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It is difficult to present the following observations about Rob Deer’s twitter account without coming off as glib or ironic or even snarky. However, because the author was once dubbed NotGraph’s Most Earnest Contributor (an award for which he is still awaiting the accompanying commemorative plaque), said author hopes that readers will take his word for it when he writes that all of the following observations served to rekindle and then deepen his appreciation for Rob Deer, ballplayer and human being. Additionally, the author hopes that the below observations have a similar effect on readers.

@Warrior1Yoga for real ! but I still don't know this twitter thing

— Rob Deer (@RobDeer45) April 16, 2014

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This didn’t start out as an idea for a post. But thanks, Internet.

Hello and welcome to another episode of Barreling It with Giancarlo Stanton. Alright Giancarlo, ready to play?

Here’s the question. It’s the top of the 1st inning. It’s a tie game. There’s two men on and you’re in a 2-1 count. Stephen Strasburg throws you an 88 MPH pitch in your wheelhouse. What do you do?

GS: “I think the answer is Barrel It.”

That is correct. Join us next time for another episode of Barreling It with Giancarlo Stanton.

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Time for the Braves to cut Dan Uggla

– David Schoenfield

However, if you do not obey Dan Uggla and do not carefully follow all his commands and decrees I am giving you today, all these curses will come on you and overtake you:

Dan Uggla will send on you curses, confusion and rebuke in everything you put your hand to, until you are destroyed and come to sudden ruin because of the evil you have done in forsaking him. He will plague you with diseases until he has destroyed you from the land you are entering to possess. He will strike you with wasting disease, with fever and inflammation, with scorching heat and drought, with blight and mildew, which will plague you until you perish. The sky over your head will be bronze, the ground beneath you iron. He will turn the rain of your country into dust and powder; it will come down from the skies until you are destroyed.

He will cause you to be defeated before your enemies. You will come at them from one direction but flee from them in seven, and you will become a thing of horror to all the kingdoms on earth. Your carcasses will be food for all the birds and the wild animals, and there will be no one to frighten them away. He will afflict you with the boils of Egypt and with tumors, festering sores and the itch, from which you cannot be cured. Dan Uggla will afflict you with madness, blindness and confusion of mind. At midday you will grope about like a blind person in the dark.

– Uggleronomy 28:15-29

Rise up!
Or rather
get out of bed
you lout
it is 1:30 in the afternoon
on a Tuesday
and you do not work
third shift

but also because
Rob Deer (@RobDeer45)
is now following you on Twitter!

Make yourself
some breakfast
you turd
and make it a good one
with cage free
vegetarian eggs
a nice bacon
alternative
something you can really
Instagram
you piece of––
because you are alive
and you can
still chew your food
because it is your birthday

and also because
Rob Deer (@RobDeer45)
is now following you on Twitter!

Hey you
crud-thumping
anxiety magician
it is time
are you ready
for good things to happen
for the possibility
of Rob Deer (@RobDeer45)
engaging in abusive behavior
on Twitter
for the regime change
for all of your
favorite snacks?

Mobilize already!
Take a walk or something
with your smartphone
emblazoned in front of you
the fact that Rob Deer (@RobDeer45)
is now following you on Twitter
will shield you from
whatever the capitalist pigs
that also follow you on Twitter
will throw your way.

Take the bull by the horns
and make lemonade
for you have lived to see another
afternoon, to take another
walk with your smartphone, to
swallow more fake
bacon, to gaze into your
inbox once more––

and what an inbox it is!
telling you of steals and deals
and deaths and
among other things
that Rob Deer (@RobDeer45)
is now following you on Twitter!

You odoriferous speck
of taint waste.

Introductory Question: Why is this game different from all other games? (That is, why do you have to watch this one?)

1. Why during all other games do you root for the Mets, but this one you are rooting against them? (Answer: Someone on my fantasy team is pitching against them.)

2. Why at all other times you eat all kinds of vegetables but while watching a baseball game you want a hot dog? (Answer: Because baseball tastes better with a hot dog.)

3. Why at all other times can you pay attention to the world around you, but while watching a game, it’s like the rest of the world doesn’t exist? (Answer: Shhh! The pitcher has a no-hitter going.)

4. Why at all other times can you sit on the couch like a normal person, but once the game is past the 7th inning, you lie down like a lazy dog? (Answer: I am sleepy. Watching a baseball game is hard work.)

Rob Neyer has a wonderful article on Fox Sports about the Rolaids Relief award and the hard times it has fallen upon. Here’s a completely disjointed pull quote:

In 2006, though, the Rolaids brand was acquired by Johnson & Johnson, which deemphasized the promotion… [in 2010] Rolaids were recalled, “following an investigation of consumer reports of an unusual moldy, musty, or mildewlike odor… nausea, stomach pain, vomiting and diarrhea.” … [Heath Bell said] “[s]o after I won in 2009 and didn’t get a trophy, in ’10 I asked about it and they said, ‘No, they’re not doing that any more.’

Reminds me of the fictional saga of the Vioxx VORP award, which started back in 1906 to honor the player with the highest VORP, awarding them a large gold pill. And then, nearly 100 years later, in 2004 when Merck recalled Vioxx for causing heart attacks and strokes… the large gold pills were gone. Much to the disappointment of Barry Bonds, who in 2004 wanted one more large pill to place on his mantel. [Insert Barry Bonds / pill joke here.]

This is Daniel Watts. His name will be unfamiliar to you. One reason for that is that he plays High-A ball for the Visalia Rawhide. But there is another, more sinister reason.

Odds are, you have run across someone named Watts. There were 86,000 of them in these United States, at last count. The redoubtable Anglo-Scottish surname comes in at #324 on the list of most frequent American surnames, ahead of such commonplace handles as Norris, Vaughn, Terry, and Bush. By sheer chance, at least five Wattses ought to have appeared in the major leagues by now. Yet no Watts ever has.

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Andrew Cashner – mugshot of a mullet pic.twitter.com/RUTkJc2unJ

— CJ Fogler (@cjzero) March 31, 2014

I think his fantasy ceiling just collapsed.