I was having a bit of trouble with my PlayStation 4 last night. This prohibited me from playing MLB 14: The Show, a shame since my created pitcher — Pedro Pedroia — was using his 2-seamer/cutter/splitter combo to mow down AAA batters and was on the verge of a promotion. My wife is out of town so I was doing what most men do when the wife is out of town, eating shitty food and staying up too late. I mention this only to point out the fact that the PlayStation Super Help Now Hotline was closed at this hour, and I had to relegate myself to the PlayStation Type, Wait,  Repeat Online Chat Coldline. It took over an hour, and a lot of repeating of information, but Carlos V. was finally able to get my issue fixed.

During this process, I got to thinking. Almost everyone has someone who is their go-to person for technical issues. Maybe it’s a friend or sibling or coworker, but there’s a person who is just a quick text or email away to help with a laptop, phone, or gaming console. Those who don’t have a go-to are the go-to for everyone they know, damned to an eternity of free labor solely due to the fact that they can work a computer.

Do baseball teams have this? Certainly, every team employs a myriad of tech professionals, but I’m talking about the 25-man roster. Is there a guy in every clubhouse that gets bombarded with questions about iPads and smartphones and Xboxs? Who is Tech Support by day, baseballer by night?

I turn to you, dear NotGraphs reader, for suggestions. Which player seems to best fit the name Tech Support? While this type of exercise is usually an open forum, I do have one stipulation:

YOU CAN’T SAY ERIC SOGARD

That’s not even trying. Use your mind grapes. You can do this.

About three years ago now, the author utilized what little he possesses in the way of photo-editing skills to produce the image — of portly and irascible major-league umpire Joe West ejecting NotGraphs — which thereafter became the official logo for the present site.

As of this AM, that logo has been replaced by a new and morbid variation on the theme, care of avant-garde male model Patrick Dubuque. In the case of this image, one finds not only Joe West but also, in West’s right hand, a scythe — with which dated agricultural instrument he intends, presumably, to murder the present site to death.

Over 6.1 innings tonight, Corey Kluber conceded zero baserunners — a notable feat, that, insofar as, were he to have recorded eight more outs, the reaction of the public would have been considerable. As the above footage reveals, however, Omar Infante rendered all notions of perfection moot in the seventh inning, lining a single to center field off the aforementioned Cleveland right-hander.

What Infante’s single represents, of course, isn’t the end of Kluber’s bid for a perfect game, but rather an entirely necessary reminder — such as one that appears with the Discourses of Epictetus or Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius — that perfection doesn’t exist. Nor is this absence of perfection something over which one ought to grieve. Rather, it’s a fact. Like the capital of Ohio is a fact. Or that Ohio exists at all.

Among the details regarding his life which might most immediately lend themselves to an illustrative portrait of Edwin “Alabama” Pitts are both how he (a) somehow entered the Navy at age 15 and also (b) distinguished himself among Sing Sing’s inmates as that correctional facility’s most talented of athletes.

After finishing his prison sentence, Pitts played both baseball and football professionally. After that, he made the decision to visit a combination filling station, tavern, and swimming pool (as one does). After that, he was stabbed during a saloon fight and died.

Image from June 8th, 1941, edition of St. Petersburg Times.

Deadspin reports on the latest prank against Jeff Francoeur (just called up to the majors, where he will likely succeed for a little while before reverting to his usual not-so-selective self).

I watched the video so you don’t have to: they lock him in a bathroom, and he escapes through the ceiling tiles.

It is a very boring video.

I mean, I’m not saying life over here is any more interesting, but it is a very, very boring video, with the only notable thing being how amused all of the players seem to be about the fact that they have locked someone in the bathroom.

I tried the same stunt with my mother-in-law and it was not nearly so funny.*

*I did not. But I needed an ending for this post.

As you undoubtedly already know, Jose Molina is something of a scratch base runner. On his career, he has 20 steals in 27 attempts, and 10 of those steals have come over the last four seasons. David G. Temple took some time to rightfully marvel over Molina’s 3-for-3 this season, which allows me to make a post I’ve been wanting to for awhile, except could not because of Laziness.

Here is Molina’s steal from 7/12/2014:

Here is that steal, Temple’s second GIF, repurposed with slower motion for to affect your feals. And here find also appropriately inspirational tunes:

It is entirely by coincidence, and not, as some conspiracy theorists would have you believe, by design, that the title of this post is uncannily similar to that of Monday’s apocalyptic bombshell regarding the imminent demise of NotGraphs, a blog soon to be known as NotNotGraphs, or, for short, Not.

That post, titled This Weblog Will Expire in Three Months, detailed history’s most cataclysmic development by explaining that the blog’s majordomo, Monsieur Carson Cistulli, wants to spend more time with his family, or maybe with Bruce Jenner’s family. I don’t know. I didn’t read it.

Whatever the case, the timing could not have been more adventitious for me, personally, with regard to the post that you are currently reading – and might be reading for the next two-plus minutes. Why? Because for the past three days, while circling want ads for Unamusing But Punctual Comedy Writers in the local PennySaver, I’ve been drinking a lot – a LOT – of the eggnog left over from the most recently concluded yuletide season. It is not so much for the milk, eggs and nutmeg that I’ve imbibed this frothy concoction, but, rather, the bourbon, the better to ease the pain of impending unemployment.

The problem, as you know, is that eggnog is plagued with a shelf life, perhaps not as rate-specific as the decay of a radioactive isotope but still pretty rigid. Though sensitive to a variety of factors, including exposure to heat, light and Satan, most canned eggnogs last for a period of four to five months. That time has come and gone. And, according to Science, the nog will not submit to an eternal lactose return. It ain’t coming back.
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This isn’t unique to baseball, but the structure of the game, the design of the field, and the player positions, lends itself to a little fantasizing. Also, Dodger Stadium is way more fun to draw than any other park. Click: big, obvs.

(via FantasySP.com)

Fill in your own punchline:

“The Mets are not willing to eat salary in a Bartolo Colon deal. ___________________________________________.”

Some ideas to get you started:

“The Mets are not willing to eat salary in a Bartolo Colon deal. Bartolo Colon, on the other hand, is willing to eat whatever it takes.”

“The Mets are not willing to eat salary in a Bartolo Colon deal. Fortunately, the salary has already been eaten by Colon himself.”

“The Mets are not willing to eat salary in a Bartolo Colon deal. That’s like saying the Dodgers refused to order a beard trimmer when they signed Brian Wilson.”

Okay, that last one is not good. And the other two are, well, too easy. BUT THAT’S WHERE YOU COME IN! GET TO WORK!

Very talented modern fictionist George Saunders says in an interview I’m unable to locate for a publication I can’t recall — he says that he didn’t begin to write proficiently until he returned to a voice that most resembled the sort utilized by people in Chicago, his hometown.

For me, I’ve always been skeptical of that tired directive, recited often in creative-writing workshops, that one should “write what [he or she] knows.” I prefer, both as a reader and writer, to be caught up in an experience that is expressly not available to me in my actual, real life. Still, there’s probably some merit to revealing certain elements of one’s own life to the reader.

Pursuant to that point, I present the above image — of my actual birth mother’s actual arm — which arm bears a tattoo of the Boston Red Sox’ cap insignia and which tattoo I know for a true fact she received whilst visiting me in 2007 or -08 (one of those) in Portland, Oregon. As regards the state of her sobriety at the time, I’m unable to comment. That this is a photo of her arm from tonight, however, is a point beyond contention.