On Monday, I unveiled Part One of an advanced study. Workingly titled “Cool or Lame? Estimating the Relative Appreciation of Baseball Players,” or something like that, the study sprung from a simple impulse: the craving to know just to whom, in the history of this sport I love, I ought to pledge my fanhood. Although it was a selfish impulse, I have thought, too, of the children. Just as our teenaged selves realized, in the course of our primitive sociopolitical maneuverings, that it might behoove us to spurn (say) Coldplay* in favor of some more exclusive taste, today’s youth surely seek that privileged knowledge that will empower them to transcend their Jeter-jerseyed milieux. Herein, then, I attempt not only to secure that knowledge, but to quantify the sh*t out of it.

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Another week, another opportunity for rejected headlines.

Bit of old news, but did anyone notice Chipper Jones’s tweet on August 2? Allow me to remind you:

We need a dome! These rain delays stink. Nothin a couple of 2run dubs wont fix. Back on track and 8-1 on the twitta. Lets go Bravos 2.5 out!

— Chipper Jones (@RealCJ10) August 3, 2012

The tweet begins intelligibly enough. Chipper thinks the Atlanta Braves need a dome; he does not care for lengthy rain delays. Okay, good. Points are clearly, almost cogently expressed.

Then begins the lapse in logic, among other problems.

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Today’s installment of Great Moments in Hack Jokes Written About Baseball comes from comedian and current Branson, MO resident, Yakov Smirnoff.

The following two passages are from his seminal work, America on Six Rubles a Day.

I am still amazed every time I hear on the radio that a player has managed to catch several “fly balls.” How do they see those little things? (This explains why they all wear gloves.)

—

Some of the most confusing phrases are in the rules of the game itself. For example, they say, “If you have four balls, you walk.” Of course you walk. How are you to run with four balls? You walk proud!

This has been Great Moments in Hack Jokes Written About Baseball.

(h/t to my friend Ryan, who discovered this book and promptly gifted it to me)

The Road Ranger Travel Center in South Beloit, IL, is a classic example of Prairie School design.

The author is attending, with a good and old friend, is attending tonight’s Class A Midwest League game between the Beloit Snappers (a Twins affiliate) and Peoria Chiefs (Cubs) in Beloit, Wisconsin.

Here’s a provisional itinerary for the author’s trip. All times are Central.

12:15pm
Buy tickets through Snappers website. Feel moment of exhilarating and dirty pleasure that accompanies all online purchases.

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Last night, I had an interesting dream. In the dream, I found a pile of reimbursement checks that had been written to me, from the Mets, compensating me for attending seven of their games. The checks were for $20 each, which seemed like an appropriate amount that the Mets should have to pay someone to watch them play. But, sadly, the checks had expired, and I needed to call the Mets’ offices and ask if they could reissue them. (There was a picture of Terry Leach on the checks. I don’t know why. I’m pretty sure Terry Leach hadn’t crossed my mind since 1987.) As I was waiting on hold, I turned toward the TV and saw a headline scrolling at the top of the screen: “Jason Kipnis traded to the Mets for four players.” And then I woke up.

I immediately started to wonder — who were the four players?

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NotGraphs has learned this early evening that right-hander Zack Wheeler — ranked first among Mets prospects this preseason by FanGraphs’ Marc Hulet and Baseball America and probably other entities — is pretty hungry right now. A source with knowledge of the situation believes he’s going to order a pizza. He might play Call of Duty with fellow Mets minor-league pitcher Jack Leathersich, we’re hearing now, as well. The latest reports suggest that he (i.e. Wheeler) would not be averse to playing online with interested parties.

More on this story as it develops.

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I am an unqualified admirer of the prose faculties of Judith Martin, whom you may know by her nom de suavity, “Miss Manners.”

Not only is Miss Manners America’s leading Gentleman with Lady Parts, but her ministrations have also helped preserve Western Civilization more than any stupid monk in his lamewad scriptorium. While said Western Civilization is undoubtedly lingering in hospice care at this very moment, Miss Manners soldiers on, armed with nothing but savoir-faire and a shimmering grace of a caliber foreign to our stinking world.

It should come as no surprise, then, that the lessons Miss Manners imparts regarding, say, one’s mother-in-law who insists upon talking about her scabies during high tea or that utter beast in first class are also applicable to baseball. For instance, in one of her recent epistolary lectures she reproved a young lady who had received not one but two ghastly marriage proposals via cellular-telephone textual message thusly: “That you have captivated two gentlemen who thought this would charm you is alarming.”

Baseball players, you know, are but low creatures in need of horse-whispering and social finishing, so the wisdom of Miss Manners penetrates their tiny worlds. To wit …

Now go and better yourselves, swine. And always crap while wearing a tailored vest.

Apropos of nothing, except the brief abeyance of life’s crushing burdens, here are three lightly annotated passages from the Base Ball Notes in the April 16th edition of the Louisville Courier-Journal from 1887 (a full page of which one can read here) — upon which Notes the author happened while abeying the crushing burdens of his own life, for example.

Excerpt No. 1

The Ramsey in question here is Toad Ramsey, who would end up pitching 561.0 innings for the 1887 edition of the Louisville Colonels, the second-highest total in the league. Regarding the suggestion that he is a “fat boy,” that appears — according to Michael Clair et al — to be more fact than suggestion.

As for the “new rules” invoked here, here’s what they were (courtesy Baseball Almanac):

• The pitcher’s box was reduced to 4 feet by 5 1/2 feet.
• Calling for high and low pitches was abolished.
• Five balls became a base on balls.
• Four “called strikes” were adopted for this season only.
• Bases on balls were recorded as hits for this season only.
• The batter was awarded first base when hit by a pitch.
• Home plate was to be made of rubber only — dropping the marble type and was to be 12 inches square.
• Coaches were recognized by the rules for the first time ever.

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Hey guys — and I mean “guys” in a non-gendered way, like saying, “Hey people,” but maybe that is not enough, maybe I should just say, “Hey, people” —

Hey friends, something sorta crappy happened to me the other day. We all have crappy days; I hope your day is better than the day that I had the other day. So, we — the Pittsburgh Pirates, I mean — played a really long extra innings game. It was 19 innings long. It took over six hours to play, and I caught the whole game. It was pretty cool, ’cause we won and all, and it was a big game against the Cardinals and they’re always a tough team to beat.

“That’s awesome! I like pink, too!”

But me, personally, I didn’t get a hit. I didn’t get to base at all and I went up to bat eight times. Eight. I mean, you’d think something would break right, right? Think I’d work a walk or force an error. Nope. One of those at-bats was even a double play, so I made nine outs — three whole innings worth! — in just eight trips.

I mean here we are, playing this tight game — crucial game against the Cards — Jeffy’s pitching great, and here I am just making all these outs. I was in bummer city, friends, and I’m normally a pretty positive guy — super positive guy.

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