.  What follows is a non-exhaustive and only partially untrue list of facts regarding Jamie Quirk, which should give you great joy:

1) Jamie Quirk was drafted in the first round of the 1972 draft by the Kansas City Royals, a full 35 spots before Gary Carter.  Then again, Jamie Quirk was drafted as a shortstop.

2) Jamie Quirk once high-fived Steve Balboni and the resulting explosion killed 4/5 of Kansas City’s population, turning it into a small market city.

3) Jamie Quirk is 6’4″ tall, and is tied for the 5th tallest player to catch more than 500 games.

4) Jamie Quirk never caught a game as a professional baseball player until he was 24 years old, and had already been in the Major Leagues for four seasons.  He ended up playing roughly five times as many games there as any other position.

5) Jamie Quirk is his own wingman.

6) Jamie Quirk played for eighteen seasons, and was worth more than one win above replacement in exactly two of them.

7) Jamie Quirk sired many beautiful babies all across this great land, but mostly during a five-game series in Montreal in 1983. That the Expos moved to Washington in 2003 is the only reason he’s agreed to return to coach in the National League.

8) Until Carlos Quentin came along, Jamie Quirk was the all time leader in home runs by a person whose name started with the letter Q.  Do with that information what you will.

9) Jamie Quirk ate chicken and drank beer in the clubhouse all the time, and no one cared. It’s not like they were going to put him in the game.

10) Jamie Quirk was allowed exactly one at bat with the Cleveland Indians franchise. In that at bat, he hit a walk-off homerun off of the bespectacled and mustachioed Ron Davis.  Afraid that Quirk might prove to be too great a competitive advantage, the Indians released him after the season.

11) Jamie Quirk was traded to the Brewers after 1976 with two other players for Darrell Porter, who lasted four years with the Royals and fetched a compensation pick for the club when he left as a free agent after 1980.  The Royals used that pick on Mark Gubicza, who was eventually traded for one year of Chili Davis.  The Royals got 65.6 WAR out of that deal over the next twenty-one seasons AND re-signed Jamie Quirk to his second of three stints as a Royal when he became a Free Agent after the season.

12) Jamie Quirk played from when he was 20 years old to when he was 37. Eighteen seasons.  In which he played in an average of less than 54 games played per season.  I wish I was a backup catcher.  God bless you, Jamie Quirk.  You’re living the dream for all of us.