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Things of substance are happening in Major League Baseball! Things like Prince Fielder and Ian Kinsler getting swapped. Things like A-Rod storming out of his arbitration hearing. Things like Chris Carpenter retiring. Who even KNOWS what kinds of substantial things will happen next?! Zowie! It’s the offseason! A time for sitting around waiting for things to happen! The American Dream!

BUMMER ALERT, THOUGH: One bummer about all the offseason substance is that we have to wait for it. We hate waiting! Take meals for example: We LOVE meals. Meals involve eating, and Americans are nothing if not prolific food-to-poop converters. If only we could have meals ALL THE TIME. Too bad our stupid bodies won’t let us consume 2300 calorie meals every five to seven minutes. Instead we’re stuck waiting for our lame-o corporeal vessels to “metabolize” that steak we had for breakfast. Luckily snacks exist! Snacks are the best. They let us use our mouths and tastebuds for 100% of the day. Check out this bitchin’ pie chart that I screen-captured from a freely available online slideshow on the state of the snacking industry:

What this pie chart shows is that we want something in our mouths at absolutely every possible moment we can have something therein. Showering? Have a Twix. Driving to da club? Have a bag of Doritos. Filing your taxes? Engorge thyself with some cracklin’ pork rinds. About to copulate with a comely dame? Engage in some Swiss Cake Roll foreplay.
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Shrug.

I’ve always gotten Fielder and Kinsler confused anyway. Seven letters in their last names. Both getting paid millions of dollars to play baseball. Okay, one of them can’t grow facial hair and the other one has a neck tattoo, but can anyone really keep the two of them straight? Physically, I mean. If you described each one to a police sketch artist, they’d end up looking like twins. Also, statistically. They both hit like thirty doubles a year. And that’s just the start of their similarities. (And the end.) Their Bill James Similarity Score must be like 950. (Or 50.)

So it’s just two more interchangeable parts being swapped for each other. The fans won’t even notice a difference on the field, and it doesn’t do anything to help fix up the Obamacare website. I don’t have time to worry about Ian Fielder and Prince Kinsler. I’ve been trying to buy health insurance for almost two months.

Prince Fielder doesn’t call the wrong number. You answer the wrong phone.

Well, the Hall of Fame’s class of 2013 has been revealed, and I can’t pretend to be thrilled about it. No, I’m not talking about the Baseball Hall of Fame; it’s November, and baseball is dead to me. I’m talking of course about the National Toy Hall of Fame, which, for the woefully ignorant among you, is based in the Strong Museum of Play (that’s its name) in Rochester, New York. Faced with a solid pool of nominees, the voters once again displayed a truly breathtaking lack of boldness, imagination, and critical thinking, electing only two mediocre candidates — Chess and Rubber Duck — and thus ushering the Hall further down the road to complete irrelevancy.

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I found these amusing. Maybe you will too.

It was more difficult to find funny reviews of baseballs. I don’t know why.

“You can call me ‘a source close to the family and familiar with the negotiations.'”

The life of a reporter covering Major League Baseball remains a difficult one. Not only has the job of a beat reporter expanded to require several blog posts and newspaper articles in a single day, but today’s scribes must also be ready 24 hours a day to break news. In the desperate race to break stories, they are forced to rely on new, and occasionally unreliable sources.

So it was yesterday that Texas sportswriter Jamie Kelly broke the news that David Murphy was going to sign with the Cleveland Indians, because Murphy’s daughter told everyone at day care she was moving to Cleveland (presumably prompting an tsunami of sympathetic responses and comforting pats on the back).  The news was relayed to Kelly, who told her Twitter followers:

David Murphy informed his daughter’s daycare that he is signing with the Indians. This is, again, per my source close to the situation.

— Jamie Kelly (@JamieSportsTalk) November 20, 2013

As it turns out, Kelly was absolutely spot on. But this sets a dangerous precedent where ballplayers’ children become not just adorable moppets who get to play on the field with their dads on Sunday, but legitimate sources for breaking news. Already, we’ve seen the following rumors crop up:

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(You may first want to read this article.).

Ruben Tejada
One day short of a season
Yes, a bad season

Ruben Tejada
Fell one home run short of one
He shouldn’t complain

Ruben Tejada
Should hope he is still playing
In 2016

Or 2014
His season was terrible
How can he fight this?

Ruben Tejada
At least they called you back up!
You cost them a win

Or a third of one
Depending on which site’s WAR
Can’t we all agree?

Ruben Tejada
If you file a grievance
I think you may win

But really you’ll lose
Because no one will sign you
Not that they ought to

Ruben Tejada
Why did your walk rate collapse?
This is the last poem

Wait — How you say poem?
It’s one syllable, or two?
Whatever, I’m done.

“Hey, Cy, thanks for doing this.”

“Sure, anytime.”

“Let’s start with Braves catcher Brian McCann. Where do you see him ending up?”

“An Irishman, eh?”

“Uh, I guess so. Sure.”

“You don’t think he’ll stay with Milwaukee?”

“The Braves are in Atlanta now, actually.”

“Atlanta, really? Where’s that?”

“Georgia.”

“Hmmm. Awfully far south for a baseball team.”

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DJ Kitty,
nominated for Best Movie
in a bus
in South Korea.
How–
     a paw to my lips
               says sometimes it’s better
                              not to ask.

Thanks to Erik Hahmann, who passes along this photo via means of human carrier pigeon, Carson de Cistulli.

It’s that time again. The time where I get to write one last post about the Ron Swanson Baseball Hall of Fame and then am forced to think of new and original posts for this godforsaken website, rather than just keep running variations on the same thing over and over. Honestly, I don’t think any of us are going to get what we want out of our time together going forward. After all, Notgraphs has been reduced to whatever this is, jokes about France, and is kept afloat practically singlehandedly by the diminishing returns offered by David Temple. And next week it’s back to Back In the Game recaps for me. Because I hate myself and you.

So let us revel one last time in the glory of Ron Swanson, patron saint of all that is worthwhile, and his acolytes, who were decided upon by you, the masses, like this was some kind of homecoming election. Once again, you have correctly identified and chosen to recognize the most popular, beautiful, and athletic people in your class. Congratulations to you, you sheep, you have confirmed my worst thoughts about you.

The leading vote getter was…

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