Have you seen this new Royals billboard? Shameful. Not only are they cheap with their payroll, but apparently they’re too cheap to afford to cover an entire billboard. This is ridiculous. What’s next? Hot dogs at Kauffman Stadium with a bite taken out of them? Seats with no backs? Beer with no foam?
Oh, it’s supposed to be like that?
Then, actually, I kind of love it.
I have long graced these pages with the undeniable truth that democracy stinks like the cheeses in Cistulli’s beloved France. When the unwashed masses are prompted to express themselves via a voting mechanism, we wind up with Taylor Hicks as our American Idol, a fourth Transformers movie, and Paul Goldschmidt beating Mike Trout in the Face of MLB contest (seriously). It is inexcusable that, despite its almost constant failure, we keep turning to this outmoded form of decision making thrust upon us by the most conquerable ancient Greeks and a bunch of Founding Fathers who were never around while we were growing up.
As ever before, would we just put ourselves into the hands of a benevolent despot, all would be incense and peppermints.
Alas, my message seems not to be penetrating your stupid eardrums. Even my colleagues, like very important Internet baseball writer and editor of The Hardball Times Paul Swydan, have turned against me. Today, Swydan advocates that you use your sausage-like fingers to caress your oily mouse (note: not a euphemism) in order to navigate your browsers away from the images of sausage-like fingers caressing an oily mouse (note: euphemism) to vote for the SABR Analytics Conference Research Awards:
REMINDER — Vote for @fangraphs & @Hardball_Times writers for the @sabr research awards: http://t.co/TRsUkkmjqB
— Paul Swydan (@Swydan) February 5, 2014
Not only does Swydan want you to exercise your questionable judgment to distinguish between five different articles in three distinct categories, none of the fine work you see in NotGraphs has been chosen for this year’s conference.
What I remember was sheer adulation. There was one girl who worked in the Kansas City Royals office who had what we would now call a large reaction to George Brett. Her eyes melted just gazing at him. He had star power.
Does the mere sight of George Brett cause you to develop hives, wheezing, or hot flashes? Do you have to leave the room during reruns of the 1985 World Series? Does the mention of “pine tar” induce an unaccountable burning in your loins? If so, you may suffer from LRGB (Large Reaction to George Brett). The good news is that you are not alone: LRGB afflicts an estimated 15 million Americans! Though some display no visible symptoms and can be treated with simple lifestyle changes, for others life with LRGB is a continual battle and requires careful, vigilant attention.
Greg:
Greg with a miniature head:
… and trapezius implants.
…and clear, shameful evidence of amateur photoshopping.
All four burners are on, so it’s an exciting day here on the Hot Stove Report. In a non-stick pan on the front left burner are three thick-cut slices of brioche, dipped in an egg batter enriched with milk, sugar, cinnamon, and just a splash of vanilla extract. In a pot right next to it, a cup of raisins being plumped up in a maple-fortified sugar syrup. We’re letting that reduce while we deal with some sides in the back. On the left rear burner, some spinach is being wilted down with butter, a pinch of nutmeg, and — secret ingredient — a tablespoon of miso paste. And on the back right, carrots sliced on the bias, glazing in some of that very same raisin-maple mixture cooking down just in front of it, with a handful of chopped pickled chili peppers for heat and some basil and a handful of roasted pecans thrown in at the last minute.
Now did someone say something about Emilio Bonifacio, or should we just eat?
Last week, I challenged you to come up with some Hall of Fame cap ideas for Greg Maddux. Vote for your favorite!
1. 
2. 
3. 
4. 
5. 
6. 
Scene: October 2013
Twins owner Jim Pohlad sits in his spacious Target Field office with superstar baseball player and shampoo salesman Joe Mauer, team manager and probable garden gnome Ron Gardenhire, and general manager/R. Lee Ermy stand-in Terry Ryan. They are discussing Mauer’s offseason plans.
Pohlad: Mr. Mauer, I don’t suppose they told you anything in Minneapolis about the tragedy we had up at my family’s hunting lodge up here in the Iron Range of northern Minnesota during the winter of 1994 and 1995?
Mauer: I don’t believe they did.
Pohlad: My predecessor in this job, my father, left a man named Shane Mack was the winter caretaker. And he came up here with his wife and his two little girls, who were, I think about 8 or 7. And from what I’ve been told, he seemed like a completely normal outfielder. But at some point during the winter, he must have suffered some kind of a complete mental breakdown. He ran amuck and…uh…killed his family with an ax. Stacked them neatly in one of the rooms in the west wing and then he, he put both barrels of a shot gun in his mouth.
Mauer: Well, that is quite a story, and it certainly explains why nothing has been seen or heard from him since. You can rest assured Mr. Ullman, that’s not going to happen to me.
Pohlad: The winters can be fantastically cruel. And the basic idea is to cope with the very costly damage and depreciation which can occur. Physically, it’s not a very demanding job. The only thing that can get a bit trying up here during the winter is, uh, a tremendous sense of isolation.
Mauer: Well, that just happens to be exactly what I’m looking for. I’m learning to play first base, and five months of peace is just what I want.
Pohlad: That’s good Joe, because for some people, solitude and isolation can, of itself, become a problem.
Cut to February 2014
I made MOIST this week. It has nothing to do with rain, tears, or panties, but everything to do with sweat. Sweat! It’s the stuff that our skin cries, the stuff that stains our t-shirts and burns our eyes as we run on the treadmill (or actually go running in outside places). MOIST, as it was initially proposed, “measures which teams and players sweat the most.” MOIST as it is now falls woefully short of that goal, which you probably could’ve guessed it would. How am I supposed to really figure out who sweats the most without watching hundreds of games to scout for brow-wipes, pit stains, and groin-adjustments? Answer: I’m not. But I tried something, and the results of that attempt are what follows. I’ll begin by detailing the factors I thought might make MOIST somewhat of something.
Heat Index
What’s the hottest you’ve ever felt? For me it’s every time I look in the mirror. But also the one time when I was ten and ran around outside on a hot, humid Minnesota summer day and then spun around six- or seven-thousand times on a tire swing. I perspired a lot. And then I felt super sick and dehydrated and almost threw up all over the carpet of Crystal Evangelical Free Church. Moving on: a decent measure of heat is Heat Index, whose formula is really long but uses only temperature and relative humidity as inputs. Let’s say that MOIST is measuring the sweatiest person on the sweatiest possible day of the year at their home ballpark. I looked up the average high temperature and humidity for every MLB location and calculated the Heat Index for July 15th, which is the hottest day of the year on average. Domes/roofed parks were assumed to be 70 degrees, 50% humidity, which is probably off a little bit but it takes them off the MOIST leaderboards, as it should. This is the obvious one.
Read the rest of this entry »
Thank goodness for @RealCJ10 ! Saved me on a 4 wheeler! pic.twitter.com/ljXDEULJC9
— Freddie Freeman (@FreddieFreeman5) January 29, 2014
Imagine, if you will, getting stuck for five hours on a jammed, snowbound freeway. Imagine your frustration slowly curdling into panic. Now imagine glancing in your rearview and seeing a lone four-wheeler materialize from the whiteness. Then imagine nestling your face into the broad, camouflaged shoulder of Larry Wayne Jones, as the frigid wind whips past and faces gape from stranded cars. If you can capture that feeling, reader, then you have known an inner peace of which most men can only dream.
Greg Maddux will be entering the Hall of Fame without a logo on his cap, opting not to choose between the Cubs and Braves.
Anyone want to play with Photoshop and offer up some alternatives if Maddux is looking for another option? Send me your work and I’ll post ’em next week and let people vote for the winner.
