If you’re weary of the usual fare when it comes to broadcaster’s home run calls (i.e., “Back, back, back, gone!” or “Golly toots, a long potato!”), then please do consider encouraging your local mic-wielder to take some of the following suggestions for a test drive.

For instance, when a fair-hit ball clears fencing, the announcer might exclaim …

– “This all-you-can-eat seafood buffet just got pregnant!”

– “Are you ready for some football?!”

– “Go find a new a new grandpa, kid, because the one you know and love just got slaughtered!”

– “RBI, Brandon Phillips!”

– “Torquemada’s biscuits!”

– “King Kong’s ding dong!”

– “Donald Sutherland’s panties!”

– “Last night, I drank alone in the dark, just as my father did!”

– “The vicar died clutching not his rosary, but rather his secrets!”

Or …

– “Hand over your badge and service revolver, O’Boyle. You’re on unpaid leave as of this moment!”

Thank you for your measured consideration.

It’s been a rough season for the Toronto Blue Jays organization, to say the least. They’ve been officially out of playoff contention for a few days already, and the disappointment and resignation for Jays fans must have started far earlier than that.

That they will finish the season with two [more] of their all-stars on the disabled list adds injuries to insult. That they will finish the season without a few other things…well, that’s just par for the course:

(Adapted from Mike Axisa, “Blue Jays shut down…”, 17 September 2013.)

It is like they do not exist!

Who do you think?! The Libyans!

On Friday, I’ll be taking the final spot subbing in for Carson and writing the Daily Notes on the main site. Or perhaps Hopeless Joe will be writing them. I haven’t decided yet. What I have decided is that you, loyal NotGraphs readers, who often find yourself over on this side of the home page, might be able to help me put together some awesome Daily Notes. If there’s something you’d like to say about Friday’s games — any of them, all of them, or none of them — send me an e-mail before 9 AM tomorrow. Or anything you’d like to say about the Daily Notes. No guarantee I’ll use it, but I might. So if you’ve ever wanted to be credited over on the main site, here is your chance. And now I need to figure out how I’m going to come up with better NERD scores than Bates did.

In the course of my work for another Internet writing outfit, sometimes I get strange emails. This usually happens when one of the assignment editors there mistakes me for someone else and asks me to do something for which I am not even a little qualified. For instance, I essentially stopped paying attention to football six years ago when my son was born. I got dumber then, and had only room in my brain for one sport with all the parenting I had to learn how to do. As such, I have vague ideas of who some of the players are, especially if they’re old, and I know the Vikings will break my heart at some point, but otherwise I’m pretty useless.

So yesterday, I received the following email from one of said editors:

“Dear contributor Mike Bates,

You have been assigned to write a Article on [redacted] called Heath Miller injury: Steelers expect tight end back at practice for the purpose of Demand.  It will be published at Early morning on 2013-09-17.

Take note of the following:

https://twitter.com/EdBouchette/status/380000346493304832

Please reply to this message if you have any questions or are unavailable to post this. As always, thanks for your contributions.

Thanks,
Assignment Desk Editor”

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Here is Joe Ferguson, throwing out Sal Bando:

This, from a Hardball Times article by Bruce Markusen back in January, which contextualized the play:

In Game One of the 1974 World Series, Ferguson cut in front of center fielder Jimmy Wynn to make a catch and then unleashed a 290-foot tracer to the catcher, erasing Sal Bando and taking a potential run off the board for the world champion A’s. It was also a smart play by Ferguson, given that Wynn was playing with a badly injured throwing shoulder and would have had little chance to throw out Bando.

When a friend of mine forwarded me a link to this video the other day, I felt like I wanted to write about it, but I’m still not sure why. It was a great play, to be sure, and I love watching frozen rope throws from the outfield. The fact that it happened in a World Series game that featured a classic 1970s rivalry adds to the coolness. But still, I’ve seen throws that are just as good or better, so why write about this one?

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I used to gripe about Nick Punto. I used to sneer at Minnesota fans who bought his shirseys and cheered loudly when he came to bat. I used to roll my eyes every time an announcer would laud him for his hard-nosed play, his determination, and, of course, his “scrappy-ness.” I never actively disliked him — never booed or threw a ranting comment into the Internet — but he always just kind of annoyed me. But then, it hit me last night. Nick Punto doesn’t give two shits about what I think. He doesn’t care what anyone thinks about him. If he does, he certainly doesn’t play that way. Nick Punto has transcended. He has come to the realization that he only gets one shot on Earth, and he gets to spend part of it playing baseball for a living. So, while he has the chance, Nick Punto is going to play exactly the way Nick Punto wants.

Your feelings on Nick Punto are irrelevant, you see.

Godspeed, Nick Punto. Keep on keepin’ on.

Last Thursday, I broke the Internet. I caused priceless and irreplaceable mental effort, belonging to 183 actual, sad human beings, to be diverted away from countless worthy ends and toward quite possibly the least worthy end in the universe: commenting on a Notgraphs post. According to reports, the tremor of futility was registered on sensitive instruments as far away as China; the dumbing, experts say, may be irreversible. For this I will shoulder the blame entirely.

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From MLB.com:

…which is a perfectly good reason why the Rays are going to win a wild card slot.

Except:

1. You can’t spell Wild Kard without Kuroda, although if you’re trying to spell Wild Kard, you really can’t spell.
2. You can’t spell Wild Card without Wada, as in Tsuyoshi Wada, with a 4.03 ERA in Norfolk, the Orioles’ AAA affiliate.
3. You can’t spell “You Can’t Spell Wild Card” without Yu, as in Darvish.
4. You can’t spell anything without the letters in Marc Rzepcynski’s name, since they’re all in there. And he’s on the Indians, in case you didn’t know.

And, also:

5. You can’t spell “Fail to Win The Wild Card, You Royals Fans” without Falu, as in Irving Falu, who hit .341 last year and hasn’t even gotten a single at bat in the major leagues in 2013. Poor Irving Falu!

Which all combines to tell me nothing.

Dear Internet Users,

I am not Vance Law the former Major League Baseball player, but I am a fictional persona who will be evoking Vance Law as I write (what I hope will be regular) Internet letters to you here on this little strand of the World Wide Web. Without further ado, here is a letter I have written to you!

I am noticing lately that I am a meticulous person. When I wipe the spots from my spectacles, it must be with a clean towel, for if the towel is dirty, I will surely dirty my spectacles with more than just the finger-smudges and water-spots that are already upon them. Only after wiping the spectacles do I allow myself to use the same towel on my sweaty brow &c. Then, it’s off to the laundry bin with the towel. My meticulousness accumulates quite a lot of towels to be laundered!

Though, as I seek to cultivate peculiarities and grow in complexity, I wonder if I might attempt a different method of towel usage: drying my brow first in order to have a clearer vision for wiping my spectacles — yet being sure to preserve a corner of the towel for the spectacles. Above all, I believe spectacles must be cleaned with an unsullied portion of fabric; but of almost equal importance is to meet the task of spectacle cleaning with an unsullied mental focus — and unobstructed sight.

To this point in my life, I have abided and enacted only the former rubric of towel usage. Now, having reconsidered this issue in my first letter to you, I see clearly the advantages of the latter method, and I believe I shall try it. That’s right, dear Internet Users: do not think that I am such a rigid man that I would refuse to revise my habits even based on sound reasoning. Just because my name is Law does not mean I do not bend! I am an astute editor of personality!

But what a strange first impression I must be giving you. What a way to solicit your future audience! I hope that the mundanity of the above reflections does not lead you to believe I am a poor or thoughtless lover. I am a sensual man with a clean face, and I intend to make unique, detailed love to each of you in due time.

With love,

In celebration of Vladimir Guerrero’s retirement, I offer this video from the YouTube archives, from 1999, celebrating his time as an Expo. There is some terrible hero/Guerrero rhyming going on, but it’s still kind of fun. Song by Mal Thursday and Paul Rocha, sung by Amy Sullivan.

Oh, while I’m at it, here’s a video of bloopers from Todd Helton filming a commercial for Longmont Ford in Colorado. Right now this video has 315 views. It deserves at least 320.

Okay, one more. Vlad knocking Tommy Lasorda over with a flying bat, while Lasorda was coaching third base and Vlad was hitting.

This edition of things your boss probably doesn’t want you to watch at work is sponsored by Retirement. Retirement: sounds nice, doesn’t it?