Look at the box from yesterday’s series-clinching Cardinals win, and you might think that it was Adam Wainwright’s night.

Watch the highlights, and you might point to sluggers David Freese or Matt Adams.

But ask anyone who was there. Ask anyone in the champagne-soaked St. Louis clubhouse. Ask anyone, in fact, who bleeds Cardinal red. They’ll tell you who the real hero was. And in the end, who else could it have been? What Hollywood screenwriter could have penned a more fitting climax to this run of October dreams than the one written for us — the script starring one Daniel William Descalso?

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The A's @athletics knock out Detroit tomorrow. Big. Daddy. Bowe

— Riddick Bowe (@riddickbowe) October 9, 2013

It would be fair, probably, to say that — so far as the tweet embedded here is concerned, courtesy a certain former heavyweight boxer — it would be fair, probably, to say that Riddick Bowe has (ahem) weighed in on tonight’s Game Five between Oakland and Detroit.

Indeed, let no man suggest that Riddick Bowe has pulled any punches in terms of his thoughts on the likely winner of the ALDS contest to be played this evening.

Surely, two-time champion Riddick Bowe is of the opinion that the A’s have the Tigers on the ropes in this decisive meeting.

Credit to CSN Bay Area’s Casey Pratt for bringing the author’s attention to this raw, raw material.

I can relate to pirates, I too am after the booty.

— Trigger Jones (@TPA_TRIGGER) October 10, 2013

Wait a minute. Sea-loving traders… with suspiciously acquired merchandise? And pet reptile birds?… You guys are pirates! #Sokkawesome

— Sokka (@SoopaSokka) October 10, 2013

ATTACK THE PIRATES

— STEAM CAPTAIN (@Steam_Capt) October 10, 2013

I’ve set myself to become the King of the Pirates…and if I die trying…then at least I tried! – Monkey D. Luffy (One Piece) #Bot

— Ren [レン] (@Zombiefieing) October 10, 2013

The Cruz-Boehner-Koch shutdown. Pirates.

— Feckless Flea (@FecklessFlea) October 10, 2013

got the pink panties on this morning. go pirates.

— Eileen from Blawnox (@EileenBlawnox) October 10, 2013

The very talented Adam Wainwright faces the also very talented Gerrit Cole in Pittsburgh tonight at 8pm ET in a deciding Game Five of the NLDS series between the Cardinals and Pirates.

Almost no effort, and even less thought, has been required of the author whilst producing this so-called preview of said contest. And yet, by including the two animated GIFs below — of Wainwright and Cole asserting themselves upon the opposition assertively — that same dumb author has anticipated basically, like, 65% or 70% of tonight’s game already.

Like by means of this one GIF, for example, of Adam Wainwright throwing his curveball for a strikeout:

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You may remember a while back when then-Phillies Manager Charlie Manuel was fired in the midst of a disappointing season. There was a mixture of anger, confusion, and sadness entwined in this event. But fear not, fair NotGraphs reader, as it appears that the Phillies are reaching out and looking to find ‘ol Cholly another job within the ball club. The following are some open posts for which the Phillies are looking to utilize Manuel’s talents.

• Assistant Varmint Wrangler
• Head Varmint Wrangler
• Executive Grandpa
• Associate Historian in Charge of Storytellin’
• Manager – Department of Handshakes that Last too Long
• Christmas Party Santa Claus (part-time)
• Chief Swearing Strategist
• False Teeth Consultant
• Vice President of Belly Laughs
• Lead Beer Taster
• Chief Technology Complainer
• Assistant Director of Community Outreach and General Outrage
• Whirlpool Soiler (contract-only)
• Project Lead – Chitlins
• Napper-in-Residence
• Liaison – Department of Balms and Salves

We here at NotGraphs wish Charlie the best with his transition.

Death, my friends, is a part of life. Specifically, it is the last part. The part where life stops. Yea (and Yay!), with the Tampa Bay Rays eliminated last night, Delmon Young’s 2013 is dead. Delmon finishes his 2013 with a .260/.307/.407 batting line that’s suspiciously similar to his career .282/.316/.423 mark. He struck 11 baseballs so hard that they traveled beyond the outer barrier designed to illustrate the differences between the ballplayers and the rabble, and to keep said rabble in their place. He was also, for the third year in a row and the sixth year (out of seven) in his career, at or below replacement level.

In the postseason, he was a hero in the Wild Card game, hitting a home run off of Danny Salazar to give the Rays a lead they would never relinquish, and he knocked in two runs in the Division Series. All in all, Delmon may have done enough during his 70 plate appearances with the Rays to get a guaranteed contract next year, though woe is to the team that gives it to him.

And so, in celebration of not having to watch him anymore, it is thus that the royal We insert Delmon Young’s name into a shitty representation of the Western Canon, thus diminishing these works even further into the flammable morass of Lake Erie that is reality-TV-based popular culture.

Today, Delmon Young is sea-faring explorer Dirk Pitt, catting about the Antarctic, investigating the mysterious deaths of a bunch of sea mammals, and about to be drawn into an international mystery,  in Clive Cussler’s thrilling ocean adventure Shock Wave:

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In this edition of Andrew Dice Clay Interprets Baseball Poetry, the Dice Man sets his sights on the famous piece by Franklin Pierce Adams, Baseball’s Sad Lexicon.

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In the wake of last night’s events, some of you may be looking for more quantitative ways of celebrating the Unlikely Hero; or, alternatively, looking for the quantitatively correct imprecations with which to curse the Baseball Gods. Here at NotGraphsGraphs© (Putting the Graphs back in NotGraphs since 2012^TM), we’ve got you covered: we’ve invented a metric called Unweighted Runs Beyond Expectancy (uRBE). It’s a name that doesn’t make sense for a number that doesn’t make sense, and if you knew how much they paid us here, you’d have a little more sympathy.

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