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What follows is, as you may have already surmised, pathetically derivative of the Eno Sarris Pronunciation Guide. Be that as it may, I am undaunted.

Because this, our Internet is in desperate need of a halfwit’s shrill fault-finding, I present to you the Dayn Perry Denunciation Guide, in which I full-throatedly condemn the sundry villains within and in dangerous proximity to our baseball.

This first episode shall hold up for merciless ridicule those who materially contribute to the deification of Nolan Ryan and his billions of unintentional walks.

Come with me, won’t you?

Nolan Ryan loyalists, consider yourselves denounced.

This morning I received an email as part of the Milwaukee Brewers mailing list. The headline read,

Braun steps up to the plate for fans in “Brewers Win, You Win!” promotion | Brewers Star to Fund Ticket Program for June 3 – 5 Series Versus Oakland Athletics

The pertinent part of the email, for your convenience:

The original promotion called for every Brewers victory between May 1 and May 30 to earn $1 off a Terrace Box ticket for the June 3 – 5 series vs. the Oakland Athletics. With just five victories this month, though, the Brewers outfielder has made a move to ensure that Brewers fans are rewarded despite the team’s struggles.

Regardless of how many wins the team records through the end of the month, fans will be able to purchase a limited number of Terrace Box (regularly $24) and Loge Bleacher ($23) seats for just $8 (matching Braun’s uniform number). Braun is subsidizing the savings through a financial contribution, which will cover up to 4,000 tickets for each of the three games against the A’s.

Let’s do the math. There are two ticket prices, roughly the same. If Ryan Braun picks up the tab for the entire difference in price — let’s say there’s 2000 each of the $24- and $23-tickets since the email doesn’t specify that particular breakdown — that’s $62,000 per game, and a total of $186,000 for the three game set with the A’s. This, of course, assumes that the Brewers organization isn’t covering some of that, and that those sections will sell out, which, I suppose, there’s actually a possibility of that: despite the third-worst record in all of Major League Baseball, the Brewers have the 13th best home attendance, averaging over 31,000 fans per game (a sell-out at Miller Park is 42,200), and are closing in on a million in total attendance with 29 home games played.

The Brewers could stand to put more butts in the seats, sure. And every team runs promotions of some sort. Maybe other players have done similar things in other cities. But seeing this email made me want to cry, for two different reasons:

First, it’s a reminder that my favorite team sucks right now. Boohoo, I know. Fans of any number of teams could whine about this, and while a few fan bases might have more claim to gloominess than Brewers fans, there aren’t many. (Pirates fans, maybe. I’ll listen on the Mariners or Royals.) It’s dark, and I don’t see a light at the end of the tunnel. I’m not sure there is an end to the tunnel. Despite what has the potential to be a potent offense, they haven’t even won enough games in May to make the “original promotion” worthwhile. This wanting-to-cry is based in selfish sadness, and a general fragility of spirit.

Yet there’s another type of wanting-to-cry here, too, and it’s even more foolish. Ryan Braun is making $8.5million this year, and he’s got $150million in guaranteed income through 2020. And, of course, that doesn’t include endorsement deals and other ventures. That is, he can probably afford to subsidize some tickets. But those other ventures, like this ticket deal, show a commitment to and investment in Milwaukee — a place that could easily be dismissed as flyover country by a Cali boy who colleged in Miami and affects considerable swagger — that is so rare that it’s almost confusing. Robin Yount played his entire career as a Brewer; Bob Uecker probably could have moved on to a bigger venue at some point, but chose to stick it out in his home town. Still, Braun’s enthusiasm for being a part of Milwaukee just feels different, even if it is appears gimmicky at times. Braun really likes Milwaukee, and wants to prove it.

I’m a small person, maybe, for hoovering up that sort of affirmation of my town’s worth. So be it.

In a sport that clings to its traditions — from managers wearing uniforms to the playing of “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” during the seventh-inning stretch — one time-honored feature at the ballpark has taken an absurd turn, at least for the game’s purists: the ceremonial first pitch. For decades, the honor was extended only a few times a season to a rarefied group that included presidents, mayors and military veterans. These days, it is regarded as a marketing opportunity, a sweetener in sponsorship deals between baseball teams and groups that want a piece of the spotlight. The rite, now carried out nightly, is handed to actors and reality television stars, sponsors’ representatives and contest winners, and people dressed as animals as well as actual animals.
— The New York Times, 5/29/13

Throwing out the ceremonial first pitch tonight are twelve special guests, and one fan who won a lottery drawing conducted by our friends at Bank of America. The first honoree is from TV’s World’s Deadliest Animals on the National Geographic Channel. Please, if you are seated in the first six rows, be prepared to run from the wild tiger currently entering the stadium, getting ready to throw the ball to the catcher your home team has deemed most expendable.

Our second honoree is from our friends at Merck Pharmaceuticals, our sponsor for tonight’s Mood Elevator Giveaway, where the first 15,000 fans received a pill to help them forget about the 65% likelihood we would lose tonight’s game, just like we’ve lost 65% of the ones that preceded it. Of course, we still have 4,000 pills left over, since we can’t seem to fill even a quarter of our seats over here. So please put your hands together for Merck’s Director of Experimental Drug Development.

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Directly following Angel Pagan’s dramatic walk-off inside-the-park home run on Saturday, Pagan and teammates Marco Scutaro and Andres Torres debuted their new musical act. The group, known as “Pagan Angel” in tribute to a Bradley Woodrum short story, plays what drummer Scutaro describes as “neo-glam-metalcore fusion.”

I saw Tyler Skaggs. He was 89-90 on the fastball, the curve was good, but the changeup sucked. I saw Tyler Skaggs.

What? That’s his changeup now? And he was 92-93? Who’s this?

Tyler Skaggs?

The ancient solar dish had finally collapsed. Rusted from years of neglect and then welded into barely workable shape after a late resurgence of concern and dependency, the large rotating metal solar panel bent over and cast a plume of moondust three hundred feet into the air.

“That’s not good.” Dexter, who worked the center bunker, watched the plume rise. “Do we have other power sources?”

Michael radioed back from the starboard bunker. “There’s the thermal generator.”

“Will that be enough? Do we need to fix the solar dish?”

“Fix the solar dish!” Rafael’s voice crackled through the radio. It was Rafael’s record on the line. “Low power means low shields. Get some equipment and fix the dish.”
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This game. This…baseball, like life itself, can be a harsh mistress. Whether you’re playing and making outs in seven out of ten at bats, or watching your Twins devolve into the second worst team in the American League (hey, thanks for that, Astros), or you’re a vendor who just needs to find a place to poop before you sell your snowcones (again, thanks for that, Astros). Failure is so endemic to baseball that it’s refreshing to see anyone who can take whimsical, unadulterated joy from such cruelty.

That is why, as I slide headfirst into middle age, I’m leavinging my moribund, dumpy Minnesota Twins and getting a younger, hotter baseball team that wants an older fan because it has daddy issues. Someone who can keep up with me and maybe even challenge me a little in the energy department and with their joie de vivre. Someone who is still young and naive, and hasn’t yet learned not to fall for my bullshit. Somebody like the University of Cincinnati Bearcats. Seriously, how can you not love these guys?

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Atlanta closer Craig Kimbrel, naturally blessed with both boyishly rosy cheeks and lethal competitive instincts, has been called (and more than once) the Baby-faced Assassin. With this epithet coming into wide usage, it is perhaps only a matter of time before an attempt is made — either by Mr. Kimbrel himself, or by arbiters of culture like Baseball-Reference.com — to give it some sort of official sanction. We here at Nickname Watch take a conservative stance on such matters, and have consistently advised that a very high burden of proof be set for those wishing to claim a nickname. In the case at hand, we consider the burden of proof to be especially high, since this nickname has in fact already been used in Major League Baseball: (nick)namely, by longtime Reds reliever Danny Graves. Though it is easily argued that Mr. Kimbrel is a superior player to Mr. Graves — and after all, to employ a reductio ad absurdum, we would certainly not strip the name “Splendid Splinter” from Ted Williams due to the revelation of prior use by some minor player — the seniority of the latter man, I’m sure we can agree, should have some value.

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NEW YORK — Ike Davis, who recently claimed he “can’t do any worse,” did worse last night, as he went 0-6 with 9 strikeouts and 21 strikeout-assists, where he ran up to the plate and literally grabbed the bat from his teammates’ hands. Said Lucas Duda, “that was not cool, Ike.” Said Ruben Tejada, “whatever, I was going to get myself out anyway.” Davis also made 19 errors in the game, including twice getting confused about how many outs there were, and walking off the field while the ball was still in play.

In the bottom of the 4th inning, Davis walked over to second base and broke Daniel Murphy’s arm, further hampering the team’s attempt to win the game. In the top of the 8th, Davis spit on three umpires, but, unfortunately for the team, was not ejected from the game. In fact, the umpires ruled that he should be forced to play, as that would be worse punishment for the Mets. Before the game, Davis quietly informed Dillon Gee, the night’s starting pitcher, that his entire family had been killed in a bear attack. This distracted Gee and led to him giving up 16 runs in just a third of an inning. Actually, it was 6 runs, but Davis reprogrammed the scoreboard to give the Mets’ opponents a 10-run head start.

After the Mets’ loss, Davis inadvertently added a powdered laxative to the food in the post-game spread, which will hamper the team’s attempt to stem the losing streak tomorrow. He also switched the lineup card with a joke version that places 4 members of the starting rotation in the infield, and invited a twelve-year-old fan to play catcher. Davis was found clumsily corking David Wright’s bat and tainting Matt Harvey’s urine for Harvey’s routine drug test. He also pretended to be Sandy Alderson and traded Zach Wheeler for a bucket of Dippin’ Dots, which he neglected to place in the freezer.

So when Ike Davis says he can’t do any worse…

1. A Home Run
2. A Stolen Base
3. An Umpire
4. A Good Catch
5. A Team Lose
6. A Bunt
7. A Manager Get Ejected
8. An Infield
9. A Team Win
10. A Pitcher
11. A Double Play
12. A Baseball
13. A Baseball Bat
14. A Batter