Last Thursday, our Fearless Leader provided rumination on dreaming, or the unfulfilled and limitless potential of the future, as the game’s greatest strength. (If you haven’t read it, please take a moment to go do so; otherwise, my rebuttal won’t make much sense.) I’d like to take this opportunity to present an alternative viewpoint, in defense of the past.

I’ve always struggled with the present tense. We’re often cajoled, by motivational posters and the ghost of Satchel Paige, to live in the moment; but by the time that moment has happened, we’ve received the data, interpreted it and understood it, it’s long since passed. We’re always a fraction of a step behind reality. To cross that already treacherous boundary into the future, and to make predictions, sometimes feels incomprehensible to me. My own inability to dream, to imagine the unformed possibilities beyond the event horizon, probably says a lot about me, or at least my failures as a novelist. It might also say something about my home team, whose future and past are all too often similarly dressed.

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Athletics Nation has an awesome interview with Billy Beane, conducted right after the A’s were eliminated. A couple of highlights:

Bleszinski: What about Brandon Moss?

Beane: David (Forst) signed him as a six-year free agent during the winter. I really give a lot of credit on this one to Farhan (Zaidi –director of baseball operations). Farhan was screaming at us that we have to give this guy a chance. He had played infield as a high school kid even though it wasn’t first base. He at least had a background. Farhan was saying it the first month of the season and then May 1 he sent a long email, which was a “Moss Manifesto”, basically with a lot of statistical analysis saying that we needed to give this guy a chance.

Bleszinski: Were you and Bob [Melvin] already talking about 2013?

Beane: Yeah that and we’re friends. We have interests that we share beyond baseball. I’m going to New York next week to hang out with him. Bob is always really good at selecting restaurants in the village. He picked out a great one last time and I’m sure he’ll pick out a great one this time too.

Any guesses about where Billy and Bob ate?

It is often said of the players whose teams fail to make the postseason — or have otherwise been eliminated from the playoffs — it’s often said of such players that they “are golfing now” or “are golfing in October” or something along those lines. Having said that, I will also submit that not every member of the recently eliminated Detroit Tigers necessarily fits the precise demographic profile of Big Time Golf Enthusiast. How are they supposed to pass the next couple of months?

With a view to answering that question, I present the following — a record of three upcoming Detroit-area activities that might entertain and fulfill Miguel Cabrera, Justin Verlander, and other of this year’s American League champions.

All event details courtesy Detroit arts weekly Metro Times.

Living The Sweet Life: An Evening with Terry McMillan

Authoress Terry McMillan documented, via a novel of a very similar name, how Stella got her groove back. Perhaps she can help all the Detroiters get their respective grooves back, too.

When: November 1, 6 p.m.
Venue: MGM Grand Detroit
Address: 1777 Third St.
Phone: (248) 398-3400
Price: $35

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The Seedlings to Stars blog at SI.com is keeping tabs on the winter leagues. Recently, they wrote up Evan Gattis, including this tidbit in the final paragraph:

Evan Gattis, with his barehanded hitting, size, and mug, congers up images of what one would imagine as the original, raw, old school power hitter.[Emphasis mine.]

Literally?

Scouts are taking notice of Evan Gattis’s advanced control of the Conger Caldron.

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Q: Hi Joe, with the Giants having home field advantage in the World Series, how will the Tigers pitchers fare when having to bat in San Francisco?

A: Terribly. And that’s if they even get a chance to come to the plate. With all of the line drives bouncing off their heads, who knows if the Tigers pitchers will even survive the whole week.

Q: What do you think of the umpiring crew?

A: I think each member is bound to make an incorrect call that will haunt him for the rest of his life.

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To Major League Baseball:

We the undersigned, having no specific (or even general) knowledge of the requirements so far as skilled personnel or technology or other manner of infrastructure are concerned, nevertheless request (and, in certain spirited moments, even demand) for Arizona Fall League games to be broadcast via streaming video on our computers and maybe other connected devices.

We the undersigned would almost certainly be willing to pay a reasonable fee in exchange for such a service. (Like, I don’t know, twenty dollars? Thirty? Is thirty reasonable? We the undersigned aren’t positive about what the market is saying about this.) Otherwise, if these Arizona Fall League games aren’t broadcast, then we the undersigned will be forced either to confront the dark solitude of our respective lives or, alternatively, to adopt other leisure activities that help us forget such darkness. But as the first option is so dark and the latter requires intimate knowledge of who Chandler Parsons is, then we’d like just to get this AFL broadcast thing going, if that’s alright.

Sincerely,
The Undersigned

So here it is. The Great Hangover. Although, for the 92.8% of Americans who did not care about a World Series matchup between a team from a literally burning city and a team without Brian Wilson, I’m guessing baseball ended about a week ago.

Now it’s time to get back into that great void. No more Ottoneu. No more complaining about sac bunting and intentional walks. No more Mustache Watch. (Okay, maybe a little Mustache Watch.)

Now it is time to turn languidly our blackened eyes back — back to the jobs that grieve us, back to the families we have postponed, back to the cold, gray stones of the breaking sea.

Former Rays outfielder Fernando Perez shared this image from India on his tumbler account:

This is the world to which we are returning. This is what the Internet will look like for an infinity of months until Spring Training. IS THIS WHAT YOU REALLY WANTED, SAN FRANCISCO?! A FOUR-GAME SWEEP?! A HASTY TO RETREAT TO THE BURNING VILLAGE THAT IS REALITY?! WELL I HOPE YOU’RE HAPPY. BECAUSE THE PEASANTS ARE DEAD.

Our intrepid Investigative Reporting Investigation Team has confirmed that the photo you see above is totally, 110 percent real.

The IRIT has also confirmed that Kate Upton is a lucky woman. A very lucky woman.

H/T: The greater Internet.

Please begin this reading experience by enjoying the following graph:

You may be under the impression that this graph represents the win expectancy of the Toronto Blue Jays as they faced the Oakland Athletics on July 25, 2012. It is certainly within the realm of possibility. However, without labels, we cannot be sure! It could also be one of the following, as the Y value relates to X:

1. The collective hope of Toronto Blue Jays fans (Y) / time (X)
2. The win expectancy of Charles d’Albret in facing the British at Agincourt / time
3. The amount of sense in a Peter Gammons tweet / the amount of characters in said tweet
4. The quality of cereal in milk / time
5. The number of stories about bird watching in Sports Illustrated / year
6. The ability to feel sorry about one’s self / number of pages read of Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning
7. The satisfaction received from drafting Daniel Bard in 2012 / time
8. The number of aquatic frogs owned in a given aquarium / survival rate of said frogs
9. The enjoyment derived from having a new smartphone / time
10. The amount of churlishness in a Horatio Alger protagonist / time
11. The number of gamers / average progress made in TMNT for the NES

There are literally dozens of possibilities. Collect and trade them with your friends!