Softball, generally thought as a game for drunkards and women, was hoisted up by a group of great men.

The final score of the game between Team Harlem Nights and Team Ghost Dad:

America -1
Fascism – 0

If you had the wherewithal and courage to keep a list of your life’s biggest regrets, you would have to find room in the upper margins to squeeze in “Not watching a softball game played by Red Foxx, Eddie Murphy, Sidney Poitier, Bill Cosby, and Richard Pryor.”

These giants stand poised and somewhat attentive as they prepare for battle on the condensed field. Mr. Tibbs will pitch, thank you very much.

Red has the most manager-like name, so he manages. Every clap of encouragement jiggles his dancing lady tattoo. Eddie Murphy wonders if he locked his Maserati.

The third baseman was literally on fire once.

And Ghost Dad himself, where should he play? Catcher? Too tall. His lack of power doesn’t play at first base. Ghost Dad shall haunt center field.

The game was won with a walk-off homer. Who hit it? It doesn’t matter.

Because it’s not whether you win or lose, it’s whether or not you played softball with Bill Cosby.

Photo credit goes to Buzzfeed.

My wife and I, being healthy and productive members of both society and the working class, often spend our evenings pursuing projects that imbue our lives with a sense of fulfillment and personal satisfaction. So was it on the evening last, as I typed words about baseball and my wife digitized photographs of our collective youth. These two spheres collided tragically when  my aforementioned and charming wife uncovered photographs of my own baseballing pursuits, in the form of fake baseball cards devoted to my Little League team.

I present to you the backs of said cards. I do not present their fronts, because as you are perhaps aware, the Internet is a swarthy port-tavern of a place, and the present author may have, in his youth, worn the sort of spectacles that put Ron Kittle’s to shame.

I also present them to you in order to confess the sins of a foolhardy youth. Judge as thou wilt, Internet. I shall emerge the stronger for it.

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This is the analogies section of this week’s NotGraphs SAT. Please choose the correct response from the choices below.

1. 1 Hit : Bloody Nose :: O Hits : _______
(a) Bloody Sock
(b) Bloody Fingers
(c) Bloody Brothers
(d) Bloody Screwball

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In the epic battle that is cake vs. pie, I’m relatively certain we’ve all already chosen our sides, dug in our heels, and prepared to kill our own brother if necessary. Personally, I’m a cake guy because, like the estimable Paul F. Tompkins, frosting makes all the difference to me.  And I never much liked my brother anyway.

This debate has largely been left to arena of actual desserts, however, and we have not delved into the quandary that is Cake vs. Pie, Baseball Edition!  Choose your sides carefully: Read the rest of this entry »

Slim down and shave up,
buy a tie and a cream-
colored polo.

Who needs a mountain
man’s beard if you can
have an IT man’s dribble
of chin hair.

And who needs Santa’s girth
if you can impress the ladies
with the Satan’s bony ribs.

In an unrelated note, I recently lost 35 pounds and shaved my beard. I’m sorry this is how you had to find out.

Here at Notgraphs, where we take an avowed scholarly interest in futility, the name of John Gochnaur holds a certain incomparable cachet. Mr. Gochnaur’s short, miserable career, and most especially his epic 1903 season, stand as an eternal monument to baseball failure. That year, starting at shortstop for all but six of Cleveland’s 140 games, this man compiled a picturesque line of .185/.265/.240, with zero home runs of course, breaking his own modern record for lowest single-season batting average — and setting a new one that would stand for nearly ninety years. And he did it while racking up an astonishing 98 errors, leading the league by more than twenty, and establishing himself as the last major leaguer in history to crack 90. Thanks to these achievements, Mr. Gochnaur has earned himself an all but proverbial status as one of the worst ballplayers, or the worst ballplayer, ever to deface a diamond. A twenty-first century Republican congressman even paid him tribute on the House floor, likening his futility to that of the Endangered Species Act. John Gochnaur, there are some crimes against America that we are eventually prepared to forgive. Yours is not one of them.

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Dayn Perry and I are recording a Question Time™ edition of the podcast at 11am ET tomorrow (Wednesday).

Feel free to submit questions for Perry — who has fewer than zero reasons to live — in the comment section below.

Deadspin recently reprinted a fascinating look into the depths of Steve Carlton’s mind. Turns out, a cabal of 300 people is running the world. Or the Jews. Or the Chinese. Or the bankers.

It can get a little confusing to keep it straight. And so, with a recount of the tale that cost Steve Carlton his life savings freshly in mind, here are a few suggestions for his tchochtka-selling business.

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The purpose of this post is to remind the lusty and bespectacled readership that NC State sophomore Carlos Rodon’s slider — an example of which one see here being thrown to, and also knocking over, DH Cam McRae of Presbyterian College this past Sunday (box) — that Rodon’s slider remains superlative.

Nothing has changed since February, for example, when his slider was superlative — nor April, a different month in which his slider was also superlative.

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After hitting a dinger, Melky Cabrera proceeded to proceed through the dugout, giving false high fives all around.

In honor of Melky’s grand promenade, I offer the dulcet tones of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s Procession of the Nobles.

Watch:

Noble, indeed.

Listen:

procession

(GIF originally found on Reddit)