That last one is very confusing, I know.

It’s not uncommon in this world — is, in fact, celebrated at some length by the god of the Old Testament in the book of Nahum, probably, or Habakkuk — for the star-crossed lover, separated by some combination of fate and legal injunction from the object of his affections, to pull himself up off the bar stool, place a call via pay phone to the local AM station, and dedicate Foreigner’s 1984 power ballad “I Want to Know What Love Is” to the only woman who ever mattered to him for 20 minutes last Saturday out near the municipal lake.

It was in much the same spirit, one imagines, that internet lover Michael Spitznagel stumbled to his keyboard tonight, booted up his Twitter computer, and requested that the present author utilize one of his few skills to the end of sharing A.J. Griffin’s curveball with the world — such that, after witnessing said curveball, the world would have a better idea than Mick Jones et al. what, precisely, love is.

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NotGraphs reached out to Tino Martinez for some thoughts about hitting, coaching, Derek Dietrich, and bunny rabbits.

On hitting: “You’ve just got to make the f****** bat hit the f****** ball. That’s all there is to it. Pick up the f****** bat, swing it when the ball is coming, and, f***, you get a hit. It’s not that f****** difficult, and if you don’t understand, maybe you’ll get a better sense of it after I pick you up by the f****** neck and throw you against the f****** clubhouse wall. Also, you’ve got to watch out for the offspeed pitch.”

On being a coach: “I f****** love it. As a parent, I’m used to only having a couple of kids to f*** with, but now I have twenty-five. Even more if you count all those f****** good-for-nothing rookies who keep coming up to the f****** team. I’m a f****** legend to them, so even if I punch them in the face or kick them in the f****** crotch, they still worship me. I learned from my role model, former Yankees manager Idi Amin, that the way to get players to listen to you is force. A little force, a little tough love, and a little f****** baseball bat in the f****** skull. That’s all it takes to succeed.

On Derek Dietrich: “You mean I didn’t f****** kill him yet? I thought a little ***** like that would be f****** dead by now. I asked him to hit the ball the other way, and he kept on pulling it, so I took a baseball bat and **********************************************************************************************************************. Good kid, though. I think he has a bright future.”

On bunny rabbits: “They’re f****** losers.”

Thanks, Tino.

[Image: Tino demonstrating his trademark choking technique.]

Kansas City’s Hunter Dozier is a rare sort of prospect. He’s both physically impressive and athletic — and appears, at least from a small professional sample, to have something in the way both of power and contact skills. At the same time, however, he attended a school (Stephen F. Austin State) not particularly well-known for baseball in a conference (the Southland) not particularly well-known for baseball.

All considered, there was decided uncertainty about where Dozier would be selected in the most recent draft. About 29th, was Baseball America’s best guess entering the draft. Definitely eighth, was the actual result — which is to say, 21 spots higher.

Until late, there’s been little extant video of Dozier. To amend that, in part, the author has produced the piece embedded above, which features footage of Dozier from a recent Pioneer League game paired, for unknown reasons, with the theme song to 1978 film The Deer Hunter.

Yesterday, Carson Cistulli’s proprietary equations determined that Wil Myers bat flips were alone in this galaxy. Simultaneously, DRaysBay user Edged was presenting this above GIF, in which Myers throws the bat right through your computer monitor.

Don’t put on your 3D goggles, kids! It will only make your eyes bleed.

In 1961, astronomer Frank Drake authored an equation (known colloquially as the Drake Equation) designed to estimate the number of detectable civilizations in the Milky Way galaxy, which equation accounted for the average number of star formations per year in the galaxy and the fraction of those stars that have planets and the average number of those planets that could potentially support life, etc.

Just tonight, the present author has devised a similar equation — except, in this case, one intended to estimate the number of other weblogs that might have already posted the bat flip by Wil Myers embedded above from the third inning of Sunday’s Tampa Bay-New York game (box). “Zero others,” is the likely answer via that equation’s impregnable logic.

Credit to concerned citizens of the internet, both je and Dan Rozenson, for bringing these important events to the author’s attention.

Please regard, with a sense of discernment, the following color-television GIF:

What is beyond dispute is that Vermilion Stockings philosopher-king David Ortiz has dislodged the second-base bag for purposes of mercilessly bludgeoning one of the three unsuspecting fops seated at the table in the foreground. What is left to question is which gentleman shall be beaten into a cadaverous pile of quivering mucus, paste, viscera and bloody snot-hominy. Who shall it be?

The answer, it turns out, is … yes.

Doctor Cyclops, by Will Johnson

When I am sad, I like to spend money. Because I am often sad, I am in big time mondo debt, as many of you know. At the moment, my cash flow is such that I cannot purchase any of these high quality screen print reproductions of Will Johnson’s baseball paintings — which I happened upon while learning more about Johnson’s recent musical project, Overseas, a collaboration with David Bazan of Pedro the Lion “fame” and the Kandane brothers of my [probably] favorite band ever, Bedhead (more recently of The New Year).

But that doesn’t mean that you should not buy these prints — or the very painting themselves! — dear affluent and/or fiscally responsible NotGraphs readers.

Look, you cannot take your money to the grave with you. Well, you could, but you can’t spend it from the grave. You could save it to give to your children, but let’s face it: your children will probably be jerks who don’t deserve an inheritance of significance, or they will be far wealthier than you, or both. Should they be neither, they will probably be the kind of people who would like to inherit a nice baseball painting or a high quality screen print of a nice baseball painting.

When you have grown putrid and reek also of antiquated ointments, you will be able to look upon these paintings and feel comforted: the Greats have preceded you in death; to yield to death is to follow their greatness in the only regard that you will ever manage to do so. You will be able to look at these paintings or prints one day and die consoled. In the meantime, you will enjoy their colors, the memories they evoke, a feeling of connection with other discerning baseball fans, one of whom produced these pieces of art, others of whom have similarly made the wise decision to purchase some of said pieces.

Let’s face it: you should spend your money on these things.

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Jeeves and Wooten, the new short story collection by the reanimated corpse of British humorist P.G. Wodehouse, follows the hilarious antics of newly recalled Milwaukee reliever Rob Wooten and his gentleman’s personal gentleman, Jeeves. Not unlike his original Jeeves stories for all their breezy humor — but also quite different because they largely concern baseball and are also written by a deceased person — Wodehouse’s Jeeves and Wooten collection is full of that accomplished author’s singular prose style.

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The casual observer might ascertain that Will Venable used his legs and his arms to make the catch below. However, when paired with the proper song, it becomes apparent that the ball actually came to Venable, after hearing his sultry, come-hither pleas to Come Get to This.

Watch:

Listen:
Marvin Gaye – Come Get To This