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Whilst perusing the gentleman’s Internet, I came across the above picture. It features baseball, but it also features a depiction of an antiquated piece of technology. I thought people might find that funny. I also thought people might see it as a pointed commentary on our society’s relationship with technology — i.e. how we can barely learn and become comfortable with something before another newer, better thing is thrust upon us. The second group would probably be reading too much into it, I continued thinking, but that’s OK because discussion is vital for growth.

I was kicking around a couple of ideas for an article. One involved Murphy’s internal dialog as he played a text-based computer game. Another had him hacking into the stadium’s scoreboard.

But then I did a little research on Mr. Murphy, trying to figure out what set of circumstances would cause him to bring a portable computer anywhere near a baseball field. Rob Murphy isn’t just dicking around here. Rob Murphy is a legit geek.

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Become acquainted with all of Eno Sarris’s flawless pronunciations by clicking this hyperlinked text.

Milwaukee’s Corey Hart, recuperating from a January knee surgery, has yet to play a game this year. With fewer opportunities to appreciate Hart’s craggy visage, renewed potential exists for confusion with other individuals of the same name. Since a search of the Internet failed to produce a satisfactory guide, I have produced one myself.

	Corey Hart	Corey Hart	“Cory Heart”
Full Name	Johnny Corey Hart	Corey Mitchell Hart	Courtney Simpson
Occupation	Baseball player	Musician	Actor
Appearance
Height & Weight	6’6″/234	5’10″/?	5’2″/99
Birthdate	March 24, 1982	May 31, 1962	May 9, 1985
Birthplace	Bowling Green, Kentucky	Montreal, Quebec	Mesa, Arizona
Position	Right field, first base	Vocals, keyboards, piano, guitar, drums	Various
Teams	Brewers	Aquarius, Capitol	Max Hardcore, Wicked Pictures
Debuted	2004	1983	2005
Retired	–	“Semi-retired”	2006
Appearances	3802	9 (albums)	199
Hits	950	“Sunglasses at Night,” “Never Surrender”	Trophy Whores, Legal & Hot, Double Gulp
Awards & Nominations	2x All-Star; 25th in MVP voting, National League, 2010	2x Juno winner; nominated for Grammy, Best New Artist, 1984	Nominated for AVN Award, Best All-Girl Sex Scene, 2006
Religion	Converted to Christianity in 2011	“Is the opiate of masses” (“Political Cry”)	Raised a devout Mormon
Eyewear	Began wearing prescription goggles in 2010	Noted for nocturnal use of tinted lenses	Donned temporarily for Bookworm B*tches
Strengths	Home run power; deceptive speed	Passionate vocals; “cool, athletic” looks	Flexibility, congeniality
Weaknesses	Penchant for strikeouts; below-average defense	Lack of lyrical depth	Aversion to “watersports”
Controversy	Allowed infant daughter to be sprayed with beer	Publicly supported gay rights with single “Truth Will Set U Free”	Appeared on film wearing Arizona State cheerleader uniform; university threatened legal action
Trivia	Walkup song is ‘Until the Whole World Hears’ by Casting Crowns	Briefly considered for the role of Marty McFly in Back to the Future	Left home after a stack of pornographic pictures of her was left on her parents’ doorstep

A shame the a’s and giants have to play these games at the coliseum while ATandT sits empty. #shame

— Jon Heyman (@JonHeymanCBS) May 29, 2013

Sean Doolittle, Jarrod Parker, Josh Reddick, and Brett Anderson tweeted responses that indicated they weren’t thrilled with Heyman’s comment. Meanwhile, here at NotGraphs, we’ve gained access to Jon Heyman’s Unpublished Draft Tweetbank (TM) to find some other #shame tweets he ultimately decided not to post:

It is often said — not by the present author, it should be noted, but surely by an elderly writer somewhere with an impressive baritone voice — that baseball is a “child’s game played by grown men,” or something to that effect.

The merits of the sentiment are debatable, of course: leisure oughtn’t necessarily be the provenance of children alone, nor is it right necessarily to suggest that professional baseball is populated exclusively by entirely mature adults.

The finer points of the debate aside, it has become clear in the last hour that certain personnel within the Arizona Diamondbacks organization are committed to celebrating semi-publicly the connection between the innocence of youth and our honored game, which point the club has made implicitly by producing the lineup card pictured above, completed entirely in Comic Sans — i.e The Official Typeface of the Innocence of Youth.

Credit to the gentlemen rock stars of Productive Outs for bringing this image to the author’s attention.

What follows is, as you may have already surmised, pathetically derivative of the Eno Sarris Pronunciation Guide. Be that as it may, I am undaunted.

Because this, our Internet is in desperate need of a halfwit’s shrill fault-finding, I present to you the Dayn Perry Denunciation Guide, in which I full-throatedly condemn the sundry villains within and in dangerous proximity to our baseball.

This first episode shall hold up for merciless ridicule those who materially contribute to the deification of Nolan Ryan and his billions of unintentional walks.

Come with me, won’t you?

Nolan Ryan loyalists, consider yourselves denounced.

I came across this passage while reading the book The Fix is In.

We’ve created nicknames for players. We’ve created nicknames for former players. But every now and then, a previously-used nickname needs to be reapplied. “Whiskey Face” is one such nickname.

So, fair NotGraphs readers, spout off in the comments as to which baseballing person– former or current — is most deserving of this nickname of nicknames.

This morning I received an email as part of the Milwaukee Brewers mailing list. The headline read,

Braun steps up to the plate for fans in “Brewers Win, You Win!” promotion | Brewers Star to Fund Ticket Program for June 3 – 5 Series Versus Oakland Athletics

The pertinent part of the email, for your convenience:

The original promotion called for every Brewers victory between May 1 and May 30 to earn $1 off a Terrace Box ticket for the June 3 – 5 series vs. the Oakland Athletics. With just five victories this month, though, the Brewers outfielder has made a move to ensure that Brewers fans are rewarded despite the team’s struggles.

Regardless of how many wins the team records through the end of the month, fans will be able to purchase a limited number of Terrace Box (regularly $24) and Loge Bleacher ($23) seats for just $8 (matching Braun’s uniform number). Braun is subsidizing the savings through a financial contribution, which will cover up to 4,000 tickets for each of the three games against the A’s.

Let’s do the math. There are two ticket prices, roughly the same. If Ryan Braun picks up the tab for the entire difference in price — let’s say there’s 2000 each of the $24- and $23-tickets since the email doesn’t specify that particular breakdown — that’s $62,000 per game, and a total of $186,000 for the three game set with the A’s. This, of course, assumes that the Brewers organization isn’t covering some of that, and that those sections will sell out, which, I suppose, there’s actually a possibility of that: despite the third-worst record in all of Major League Baseball, the Brewers have the 13th best home attendance, averaging over 31,000 fans per game (a sell-out at Miller Park is 42,200), and are closing in on a million in total attendance with 29 home games played.

The Brewers could stand to put more butts in the seats, sure. And every team runs promotions of some sort. Maybe other players have done similar things in other cities. But seeing this email made me want to cry, for two different reasons:

First, it’s a reminder that my favorite team sucks right now. Boohoo, I know. Fans of any number of teams could whine about this, and while a few fan bases might have more claim to gloominess than Brewers fans, there aren’t many. (Pirates fans, maybe. I’ll listen on the Mariners or Royals.) It’s dark, and I don’t see a light at the end of the tunnel. I’m not sure there is an end to the tunnel. Despite what has the potential to be a potent offense, they haven’t even won enough games in May to make the “original promotion” worthwhile. This wanting-to-cry is based in selfish sadness, and a general fragility of spirit.

Yet there’s another type of wanting-to-cry here, too, and it’s even more foolish. Ryan Braun is making $8.5million this year, and he’s got $150million in guaranteed income through 2020. And, of course, that doesn’t include endorsement deals and other ventures. That is, he can probably afford to subsidize some tickets. But those other ventures, like this ticket deal, show a commitment to and investment in Milwaukee — a place that could easily be dismissed as flyover country by a Cali boy who colleged in Miami and affects considerable swagger — that is so rare that it’s almost confusing. Robin Yount played his entire career as a Brewer; Bob Uecker probably could have moved on to a bigger venue at some point, but chose to stick it out in his home town. Still, Braun’s enthusiasm for being a part of Milwaukee just feels different, even if it is appears gimmicky at times. Braun really likes Milwaukee, and wants to prove it.

I’m a small person, maybe, for hoovering up that sort of affirmation of my town’s worth. So be it.

The Kansas City Royals have lost seven in a row. The worst of it (so far) was a humiliating four-game sweep at the hands of the Angels, a series in which the Angels started Jason Vargas, Jerome Williams, Joe Blanton, and, perhaps worst of all, Billy Buckner. Buckner was a former Royals prospect traded away back in 2007, who, until this last game, had not pitched in the majors since 2010. He shut the Royals out for five innings and was promptly sent back down.

Enough of the misery! These are hard times in Royals-land. After years of hard times. It may take divine intervention to restore the wholeness of “Royals Nation” or whatever stupid name people want to give to collective Royals fandom. In hopes of restoration let us turn to the hymnal words of G.K. Chesterton (1874-1936), the early twentieth-century English Catholic writer, whose works span philosophy, theology, history, cultural and social criticism, and, yes, poetry, on this day of Chesterton’s birth, which I totally knew about and did not need to be told by someone on Twitter. “Coincidences are life’s spiritual puns,” indeed.

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