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Pictured Above: Old-Timey Basestealing

Today, a public service. This, dear readers, is a baseball player named Rickey Henderson. You probably haven’t heard of him. He was a fairly well known player prior to the turn of the century, so you could hardly be expected to remember him, and he was elected to the Hall of Fame, where he’s enshrined with other great stars of yesteryear like Ed Delahanty, Amos Rusie, and Tommy McCarthy. He has faded into relative historical obscurity.

But that’s not very fair to a man who was, by all accounts, one of the better out fielders of his day. So I’m going to dedicate this post to maintaining his memory and to spreading the word. Based on painstaking research, here are a dozen (mostly) true facts about Rickey Henderson:

1) Rickey Henderson is the all time leader in runs (2295), stolen bases (1406), and caught stealing (335). The modern record holders are Albert Pujols (1399), Juan Pierre (597), and Juan Pierre (193). It was a different game back then.

2) This story is probably apocryphal, its origins lost to the mists of time. But Rickey signed as a free agent with the New York Metropolitans in 1999. During Spring Training, he noticed John Olerud was playing 1B with a batting helmet on. Rickey walked over to him and said, “Hey, I used to play with a guy in Toronto who used to do that.” Olerud said, “Rickey, you’ve got an amazing memory to be able to remember that far back.” “I know,” Rickey said. “My teammates are more important to me than anything in the world.”

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One would be hard-pressed to find two people more different in stature than the author’s mother and Arizona Diamondbacks’ ace-in-the-making Archie Bradley. When one compares their use of social media, however, one finds two beings whose concerns, pleasures, and use of language are not that different at all.

Love pitching when family is in town! Great win for the #baybears had great hitting and solid defense! Time for dinner with mom!

— Archie Bradley (@ArchieBradley7) May 19, 2013

Celebrities: They’re just like us and/or our moms!

And you know if I strikeout, okay, you know whatever, but if there are guys, runners in scoring position, things like that and you strikeout too, that to me, that’s bad. – Adam Dunn

In all of baseball, there is no man more distinctively and consistently himself than Adam Dunn. In an uncertain world, he is a treasure. Adam Dunn does three things well; no more, no less. Because none of them requires any effort from the opposing defense, Adam Dunn is a gentleman, as well as a treasure. But although he does three things well, he only does one of these things with true greatness, and that is striking out. If nothing else, history will remember this about this man: Adam Dunn struck out.

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The Wall Street Journal writes about “historically skinny” Chris Sale and his amazing feats of culinary indulgence:

In a four-hour masterpiece, Sale packed two ice cream sundaes and, by one teammate’s estimate, around 30 bags of potato chips into one of the skinniest bodies the sport has ever seen…. Before a game in Anaheim, Calif., last week, Sale polished off a chili cheese dog. Then he returned to the kitchen for two more…. Over the weekend, Sale was planning a trip to In-and-Out Burger, which he calls “my kryptonite.” He is also a loyal customer of McDonald’s, Taco Bell and Five Guys…. He also aspires to break the record for most cheesesteaks consumed by a visiting player in Philadelphia when the White Sox play there in July.

The 1927 Yankees were one of the best teams in history. But none of their players have made an impact on the field in years. Was it just that special mix of intangibles that made the 1927 team able to succeed in a way that none of its individual members have been able to for the past 80+ years? Or was it something else? NotGraphs has deployed its crack investigative team to take a look at where the 1927 Yankees are now, and whether they might ever be able to reunite and once again take the baseball world by storm.

Catcher Pat Collins is deceased. First baseman Lou Gehrig, sadly, is also deceased. Second baseman Tony Lazzeri was originally thought to be working in real estate in Jupiter, Florida, but is in fact deceased. Third baseman Joe Dugan, according to his Facebook page, is deceased. Shortstop Mark Koenig is deceased. Outfielder Earle Combs is deceased. Outfielder Bob Meusel, according to several highly-placed government sources, is deceased. There is no information available about the whereabouts of outfielder Babe Ruth. The entire starting rotation — Waite Hoyt, Urban Shocker, Herb Pennock, Dutch Ruether, and George Pipgras — is deceased. Police are still looking into whether any foul play (or balls) might be involved. Relief pitcher Bob Shawkey is deceased.

Despite quite possibly in some cases being scattered across the globe, we still believe there is hope for the team to reunite and perform competitively against the 2013 Marlins or Astros.

There are 44 players in the history of baseball, by my count, for whom we have only a last name. Unknown Gilroy, Unknown O’Rourke, Unknown Long. Each of these men snuck his way into a boxscore — just one, usually — and then vanished into the mists of time, thereby enacting a most human of tragedies: to scale the Olympian heights, only to be struck down while etching one’s name in eternal stone.

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BALTIMORE– Brian Roberts strained a flexor tendoligastring yesterday while riding a stationary bike, when the bike suddenly became not-stationary and started moving. Roberts, unprepared for the bike’s motion, fell off. This injury marks the fourteenth consecutive rehab assignment that has caused Roberts more injury than he was trying to heal in the first place, and cements his status as extremely cursed and very broken.

“I don’t know how my arm fell off at the elbow,” Roberts said last week in front of a crowd of reporters, before a piece of the ceiling fell and hit him on the knee, shattering it into hundreds of tiny knee-parts and also causing him to contract Fallen Ceiling Fever, an infectious disease that will keep him sidelined for the next 9-12 generations.

“I don’t know how my arm fell off at the elbow,” Roberts repeated in front of a different crowd of reporters, evidence of the post-post-post-concussion syndrome he’s been suffering from ever since he hit his head on his high chair at age 2. Roberts, who retains as much speed and agility as a player could possibly have after losing both legs, and then losing each of the prosthetic replacements upwards of a dozen times, was most recently injured while explaining his latest injury to a reporter. While talking, Roberts’ tongue somehow got caught in a pitching machine, an injury which required fourteen stitches and is likely to keep him out of action until the polar ice caps finish melting.

Roberts insists he will make it back to regular status one day, even if the Orioles are no longer a professional baseball team, and second base has been replaced with a robot drone in the post-apocalyptic version of baseball. While dreaming of this future, Roberts unfortunately sprained an eye, and strained his head. He is expected to begin a rehab assignment next week in Alpha Centauri.

“…and welcome back to the, uh, next half of an inning here at the stadium this, uh, time of day, where both teams are trying their best to score some runs. Stepping up to the plate, there’s a number on his jersey, and, uh, hold on a second here… oh, wait, he’s not there anymore. Checking his number, and he just did something, and so now we move on to the next player, who’s definitely been up already in this game. He steps in, having quite a season so far, and the pitch is, yep, just as I expected. Here comes the next one, and it’s hit to the… yeah, he’s on a base now, definitely on a base. Before the game, he said he was going to try to do everything he could to help his team win, and he’s absolutely doing that. Just like he’s done his entire career. You know, he’s been talking a lot about this team’s chances, and told me before the game that when all is said and done, he thinks this team is going to have been one of the teams on which he’s played. Strong words from a proven member of the team’s roster. And now he’s on base– and we all know that when he’s on base, anything can happen, especially things involving baserunners. All of this brings us to today’s trivia question, sponsored by the friendly folks at one of our favorite sponsors. Who did… three times? I think I know the answer, and my producer is telling me… yes, I’ve got it. Maybe you do too. Noodle on that for a little while and we’ll get back to it in the top of the inning, if there are any innings left to go. And the guy standing at the plate takes that one, and does what he’s supposed to do next. Bringing the other guy to the plate, and he has had quite a series, both at the plate and in the field. He’s living up to everything we expected him to be, and shows no signs of doing anything but what he’s able to do. A real treat to watch this portion of his career. And… someone’s doing something, so that means we’ll take a quick break. Back next inning with a guy wearing a microphone, who will tell you all about what it’s like to be on that field, and take part in the exciting action. One team’s winning, or at least they will be by the time the game is over. We’ll be right back.”

Yesterday, my friend and fellow NotGraphs content-vomiter David Temple wrote about his utter and complete failure to finish a work of children’s fiction, The Kid Who Only Hit Homers. Finish reading it, I mean. It goes without saying that all of us at NotGraphs are frustrated failed novelists of some stripe or another, with at least one unfinished semi-autobiographical manuscript floating around on our hard drives, but Temple’s aborted attempt to read 130 pages of shockingly simplistic prose will go down as one of the more embarrassing literary admissions to grace these digital pages (the most embarrassing of which is still, by quite a large margin, the cover of Cistulli’s book).

But maybe we shouldn’t be so hard on David. With his weak will, he’ll never make it as a Green Lantern, but at least he was attempting to read a book that wasn’t about angsty sparkly vampires who ruin the game of baseball, an increasingly rare effort in what is passing for our culture in 2013. He could have, instead, simply waited around until this Fall, when he could have watched the television equivalent on ABC:

Let us dissect:

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Y’all take it from here.