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Given that yesterday was the day that baseball began on this continent, it may come as no surprise to the reader that I dreamt of baseball last night. Sweet, sweet baseball. Honey-glazed baseball. Baseball, beer-battered and dipped in cocktail sauce. Baked-Alaska baseball, burning for me. Food metaphor. Baseball.

My subconscious, apart from being hungry, was aware of the outfield situation in Boston, at least in part*. The situation being that Grady Sizemore played his way into the opening day position most of us assumed would go to Jackie Bradley, Jr. While my conscious self produces little sympathy for JBJ, given that he still does baseball as the thing that earns him money, it seems my sub-conscious swung perhaps too far in the other direction last night, producing a scene closely resembling this here rapidly repeating GIF:

The slightly less crisp but emotion-laden version that occurred in my sleeping brain lasted about as long one run of the above GIF, yet felt like it lasted much longer. Perhaps three or four consecutive loops of the above GIF. The dream then morphed abruptly into me trying to tie someone else’s shoelaces at Fenway Park. Because my subconscious doesn’t bother with where games are played.

*It/I did not know that Shane Victorino got injured, and that JBJ was called up for yesterday’s game.

1. Casey Janssen. Placed on the DL yesterday, after recovering enough from his earlier injury to appear in back-to-back games and not be able to have his DL stint backdated. Janssen will be replaced as the Blue Jays closer by Sergio Santos, who will likely never give the job back, costing Janssen millions of dollars as he goes from “proven closer” riches to “fungible reliever” pennies.

2. J.P. Arencibia. At least as a backup he had a chance of small sample size lucking him into nice-looking stats that would make it seem like he still knows how to hit the baseball. As a starter, less likely.

3. Daisuke Matsuzaka. 25 Ks in 23.2 spring innings, and a ticket to AAA. At least it’s Las Vegas. Then again, last time I was in Vegas, someone stabbed me in my hotel bathtub and stole my kidney. (Joke’s on them– that wasn’t my kidney.)

4. Bobby Abreu. Too young for the Phillies. Oh well. Rumored to be offered a minor league deal by the Mets, which makes him particularly unlucky this week.

5. Mike Jirschele. 36 years in the minors and now he gets to be a coach… for the Royals. Maybe Hopeless Joe should be Hopeless Mike. (Serious note: if you haven’t read ESPN’s piece about Jirschele and his journey, do that now. Best piece I’ve read all month, at least.)

The Tigers, as you know, signed Miguel Cabrera to a very long contract for a very large amount of money, and while I don’t think it’s the epic mistake of titanic proportions that most of the Internet seems to, I have to admit that it will almost certainly not look good by the last 3-4 years of the deal. But I think as long as TV revenue keeps rising and the Tigers keep putting butts in the seats of Comerica Park (acknowledging that their ability to compete might be hampered by the extra long and expensive Cabrera extension), it won’t be a disaster for the club.

But as I hinted above, the majority feels like the deal is an atrocity somewhere between the rollout of SimCity last year and Idi Amin’s reign in Uganda during the 1970s. Nobody, however, has taken the news harder than the anonymous executives who have been talking to Buster Olney, who would also like you to know he is the victim of your racism.

These executives, according to Olney, are “appalled,” “disgusted,” and “aghast” at the Cabrera contract. This is kind of a higher level of moral outrage than I would expect from around a league that continues to say nothing about the continued employment of Josh Lueke. For let us not forget that, while Miguel Cabrera has been given all of MLB’s money, taking it from the starving mouths of the children of MLB’s owners, who only collectively earned $450 million in revenue last year, Josh Lueke raped a woman. Just so we’re clear, this is the reference scale to tell your run-of-the-mill outrage from that which inspires anonymous MLB executives to trip over each other to get to Buster Olney and titter and gossip away like a cast member of The Hills: Read the rest of this entry »

The Washington Post discusses Bryce Harper’s diet. Mostly healthy, except:

“I mean, I’m not perfect,” Harper said, laughing as he sat in the Washington Nationals’ dugout this week. “I eat ice cream all the time. Outside of that, I’m going to be smart.”

Clearly, a Ben & Jerry’s opportunity here. So… what should Bryce Harper’s flavor be?

1. Bryce Pudding. Vanilla ice cream with a rice pudding swirl and cinnamon-fudge-coated raisins.

2. Sugar ‘n Bryce. Sweet cream ice cream with gingerbread spice cookie chunks and an eye-black lico-Bryce swirl.

3. Bryce Cream Cake. Cake batter ice cream with red, white, and blue Washington Nationals uniform-color cake bits and a buttercream frosting swirl.

4. Bryce Krispie Treat. Vanilla ice cream with a marshmallow swirl and chocolate-covered Rice Krispie Treat chunks.

Okay, now I’m hungry. Someone please help make this happen.

KISSIMMEE, Fla. — Leaking out of Houston’s spring camp this week was the news that top draft pick Mark Appel is perfecting a never-before-seen pitch — one that could do no less than revolutionize the sport, say awed observers.

“It’s insane,” said a source, who preferred to remain anonymous. “He controls the ball with his freaking mind. It rises up out of his pitching hand and floats to the plate on its own. He’s already getting all kinds of movement on it — now he’s working on spins. Once he’s got it down it’s going to be completely unhittable.”

Though Christy Mathewson was said to be secretly working on such a pitch in his later years, no pitcher is known to have successfully executed it in a big-league game.

“Leave it to the Stanford kid to pull this [stuff] on us,” said the source, who claimed that during practice Appel had struck out 37 consecutive batters, and then “willed” a ball into Jose Altuve’s pants.

Hi Randy,

How’s it going? Remember that contract you signed? The one that offered you a chance to write for NotGraphs and said that we’d try you out this spring and if we liked your stuff, we’d give you a million dollars? Guess what? We like your stuff! Welcome to the team. Just give me a call about some details. Thanks.

Best,
Jack Z., guest editor, NotGraphs

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I present these Instructional Figures without comment, in the trust that anyone wishing for baseballing betterment may profit thereby.

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You, reader, may well have been to a baseball game at least once in your life. And you, reader, may well have also bought tickets for a home opener. Doing such a thing in your United States of America or Rob Ford’s Toronto, is usually a matter of being next to an Internet-enabled computing machine, going to the team’s Web site, being redirected to some sort of page operated by the Master of Tickets, and doing the do with your credit card and a printer.

For a Mexican home opener, or partido inaugural should you feel inclined to use the local phrase, things can be done that way, but only if you are a) the owner of a credit card, and b) said credit card is from a Mexican bank. Many people are not owners of credit cards. I am not the owner of a Mexican credit card. My credit card was issued by a bank in Her Majesty’s Greatest of the Britains. Thus on Monday morning, at the ungodly hour of 9.15 a.m., I awoke from my delightful slumber, drank a cup of coffee, did not shower, put on the previous day’s clothes, brushed my teeth (I’m not a complete monster), wrapped some headphones around my unkempt hair, pressed play on my iPod, and walked out onto the very streets of this Mexico City, listening to the highly enjoyable BBC Radio Five Live programme, the Danny Baker Show, intent on buying tickets for the above-mentioned partido.

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While it has focused on expanding the appeal of the game both internationally and to various segments of the American population, Major League Baseball has always been careful to not alienate its most loyal and prized demographic, dad-shirt wearing suburbanite people like myself. Therefore, it has cultivated an air of respectability, aggressively going after PED users, taking steps to end home plate collisions, keeping Jamie Moyer around as long as humanly possible. But baseball is not alone in coveting my demo, and the NFL especially has been trying to poach fans by actively blanding down their hyper-violent game to make it more palatable to “ketchup-is-too-a-spice” types such as myself. Eventually, Baseball had to respond or risk losing me and my ilk to games that seemed “safer.”

Not to be outdone by the NFL’s new rules banning “dunking” over the goalpost, Major League Baseball announced today the following 10 changes to the game:

1)      Butt slaps are heretofore banned, and any uniformed personnel engaging in butt slaps, smacks, taps, touches, or gentle caresses on the field of play or in the dugout is automatically ejected from the game.

2)      High fives are only allowed after successful sacrifice bunts, groundouts resulting in a run scoring, or sacrifice fly. After a home run, players are to be given the silent treatment for at least three innings. No fist bumps. God help you if you fist bump.

3)      Uniform tops are to remain buttoned all the way up, and tucked neatly into pants. Socks must be visible to the mid-calf or higher. Stirrups are encouraged.

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UPDATE: Yeah, too soon.

Aroldis Chapman is not super-seriously hurt and will likely return to the field this season–perhaps as soon as May. This is great! Baseball and all human people are better off with him being not seriously hurt. This news also allows guilt-free enjoyment of the following low-quality GIF: Noted deadpan master Steven Wright striking Chapman in the face with a one-liner.

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