I picked a Baseball Digest at random. It was from 1978: year of Grease, “YMCA,” Space Invaders, the test tube baby, and Dave Parker, N.L. Batting Champ. Or so I’m told, having not yet been a sentient human at the time. But those of you who were will surely remember the following illustrious personages, and will most surely be able to pair each with the quote by or about him.
MetsBlog.com has a quote from Tom Seaver about Johan Santana’s no-hitter:
I’ve never met Johan personally, but, what I’ve heard about him is that he has a big heart and is a huge competitor. I didn’t watch the game last night. I found out when I picked up the morning paper.
Two things came to mind after reading this:
(1) If Tom Seaver is right, Johan Santana should see a cardiologist, because I think having a big heart is probably not a good thing, medically speaking, and he probably needs to take some medication or have some sort of surgical procedure to correct it.
(2) Really, Tom? You didn’t find out about the no-hitter until the next morning?
On Sunday afternoon, scheduling peculiarities resulted in me missing my fast-pitch baseball game on the south side of Chicago and instead helping out in a slow-pitch softball game for a friend on the slightly-less-south side of Chicago. During the second game of the doubleheader, a slew of little league kids appeared, waiting to take the field from us.
Upon seeing me, many of the tykes began chanting: “Brian. Wilson.” Clapclap, clapclapclap.
This is why:
But I am not, in fact, Brian Wilson, though my face proteins may resemble his. Let us examine the differences:
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It’s a thing, apparently, to take the field at Toronto’s Rogers Centre in your unmentionables, with a message painted across your chest, when the Boston Red Sox are in town. I don’t know; kids are stupid.
I preferred the YOLO fellow. He was saying, “I’m going to streak because I must streak.” This guy’s saying “I’m going to streak so I can get caught, arrested, have my picture taken by a professional photographer, go to jail for a bit, maybe, and then have a stupendously handsome writer document my experience on the Internet.”
Do not wonder, reader, whether I have modified a dispatch from the official Twitter feed of the Cleveland baseball Indians for my own, nefarious purposes. Wonder instead how many of your friends and family will die tragically from Carlos Baerga Fever, which is probably a really serious and actual thing.
According the Center for Disease Control, any of the following might be symptoms of Carlos Baerga Fever:
“Fashion is art,” as Daniel Radcliffe once may have said. And whether you agree with him or not, you must resign yourself to the fact that you live in a world in which others do. The hat you adorn yourself with as you leave your house or apartment will, however unwillingly, help shape your identity in the eyes of colleagues and strangers. It could, for example, help you nail that big interview at the firm, earn an extra ten percent on your daily panhandling, or ward off potential conversations on the bus during your commute. It’s a choice that you should make carefully.
With this in mind, we, the dapper assemblage at NotGraphs, are endeavoring to make this critical life choice as simple as possible by reflecting on a few of the myriad of options available to the credit card-wielding internet shopper. Today’s enterprise: how to troll.
Part 1: Trolling Your World Series Opponent
Want something that celebrates the accomplishments of young men who have no idea that you exist? Want to do it in a way that smacks of the bombast and heraldry that a self-selected avatar of a champion richly deserves? Wear a hat with a World Series ring on it. On your head! A ring! Rings don’t even go on heads! The blatant absurdity will be sure to demoralize any past adversaries.
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Part One is here. This is Part Two…
Names from Score’s Baseball’s Hottest Rookies 1989-1990 Book & Card Set.
Words selected via Google search (“__________ is”).
Images chosen from the name’s Google image search results
Chip Hale
chip hale is lurking on the outside
Erik Hanson
erik hanson is upset about the harsh reality of working the web
Pete Harnisch
pete harnisch is the fifth player in franchise history to be named pete
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From the American version of the 1986 video for same.
A search at lucky-best Baseball-Reference turns up this meadow of delights …
I have hopes on this day. Chief among them is that “Abner Deatherage” (the lilac hue of his Information Hot Link betrays my curiosity) is not, as the lamewad rationalist within suspects, pronounced “Abner DEATH-ur-ehj.” Instead, the Walter Mitty star-gazer part of me — which I keep buried in my tattered and smelly idiot’s shoe (I own but a single shoe) — hopes that this fine man’s name is pronounced “ABNER DEATH-RAGE” — every syllable accented because every syllable will wreck that shit.
It simply must be.
It simply must be.
A fine young performer named INK, along with his friends Illicit, Zica, and Pain, have put together a “bumping track,” as the kids say, called “Texas Back at It.” Enjoy:
