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Dan Reichert is and always has been a trendsetter.  In 1997, he was the first of eight consecutive first-round picks deployed by the Kansas City Royals on starting pitchers.  In 2008 he became the first Southern Maryland Blue Crab to have his contract purchased by a major league club.  (He never made it back to the bigs.)  And now Dan Reichert is at the head of a new fad: abandoning one’s own name, likely because of espionage.

The 34 year-old righty, who hasn’t been in the majors since 2003, signed a contract with the Uni-Presdient 7-Eleven Lions of the Chinese Professional Baseball League of Taiwan (league motto: Nice Play).  He was cut before the season, but renegotiated a week later for a reported $9,000 a month.  Thus far in the 2011 season, his Lions are in first place (out of four teams) and he leads the league with 8 wins and a 2.39 ERA.  He also sports a 62.8% GB% in 83 innings.

But what’s interesting about Dan Reichert is that he’s no longer Dan Reichert.  The CPBL, in an effort to acclimate foreign-born players to the local fan base, provide these gentlemen with new monikers on the back of their jerseys.  Reichert, for reasons that do not officially exist, goes by “Robert 38”.

I searched for Robert 38’s performance on the CPBL website, enlisting the feckless aid of the Google Chrome translation feature.  Doing so provided me with the greatest box score of all time:
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As if God smiled upon the diamond that day.

Lighting is an integral yet understated part of baseball. Sandlot ball depends on daylight, and the major leagues are bathed in fluorescence. The journey from one to the other is graded in a way that might just be unique to the sport. Basketball is forever indoor, and even a rec league can play on a well-lit court. Hockey requires an indoor space most of the time, and even my high school’s three-walled court was all up in the lights. Friday Night Lights might suggest that football has some things in common with baseball, but most football games are still day games.

Looking at this picture, it seems that the graded transition that the professional baseball player undergoes throughout his journey mimics the same transition that the sport made as a whole. Ted Williams played in the first decade after the first night game on May 24, 1935, when the Cincinnati Reds beat the Philadelphia Phillies 2-1 at Crosley Field. His time produced these dusty and dark images dripping with nostalgia. The angles and the shadows recall the chiaroscuro of black and white films. Call it the Noire period, about a decade early.

Fast forward to our time and our iconic, stark and well-lit images. Just a couple weeks ago, a game between the Giants and the Cardinals was delayed 14 minutes when merely one of the many banks of lights at Busch Stadium went out. Though the field looked well-lit to any sandlot player, the players had to wait, confused, as the stadium tried to rectify the issue. The play-by-play men joked that everyone could see fine and was ready to put this extra-inning game to bed. Conspiracy theories of icing the closer were bandied about. Most any whiffle ball player would have shrugged and thrown the next pitch.

We’ve come a long way, baby. Right?

Thanks to Brendan Bilko and his tumblr that pointed to 90 Feet of Perfection

As everyone knows, there are just five laws of the universe, which, of course, is the same number of people you meet in Heaven. Anyhow, one of those laws, handed down on ancient papyrus, is that, “Tailing fastballs, regardless of velocity and action, shall not — indeed, shan’t — saw off an aluminum bat.”

For eons, we as a stinking people have ordered our lives around this simple principle. Yesterday, however, our notions of the provably true and demonstrably false were beaten savagely about the head, neck, face, chest, and rascal basket. It turns out, given the proper confluence of absurd events, aluminum bats can, in point of fact, be obliterated by a hellbent two-seamer.

If that doesn’t send the physicists scurrying like a bunch of frightened Jason Tyners, then I don’t know what will.

(Tip of my newly vulnerable aluminum hat: Big League Stew)

Let’s get a few things straight:  Upstate New York grows great apples. Upstate New York has vibrant rolling hills. And upstate New York is one of the only places you’ll find apple cider donuts (seriously, if you see one, grab it, they’re awesome). What upstate New York isn’t known for is producing athletes with fantasy team relevance.

This year, showing a clear lack of respect for tradition, Casper Wells is defying that trend. At this point I should probably apologize to the Capital Region’s Tim Stauffer, Brendan Harris and John Lannan. And I should also clarify “upstate” to mean Albany/the tri-city region, so that none of you smarty pants’ can point out that Joe Nathan is technically from upstate.

So, with great pride and a sense of James Lipton on Bradley Cooper, I present to you, the second installment of Inside The Baseball Studio (a project where I ask actual “Inside The Actor Studio” questions to actual ballplayers and get their real answers). Tonight we have the 518’s very own…Casper Wells….

He’d like me to start this with the preface that many of his answers are tailored to fit baseball…

1. What is your favorite word?

Uhhh, Tight?.. (Valverde’s) is probably “shut up.”  [as Valverde walks by,]

2. What is our least favorite word?

Can’t.

3. What turns you on?

What turns me?! Hitting baseballs solid.

4. What turns you off?

Umm, these are all pertaining to baseball, just so you know… probably striking out.

5. What sound do you love?

The ball hitting the bat.

6. What sound do you hate?

These aren’t cliche answers either. These are honest answers…What sound do I hate? Babies crying.

7. What is your favorite curse word?

I don’t even know if I should answer that one…but if others have said that one (f*ck) I’ll go with it. That’s a good one.

8. What profession other than yours would you like to attempt?

I’d definitely like to be in film or television somehow. I went to school for that so I would want to be involved in television or film, probably living out here (Los Angeles). I’d do a little producing and acting. I mean, I have had experience, minimal, but I’ve been around the acting world. I’ve had some success with my acting abilities with the little experience I’ve had. So that’s something I’d like to dabble with if I wasn’t playing baseball.

9. What profession would you not like to do?

I would not want to work retail.

10. If heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the pearly gates?

I’ve been waiting a long time for you, now enjoy paradise.

And you’re too late – Eduardo Nunez is on the way.

Okay, enough with the Bon Jovi crap. It’s really the wrong music for this GIFtasm from River Avenue Blues. More likely, you have circus music going through your head as you appreciate the beauty that is the infield-single-man-down. Though circus music doesn’t quite provide the correct background for the violence that was done to Ramiro Pena. Maybe something booming and a little whimsical. Maybe dancehall?

Also, whatever the soundtrack, this seems like a uniquely baseballish event. Maybe it’s just getting caught up in the glory, but doesn’t baseball seem like the best place to find iconic moments like this? I’m thinking of that baseball bouncing out of Ryan Raburn’s glove, or the time Jose Canseco brained the ball over the wall, or maybe even that bird Randy Johnson killed.

Baseball: where ridiculous happens more often than any other sport.

H/T: Jonah Keri

Listed as: Lot 26: “Bay Bombers” Original Painting by Ron Lewis

Soooo. I know you’ve been trying to figure out what to get me for my birthday. And, these days it’s not even that easy for me to figure out what I want. We are no longer in the halcyon days of my youth. Those days, I just filled in the blank with the newest King’s Quest, Space Quest, or boxed set of baseball cards. Those days, I was so sure of what I wanted for the next special occasion that I pretty much had a running list in my head.

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Steamy. Pause.

The parallels are not obvious. Roberto Clemente was Puerto Rican, Elvis was Mississippian. Clemente played baseball, Elvis played rock and roll. Clemente had 3,000 hits on the nose, Elvis more like 26 of the #1 variety. The baseball player was known for his all-around solid game and humanitarian missions to his home land. The rock star was known for his brilliant voice, terrible movies and rampant drug abuse. No, they don’t seem very similar.

But take a look at this picture, and there’s some of the same heat that you get from a young Elvis. Look at the screaming women. Look at the slightly parted lips. Look at the (feigned?) indifference. Feel the confidence exuding from Clemente’s look. Feel the fire.

Then watch this video. Is there nothing these two icons have in common other than dying young within five years of each other? Consider this diptych homage a humble argument that there is, at least superficially, something in common between the young King and the young Sweetness. Even if it is only the adoration of women everywhere.

H/T to Plumb in the Uprights

It’s time for another installment of “Shorter Baseball Columnists,” in which we read mainstream baseball columnists and marginalized bloggers like Murray Chass so you don’t have to! Let us begin!

Mike Lupica: I’m not sure if you realize this, but the Mets haven’t always been terrible.

Filip Bondy: I’m not sure if you realize this, but David Wright has an injured back.

Nick Cafardo: I got some sources on the horn and talked to them about passion.

Bruce Jenkins: Buster Posey made the Royals lose.

Jon Heyman: There’s a Moneyball movie coming out, which makes me wonder what Billy Beane will do about Bob Geren.

Paul Daugherty: I have a number of suggestions, most not very serious, that should help the Reds’ pitchers throw more strikes.

Dayn Perry: You might find this hard to believe, but sometimes roster decisions don’t entirely work out.

The “Shorter” approach to Internetty commentary traces back, as best as one can tell, to Daniel Davies.

The Seattle Mariners have had, what poets have deigned, a “turd-tastic” decade. This however, has not stopped them from having fun. Behold! The great Seattle Mariners Commercials!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pf_HoE-mRoQ
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The MLB is trying to just pass this off as just another item of Philadelphia baseball merchandise, part of their Stars and Stripes collection. But, if we look closely — OK, really not that closely — we can see the message they’re truly trying to send:

Phil Lies. If you know somebody named Phil, they’re probably lying to you right now. He might say that he’s not. But that’s just one of those old-fashioned Phil lies.