Finally, Technology Helps Humanity

Tired of German geniuses employing their vast intellect to invent super bombs? Exhausted from the onslaught of innovation that brings only violence, terror, and Kardashians to your front door?

Well, we finally have a tool that will allow us to ingest more baseball while watching live baseball — we finally have a legitimate use for the great Google Glass experiment:

That’s right. It starts here. It starts with basic pitch-by-pitch data. Eventually Google will wise up and make full glasses (with transparency and sunglasses modes) so that I can go to, say, a Mariners and Rockies inter-league matchup and use my Google Glass to watch fullscreen HD feeds of, say, a Rays and Yankees game because who on earth would care about a Mariners-Rockies matchup?

Oh, behold, a bucket of greasy ballpark thanks to Frank Spinillo for passing along the relevant data — all without a Google Glass, too!


Pitch of Some Note: Preston Claiborne’s Changeup Last Night

It would be difficult, owing largely to the number of grand slams he allowed, to describe Yankees reliever Preston Claiborne’s appearance at Boston on Friday night either as “very” or “even at all” successful.

That’s not to say it was entirely sans merit, however. Before conceding the relevant home run to Boston catcher Jarrod Saltalamacchia in the seventh inning of that game, Claiborne threw a triumvirate of changeups, each of which deceased English person John Keats would have likened to Truth quite willingly.

Here, first, is Claiborne throwing that changeup to Red Sox outfielder Daniel Nava for a swinging strike two during the latter’s seventh-inning at-bat:

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A Piece of Trivia Only I Find Tragic

For children of the eighties, it was the glint of hope amidst the mud of the gold pan: the blue, angled text of the Rated Rookie.

rr

It’s easy, with our hindsight and our endless, self-perpetuating cynicism, to recognize the Rated Rookie as an early intrusion of branding into our idyllic childhoods. We were taught to salivate at the first sight of #53B6D6, and salivate we did, despite the fact that the inaugural crop of Rated Rookies included such luminaries as Mike Stenhouse and Doug Frobel, while omitting guys like Don Mattingly, Darryl Strawberry, and Pete O’Brien. It didn’t matter. The Rated Rookie was a mark of distinction, an epaulette that denoted membership in an elite circle. It whispered a secret promise, sometimes false, always interesting.

And Billy Beane was not among the chosen.

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Croyez-Le ou Non: Red Barrett N’Effectue Que 58 Lancers!

Recently, the author announced in these pages that — by way of preparation for a temporary move to Paris, France — that he would produce here a “brief, daily French exercise concerning base-and-ball.” To say that the results have been of the daily variety would either be (a) incorrect or (b) to problematize considerably the idea of “dailiness.”

Regardless, what’s happened is that the author, filled with an emotion cocktail of shame (as a result of his failure to commit to the project) and dread (apropos his mediocre language skills) has endeavored to revisit the daily French exercise here, this afternoon, ahead of his Sunday departure.

The passage featured here is taken from the 1991 edition of Expos Magazine cited previously by the author at the beginning of August — and is excerpted from a longer portion of that publication entitled «Croyez-le ou non», “Believe It or Not.”

Below, the author has produced a (likely flawed) translation of the relevant passage. Below that, there’s commentary regarding certain words or phrases of note (and which are marked by an asterisk) either because (a) those words and phrases are particularly difficult, but the author has grasped their meaning or (b) they are particularly difficult and the author has abandoned all attempts to make sense of them.

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Brian Kenny, Sabermetric Colonialist

Some idjit named “Mike Bates” was riling up the masses over on SBNation this morning, comparing stathead culture warrior Brian Kenny to a British colonialist barreling through Africa and the Middle East, telling the locals how to dress and organize themselves, redrawing boundaries of nations to suit his whim, and not giving a damn about the consequences. And all because Kenny insists that the win be murdered in a well, along with all whose sad devotion to that ancient religion has not helped them conjure up the stolen data tapes, or given them enough clairvoyance to find the rebels’ hidden fortress.

Frankly, the whole thing seemed ludicrous and offensive and this Bates fellow should be summarily fired (from a cannon).

In conclusion, here is Sabermetric Colonialist Brian Kenny in a pith helmet and with a silly mustache and a monocle:

 Colonialist Kenny

 Ridiculous! He barely even looks British.


Hitting Home Runs with Party Subs: ft. Josh Reddick

reddicksub

This has been Hitting Home Runs with Party Subs. You’re welcome?


Non-Urgent Matter: Arnie Beyeler’s Mustache, Spectacles

Beyeler

There are a number of matters to which the reader is compelled to devote his time, presently: to the cultivation of meaningful relationships, to the study of weighty texts, to the consumption of wine and spirits. All to the good, that.

Given his paucity of leisure just at the moment, the reader likely has no need for the sort of literary baubles produced occasionally in these pages — of which the current post, featuring an image of Red Sox first-base coach Arnie Beyeler’s mustache and spectacles, is an example.

A brief survey of the author’s emotions, however, reveals that resentment is nowhere to be found. Furthest thing from it, actually. A time to be born and a time to die, a time to read trivial weblogs and a time not to do that. All that kind of thing. What the author has endeavored to provide here, rather, is a sort of diverting thought — in the event that the reader finds a minute or two — which might be contemplated briefly and pleasantly. Refreshed, the reader marches on again — till human voices wake him, and he drowns.


You, Too, Can Be From Curacao

balentien

Any day now one of the most esteemed records in professional sports, the Japanese single-season home run mark, will be toppled by a man whose name nobody can pronounce. This seems to be a recurring problem with people from Wladimir Balentien’s native Curaçao. It is almost as though these people want to discourage immigrants through sheer linguistic perversity. Even if you can master the name of the country itself, you get there and you have to make friends with folks named Andrelton Simmons and Jair Jurrjens and Hensley Meulens and Jonathan Schoop. Scanning the names of some “famous” non-baseballing Curaçaoans only reinforces the suspicion: consider Riechedly Bazoer, Angelo Cijntje, and Ruelly Etienne-Winklaar. These are names that sound like regular names from around the world, if regular names were torn into pieces, put into a hat, shaken thoroughly, and reconstituted by small children.

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MVP Debate: Subjectified!

The words “MOST VALUABLE PLAYER” contain a mystery word! That word is not “most” or “player” or “churro.” It’s “valuable!” You guessed it! The “value” of a player is a hotly contested/annoying debate that is already happening and will happen for weeks on end. At Fangraphs, the tendency is to choose the individual who performed best based primarily on observable/measurable data. OBJECTIVE criteria, if you will. But here at Notgraphs we shun objectivity, because we know that in the end no matter what we measure or how well we measure it our ultimate destiny is to return as dust to the earth and be forgotten. Death is immeasurable! Terrific!

Instead, I propose a means of choosing MVPs using egregiously subjective criteria. Specifically: Use MyCeleb celebrity face match on the MyHeritage App to find out who MVP candidates most look like, and then pick league MVPs based on which celebrity I like best. Solid methodology, bro!

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Top Nine Replacement Radio Stations for the Mets

radio

Hopeless Joe wrote yesterday about the Mets losing their spot on WFAN sports radio, now left to scrounge for whatever lesser station will have them. Assuming they don’t choose to go with Hopeless Joe Radio, here are my top nine stations to replace WFAN:

1. WBAD
2. WPOO
3. WTJS
4. WGEE
5. WIKE
6. WGDP
7. WUGH
8. WPED
9. WAAA