Roger Maris, what have you done? WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?

You’ve cashed in your fame and fortune for a laboratory of horrors — to perform your monstrous and unethical experiments. You’ve crudely melded man and beast, and for what? What is your end goal?

Why must you dabble in the dark sciences, Roger Maris? What possible motivation do you have? Look at that poor thing to your left. Look in its eyes. Well, pick an eye, I guess. Explain to this jumbo rodent why you did what you did. Tell it why you sewed a belt to its skin. Tell it why you grafted what appears to be some sort of 2×6 to its chest. Why the thigh implants? Did you give it a watch so it could track exactly how long it’s endured excruciating pain and suffering? Your cruelty is as sharp as that thing’s widow’s peak.

Wipe that shit-eating grin off your face, you fink. There is no joy to be found in this dugout. You have done heinous things.

Your skills at the plate do not match your skills in genetics, Roger Maris. You sicken me.

(h/t to Chris Mottram for the original link)

Managing editor Dave Cameron wrote this morning about the formerly quite impressive and more recently less impressive Scott Kazmir’s very impressive start on Thursday against Oakland — during which start Kazmir not only posted a 10:0 strikeout-to-walk ratio, but also (and perhaps more importantly to the left-hander’s immediate future) featured a fastball that was sitting at 95 mph by the end of the game (box).

What follows, for sake of reference, are Kazmir’s last three pitches — which pitches (a) represent three of the four hardest fastballs Kazmir threw all game and (b) were thrown consecutively, all for strikes, to Luke Montz.

Here, recorded at 95.78 mph, is Kazmir’s first pitch to Montz — which Montz fouls off:

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As made more or less clear by the present author’s recent conversation with him, Voice of the Cardinals Mike Shannon is both (a) a man among men among still more men and (b) not likely to concern himself unduly with those matters which fall outside of Mike Shannon’s purview.

Such a matter appears to be a promotion currently being conducted by Mobil — which promotion invites listeners to advocate (via text message) on behalf of an already extant Mobile jingle, that it might become the walk-up music for a Cardinals player this season.

The motivations for the consumer to participate in said promotion aren’t immediately clear — neither in a general sense (to a person with reason, for example) nor, specifically, to Mike Shannon himself, who remains adamantly perplexed by it (i.e. the promotion) even while explaining it to listeners of Cardinals radio.

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Elimination Number: 118

It is not lost on the present author that a visitor to this hamlet of the Internet might either have a small amount of knowledge about a large swath of subjects, or perhaps the exact opposite. Either way, it seems like possessing one of the other (perhaps the latter more so) causes society to label one as a nerd or geek. I would add dweeb but I don’t hear people say that any more. I might research why that is. But not right now.

Right now I want to talk to you about singularity. For those who know, I apologize both for the redundancy as well as my surely-lacking description.  The general idea of singularity is that some time in the future (the consensus of when differs), technology will advance so much that humans will reach a place of super-intelligence. No one can tell you about what this future world will look like due to the anchoring theory of singularity — our puny stupid brains have no way of conceiving this world. The craziest, most futuristic thing we can think of will pale in comparison to what will actually exist, where we will actually be. We simply are not equipped to visualize this future. The only thing that will allow us to understand it is to advance technologically as a species to the point in which it actually happens, at which point thinking about it will be irrelevant. Science is weird.

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Via a series of Action-News FOIA Requests, your correspondent was able to steal a glimpse of Banknotes Harper’s Amazon.com shopping cart. Presented largely without comment, here is said cart …

Banknotes Harper’s levels of discretionary income barely felt a thing. Fuckers.

Cincinnati Reds second baseman Brandon Phillips has established himself, among baseball players, as one of that sport’s most active users of social media — and his Twitter handle (@DatDudeBP) is one of the league’s most recognizable.

What the author has uncovered today, however, while reading French — that is, a language very similar to English, were English spoken exclusively by pornographers with sinus infections — is that the Twitter handle @DatDudeBP actually belonged originally to noted, if tragically underappreciated, Surrealist poet Benjamin Peret (1899-1959).

Recognized by progenitor of the movement Andre Breton as the most faithful to Surrealism’s core values, Peret was an enthusiastic user of Twitter, even some 80 years before it (i.e. Twitter itself) was invented — a startling fact on the face of things, but less so when one considers that the Surrealist mission concerned itself primarily with the construction of new realities.

Below, in fact, we find evidence not only of Peret using Twitter, but also how it might have served him in the composition of his work.

Here’s the first of three tweets by Peret from February of 1926. Translated loosely it reads: “For seven centuries he commanded his fourteen lobsters.”

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Upon reviewing video of Wednesday night’s controversial ninth-inning hit by Oakland’s Adam Rosales, Major League Baseball has determined that umpire Angel Hernandez is a paranormal and likely malevolent being.

Though the incident occurred quickly enough to escape the notice of most real-time observers, the footage (stills above) clearly shows Hernandez summoning some sort of supernatural power from the sky, turning it upon outraged A’s manager Bob Melvin, and encasing him briefly in ice.

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From Yahoo: “Sources Say Sunscreen Trick Is Pitchers’ Latest Method to Gain an Edge”

What, you ask, is this sunscreen trick? Before you read the article, see if you can pick the right answer from the choices below. (Or add your own invented explanations in the comments.)

A) Sunscreen, applied to the ball, gives the ball immunity against being hit too close to the sun, lowering the average height of fly balls, and making home runs far less likely.

B) Sunscreen, applied to the pitcher’s hand and the baseball, creates a translucency that makes it hard for batters to see where the ball is coming from, the seams, and the spin.

C) Sunscreen, applied to the pitcher’s face, makes him reflect the sun in such a way that batters are distracted and have trouble looking in his direction.

D) Sunscreen, applied to the pitcher’s arm, can be combined with powdered rosin to offer an improved grip on the ball and a superior finish to the pitch.

And, no, I’m not very good at Balderdash.

Last Saturday, while I convened with Master Cistulli regarding the Discretionary NERD Scores for that day’s games, the Master — past whom nothing gets — noticed, via an uninvited glance at my desktop, my Largely Unnecessary, Decidedly Large, Neatly Organized, and Fully Computerized Collection of Digital Baseball Images™.

Why?

“Why do you have so many images that, one guesses, might be easily found on the internet at any given time?” Master Cistulli asked, not without the condescension common in those who readily identify themselves as both “raised in the Northeast” and “fond of boarding schools.”

My initial response — “For ease of access” — has become unsatisfactory to me in retrospect, and has caused, of late, something of an existential crisis. It should probably be noted, though, that something as minor as one of my cats sneezing is enough to send me into hours of contemplation and deep feelings of meaninglessness.

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“The throw to second is wide… and he’s out!”
“How’d he do that?”

We’ll never know.

Thanks to Doug Miller for pointing out the play.