You know how this works. Fill out the list below, without peeking at the story. Fill in the blanks. Enjoy. Share.
1. High-altitude city
2. Exceptionally well-paid group of men
3. Derogatory term
4. Name of a well-known Cuban person
5. Type of minor injury
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Courtesy of Baseball Think Factory, an interesting article about catcher masks in the St. Paul Pioneer Press:
In addition to the titanium mask, which Nike debuted in 2007 after consulting with former New York Yankees all-star catcher Jorge Posada, [Joe] Mauer switched his catcher’s helmet in recent years to a ventilated Rawlings prototype…. [Twins] Triple-A Rochester catcher Eric Fryer wears a hockey goalie-style mask, while Red Wings teammate Josmil Pinto wears a traditional steel mask.
When I own a major league team, my catcher will wear a Zombie mask. Maybe it won’t protect him against concussions, but I think it’ll strike fear in opposing hitters to come up to the plate and see a zombie waiting there for them. Plus, what home plate umpire wants to anger a zombie? And, yeah, it might distract some of the pitchers, but I can get around that problem if I only sign zombie pitchers. In fact, maybe the catcher should be a zombie too, and the mask is just to add an extra level of fear. Like, “aren’t you scared of my zombie mask?” he asks the hitter, and then he tears off the mask to reveal… that he’s actually a zombie. No one will be staying in the batter’s box for too long after that.
And this is one reason why I will never own a major league team.
With one of my spawn poised to return to the daily care of the nanny state, by which I am referring his elementary school, on Tuesday next, I will have the opportunity to impart important lessons to him to keep him on the narrow, treacherous path to successfully complete the first grade, and thereby bring honor to his family by academically outstripping Dayn Perry, the chosen son of the South.
Among those lessons will be:
1) Straighten up and fly right.
2) Zip up your fly, dammit.
3) Play to win.
4) Don’t judge a book by its cover. Also read the liner notes.
5) Take that finger from out thy nose.
6) Shower, or you’ll look and smell like a dirty Frenchman, like your Uncle Carson.
7) No backsassin’ yer teachers.
8) Pick a fight on the first day with the weakest boy you can find until the guards pull you off of him. You’ll be in solitary for a while, but when you get out, nobody will mess with you because they’ll think you’re a little bit crazy and capable of anything.
9) You should learn computers.
Finally, perhaps the most important lesson comes to he and I from Brewers first baseman and outfielder Corey Hart, who has been sadly sidelined by knee problems for the entire 2013 season:
Be cool! Stay in school: Prepare yourself for every day by completing your homework and getting enough sleep.
Ever find yourself in an antique store in Essex, MA wondering why everything is so expensive*, judging advertisements on old baseball literature, and waiting for your girlfriend to find a mermaid-themed birthday present? No? Isn’t that how everyone spends their Saturdays? Well poopsticks. At least I, a person who was in that situation, found a book: The Little Red Book of Baseball 1949. On the back was this ad, minus my finger shadow:
As I read the names (Ken Keltner, Al Dark, Bob Elliott, Del Ennis, Larry Doby, Vic Wertz, Gil Hodges, and Ray Boone) I wondered if these shmoes were indeed “STARS ON THE RISE” in 1949. This post is my investigation of that claim.
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With a monthish left in the season, it’s about that time to start handicapping the awards races. Of course, they’ve got that taken care of over on FanGraphs. So we are left with the far more unique, challenging, and thankless task of handicapping the NotAwards races. Because when suckiness becomes outstanding — we firmly believe — it must be celebrated and rewarded.
Least Valuable Player (AL)
This is Maicer Izturis‘ award to lose. Unfortunately, he’s gone and sprained his ankle and landed on the DL, so his prospects of detracting value from the Blue Jays for the rest of the season are in serious doubt. (Ryan Goins, his replacement for now, is hitting .455 since his call-up.) But Maicer is pacing the majors in negative WAR by a full half a win, which should prove to be a prohibitive lead. Few players provide crappy hitting (.236/.288/.310), crappy fielding (-16.5 UZR), and crappy baserunning (1 SB, 5 CS) in the same package, and Izturis’ versatility in sucking at three infield positions is second to none. All in all, his 2013 will go down as one of the most futile campaigns in recent memory. (And that Izturis is emblematic of a franchise having a mind-blowing disappointment of a year certainly won’t hurt him with the voters.) Still, Chicago teammates Paul Konerko and Jeff Keppinger deserve shoutouts here, as does erstwhile Royal Jeff Francoeur (for his epic half-season of turd-laying).
The New York Times has an article this week, titled, “Boo Rodriguez or Cheer Him? It’s Oh So Complicated.” The article is a fine read, but what I found surprisingly compelling were the comments at the bottom. Here are my favorite five, ranked. (I’m editing the comments for length.)
5. “I wonder why we go after PED users only, when there is a whole class of baseball cheaters who go unpunished, namely, pitchers who have bionic arms. A high percentage of pitchers make no attempt to hide that they have elective surgery to strengthen their pitching arms…. It’s called Tommy John surgery.”
4. “hey rod. if you are reading these comments, i really need a million dollars. or 1/2 or a 1/4 million. please get in touch. in exchange, i promise not to boo. ever. seriously.”
3. “A-Fraud shouldn’t be playing professional Baseball…. That said, Bankees fans only care about winning. Look at the rise and fall and rise of Jason Giambi. For that matter, look who’s pitching for them every fifth day, another self-admitted drug-cheat, Andy PEDitte.”
2. “A-Rod has no class. He is not the first cheater in baseball and won’t be the last. Probably not the worst either.
He is not the devil incarnate…. I’m sick of hearing about him. And also about Weiner the Wiener Waver.”
1. “And what about MLB’s major sponsor: Gatorade? They claim that just drinking their sugar-water enhances performance, and they use droves of pro-sports role models to peddle their crap in flashy advertisements.”
[scrippet]
ABBOTT
Who’d the Pirates just get?
COSTELLO
Byrd.
ABBOTT
Oh, stop being a wise guy. I know pirates have birds. Parrots, in fact. Pirates have parrots.
COSTELLO
No, Pirates have Byrd.
ABBOTT
A parrot’s a bird. That’s what I said.
COSTELLO
No, I mean Byrd. Marlon Byrd.
ABBOTT
A marlin’s a fish, not a bird.
COSTELLO
I know.
ABBOTT
Then why’d you say a marlin’s a bird?
COSTELLO
I didn’t. I said the Pirates got Byrd.
ABBOTT
Yes, a parrot. A parrot bird. I wasn’t asking about the Marlins.
COSTELLO
Exactly. I’m telling you about the Pirates. They got Byrd.
ABBOTT
A parrot.
COSTELLO
No! A Byrd!
ABBOTT
What kind of a bird?
COSTELLO
Marlon.
ABBOTT
He’s not a bird, he’s a fish!
COSTELLO
Forget it. They also got Buck.
ABBOTT
A new Buc, of course. Who?
COSTELLO
Buck.
ABBOTT
That’s just short for Pirate. Who’d they get?
COSTELLO
Buck.
ABBOTT
They’re all Bucs! Why won’t you tell me?
COSTELLO
Buck.
ABBOTT
Buc, buc, buc. You sound like a chicken.
COSTELLO
A chicken’s a bird. The Pirates got Byrd.
ABBOTT
What kind of bird? A marlin. A marlin’s a fish.
COSTELLO
We’re not talking about the Marlins!
ABBOTT
So who’d the Pirates give up?
COSTELLO
Dilson Herrera.
ABBOTT
Dilson Herrera? That’s a funny name! He’s a second baseman?
COSTELLO
What?
ABBOTT
No, I think he retired.
[/scrippet]
Who among us would dispute that there simply are not enough songs about baseball, this game we love and that rarely loves us back? We have made so many advances as a society. Muscle cars, cellular telephones, The Internet, peanut butter and jelly from the same jar! And yet, our baseball song technology remains mired in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, ruled by Katie Casey and John Fogerty with their iron fists. And please, don’t speak to me of the upstart rebellion of The Baseball Project, that sad fantasy of refugees from the 1980s and 1990s that suckered me in by featuring a non-Stipe from R.E.M. and a couple people from The Dream Syndicate, which I had briefly confused with The Dream Academy. What the hell have they ever done for us?
Addressing this crucial shortage is The Leonard Lothlen Band, out of the San Francisco Bay Area, with “The Best Baseball Song Ever Written,” about how much the singer really, really loves baseball. It is presented below soundtracking adorable moppets flopping about the ballyard. Please to commence with dispensing your feedback and scouting acumen:
Ugh, fine, Mrs. Blevins, Jerry Blevins will clean his stupid bedroom before he throws even one more pitch, even though he cleaned said stupid bedroom last stupid month.
(For real: is Jerry Blevins suppose to, like, clean his stupid bedroom every month of the year?)
OMG, if Jerry Blevins sees one more Instagram of homemade foodstuffs he’s going to have to seriously cull who he follows on certain social media platforms. Plebeian, for real, people. Your life is not mythology no matter how much sepia you wash it in.
Lovers of base and ball, we have a crisis. A crisis of terrific and overwhelming proportions, necessitating the author’s very purplest prose. I speak to you today of the Triple, that loveliest and most thrilling of base hits. Whereas once that graceful animal seemed to flit its way through every box score, today, sadly, it is rarely and fleetingly encountered. I will not mince words: if immediate, drastic, and comprehensive action is not taken, there is a very real possibility that this creature will go the way of the passenger pigeon, the Tasmanian wolf, and the barehanded catcher. Regard! And feel the awful urgency of this lamentable state of affairs: