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From two of Jose Canseco’s columns at Vice.com:

The issue is very simple: If you’ve got friends and family, the more money you make the more you spend on them. So let’s say you spend half your money on them and the rest on yourself and the cost of living. It may so happen that during all of that you forget to pay your taxes. And then all of a sudden penalties and interest start to add up, and you’re in a pool of quicksand from which you cannot escape.

When you owe the government—whether it be state or federal—they are relentless when it comes to getting their money back. They institute incredible penalties and interest that almost makes it seem like they want to enslave you.

Let me tell you something: I hate politics. In fact, I’m very anti-politics. I don’t even vote because I think the current US government is involved in the worst form of corruption and legal extortion imaginable.

In my view, the last president who was fully respectable and good for the nation all-around was Abraham Lincoln, and that was a long time ago. Besides unifying the nation and outlawing slavery, he was also great in that movie where he fought all of the vampires and zombies. He is the baddest bad-ass president ever, no doubt. I mean, how can you not like a president who slays vampires? It’s impossible. I think all presidents—and everyone in government, really—should be forced to see Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. It’ll show them how it’s done.

Everything in his column archive is bizarre.

I was all sorts of excited when, over a year ago, I heard someone say, “…Paul Thomas Anderson film based on the life of L. Ron Hubbard that takes place on a yacht…”

This past weekend, I witnessed the culmination of that idea when I saw The Master.

The Master has nothing to do with baseball, really. Baseball is never mentioned in the film; there’s nary a glimpse of a baseball bat or glove in any of the scenes, so far as I can remember. But, as I was trying to make sense of the film, I noticed some connections between Lancaster Dodd (the character based on L. Ron Hubbard, played by Philip Seymour Hoffman) and Kansas City Royals General Manager, Dayton Moore. To wit:

They both are committed to an obscure idea — for Moore it’s the Process, for Dodd it’s the Cause — that cannot be explained by logic, and that require blind acceptance from their faithful. (Coincidentally, “processing” is what the Cause offers to prospective members.)

Moore, The Master

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Com’on Josh Hamilton. Too much caffeine from energy drinks caused your blurry vision that kept you out of 5 games last week. While you were gone, your team went 3-2 and let Oakland stay within reach of the division title.

To heck with the Rangers, how about my fantasy baseball team? Don’t you know owners are battling it out in H2H finals right now. I missed you for five freaking games. My team was already thin in the outfield with Nick Markakis, Michael Cuddyer and Jose Bautista all out. I had to play John Mayberry in your place. It is not like I am going to just pick up a respectable outfielder on the waiver wire in a 20 team league. How did my replacement do in the 5 games you were nursing your dried out corneas? He went 4-19 with one freaking run scored.

What did I lose HR by?
4 to 5.

RBIs?
28 to 31.

Runs?
22 to 24

Just a decent game or two from you and I could of won. And because why? Because you needed to get Amped up to be a Rockstar or Monster during a game. Don’t you know nerds across this country are counting on you so they can belittle their nerds friends for a year. Get it together. Next time you need a fourth 32 oz Monster Heavy Metal, maybe you should go with a soothing cup of herbal tea.

From Rotoworld:

Adrian Beltre (illness) has returned to the Rangers starting lineup on Saturday.

Beltre missed Friday’s contest after undergoing “invasive” GI tests earlier in the day, but was fully expected to return on Saturday. He’s hitting an incredible .374/.415/.929 with 15 homers and 27 RBI in his last 26 games.

There are no photos.

Well, until now.

Miami OF/1B Logan Morrison hasn’t played a game since July 28; on September 5, LoMo had successful surgery on his knee. (Link does not indicate which knee it was, in case you were going to click to find out. I would have just told you; I’m not like that.)

However, since September 10, LoMo, the self-proclaimed “twittaholic,” has not tweeted. Here is a totally unaltered screenshot that I took of his Twitter page yesterday evening (click to make very big):

LoMo Twitter followers are tweakin’.

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You’re all familiar by now with Kris Medlen. By just about any measure, he’s been the most dominant starter of the last couple of months of 2012. So dominant, in fact, that anxious Braves fans and skeptical Braves foes everywhere are terrified and smugly convinced, respectively, that Meds is too good to be true. Barring a total meltdown over his last few starts, this season is going to go in the books as an extraordinary one for the Braves’ unlikely hero. So the question now becomes: what should we expect from him in 2013?

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FLORIDA– After a three-game sweep by the hapless New York Mets this weekend, the Marlins have been reduced to spectators for the remainder of the season. The entire team was shut down after their 3-2 ninth-inning loss to the Mets on Sunday.

“Essentially, we do the same thing we did before, it’s just that we don’t actually play the games,” outfielder Bryan Petersen said.

“It’s tough, it’s really tough,” said third baseman Gil Velazquez. “You get into a routine and your body knows when it’s ready to go. I’m not too used to sitting and watching. It’s kind of hard to watch the other team come to bat and play the field, and know that we’re just going to sit in the dugout and do nothing while they run around the bases.”

The team, due to its lousy record and general hopelessness, has also been pre-emptively shut down for 2013. “We could have planned to go out there in April, just to see what would happen,” said catcher Rob Brantly, “but it’s fairly obvious what the result would be, so we’ve decided to just pack it in and let the other teams win by default. We are, however, totally stoked to come back fresh and rejuvenated in 2014. Or maybe 2015.”

Reliever Ryan Webb is already thinking about 2016. He’ll go to the Arizona Fall League to begin his offseason training. Then the Arizona Winter League, the Arizona Spring League, the Arizona Summer League, and then then whole cycle again, four and a half times before getting back onto a major league field a few weeks after his 30th birthday. Part of his training will involve watching video of the Marlins’s 2012 season, a task no one would look forward to.

“The smell is always there,” Webb said of fall. “It gets ingrained in you after doing it for so long. But I’m OK. I’ll be back. We all will. And maybe the hunger to win will overcome our pretty obvious lack of ability.”

Manager Ozzie Guillen could not be reached for comment.

Since I posted my advice on which NL team to root for if your favorite team was already out of the playoff picture, some interesting things have happened.

Most notably — at least for me personally — is that the Milwaukee Brewers have a record of 24-10 since I made that post (August 14), and are 13-4 in September. I did not include them in my “study” — for a number of reasons. Firstly, I needed a reason to write those posts. Secondly, I am a pessimist. (Not to be confused with a “fair weather fan”.) Finally, I really miscalculated what it would take for a team in the position that the Brewers were in at the time to get back in the wild card race:

Yes, my beloved Brewers could rattle off 15 straight wins and make a run for a Wild Card berth or even the NL Central title. But given that they traded their ace and that, even though they’ve been slightly unlucky in terms of how their run differential corresponds to their W-L record, they’re still only a .500 team at best, and that’s not going to cut it.

Apparently, all that was really needed was a 24-10 record accompanied by a massive slide from the now woeful Pittsburgh Pirates.

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On this past Monday afternoon, within twenty-two seconds of each other, Robert J. Baumann and I submitted to this weblog some thoughts regarding Mike Trout. We did not coordinate; we did not synchronize; nor have I ever enjoyed the slightest contact with Mr. Baumann. A trivial coincidence, you may say. After all, Trout has hooked, if you’ll pardon the wordplay, our collective consciousness like no other. Perhaps the truly remarkable thing is that a full twenty-two seconds could pass without two baseball writers uncontrollably ejaculating their thoughts on Trout. I congratulate my colleagues on their continence. I also contrive to concoct as much consonance as one composition can conceivably contain.

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Dear NotGraphs,

Back in spring training I made a bet with an obnoxious Yankee fan friend of mine. [ed. note: is there any other kind?] If the Yankees win 98 games or more, he designs a t-shirt for me that I have to wear to work. If they win less than 98, I design the shirt, and he wears it.

Thanks,
Sean

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