Jose Constanza just hit a two-run single. Was the resulting bat flip a celebration of this feat, or was it an unsuccessful product of him trying to fling his bat into the stands — giving an adoring fan a memento? We may never know.
The Well-Beered Englishman, a NotGraphs frequenter and tipster, may hail from yonder eastern edges of the pond, but HE KNOWS AN AMERICAN WHEN HE SEES ONE:
There has been much written about home field advantage and strategy when it comes to the Wild Card play-in game. There are some very good articles on this very site, in fact. And while the addition of the second Wild Card team allows us to sit in the dark and contemplate a few more strategies and what-ifs, I shoot for quality over quantity. It’s not how many situations you have to consider, it’s how stupid-crazy those situations are.
That being said, here are four situations from which the owner of home field advantage SHOULD be allowed to choose.
Once upon a time, I made you a promise. As I am a man of my word and glad not to have to think of anything creative to write about today, I plan to make good on that promise. I watched and reviewed the pilot episode of ABC’s new Little League sitcom, Back In the Game, so you didn’t have to see it and wonder if you’re missing anything. I will be doing every Friday between now and when it is canceled, or I am politely asked to stop, which will probably be soon.
Anyway, Back in the Game revolves around Terry, a down-on-her-luck, newly single mom with a 10 year old son, Danny, who has just moved back home to her father, “The Cannon” (no, I’m not making that up), a former minor league baseball player. Her son wants to play baseball to impress some girl who only dates ballplayers. Again, these kids are 10. Anyway, he sucks, and doesn’t make any of the Little League teams, and this being a pretty horrible Little League organization, he’s told he’s not allowed to play. Hijinx ensue when Terry and another single mom, whose movie producer husband died and left her a fortune (we are told in tortured exposition) band together to offer to coach and fund, respectively, another team for the misfits.
Here, for everybody who has forgotten, is the trailer for the series:
That actually makes this show seem far worse than it actually is. The setup, while tortured, is actually fairly funny. Maggie Lawson, for all her inherent hotness, actually conveys her world-weariness really well. And her character, a former high school baseball player and All-American softball player in college, is far more formidable than in the trailer above, especially in her dealings with the douchebag who runs the league and never played high school ball. James Caan is far better than I would have expected, and makes what should seem like a horrible and grating character actually sympathetic.
What doesn’t work?
If there were a magical-realist novel about Josh Satin, it would begin with a description of Josh Satin, rounding the bases like normal after having hit a home run against Brewers reliever Jim Henderson on September 26, 2013.
Baseball players come
and go. But there is only
one Mariano.
This has been an emotionally-written NotGraphs Haiku.
Thanks to @Cut4 for the GIF. It’s perfect.
Sean Casey — no not that Sean Casey — published Carson Cistulli’s first (maybe) book-type thing, a slim chapbook called Assorted Fictions, which you can still buy for $2, postage paid.
Some years later, Mr. Casey made up for the blunder of publishing Cistulli by publishing a chapbook by the excellent Mark Leidner, called Romantic Comedies. Leidner used the romantic comedy meme again in his full-length collection, Beauty Was the Case That They Gave Me, published by Factory Hollow Press in 2012. This excerpt, from the former title:
She’s like get a load of this and he’s like whoa.
She’s a lonely air traffic controller and his name is Eric Trafalgar and he’s completely out of control.
She’s a disorienting aroma and he’s a bee crashing into a mirror.
He’s a man running up a hill while morphing into a snowball and she’s a snowball rolling down a hill and morphing into a running woman.
Her very existence depends upon the capability of mimetic art, and he doesn’t even know what mimesis is.
He stabs her in the heart with an icicle, but when the icicle melts she resurrects.
Lovers’ Quarrel
In honor of Sean Casey, then, who makes my baseball and poetry worlds collide, and in the style of Mark Leidner, here are some Baseball-Based Romantic Comedies. Please mail me my millions, now, please.
Grand Island, NE—Further alienating himself at his new job, area Database Specialist Dick Haugstad expressed interest in getting in on a “wild game of cards,” telling co-workers, “I just love a wild card game.” Numerous subtle cues from fellow employees failed to inform Haugstad that they were, in actuality, planning on watching a game of playoff baseball.
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With all the fuss surrounding the retirements of Mariano Rivera, Andy Pettitte, Todd Helton, and Vladimir Guerrero, I’m afraid that the possible ending of another exceptional career has gotten lost in the shuffle. As any fool can guess, because it’s in the title of this post, I’m talking about Chad Griffin Durbin. Durb, who’s been featured in these pages before, started off the year in Philly on a rather handsome contract. He was released from that contract in June, after giving up 17 runs in 16 innings, on 25 hits and 9 walks. He hasn’t pitched since, to my knowledge, and this could be the end of the road for the 35-year-old righty.
It’s easy to forget just how bad Durbin has been, and for just how long. In fact, his combination of longevity and mediocrity is quite rare — rare enough to raise the question: assuming he’s done with baseball, is Durbin’s resume Hall of Shame-worthy?
