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It is a dance both proverbial and physical: the jiggle of excitement felt by players, coaches, and spectators alike when a baseball has been made “live” and has not yet come to rest in a “dead” state. The Jiggle acknowledges the moment when something is happening and, simultaneously, that a number of other things — some good, some bad, some neutral — may yet still happen.

As spectators, we might clench our teeth, or have the sensation of going deaf. The more consistently-inebriated among us might shart or pee a little. As for the players, who must be in a ready state both physically and mentally and upon whom many eyes and cameras are fixed in these moments, their enactment of the Great Baseballing Jiggle — a microcosm of the Great & Stupid Jiggle of the Human Condition — is often more obvious.

Such was the case with young David Wright last night. With the score tied 3-3 in the bottom of the tenth inning, bases loaded and two outs, Wright was less than 90 feet away from scoring the winning run for the Mets. Heath Bell threw a 1-2 pitch in the dirt, and Wright was ready to make a break for home, until it was clear that Diamondbacks catcher Miguel Montero had made a pretty nice block.

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Hey guys, my name’s Jeff. Football’s awesome! But baseball is my FAVE!!

Aw, give me a chance guys. Come on. You know you want to!

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Initial intent of this post: a parody list of ridiculously fake NotGraphs post titles.

Actual result of writing this post: ten legitimate ideas for future NotGraphs posts, most of which I kind of want to write.

Conclusion: there is no such thing as a fake NotGraphs post title, because all NotGraphs post titles are fake NotGraphs post titles.

• Ranking Major League Stadium Urinals
• Giving Women The Right To All-Star-Vote: A Fake History
• Other Chris Davises Having Shockingly Surprising Seasons at their Chosen Professions
• Mnemonics to Remember How To Spell Samardzija
• Random People’s Tweets With Strong Opinions About A-Rod
• Yasiel Pug: Pictures of Yasiel Puig with Photoshopped Dog Faces
• Great Moments in Josh Beckett Injury Updates
• Alternative Ways To Pronounce Jedd Gyorko’s Name
• Johnny Cueto’s Season Presented Graphically, as the EKG of a dying person now dead
• Ranking Minor League Stadium Urinals

Remember when you used to write for NotGraphs? Remember when you first started — when you were first “hired”?

When Carson Cistulli called you on that October day, to talk about your new future at NotGraphs, you walked right out of work (it was the middle of the day), walked all the way home, talking to him, sat in your back yard talking to him about baseball (duh) and also about poetry — which poets you knew, which players you loved, what sort of approach you might take expressing that love on NotGraphs. Dongs were not yet a thing that you mentioned to exasperate Carson; “Baumann!” was not yet a thing Carson uttered with equal parts puritanical exasperation and resigned exclamation. But those would becomes things that you enjoyed, the unspoken benefits of this thing you loved: baseball.

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Well, he came up and hit .432
For a month his talent looked so true
And there’s always hope when you’re brand new
This is the ballad
Of Jeff Francoeur

And he did not walk but he tried real hard
And as long as hits escaped the yard
He still deserved a baseball card
This is the ballad
Of Jeff Francoeur

When you still don’t walk and your average falls
And you swing at all of the pitcher’s balls
It shouldn’t be a shock when your progress stalls
This is the ballad
Of Jeff Francoeur

So the Braves said bye and he joined the Mets
And for quite a while there were no regrets
But soon enough, doubters won their bets
This is the ballad
Of Jeff Francoeur

It was no shock when the Royals called
And into the lineup he was installed
Another good start, the GM was enthralled
This is the ballad
Of Jeff Francoeur

The press he gets is second-to-none
If smiles counted, he’d be number one
But if you look at the stats, he seems kinda done
This is the ballad
Of Jeff Francoeur

Oh, lefties he hits and balls he can throw
And maybe just maybe his patience will grow
He’ll suck someone in and he’ll put on a show
This is the ballad
Of Jeff Francoeur

Then fifty games later, the luster will fade
He’ll go 0-for-40, they’ll look for a trade
Another team desperate, and they will be swayed
This is the ballad
Of Jeff Francoeur

Repeat it again, he’s still young, there’s still hope
Will he turn it around? Smart money says nope
Declining skills are a slippery slope
This is the ballad
Of Jeff Francoeur

BACKSTORY: After the Detroit Tigers acquired the final out against the Tampa Bay Rays last Friday, third baseman Miguel Cabrera mimed appeared to mime, but may not have mimed the signature “arrow shot” Rays closer Fernando Rodney performs after each save (a gesture that appears to be an oblique tribute to his late father).

On Saturday, Miguel Cabrera faced Fernando Rodney and the Katniss-esque flamethrower had a few pitches go high, one going high and tight. Cabrera did not appreciate the pitches.

On Sunday, Tigers pitcher Rick Porcello of the 4.7% BB-rate hit his second batter of the season. It was with two outs in the first inning; it was the first pitch to Ben Zobrist. Both dugouts received a warning.

Then, in the bottom of the 8th, Miguel Cabrera came to the plate.

JOE MADDON, THUGGIN’: Joe Maddon had two relievers warning. He had his 8th inning setup man, Joel Peralta, warming in the ‘pen. He had his hard-throwing karate-master, brawl-champ, GIF-via-fight machine Kyle Farnsworth warming.

Kyle Farnsworth entered to face Miggy. Then this happened:

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Today, Bob Klapisch reported that the Yankees have no idea what’s going on with A-rod, calling his comments (in which he tweeted out an update on how his rehab is going without clearing it with the Yankees’ front office first) “bizarre” and saying “they’re also stumped the slugger’s recent behavior.”  Well, everyone knows Alex is a complicated guy, and it’s likely that nobody actually understands him.

That must be pretty lonely for a fella, so I want to help you get him better. I snuck into his fortified compound (like Catherine Zeta-Jones in Entrapment, but with tighter pants) and stole what looked like an explanation for what he was trying to accomplish. Here now, for the first time, is A-Rod’s master plan:

Click to embiggen. Duh.

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This begins with Carlos “El Caballo” Lee, who recently hung up his horseshoes after a shapely, if unspectacular, 14-year career. Here are Lee’s home run numbers*:

16 24 24 26 31 31 32 37 32 28 26 24 18 9

My, I thought upon seeing these, that’s beautiful; Carlos should get some credit for sculpting such a sequence. Sure, symmetry like this is largely coincidental, but it doesn’t come together without a certain amount of honest consistency. One gets the feeling that, while El Caballo may not have been the greatest hitter ever, he was one of the most self-actualized, or something.

So then there is this question: what player has boasted the most beautiful career? And how exactly would we quantify such a thing? Well, here is what I did. I looked at the career WAR curve of every player with 30+ career WAR (about 500 hitters and 300 pitchers, for the record). I assumed that long was preferable to short, that smooth was preferable to jagged, and that gradual was preferable to abrupt. Then some math was required, but this is Notgraphs, so I made up two half-assed metrics: Years Per Inflection Point (YPIP) and Standard Deviation of Increases and Decreases (SDID). YPIP measures how often a curve changes direction; for Lee’s home run numbers, it would be 14/1 = 14. SDID measures the variation in year-to-year changes, independent of direction; a player with big spikes and plateaus in WAR gets a higher (worse) number than one with a steady climb. Then I ranked all the players by each metric, added the two ranks together, and found the lowest total. As you’ve already discerned — edging out such lovelies as Billy Nash and Dom DiMaggio — it’s Ivan Rodriguez:

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BALTIMORE — Dr. Harold Bundy’s frustrating surgical season has ended before it even started.

The orthopedic surgeon at St. Elbow’s Hospital will have season-ending surgery on Thursday, ending a frustrating year in which the right-handed surgeon didn’t perform any surgeries.

“Hopefully, next year this time we’ll be putting a date on when he’s going to be cutting into people’s bodies again,” Chief of Surgery John Buck Showalter said on Wednesday.

Selected fourth overall in the 2011 surgical fellowship draft, Bundy made it to the operating room to debut his technique last season, and was expected to contribute again this year, depending on the number of patients who broke some part of themselves. But he developed arm soreness while writing notes on a patient, and it was all downhill from there.

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I’ve never been much of an American League fan. That’s why I chose my NL All-Stars first. Yep, the National League was doing just fine until the American League came along, just like I was doing just fine the first couple of years of my existence, until other people came along and I realized life is just one big competition and if you don’t fight for every scrap, you’ll be left on the fringes of the sandbox, bloody and crying.

That’s why I like the All-Star Game. Because of all the games ballplayers play all year, the results of this one basically don’t count, no one boos you if you lose, and, really, it’s all just one big joke. I sometimes wish the whole season was like that. That wins and losses didn’t matter, no one kept score, and the big trophy went to the team with the nicest smiles and most pleasant disposition. I think that’s the Indians, right? Any team with Nick Swisher has to be the winners in this category, don’t they? And Justin Masterson seems like a pleasant dude. Saw an interview with Lou Marson once where he seemed pretty friendly. Is he still on the team, or did Yan Gomes steal his roster spot? Poor Lou Marson.

Onto the ballot…

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