And former major-leaguer Ramiro Mendoza is pitching for Panama. Against Brazil. In a World Baseball Classic qualifier.

Here’s the video link: video. And the box score: box.

The following tweet is entirely and in-no-way altered from the original (click to embiggen):

Something is going to happen tonight. This something will make you want to voice an opinion. Many of you will want to voice said opinion on Twitter. Don’t. It’s not worth it. It will not change the outcome, nor will your quip lead to you being recognized as a cultural luminary or sports-critic extraordinaire.

May I suggest some alternative activities for spending your evening? Oh, I shall.

1. Take a nap. I realize that a nap that late in the day may just lead to extended sleep, but who cares? Sleeping is awesome.

2. Go to Macy’s and get that v-neck sweater you’ve been eyeing. Come on, you know it fits great and that color will really go with those olive green slacks you’ve been waiting to debut. YOLO.

3. When’s the last time you really read Family Circus? They’re touching on important issues over there. Doin’ God’s work.

4. I have it on good authority that baseball writer/National Treasure/degenerate Aaron Gleeman will be on a FanGraphs Audio episode that will drop today. It’s a way to kill time, at least.

5. The way this country’s going in the toilet, you better start learning some Chinese, amirite?

Ha! Alf kills you.

Apart from some notable exceptions, the quality of commentary on baseballing broadcasts leaves something to be desired — in particular for the handsome and bespectacled sort who’ve made NotGraphs part of their (a) lives and (b) RSS feeds.

Below are five candidates to fill whatever color vacancies are currently open around baseball — or are likely to become open in the near future.

5. ALF, from TV’s ALF
You know what would really annoy Willie? Were ALF to secure gainful employment, delighting home audiences all over the greater Los Angeles area — even as Willie continued to insist (impotently) that ALF was a slovenly and freeloading houseguest.

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It has come to the author’s attention that, as part of a recent update and reformat of MLB’s At Bat 12 app, there’s been included a tab (pictured right) that allows users to access and watch any one from 16 different classic baseball games. Most readers will likely find the majority of the games either too old (such that the broadcast technology is borderline prohibitive in terms of “watching”) or, otherwise, so recent that they (i.e. these games) are insufficiently shrouded by the mists of time.

There is, however, a collection of three or four games — starting with Game Five of the Orioles-Mets World Series in 1969 and ending with Game Five of the 1984 NLCS between the Cubs and Padres — that are both (a) available in brilliant Technicolor and (b) old enough that one can experience them again for the first time, as it were.

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I don’t know where the saying came from. It’s partly a platitude, partly a statement of the rules. It is used to celebrate a player’s skill, while also unkindly magnifying precisely how that skill cannot be used. It’s a pat on the back, and a kick in the groin. It’s a definition of a back-handed compliment.

“You can’t steal first.”

This phrase, when used by broadcasters, usually accompanies an at-bat by a speedy, light-hitting player. It is meant to point out that while this player’s speed is an asset, it does not help his ability, or inability, to get on base.

“You can’t steal first.”

But what if, like, you could? What if the rules of baseball allowed a player to, at any time during an at-bat, take off for first base? You probably haven’t thought about this, due to the fact that it’s a silly idea. But I have, fair NotGraphs reader, for your benefit.

The pitcher is a fragile creature indeed, and the installation of this rule might be the thing that sends most of them to the asylum. Gone would be the days of walking around the mound. An errant pickoff throw would now put runners at first and second. And the wild pitches, my God, the wild pitches. If a pitcher bounces one with a runner on base, the runner moves up. Not the end of the world. However, if the batter were allowed to take first on a wild pitch or passed ball, regardless of the count? It may be a smart idea to buy stock in Gatorade-cooler repair companies, if this were to happen.

There were 104,403 plate appearances in 2012 where no bases were occupied. That’s 104,403 new opportunities for a pitcher to negatively his team’s win probability on ANY pitch, not just ball four.

How would it be scored? Would an extra category need to be added to signify the difference in traditional steals and steals of first? Would stealing first positively affect one’s on-base-percentage? What’s the WPA of such a feat? How many more steals would Ricky Henderson and Vince Coleman have amassed? Would there finally be a good reason to slide into first? Would speedy hitters and defensively-deft catchers be more valuable?

Mr. Cistulli recently penned a micro essay about the importance of the unknown and the yet-to-happen in baseball – how mere possibilities of fantastical things happening are, perhaps, more important than factual things happening. If this has truth to it, and I believe it does have some, the legalization of stealing first adds a new matrix of possibilities of which to gain pleasure.

So I implore you, Mr. Commissioner. Legalize the theft of first. If you won’t give us instant replay, or better umpire accountability, then at least allow Carlos Gomez to up his OBP when the pitcher spins a curveball 60’ 2’’. Tradition be damned. Long live possibilities.

Darkness has descended, like a great damp tarpaulin, upon our land; and as the hot stove gradually cools to a simmer, as the last awards are desultorily awarded, and as the last Brandon McCarthy tweets settle around us like falling leaves, we enter a time of lonely and solemn reflection. It is at times like these — when our collective spirit meets its greatest trial; when all purpose seems to retreat before us; when all we have is each other — that I grasp for the resolve, the determination, the inner strength, to pack my bags and go somewhere else. And that is precisely why I am now inaugurating a new series of posts, titled: Around the Horn*: Four Boats, Thirteen Camels, Two Hundred and Seventy-Six Bouts of Intestinal Distress, and One Man’s Quest to Find Baseball Where He’d Never Expected It. Over a period that may or very well may not amount to eighty days, I’ll be circumnavigating the globe, spending time in countries where baseball is obscurely played, and ruminating on the meaning of our sport, as well as on what it means to be human, as time and space permit.

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The history of mankind is defined by conflict. All conflict is, in its distilled form, RBI Baseball.

Long before it became recognized on the fuzzy television screens of the late 1980s, RBI Baseball burned within the heart of every man and woman. It is the struggle to progress, to succeed, to vanquish. When Homer described the bronze armor of the Trojan heroes clattering in the dust, he was (without his knowledge) echoing the shrill whistle of the umpire calling the out, following the death rattle of the lazy fly ball. When Pushkin stood back-to-back with death on the frozen, miserable tundra, he too felt it. We all feel it.

How blessed are we, then, to have the actual RBI Baseball with which to express our will, rather than straining to conceive it through unbidden words and the swirling cloud of troubled dreams.

Of course, the power to wage total war upon the pride and identity of another soul is not to be taken lightly. As Clauswitz opined on the deadliness of the bayonet and Walzer with napalm, our generation has struggled to establish jus in bello – the law of war – the principles by which our struggle remains humane and honorable even in these desperate times.

The realists, of course, scoff at such niceties. When victory is at stake, they claim, any restraint is a show of weakness. But to descend down this path of logic is the way to madness: a world of mustard gas and atomic weaponry and slapping at the glove of the fielder during tag plays. No matter what our aims, no matter how desirable our goals, our restraint is what separates us from the beasts. So, too, should it be with RBI Baseball. Especially with RBI Baseball.

Though the world and various national governments have remained silent on this issue, the People have crafted their own set of rules regarding the honorable play of RBI Baseball. However, regional customs still exist; if you have any questions, the best practice would be to consult your local chamber of commerce.

RBI Baseball Code of Conduct

Article I: The NES Itself

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Some men smoke a cigarette after making love. Other, more virile men — like Luis Tiant, Sr., for example — smoke a cigarette while making love. It’s a practice borne out of necessity, of course: Luis Tiant, Sr., is always smoking and he is always also making love.