When you lay rheumy eyes upon Miguel Batista’s abovely pictured Gentleman’s Ensemble, the first words upon your lips — upon them like libidinous kisses from Joan Collins and Adrienne Barbeau — might be: “Why is he wearing that?” They should not be. The first words upon your lips — upon them like the unbound breasts of Susan Anton and Billy Dee Williams — should be: “Why am I not wearing that?”

Unless, of course, you are wearing that. In which case, as you were.

As for Don Miguel, the coattails trail his deliberate, Crockett-&-Jones steps like the unrequited feelings of the countesses and sultanas he has known.

(HT: Gentleman Jay Jaffe)

I mean, he really hates everything about the experience.

American is the worst fucking airline in the whole world

— Omar Vizquel (@VizquelOmar13) July 9, 2012

Omar’s on vacation, goddamnit!

By the way, in some excellent and, most notably, quick, work, NotGraphs’ Highly Reputable and Totally Real Think Tank has confirmed that, yes, American Airlines is actually the worst airline in the world.

Next time, Omar Vizquel will make other arrangements.

No shit. Next time I will RT @meganrad: @VizquelOmar13 Take a greyhound bus.

— Omar Vizquel (@VizquelOmar13) July 9, 2012

Here’s Hunter Pence absolutely explode-tackling his third-base coach while running to the plate: atmlb.com/LWIfff

— MLB (@MLB) July 8, 2012

The author has often stated — at cocktail parties, at area bars after those same cocktail parties — that neologism is his favorite sort of gism.

Thus it was with no little pleasure that the author found, in the midst of his Twitter feed this morning, the above-embedded message, courtesy Major League Baseball itself.

A brief inspection of the web — noted for being worldwide in its dimensions — reveals that neither explode-tackle nor any of its variants (explode-tackling, will have explode-tackled, etc.) is in anything like common use.

What it (i.e. the WWW) does reveal is that Juan Samuel has ordered a Code Red to be performed in and around and on the head part of Hunter Pence.

Midway on his life’s journey, noted Italian epicist Dante Alighieri found himself in a dark woods, his heart pierced with terror.

Midway through Friday’s victory over the Kansas City Royals, Tigers outfielder Delmon Young found himself in a not entirely different situation, over 700 years later.

Regard (and consider strongly embiggening):

While Jerry Seinfeld nearly said that we all root for laundry, there’s something noble about the idea.  Fandom, in itself, is transient; the thrill of one game disappears into the tension of the next. Yesterday’s heroes, with the natural exception of Dick Allen and Rick Reuschel, fade from memory. Our fabric is immutable evidence of our existence in this world, something that goes beyond the bounds of feelings and words.  The dirt stains are our cave paintings; they connect us to history.

My original intention for this piece was to provide a full wardrobe of authentic, game-used paraphernalia as sold on eBay. Clad in these, the ghosts of the baseball ancestors would guide your arm, and your foes would fall before you. But as I dug further into my research I found myself strangely compelled by some of the items up for bid, not for their utility or their aesthetics, but for their silent lamentations. After all, not every artifact can radiate the success and fortune of Jon Voight’s automobile. With that in mind, enjoy this, the detritus of our national pastime.
 
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The Internetting Gentleperson will surely not consider his or her day complete having failed to lay eyes — and hot, heaving clandestine breaths — upon this entirely authentic, unedited tweet:

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Last night at MCU Park, home of the Brooklyn Cyclones, Williamsburg hipsters were given their own evening to watch baseball ironically. There were food vouchers for anyone with a beard, and those wearing skinny jeans were promised a trip around the bases after the game (although apparently the latter didn’t happen, presumably because running the bases is way too earnest for hipsters). Reports on the event at NY Mag indicate mostly a lot of detached embarrassment at being labeled “hipster,” but it also included this Very Important Infographic regarding what actually qualifies as a beard. You can probably already guess which baseball player is representing True Beardness, but I believe that two of the three “not beard” examples qualify as controversial. See for yourself:

Who gets a beard voucher / NY Mag

What do you guys think? Is this a fair representation of True Beardness, or is it taking beard snobbery a step too far?

NEW YORK — With the news today that the New York Mets‬ have claimed right-hander Chris Schwinden off waivers — this, after Schwinden was originally waived by the Mets themselves on June 2nd and then subsequently claimed and dropped by the Blue Jays, Indians, and (most recently) the Yankees, all over the course of a month — America’s leading poets, novelists, and writers of non-fiction are pretty sure that Schwinden’s month-long journey is a metaphor for something, although for what, precisely, is unclear.

“There’s something distinctly rich about Schwinden’s experience in June and so far in July,” said Elinora Straus, head of the Creative Writing department at Vassar College. “In particular, to have settled with the team that originally released him: that’s stirring. ‘Why, though?’ is the question. ‘I don’t know, actually,’ is my answer, presently.”

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America loves baseball. America loves its troops. It’s common to see these two loves integrated, especially around the 4th of July.

The four-game series between the Marlins and Brewers at Miller park this past week (of which I attended two games) was military heavy: service men and women threw out the first pitches at all the games, sung the national anthem and “God Bless America” at all of the contests, and were in attendance in higher-than-usual numbers. On both occasions that I was present, a serviceman won the “Fan of the Game” prize — which is awarded based on cheers from the crowd — and it wasn’t even close. (Normally, the prize is won by whoever looks most like Santa Claus.)

In general, I think this is a nice thing to do: the troops don’t get to come out to the ballpark whenever they want, so it’s cool to recognize them when they do. And while I’m sure that many of them appreciate it, sometimes I wonder if they wouldn’t rather just enjoy the game and its various delights like a normal citizen instead of being cheered whenever they order a bag of peanuts. And sometimes I can’t help but wonder how much our honoring them is about feeling good about ourselves.

Case in point, this image, which is actually from the Ballpark in Arlington on June 28:

“Nobody’s looking, right?”

We’re already attending a baseball game, imbibing, stuffing our faces with dollar hotdogs, tailgating, celebrating our collective freedom and the opportunities it (supposedly) affords us, etc. Do we really need to have a full-grown man, one that we pretend to respect, driving around a stadium in a miniature airplane for our amusement?

Come on, America! Come on, baseball!

What we are doing is assigning cool nicknames to players rather than the opposite, which is a bloodless tradition that has been with us too much and too long.

So how does this running feature differ from the dear, departed exemplar of the genre? “Nickname Seeks Player” was devoted to active base-ball-ists, while “Nickname Seeks Former Player” is the province of those who no longer play this fine game because they are dead in spirit and perhaps also dead in the corporeal sense. Boileryard Clarke? Eligible! Sal Maglie? Eligible! Fred Lynn? Eligible! Dontrelle Willis? Eligible!

You may surmise from this that almost the entire sprawl of baseball history lies before you, like a sexy patient etherized upon a table. So prepare yourself to plumb both depths and heights as we ponder fitting candidates for this week’s name to nicked: “Museum of Questionable Medical Devices”!

Implications and Intimations

The Museum of Questionable Medical Devices was an actual place in, as you might have already guessed, Minnesota, where love is made without ceasing. That there was ever a real thing called the Museum of Questionable Medical devices is to be celebrated as unceasingly as love is made in Minnesota. But what of the nick ‘o name “Museum of Questionable Medical Devices?

It calls to mind leeches and liquor-as-anesthesia and bone saws. It calls to mind a base-ball-ist who was tough enough to have played despite having an amputation wound field-dressed before continuing to fight on for God and country. Or perhaps he seems the embodiment of something a phrenologist would use to false-cure a desperately ill member of a Western-Ohio temperance league.

With those guidelines foremost in your mind, please do nominate the dead or retired.

So who, citizens of sufficient origins, should be nicknamed “Museum of Questionable Medical Devices”?