Loyal reader Larry Holt sent me this screen grab:
Thanks to the LA Times for being on the case. Clearly a little bit of facial hair goes a long way when it comes to Home Run Derbies. Next year, look for each of the competitors to simply sport one long hair coming out of some part of his face, with the rest of it clean-shaven.
They’ve all told you the same thing — those who raised you, siblings, lovers, the god you worship, the earthly squires of the god you worship, teachers, physicians, strangers on public transit, neighbors, pets. It’s the stinking, larded pageant of those you have known, and they agree on nothing save for this: that your best is not good enough.
It is not often that you call upon the best you’ve got in the service of completing a task or making what struck you in the conception stages as a pleasant gesture, but even in those scarce moments when you do offer up the best you’ve got, it’s not enough.
Mariano Rivera knows this. He’s aware of all that you’ve befouled. Consider it a mission of conscience for him, this letting you know that he knows you’re diminished by the effort …
You see that he, for a fugitive instant, looks askance while he hails your miserable attempt. He’s aware that this is alms-giving of somewhat embarrassing extremes. To be sure, there is condescension lost in his practiced applause, which strikes you as not unlike the hand-claps of a dutiful grandmother who beats the Gold Medal flour from her hands as she makes the weary lemon cake by rote. The apron hides a will and a cancer …
Mariano Rivera’s prosopon mask of exuberance is to obvious excess, to glut. What you’re doing at this moment warrants so, so much less. But Mariano Rivera feigns joy so as to train you to keep at this toil. He knows you’ll never get there, but have another go at it just the same, would you, you hesitating buckaroo? For he knows hope is not so much an expectation as it is a way of whittling at the days like a sassafras branch until they come to embalm you. Mariano Rivera knows this, but he’s too gentlemanly to say as much.
Your best will never be good enough, but it’s better than it ever has been, so long as Mariano Rivera is watching.
As discerning baseball fans, many of us tend to get a little snarky during the All-Star break. Part of it could stem from the fact that real baseball takes some time off, but a lot of it seems to come from a general conception of silliness. The Home Run Derby is silly. The fact that the All-Star Game counts for something is silly. Every team getting a representative is silly. While these all ring true in varying degrees in me, I still like the All-Star Game. I try, real hard at times, to not be cynical about baseball. Life is full of frustration and bleakness and disappointment and confusion. We shouldn’t seek that out in baseball, at least not too much. Baseball isn’t an escape from life, it’s an alternative. It’s where we would live were we somehow able to live inside a concept. This is why I try to watch baseball through the rosiest of glasses.
I also watch baseball for people like Steve Delabar. Until very recently, I didn’t know much about him. I know that he had blown out his elbow and was doing well after being an old rookie, but it ended there. Then, I stumbled upon the below video. Much focus was given last night to Mariano Rivera, and, of course, for very good reason. A swan song is almost always a touching moment. But save for a few remarks from Joe Buck, Delabar wasn’t talked about all that much. While Rivera’s story of poverty and success is a classic trope in baseball, I find myself drawn more to stories like Delabar’s. Because he fought the odds as an adult. He’d seen the other side, knew what it was like to be a failure, and persevered. He put the dour inevitability of normal on pause not once, but twice. Kids want to be Mariano Rivera. Adults want to be Steve Delabar. Delabar gives us hope that something — probably not baseball, but something — is still attainable. Delabar allows us, as grownups, to have children’s dreams. That, and he throws 97, which is cool no matter what age you are.
Yasiel Puig: Defecting from the United States back to Cuba, where at least he might make an All-Star Team.
Shin-Soo Choo: Fulfilling his South Korean military service.
Jacoby Ellsbury: Getting injured.
Josh Donaldson: Trying to poison Jim Leyland by figuring out a way to get him addicted to little white sticks filled with dangerous substances that will kill him.
Scene: Alex Rodriguez speeds up the Amazon River on an airboat, trying frantically to outrun the MLB investigators that are right behind him. He turns, and shoots his gun, barely missing his pursuers. One of the investigators, probably played by Bruce Campbell, takes steady aim and fires a shot that severs A-Rod’s fuel line, causing his airboat to catch fire. Rodriguez jumps into the Amazon just before an explosion rocks his airboat. He is fished out of the water by Campbell.
Campbell: Gotcha, A-Rod. This is your third strike, and you’re out.
Campbell knocks Rodriguez unconscious with a single punch. A-rod is cuffed to the MLB investigators’ airboat. The camera zooms in on A-Rod’s boat sinking, and on several barrels riddled with bullet holes marked HGH, as they slowly, ominously, slip under the waves.
One week later, giant piranhas, anacondas, and crocodiles begin wreaking havoc on local fishermen. A brilliant wildlife expert, probably played by Amanda Bynes, puts two and two together, and meets with Bruce Campbell to tell him that A-Rod’s HGH did something to the river. Campbell and Bynes have to visit A-Rod in MLB jail. Read the rest of this entry »
Embedded here is footage of right-handed Colorado prospect Eddie Butler striking out Boston shortstop prospect Xander Bogaerts prospect by means of an excellent 90-mph changeup during Sunday afternoon’s Futures Game in New York.
The NotGraphs Fireside Chats are a series of dialogues between two unimportant outsiders. Their primary focus: baseball, and writing about it. Please note that what follows is somewhat aimless and entirely TLDR. If you’re the sort of person who believes that metaphysical discussion of a subject ruins that subject, you should probably turn back now. What follows is dangerously reflective.
Today’s topic relates to a series of tweets made last Friday by Mr. Sports Journo (twitter: @BIGSPORTSWRITER), an anonymous career sports journalist. You can read a transcription of his monologue here. My colleague Robert J. Baumann and I will explore how we felt about these comments, and how we feel about an industry that finds little use in us, nor us in them.
Patrick: Friday morning I stumbled across a string of tweets by this anonymous figure, chronicling the state of sports journalism. He seems to think that things aren’t going that well, and that we’ve grown attached to the lifestyle of the athlete rather than the game itself. The journalist has succeeded in making him or herself the story, and twisted sports news into human interest and groundless opinion. Now that I’ve asked you to stop what you’re doing and read all this, Robert, how does it make you feel?
Robert: My initial reaction is twofold:
2014. Yasiel Puig (LAD) hits a home run off Taijuan Walker (SEA) in the 9th inning to win it for the National League.
2015. Mike Zunino (SEA) smacks a ground-rule double in the 7th inning off Zach Wheeler (NYM), driving in Eric Hosmer (NYY) with the game-winning RBI for the American League.
2016. Red Sox player-manager David Ortiz (BOS) hits an 11th inning grand slam, driving in Manny Ramirez (TEX), Alex Rodriguez (CHW), and Jose Reyes (MEX) and giving the American League its 2nd consecutive victory.
2017. Jeff Francoeur (SF) walks with the bases loaded to force in the winning run off Aaron Sanchez (TOR) and lead the National League to victory.
2018. Byron Buxton (MIN) hits two home runs– the first off Gio Gonzalez (WAS) and the second off Rick Ankiel (STL)– and wins the game’s MVP award.
2019. Michael Ynoa (OAK) strikes out nineteen batters over three innings, but David Wright (JUP) hits a 6-run homer to win it for Jupiter and the newly-formed Galaxy League.
2020. Unfrozen Ted Williams (BOS) triumphs over Glork (SAT) and the rest of the Galaxy League pitching staff to win the game by a score of %#$ to &^&.
The best and brightest in baseball players are headed to CitiField today to represent their teams and battle for home field advantage. What this post wonders is what it would look like if it were beers headed to an All-Suds game instead.
NEW YORK — Competing for the fourth year in a row, Cincinnati Reds first baseman Joey Votto failed once again to win the Infield Fly Derby, part of Major League Baseball’s All-Star festivities. In his four years of competition, Votto has yet to get a single point. Votto’s voluntary entrance into the event turned heads again this year, as he has only amassed four infield fly balls during regular-season play since 2009, a span of 648 games.
“One of these years I’m going to get one,” Votto said to reporters in the post-event press conference. “I’ve always been a guy who can do pretty much what he wants on a baseball field. I haven’t gotten the hang of [hitting infield fly balls] yet, but I will. It’s important to me to be a well-rounded player.”
Reds manager Dusty Baker, who was in attendance to cheer on Votto did not seem disappointed at the outcome.
“He’s always trying to make himself better,” said Baker. “And this is part of it. At least he didn’t take any walks. I’m getting pretty damn sick of watching that.”