Latvia

Ahoy, lusty wanderers! Since setting out some weeks ago on my bold and gastronomically reckless circumnavigation of the baseballing world, I have endured great hardship, engaged in hilarious and poignant miscommunication, and witnessed America’s pastime thriving in the least likely of settings. In a felt-lined yurt in the heart of the Gobi I sipped fermented mare’s milk and debated lineup optimization; on a rice barge on the Malabar coast I swapped hot-stove rumors over the roar of the monsoon; amidst flower-strewn meadows on the high slopes of the Karakoram I gasped my way through pickup games, the cheerful taunts of the Tibetans ringing in my wind-whipped ears. Step by arduous step I conquered Asia, and now I find myself on the grey shores of the Baltic, where baseball has a rich history.

According to scholar Josh Chetwynd:

Latvia had a brief flirtation with baseball in 1920, according to the October 10th edition of the New York Times that year. The paper recounted a game in Riga featuring members of the American Red Cross Commission of Western Russia and the Baltic States that garnered high-level political attention. “During the third inning,” the paper wrote, “the Prime Minister of Latvia drove onto the field. [The fielding team] whooped with joy, thinking that here was a worthy player to match [the other club’s star]. Instead, the Minister-President took our first baseman away with him.”

With such deep roots in the sport, it’s no surprise to find baseball still thriving in this land of zithers and pierogis. The nation’s amateur league, the Latvian Baseball Federation, consists of eight clubs with such names as (if my translation is correct) the Valmiera Cartridges, the Miami Devilbats, and the Legends of Light. The official website of the LBF includes a helpful and thorough overview of the history of baseball, as well as its professional format in the United States:

“World Series” is the MLB finals, where competing teams have passed the play-off round. Although the name sounds like that should participate in the tournament teams not only from America, it is not. Americans think that the team that produced the MLB championship, produced the world’s strongest team title. Admittedly, however, they are true.

The site also features an excellent tutorial on the rules of baseball, with some of the better explanatory graphics I have seen:

As to the particular character of the game as it is played in Latvia, I can perhaps best convey it with a typical snippet of action from a recent game recap:

Perhaps the outcome of the game was the key Moot Arthur Knopkena shot in the air to catch Andra Gutman addition to some fly-ball figure of Christ, at a time when there was a similar outcome of the game and the kick nenoķeršanas would bring in several points.

The Latvians’ firm grasp on the fundamentals of the sport, and their obvious natural creativity on the diamond, have not, it seems, translated into great success on the global stage. In qualifications for the 2012 European Championship, the Latvian national team finished last in their group, losing all four of their games while being outscored 57-8. One particularly disappointing outing saw the team rather thoroughly outclassed by the Belgians, giving up 17 runs in five innings, while committing four errors, going completely hitless at the plate, and striking out eight times in 16 at-bats. Though this country seems to face long odds in living up to its proud baseball heritage, the spirit of its people remains undiminished, as the following picture affirms. Join me in wishing a hearty Veiksmi! to the good folks of Latvia — and join me, at some highly uncertain later date, for the next chapter of my suspense-filled journey — Around the Horn!

As a white male, I am no stranger to the world of people who have been given stupid nicknames. The majority of these encounters occurred while in college, where I knew people with nicknames such as Detox, Hot Rachael, Ogre, Boob, Gay Dan, Hot Lindsey, Fathead, Pubehead, and Fahqueef. (Full disclosure: those girls were hot, and Boob was a guy.)

Much like my baseline blood-alcohol content, my interactions with people who had dumb nicknames subsided after I left college. This may be a game of percentages, however, since my interaction with any people took a drastic dive after college, once I realized that people were, in general, vile and terrifying creatures. My wife is involved in roller derby — a sport that requires participants to take on nicknames of sorts — so I do know people who are addressed by odd monikers, but as these names are forced and often self-appointed, it doesn’t really count for me. So as I stand, I really have no acquaintances with nicknames, save for the people at work who I call names behind their backs. As a grown man, I have not noticed this to be abnormal.

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Jose Bautista is a bilingual gentleman. When he tweets, he tweets in full sentences that are often adequately punctuated. Significant tweets, he translates into English if first tweeted in Spanish, into Spanish if first tweeted in English). He is dapper.

Jose Bautista, surely, is not unaware of the sometimes awesome differences of expression in the two languages that he speaks. Consider especially the discrepancy in hashtags of the following tweets — the first the original tweet in English and the second Mr. Bautista’s own translation:

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Friends, it’s a well-accepted fact that old people who are not my grandmothers or Vin Scully are gross. While my grandmothers and Vin Scully are cute and spry, and full of wisdom that you can’t get from all your book-learnin’, it’s an unequivocal truth that old people who are not the aforementioned grandmothers of me or Vin Scully have ears that are larger than is socially acceptable, chew horribly, accidentally spit when they talk, and often prattle on and on about hunting down the Kaisar back in dickety-two (All old people are Abe Simpson, is what I’m saying). Worse, they feel neglected if you don’t pay attention to said prattling and probably cut you out of the will.

Moreover, we know from our own experience with being young that young people are terrible. Just the worst. They are impatient and shallow. They are snide and disrespectful. They refuse, in spite of all of our screaming, threatening, and brandishing of soon to be regulated weapons, they steadfastly refuse to vacate the general area of our lawns. Kids refuse to respect their elders, even the good ones like Vin Scully and my grandmas. If only there was some way to make them tolerable!

Well folks, I’m pleased tell you that you can solve both problems with relative ease. Using my patented system, you can make grandpa shut up about how nobody wants to hear him talk and you can today’s youth put down their GameBoys and Girls, sit still for five minutes, and actually talk to someone who is older than they are without balking. And you can do them both at the same time. And, best of all, surprisingly, we have the Mets to thank for it. Read the rest of this entry »

While perusing society’s flotsam at my local thrift store, I stumbled on this rare archaeological find:

The figure you see before you (photographed at a distance, for I was loathe to touch it) is a lifeless homunculus crafted in the image of former Kansas City Royals pitcher Mark Gubicza. Note the characteristic markings and the telltale mullet that place the artifact in the Bob Boone Era (1994-1996 AD). But this was no mere toy, no pagan idol: nefarious deeds were done to this Gubicza. The talented, troublesome left arm is sheared just below the shoulder, the right ankle fractured where he once took a Paul Molitor line drive. The air around the resin was rank with ill omen.

What I had unwittingly stumbled upon, nestled inconspicuously among the little league trophies, was a horrific monkey’s paw: this token, in the hands of some vengeful man or woman, had brought about the downfall of a once proud franchise. Through some voodoo trick or some unholy pact, this villain obviously destroyed both Mark Gubicza and the Kansas City Royals in one cruel motion.  It can safely be assumed that only when the arm is returned, and the ankle repaired by some master craftsman, will the curse be lifted.

Did I embark on this quest? I did not. You may judge me a coward, dear readers, from your comfortable swivel chairs and your well-lit cubicles. You may judge me thus, but you cannot think me a fool. After taking this photograph, I fled from the thrift store in haste, drove home, and showered relentlessly.  I dare not bring down the Curse of Gubicza on my own house, dear readers. I have a family to think of.

Dear Ben Bernanke,

As an economist and sabermetrician, my life was changed recently by the following passage from the Wall Street Journal concerning your reading habits:

“Blogs have become a pretty important source of intellectual exchange,” the Fed chief said, noting that the Federal Reserve Banks of New York and Atlanta both maintain active blogs. But is that how he spends his time browsing online?

“I follow a lot of baseball blogs myself, actually,” he said.

So Ben — do you mind if I call you Ben? — you like sabermetrics and economic policy. I like sabermetrics and economic policy. I know who you are, and it seems like you might just know who I am. And also, we should be BFFs. Just imagine it.

“Oh, hey Matt, what you are up to today?”
“Not much. I’m working on a new piece about why first basemen get paid so much. What about you?”
“Oh, I’m just pulling the strings of the world economy.”
“I hope you don’t mean pushing on a string.”
“Bahaha. Okay, let’s go catch a game and I’ll tell you all about the fight over Quantitative Easing.”

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This post is weird.

1. Fellow Writer I Met On the Internet

Age	Gender	Height	Weight	Eats	Spd	Dpth	OTP	HLP	WARF
28	M	5′ 10″	165	R	60	30	0.348	0.435	1.5

Fellow Writer I Met on the Internet is my top new friend prospect for 2013. Despite a low on-time percentage (OTP), he has a strong willingness to help with annoying errands (HLP) and easy-to-accommodate regular (R) eating habits. He scores very highly on e-mail response speed, averaging just under 60 minutes. Though he shows a low conversational depth score (30 on the 20-80 scale), the hope is that this will further develop as he grows more and more comfortable in the friendship. Putting it all together, he is a solid 1.5 Wins Above Replacement Friend (WARF), and looks to be a loyal and worthwhile addition to the 2013 lineup.

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In the not very distant past (i.e. 45 minutes ago) my colleague David Temple challenged the readership to answer certain questions about Delwyn and Delmon Young — and to establish the differences lying therein.

While Temple was mainly concerned (like Isaiah Berlin’s proverbial hedgehog) with depth — that is, many qualities between just two Youngs, Delmon and Delwyn — here we concern ourselves (like the fox) with width, and the breadth (or, four, which is two more) of Youngdom that Western Civilization has produced.

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Believe it or not, fair NotGraphs readers, the 2013 season is coming upon us. What have you done to prepare? Oh, that seems like less that optimal. Allow me to assist you in jogging your memory regarding at least a few baseball-related things. It’s time to play America’s favorite game: Delmon Young or Delwyn Young?

Take the quiz below to find out if you are ready for the upcoming season!

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