Is there a more disappointing word than “setback” to see in a sentence about your favorite player, or an article about your favorite team? You think someone is on the road back, ready to rejoin the lineup… and then… “…setback…” and the clock starts all over again. Inspired by news of Brett Gardner’s second (third? fourth? fifth?) setback from his elbow injury (the same Brett Gardner I stashed on my fantasy team’s DL when someone dropped him, hoping he’d be back shortly and with effectiveness), I thought I’d head over to Google News and see if I could come up with a truly frustrating, disappointing post to help you make it through your Tuesday.

This Week… In Setbacks.

1. The aforementioned Brett Gardner, with his second setback, from his injury suffered April 18. Now not expected back before the All-Star Break.

2. White Sox third baseman Brent Morel, on a back injury rehab assignment, pulled himself out of Thursday’s AAA game.

3. Scott Linebrink, whom the Cardinals released after his second setback in his recovery from right shoulder inflammation. Sort of a heartless quote in the article: “…left the Cardinals feeling that their best move would be to cut ties with Linebrink, rather than moving him to the 60-day DL and continuing to aid him in the rehab process.” Yikes.

And… that’s all I could find, at least with my quick search of baseball injury setback. Which surprised me. I feel like there are ten setbacks a day!

UPDATE: LATE BREAKING SETBACK NEWS… Dustin McGowan and Sergio Santos… someone out there heard me writing this post and decided to, uh, inflame a couple more shoulders….

Concerned and likely muscular reader Bryan, recognizing that the celebration of Bob Uecker is a cause worth dying and (maybe even more importantly) killing for, has alerted the editors of NotGraphs to some Audio from the Past that will help the advancement of said cause.

The Greek philosopher Epicurus (341 BCE – 270 BCE) teaches us that “If you live according to nature, you will never be poor; if you living according to opinion, you will never be rich.”

In the clip below — from WTMJ Radio’s August 10th, 2011, broadcast of the Brewers and Cardinals at Busch Stadium — Bob Uecker says the same thing, just with different words (all of them to the great pleasure of then-radio partner Cory Provus).

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Yeah, it’s been a tough year so far. I’ve had my pee mishandled, rumors started about me having STDs, reputation tarnished.

What’s that? Oh, uh, I’ll have the tagliatelle and a double Johnny Walker, neat.
Black Label if you have it.

I can’t even get a second look from that blond over there. It’s lunch time! I’m Ryan Braun! I hit a homerun yesterday. It was pretty cool. So it’s like come on, ladies, you know what I mean, bartender? Hey, can I get another double Jay-Dubs to go?
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Et voilà! Quelle offence! But if this team is going to contend, we’re going to need more starting pitching. Who am I forgetting?

C Mike the Valley

1B Adam the Rock

2B Nap the Joy

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Humberto is my friend and he was pointing out one of my best attributes, my eyes! #proudtobeofasiandescent

— Bruce Chen (@ChenMusic) June 10, 2012

Courtesy of CBS Sports’ Eye on Baseball, this heartwarming article about Humberto Quintero and Bruce Chen.

It’s good to know that CBS has an entire blog devoted to things like this.

Wait, what? Are you telling me that every post on “Eye on Baseball” isn’t about the shape of baseball players’ eyes??? But… how… huh…??? Could there even be a more perfect name for the blog that would report this story? It’s really just a coincidence? Seriously?

Stay tuned for my soon-to-be-launched Ears On Baseball blog, which will only contain posts about this guy.

Today, I would like to thank Austin Kearns for deflecting a ground ball in the bottom of the second inning last Saturday. Thank you, Austin Kearns; thank you for not standing and jogging, but instead crawling like a mewing kitten to the dribbling-yonder ball.

Here’s a poem to commemorate the occasion:

A spreading expanse of clay
separates you and I.
The easy bred error,
and for the thinnest of moments,

the sport and I have fallen into disrepute
as I mime a kitten in my scrambling commute.

        I pounce.

Hat tip to my buddy, the most Jason of Collettes.

In what follows, radio voice of the Milwaukee Brewers Bob Uecker discusses jockey shorts and, before that, a scheme he’s developed for relieving contest entrants of their winnings.

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One minute it was Ohio winter, with doors closed, windows locked, the panes blind with frost, icicles fringing the backstops, pitchers breathing hard into curled hands, huddling in their windbreakers, catchers lumbering like great black beetles in their shells, crouching in the tall weeds. Baseball was trapped between the pages of Sports Illustrated, held by trembling fingers near lamplight, images of Mantle and Snider striding, smiling, before black and white fields, frozen.

And then a long wave of warmth crossed the country. A flooding sea of hot air, mixed with cut grass and oiled leather, mingled with loam and chalk dust. The snow dissolved to reveal diamonds, glaciation carving patches of clay out of grass. Aluminum birdcalls echoed above the fields.

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The author, in his capacity as a member of this country’s Leisured Poor, recently made a journey to the Duck Pond at Warner Park in Madison, Wisconsin — baseballing home of the Madison Mallards of the summer college wood-bat Northwoods League. This is something I’ve done before — both with the internet’s Common Man and also the internet’s Jackie Moore — however, in the present work, I’d like to address, specifically, what a Mallards game reveals about the ideal ballpark experience.

There is, of course, reason for me to delude myself into the opinion that a Mallards game represents something close to the ideal ballpark experience. Both (a) living in Madison and (b) having no car, my options for live baseball are limited. The Brewers are about 75 or 80 miles to the east; the Beloit Snappers (Low-A affiliate of the Twins), about 50-55 miles south. As such, the Mallards represent my only real opportunity for live baseball.

Even so, games at Warner Park satisfy the criteria that I (and I’m guessing many fans) consider when evaluating the quality of live baseball as entertainment — have, perhaps, helped me to understand what those criteria are, in the first place.

Criteria like these:

Proximity — As in, how far the stadium/park is from my house, in minutes. And also how easy it is to park or commute via public transit, too.

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Can I brag about this one fantasy team that I’ve got? It’s a keeper, twelve teams, head-to-head. Think I lost in the championships last year. Traded David Wright and Cole Hamels for Dustin Pedroia before keepers were due, which was kind of a loss maybe, but this team was too good to care and it made my six keepers going into the season Carlos Santana, Joey Votto, Dustin Pedroia, Brett Lawrie, Jose Reyes, and Carlos Gonzalez. Felt pretty good going into the draft.

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