It must be the offseason, because this is a top headline on Fox Sports.
Coming up later this week:
MICHAEL BRANTLEY BRUSHES HIS TEETH
RYAN ZIMMERMAN USES SHAMPOO… AND CONDITIONER
SHANE VICTORINO GOES #2
and
MIKE TROUT IS STILL BREATHING
Last week, I bestowed on you the right to subvert Major League Baseball’s stupid Face of MLB twitter contest and choose the real face of Major League Baseball. While the correct choice would have been to refuse to participate in the sham of a democratic process where your candidates were selected for you, and the only real option was preordained, the plurality of you voted for Deranged Joe Mauer. That, I suppose is, is the best non-correct option, so good for the minority of you who acted appropriately and can now, therefor, impose your will on the masses.
Deranged Joe Mauer is the current face of Major League Baseball! Huzzah, I guess.
But, of course, Deranged Joe Mauer has only been the face of baseball for the last few years. There are literally at least a dozen years where he was not even born and people were playing the game. Who was the face of baseball then?
Fortunately, this does not require your input, which would be garbage. The enlightened despot, who has long existed in my imagination, has chosen for you as a means to demonstrate both his benevolence and God-given mandate to lead. For who can deny a leader this wise, kind, and handsome? His choices, dear friends, begin with the start of the World Series era and mark the most important face in the sport. The title belongs to that player for as long as he is in the league, and then passes on to the holder, except for John Martina in 1924, who wrested the title away from Babe Ruth by force (you will see why), and then returned it the following year:
Below is a map of the Roman Empire upon which are pasted the logos of all 30 Major League Baseball teams. Where they are located on the map corresponds to cities of the Roman Empire. Each city’s distance from Rome in travel days is roughly equivalent to the chance each team has of making the playoffs in 2014. The image is entirely embiggenable and is really only understood in an embiggened state.
“Skip” James was a difficult, haunted man who was torn—like many Southerners, black and white—between the Devil’s music and God’s word. He sounded like someone possessed, a one-man Southern Gothic drama…In a way, James’ story is the truest story of the blues: He led an open wound of a life, and all he got for it was minor-league, post-mortem stardom.
No one knows what to expect from Jose Abreu. Certainly I do not know what to expect from him. Thus, this post is not about his fantasy value, or his fantasy projections. It is merely a fantasy about Jose Abreu.
Jose Abreu will arrive at spring training riding a unicorn.
He will bring pasteles for his teammates, filled with guava paste and cream cheese. They will look at them strangely and throw them in the trash.
He will swing three bats at once. One of them will be carved from the arm of Fidel Castro. Another will be carved from the arm of Raul Castro. The third will be carved from the arm of Juan Castro.
He will hit twelve home runs during spring training.
I will draft him. So will you.
Those are the last twelve home runs he will ever hit.
Because the unicorn will eat him.
Slate has an article about William Edward White, the first black major leaguer, who played in one game in 1879 and lived his life as a white man. It’s an interesting piece, even though his family didn’t even know he played major league baseball, and it’s not clear he even thought of himself as black…
But it doesn’t compare to the saga of Harold Partridge Outfielder, baseball’s first infielder, who lived his entire life believing he was playing the outfield. See, Harold was born in 1652, and was taught that the outfield started just behind second base — and that from there to the lip of the grass was in fact outfield, not infield. So when Outfielder played a deep second base, he believed he was acting as an outfielder, not as an infielder. He played one inning for the New Amsterdam Van Stuyvesants in 1675 and then fell victim to dropsy and was never heard from again. His existence will always be merely a footnote to a footnote to a footnote in major league history. But his legacy lives on here, in the virtual pages of NotGraphs.
Also, he was a gay Jewish woman.
I remain horrified by the ongoing ravages of unchecked democracy today, as I peruse the latest results of MLB’s profoundly stupid Face of MLB Twitter contest. Not only has Arizona turned out in overwhelming numbers to allow Paul Goldschmidt to roundly trounce Mike Trout, but now he’s got a good lead on Joey Votto.
While the Goldschmidt campaign seems to have the momentum of a runaway freight train (even as he may be contaminating the planet in a manner that may one day render it uninhabitable), and may very well be primed to go all the way to the end, there are several faces that the voters, in their infinite wisdom don’t even get to consider. All of them would be far better choices than anyone still alive in the tournament (Eric Sogard? Puh-lease!)
Here now is where I turn the choosing of the alternative face of Major League Baseball over to you, the people, so you can demonstrate what a terrible decision I have made and provide more evidence as to why democracy debases us all and brings even the greatest man low.
A few weeks ago I had you vote for a pseudometric I should create. It’s purpose would be to measure something purposeless. You, the doe-eyed reader, eagerly clicked your favorite meaningless metrics into existence, creating a three-way tie between MOIST, xBEPHYRGROTHHx and 2COOL. Last week I presented MOIST and this week I present xBEPHYRGROTHHx. I must warn you, gentle reader, that this gets weird. But you could have guessed that, since the initial idea for xBEPHYRGROTHHx is as follows:
Answers the question, “Which Major Leaguers would make a pleasing sacrifice to the Demon Lord xBEPHYRGROTHHx?” Players are credited for their potential to scream, writhe, and beg while chained to the Sacrificial Dais of OOberDROOOG, as well as for the volume, viscosity and arterial spurtability of the ballplayer’s blood.
If that’s what you’re into!!! BECAUSE I AM.
Read the rest of this entry »
It is noteworthy that the sulfonamids, penicillin, came in about simultaneously with Ted Williams, Ralph Kiner and the rubber ball. We want home runs, antibiotics to “cure” man with a single shot in the buttocks.
– William Carlos Williams, “Autobiography”
Sorry, I guess it’s Globe Life, not Glob Life. In either case, we here sitting in front of my computer writing this NotGraphs post do not find this name appealing in any way at all. Apparently the previous sponsor of the Rangers’ ballpark was Ameriquest (although we here in front of my computer do not remember ever knowing this), until Ameriquest, “a major subprime lender… fired thousands of employees and paid $325 million in settlements over claims of deceptive lending practices.” That certainly bodes well for you, Glob Life.
The Dallas Morning News, desperately seeking some sparkly modern interactive content for its website, is running a poll asking its readers whether they like the name Globe Life Park in Arlington. As of this writing, 87.07% say no, and 12.93% say yes. It is unclear to 100% of the people writing this post who the 12.93% are who (a) like the name Globe Life Park in Arlington, and (b) are so enthusiastic about it that they decided to click yes on this poll on the Dallas Morning News website.
I was hoping one of these voters would leave a comment, but, alas, I don’t see a place for comments underneath the poll. Instead, I’ve decided to make one up. Here are a few imaginary voters, explaining their imaginary yes votes.
I’m actually a customer of Globe Life Insurance, and I like to be reminded that my family is protected in the event of my death every time I go see a Rangers game.
I’ve actually been thinking about buying life insurance, ever since we went out to a bar with Tanner Scheppers and got sucker-punched. I didn’t know where to turn. Now I know.
I’m always looking for my new insurance company on a sign at the baseball games I attend. Thanks, Globe Life– you have a new customer.
Globe Life Park is the perfect name for the stadium of my favorite team, the Globe Trotters.
Perfect name. Ever since my house was foreclosed upon by Ameriquest, I have been living on the street — or, as one might say, on the globe. So Globe Life describes my situation perfectly.
I like the name — just not sure which globe they’re referring to.
