I found the picture of him in an old souvenir magazine, wearing that old trident cap, smiling forever, frozen in optimism. The team picked him up that winter because that’s what the team did back then: they combed through the trash, looking for new names to sew on the jerseys, new faces to learn and forget.

Clint Hurdle hit .400 in Spring Training. He got along with people. The coaches told him he’d won a job. Then, an hour before game time on Opening Day, the president of the team called him in and told him he didn’t. Seems they’d found a new piece of scrap, some guy named Phelps, for $35,000. A pittance, or a year’s worth of work.

Clint Hurdle went to the Mets. He’d hurt his back the previous year in Cincinnati, which is why they’d given up on him, and it flared up again after a dozen games. He was finished. He stuck around anyway, rode the buses, earned a few more call-ups, learned whatever they asked him. He tried catching. Eventually, he was no longer worth the roster spot, so he became a coach, and then a manager. He had kids, maybe. I don’t know.

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Yesterday in these electronic pages, Dayn Perry, that foe of the human race, submitted to the readership notable returns from decidedly juvenile Baseball-Reference player-name searches.

With a view towards accounting for the full width and breadth and maybe even depth of that same readership, the present author submits here a complement to Perry’s post from yesterday — namely, of results from B-Ref player-name searches featuring words and phrases most relevant to the experience of this nation’s seniors.

Tommy Glaucoma:

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A’s pitcher Sonny Gray was four years old when The Wu-Tang Clan released their debut album, so I’m not sure if Gray is privy to the philosophy of the 36 Chambers or not. Be that as it may, it certainly seems he’s channeling ODB (a.k.a. Dirty, a.k.a. Dirt McGirt, a.k.a. Big Baby Jesus) — may he rest in peace. Proof:

1. Gray himself does a fairly impressive shimmy off the mound to field the ball.
2. As Gray fields this ball barehanded, he hints at the notion that he “likes it raw.”

The results speak for themselves.  I will give Gray the mic so he can take it away.

Watch:

Listen:

This has been a GIF and a Tune.

Offered up with little introduction — and even less discretion — I present to you following decidedly juvenile Baseball-Reference player name searches …

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Click to embiggen.

Since its inception in 1973 in a small alpine laboratory built by ice-cold power broker/mindfulness-studies instructor David Appelman, NotGraphs has been a byword for rock-hard science; its various contributors, all of them, each respectively bywords for rock-hard scientists. For granted, is how the reader takes this.

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A few months back, Rotographs editor and Fangraphs writer Eno Sarris created Beergraphs, a site dedicated to the analytics of beer. It’s a fantastic site, focusing on beer stories (“Barely Beer”) and the analysis of user beer ratings, trends, ingredients and more (“Beergraphs”).

The site uses some of the Fangraphs intelligence and means of evaluating baseball players to evaluate and rate beers. If you consider the connection that exists between beer and baseball – whether that be drinking at the park or drinking away your sorrows – it’s a logical spin-off.

What many people don’t know, though, is that this wasn’t the first spin-off idea that was tossed out there. For every “Fraser” there are some “Joey”s. Thanks to some internal emails the powers that be thought were destroyed, I was able to find out what these rejected spin-offs were.

Snackgraphs
Synopsis: Analyzing the sales volume of ballpark snacks.

Sample graph:

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Bad Liriano made another untimely appearance yesterday, and so, with the Bucs stuck at 81 wins, the Doleful Pittsburgh Narrative drags on. At this point I think we’re all — OK, those of us outside St. Louis and Cincinnati — rooting for them to win tomorrow night and put this thing to rest. (Actually, I suspect many Reds and Cards fans are just as eager for the violin music to end.) So, to facilitate that happy event, I thought the time was ripe to roll out the Pirate Victory Song.

Happy New Year to Craig Breslow, Ike Davis, Scott Feldman, Nate Freiman, Sam Fuld, Ryan Kalish, Ian Kinsler, Ryan Lavarnway, Jason Marquis, Kevin Pillar, Josh Satin, Danny Valencia, Kevin Youkilis, Josh Zeid, and, of course, that shining example to all young Jews, Ryan Braun. Apologies to anyone the Internet isn’t telling me is Jewish.

Throwing all of those players into a custom team here at FanGraphs, I can calculate that the Jews have earned a total of 6.4 WAR this season, only 1.0 from pitching (due largely to Jason Marquis…). Scott Feldman, with 2.1 pitching WAR and 0.1 batting WAR, is the Jewish MVP thus far this season, with Ian Kinsler (1.9 WAR) a reasonably close second.

May the fantasy teams of all Jews reading this score 5,774 points tonight, and may at least one major league team serve brisket in their post-game spread.

Welcome to CHOOSE YOUR OWN RACE FOR THE PLAYOFFS ADVENTURE! Where anything can happen, provided I thought of this thing! See if you can find the track that leads to your team winning the WORLD SERIES! [Note: No tracks lead to your team winning the World Series] Start by choosing your favorite team from this comprehensive list of playoff contenders. Note that the linked-to headings will appear at the tip top of your browsin’ page.

Atlanta Braves

Miami Marlins

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Observe:

Harper finally admitted to Davey today his hip is "barking," so that prompted night off.

— Mark Zuckerman (@ZuckermanCSN) September 4, 2013

This struck me as odd, as I don’t remember seeing Bryce Harper’s hips barking. Did I miss something? Let’s roll our little computer mice over the following images to find out!
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