I think it’s wonderful that the San Francisco Giants have made the first successful protest in the past 28 years of baseball. Too long have we been chained to the pedantic, tiresome facts that pile up over the course of each baseball game. The external world is overrated anyway, what with its unreliable sensory data, its lack of free will, and the suspiciously lifelike behavior of the actors that populate our personal dramas. It’s time to make our own rules.

So as long as sophistry reigns supreme, and we can alter the outcome of games by talking about them very cleverly, I’d like to nominate a few contests of the near and distant past that I officially protest.

June 2, 2010: Cleveland @ Detroit

This seems like a good place to start. Armando Galarraga threw a perfect game. We don’t need The Man’s approval to tell us what’s true and what isn’t.

October 22, 1975: Cincinnati @ Boston (World Series Game 7)

I really couldn’t care less who won a World Series between two championship-rich franchises in a year that predates my birth and the birth of my baseball team of choice. But I do love the image of Fisk waving it fair, because I am a human being capable of feeling emotions, and thus I find it kind of selfish of the Reds to ruin it by winning the next game. Also, it eliminates 25 years of New England self-pity, so bonus!

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The tiger-striped glasses that didn’t
look quite like I expected,
as though the frame in the doctor’s office
was the toy on the cereal box —
never the same as the one inside; sometimes
painted differently, sometimes
plastic, not steel —

the tiger-striped glasses, heavy
on my nose and adding roundness and orangeness
to an already circular and freckled face
paid me in headaches lost
(no headaches from squinting
at the Mr. Lawton’s chalky notes
on elements and particles
from the back of the class),
but cost me in those fleeting moments
with brown-haired Alyssa,
who thought I was making fun
of how she ate the banana,
who never seemed so interested
in me as me in her.

Chris Sabo, let’s go, you and I,
and lie etherized on the optometrist’s table;
let’s stretch across expired TIME
and NatGeo magazines until we
get our vision and our heartbreak;
let’s wait together and say nothing
when the toy inside is not red,
       but blue.

Advertising, as a form of either clever marketing or blatant mind control that robs individuals of their decision-making sovereignty while consigning them to a groupthink circle jerk to which radically independent hipsters apply the delightfully clever and not at all hivemind-y epithet “sheeple,” has been around for a very, very long time. Examples: The Lascaux Cave paintings were part of an ad campaign for Grak’s Real Pit BBQ. Leonardo’s Mona Lisa served as an ad poster for Luigi’s La Bomba Lip Gloss. And Wagner’s Ring Cycle was a lengthy jingle for Günter’s Chainrings Und Sprockets.

Indeed, the history of advertising is a long illustration of coercion disguised as art – or, at the very least, persuasion concealed in an interesting-to-look-at form. It has always been this way, including that time when Warhol marketed soup. Two weeks back, however, advertising took on an entirely new dimension – specifically, a dimension measuring 20 yards by 53.3 yards – when, in the midst of the Ravens-49ers preseason game, a Toyota Red Zone logo appeared onscreen in what is typically just “the Red Zone,” sans any sort of corporate sponsorship that makes viewers want to gouge out their eyeballs and serve them between a pair of poppyseed buns to Roger Goodell.

This got me thinking: I am kind of hungry! While eating I had a second, non-food thought: What if advertisers were to employ a similar strategy on big league baseball fields? One possible plan: Whenever a player makes an exceptional play, be it offensive or defensive, the advertiser’s message appears in the area of play where the player made that play, no exceptions.

What follows is a list of proposed player-advertiser relationships.
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Last week, it doesn’t matter when or how many hours before midday, I was drinking. In a bar where the mesero brought me a menu with several parts, including a laminated photograph of the establishment’s dog with text telling patrons that while the dog would dearly love some of your food, please don’t give him any. The venue for my drinking had a logo with a cowboy hat on it. Then it came to me: that is what I can do for my NotGraphs post!

[Verse 1]
I haven’t seen a pennant since my youth
When Brett and Saberhagen played (and Steve Balboni)
And Charlie Leibrandt, Hal McRae
Gubicza, Frank White, and Quisenberry

But every year’s like false hope, prospects, oops they’re getting injured
Bad trades, dumb signs, oops they’re going backwards
They don’t walk, they don’t hit homers much too.
And then they talked about Hosmer, Myers– wait, I think we’ll trade him
Mike Moustakas– wait, we’ve really played him?
Seemed the plan, another year to end right as it began

But now they write about Royals (Royals).
They’re somehow winning games,
With people who can field the ball.
A bullpen not so bad at all.
Maybe it’s just timing (timing),
A division that’s weak
And maybe they’ll win, they’ll win, they’ll win, they’ll win.
Or a long, long losing streak.

[Verse 2]
Sal Perez and Escobar
Infante, Gordon, Dyson, Cain, Billy Butler.
It’s not a lineup that strikes fear– but our pitching’s nice,
And maybe that’s what matters.

But every year’s like false hope, prospects, oops they’re getting injured
Bad trades, dumb signs, oops they’re going backwards
They don’t walk, they don’t hit homers much too.
And then they talked about Mike Montgomery– wait, I think we’ll trade him
Odorizzi– wait, we’ll trade him too, yeah
Seemed the plan, another year to end right as it began

But now they write about Royals (Royals).
They’re somehow winning games,
With people who can field the ball.
A bullpen not so bad at all.
Maybe it’s just timing (timing),
A division that’s weak
And maybe they’ll win, they’ll win, they’ll win, they’ll win.
Or a long, long losing streak.

We here at NotGraphs have been described in many ways; namely “irreverent”, “whimsical”, and “soon-to-be-cancelled.” Rarely, even despite the best efforts of the NotGraphs Investigative Reporting Investigation Team, are we described as “journalistic.”

However, this may all change today as I believe I have uncovered the secret behind Yasiel Puig’s dominance. Dude’s magic.

As you can see in this not-at-all-reversed clip above, Puig appears to have the ability to move objects at will without even touching them. Is this how he keeps those doubles away from outfielders? Can he summon fly balls into his glove? Does he make Adrian Gonzalez’s gentleman parts twitch on occasion just to freak him out?

This is obviously a turning point in the evolution of humanity. Soon, baseball will cease being a test of physical prowess and hand-eye coordination, and merely a battle of magical powers. Just wizards and warlocks duking it out. Third base will truly be the hot corner, as the fielders try to ward off fire spells from the opposing dugout. Outfielders will turn high fly balls into actual cans of corn just to be dicks.

Some writers will cry foul. They will use their indignation to create column after column about this new breed of cheaters. Those writers will be turned into goats. Eventually, everyone makes it into the Hall of Fame. The sanctity of the game is ruined.

Thanks a lot, Obama Yasiel Puig.

As I’ve learned over the years, there is a great deal of brainpower lurking out there in the miasmic hellscape known as NotGraphs Readerland, and it is just waiting to be mobilized in the service of something ridiculously inconsequential. Never again will I underestimate you, readers; and so for this, my third Rebus, I have abandoned all mercy, pity, remorse, and indeed all humanity. There will be no hints; there will be no gimmes. I give you the Rebus of Death, and yes, you may click to receive your death in larger form:

Courtesy of Baseball Think Factory, a recent article in Wired unveils the Axe Bat, a baseball bat with the handle of an axe, which, based on a study by an engineering professor who lucked into a job where he gets to do research on baseball bats:

is more comfortable, delivers more power and speed, and reduces injuries when compared with traditional bats

The article is pretty interesting, and I recommend you all check out the Axe Bat, but I thought it would be more fun to speculate about other revolutionary new mash-up bat designs coming to a stadium near you:

1. The Com-Bat, a bat that’s also a weapon of war. Head of a bat, handle of a grenade. Good idea for military baseball games.

2. The Rub-bat, a bat with a rubber handle. Super comfortable to hold, although it limits bat control to some extent. Fun to bunt, since the ball bounces right off the thing. Hard to get a lot of power in the swing, though, since the head just starts flopping around. Ben Revere uses this, I think.

3. The WomBat (I), a combination wombat and baseball bat. Very cuddly.

4. The WomBat (II), a combination woman and baseball bat. Head of a bat and the legs of a woman. Not really sure what this offers a ballplayer, but maybe it’s a good novelty gift.

5. The Bat Bat, a baseball bat with the wings and teeth of a bat. Keeps the catcher far away, since he’s worried about rabies, allowing for free passage for runners on the basepaths and lots of dropped third strikes.

Vicente Lupo, the Mets prospect pictured in the right part of this picture, is exhibiting considerable emotion. Is it because:

1. He realized only after waiting in line at the DMV that he’d neglected to bring either his checkbook or the requisite amount of cash to renew his license; or
2. His parents just related, in unnecessarily graphic detail, the circumstances leading to his conception; or
3. He accidentally read a James Joyce novel; or
4. His hands, which are transplants from a deceased murderer, are attempting to strangle him; or
5. His hands, which are transplants from a deceased murderer, smell terrible?

Note, of course, that there’s no correct answer. Indeed, there’s no answer at all. All human endeavor continues to be an exercise in futility.

Credit to handsome entrepreneur Jeffrey Paternostro for bringing this image to the author’s attention.