The Detroit Free Press is reporting today that Cy Young and MVP-award winner Justin Verlander will adorn the box of his very own cereal. Proceeds of Verlander’s Fastball Flakes, manufactured by Pittsburgh-based PLB Sports, will benefit VA Hospitals in Detroit and Ann Arbor.

What other designs did PLB consider before giving the go-ahead to Verlander’s cereal? Our Investigative Reporting Investigation Team has acquired that information, and shares it now with you, in easy-to-read English™.

Here are five baseball-themed cereals that PLB won’t be making:

Name: Tony Plush’s Cereal Grains for Gentlemen
Rejected Because: Manufacturers were concerned about public reaction to suggestion that single-malt scotch is “part of a complete breakfast.”

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As the Professional Marketing Professional knows, there’s no better way to appeal to the younger generation — the Pepsi Generation — than by replacing the plural-signifying “s” with a “z” and by adding the italicized and exclaimed phrase “with attitude!” to an otherwise unassuming noun. Another focus-grouped tool is making domesticated animals into hilarious rappers. This latter step to success at the office, at the gym and in the bedroom is not lost on the Tampa Bay Rays, who have hereby put the “wild” and the “card” into “wild card.” Please ready an awkward fist-bump for DJ Kitty:

Much like the Fresh Prince rose from the remorseless urban crucible to remind us that parents, in point of fact, just don’t understand, DJ Kitty is here to remind us that nobody works the dub like a cat from Florida. And like most mascots, he is also here to remind us that the least you can do is be nude below the waist.

Over the long weekend, I visited YouTube.com and typed “Dick Allen” into the search box. I think it’s important for you to know that the Dick Allen Research Department lives up to its name. Here’s what I found:

Now, I don’t know about you, but that was the first, actual, in-game footage of Dick Allen I’d ever witnessed. And I couldn’t have picked a better video. I’ll always remember my first time.

He fires a breaking pitch, but Allen connects solidly, and there it goes! It’s way, way back! It’s a home run! A 400-footer that sails into the bleachers in deep right-center. Now that pitch was in a perfect spot, low and outside, and it’s a tribute to Allen’s great strength that he could slam a pitch like that such a tremendous distance.

Indeed. Dick Allen, y’all.

Every spring, much fun is made regarding players adding muscle or losing weight or having done yoga, or eating 20 raw eggs upside down every morning, or carving pentagrams into their pectorals.

Even the aptly named Bob Hamelin, whose dumpy bottoms are forever burned into my memory, participated in the “best shape of his career” gimmick:

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Step 1: Even (especially*) if you are at work, turn up the volume on your computer.

Step 2: Open the following two links simultaneously:

–One

–Two

Step 3: Bask in the glory.

*Disclaimer: NotGraphs accepts no responsibility in the event that you are fired from your job.

On February 20, 1992, I was eight years old, in second grade at Arbor Montessori Elementary in Atlanta. I had a Garfield lunchbox and wanted to be an astronaut. Every Thursday night, my parents and I would watch “The Simpsons.” That night, we saw “Homer at the Bat,” one of the greatest episodes of that show — or, really, anything ever.

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Young Mets left-hander Jon Niese had some work done.

As a before and after shot, this is pretty impressive. The Before has Niese growling at a celebrating foe or contemplating spoiled chicken, the After has (perhaps) a fawning female in the crop.

As a comment on society’s pressure to confirm, this might be less impressive. Niese, planning on the surgery for aesthetic reasons anyway, turned the story into a BSOHL story quickly. He told ESPN’s Adam Rubin that the rhinoplasty “helped a lot with [his] running” and “working out. As far as the mound, I’m not sure.”

And as some baseball fans roll their eyes, Mets fans might laugh at the next trick Niese played. When all else fails, #blamebeltran. What does Carlos Beltran have to do with his nose job?

“He wanted me to have a new nose,” Niese said about Beltran. “So he offered to pay for it. I was just like, ‘All right.’ Then it turned into seeing doctors and to getting it fixed.”

Earlier today, equally (a) dapper and (b) deceased gent Old Hoss Radbourn proposed the settings for a fantasy league that would most honor the achievement that was his base-and-ball career.

Because we at NotGraphs are 110% dedicated to honoring achievements, the present author used his internetting skills to embed Hoss’s tweet for the benefit of our wide readership. Because we at NotGraphs are also dedicated to “expending minimal effort,” said tweet was accompanied by literally six words.

Since that post, however, I’ve done a lot of thinking. Most of that thinking has been about how irresistible I must be — like, in a sexual way — while working out at the gym. Some of that thinking, however, has concerned how maybe I should’ve put more than, like, seven seconds of work into something that could so very clearly change the course of human history.

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Yahoo! allows the following fantasy base ball categories: Wins, CG, IP, Shutouts, Hit batters. Time to create an Old Hoss League. Who is in?

— Old Hoss Radbourn (@OldHossRadbourn) February 20, 2012

CC: Every author at RotoGraphs.

This summer I picked up some 1971 Sports Illustrateds at a garage sale. After meticulously reading the issues while in the john, here are some of the ads I found intriguing.

Because cleats work better when they are sticking into your foot.

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