A Reuschel and a Movie
In which photos of the base-balling Reuschel brothers, Rick and Paul, are paired with befitting movie titles …

In which photos of the base-balling Reuschel brothers, Rick and Paul, are paired with befitting movie titles …
In the first of a series of posts on ye old minor league teams, I’d like to examine some of the players associated with The Houston Buffaloes of the Texas League. The Buffaloes were originally founded in 1888 — although they were called the the Babies, the Mud Cats, Red Stockings, and Magnolias, and the Wanderers before settling on the Buffaloes around 1903.
Last night I was drinking in a bar in Chicago, mostly because drinking in a bar in Chicago is what sustains me and allows me to suffer existence. So I was drinking a selection of German lagers when I saw this hanging above the bar:
I am aware that the photo is sideways. I have the skills and even the will to right things in this regard, but the awry-ness of it suggests a certain absurdity and even a soft defiance of a kind. So it shall stand.
Pictured above, I am told, is “the owner’s brother.”
The owner’s brother is not a man who uses “high tea” as a verb. He is not a man at all; lo, he is a damn man. There are damn men who smoke while fishing. The owner’s brother is not such a damn man. There are damn men who fish while smoking. The owner’s brother is indeed such a damn man.
He probably favored that shirt because it lets the guns breathe a bit on a summer day. He’s probably not sure that the Cubs really are America’s team. He’s entirely sure that he’s about to take a piss off the boat slip.
Owner’s brother, let’s you and I make it through another day.
(Gratitude most righteous to Noel for his beery companionship and flash photography)
If I learned anything from Moneyball, it’s that they do everything differently out in Oakland.
And, yes, this was my favorite part of the movie, and the reason why Jonah Hill is nominated for an Oscar. What a fist-pump. What a performance.
A fist-pump of my own to my man James. Yes, he’s the same brilliant soul that brought us the bunny-hopping Blue Jays. Keep up the great work, mate.
Although much of the presentation at the Bud Selig Distinguished Lecture Series on Tuesday was about the importance of baseball in Japanese-American culture, those of us who attended also got ourselves an excellent story about how certain white players did not particularly enjoy hearing Spanish on the field.
In a Giants-Reds game, Orlando Cepeda was on second with Matty Alou batting. Cepeda was shouting instructions of some sort to Alou at the plate in Spanish. Reds’ pitcher Joseph Jay wasn’t happy about it, leading to the following exchange:
JAY: Hey, don’t you speak any English?
CEPEDA: I think you’re a cocksucker.
Question answered.
The following images were captured from Ms. Wendy Thurm’s Twitter feed at approximately 12:30am ET, early Friday morning, and clearly document her descent into madness.*
*Note: Ms. Thurm has denied these allegations, suggesting that the following was a result merely of placing her cellular telephone in an airport security tray. To which explanation the unwashed masses respond, “Pssh! Hah! Pfft! Shwa! Therp!”
Exhibit One:
Today we celebrate the life of Bob Uecker, as part of our long-neglected feast-day series.
Life: Over six seasons and more than 800 plate appearances, Bob Uecker was a precisely replacement-level catcher for the Braves, Cardinals, and Phillies. After his playing career, he was hired by the Brewers as a scout — and has been described by then-owner Bud Selig as the “worst scout I (Selig) ever had.” Since 1971, he has been the radio voice of the Milwaukee Brewers — a platform he utilizes to celebrate the relative merits of American beer and encased meats.
Spiritual Exercise: The ethical mandate “Know thyself” is more or less as old as the Western intellectual tradition, attributed alternately to Pythagoras, Heraclitus, Socrates, and others. The sense is also preserved by Epictetus, who writes in his Discourses (II.6): “It is good to be clear about the level of your talent… Don’t pretend you have a particular skill if you don’t.”
Uecker’s greatest strength is his capacity not just for acknowledging, but celebrating, his weaknesses. Ask yourself what your weaknesses are. Instead of fleeing from them, become intimate with them, buy them some drinks, introduce them to your work friends.
A Prayer for Bob Uecker
Bob Uecker!
During a 1979 appearance
on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson,
millions watched as you resuscitated
a dying man using only
half a Miller Lite
and some grainy images of Bo Derek
eating poutine sensually.
In German, I’ve learned, Uecker is a noun
meaning “one who impregnates women
competitively and is celebrated as a god
for doing so” — is that true?
A medical doctor I know said you
suffer no effects of gout but have
transmitted it to dozens of partners
sexually — is that even possible?
Razor Shines was not a very good Major League Baseball player. He accrued 88 big league plate appearances over four years with the Montreal Expos, which cost his teams 0.6 Wins.
But as you can see here, we was awesome in many other ways.
Dear NotGraphs,
I recently started dating a girl who has no idea how intense I am about my fantasy baseball league. I’m afraid she’ll freak out when she finds out about how I print out multiple spreadsheets to prep for Draft Day, frequently slobber over prospect reports and field trade offers in the shower. I know I cannot be the only person in this situation so I think it would make for an excellent column on the site.
(note: this is an actual e-mail from an actual reader, swear on my fantasy team.)
Dear Reader,
I hate to start off attacking the premise of the question, but, dude, she knows. I know you don’t think she knows, but she does. Women are skilled like that. My wife comes home and she immediately knows everything I’ve eaten, touched, looked at, anything. “You watched 30 Rock already? I thought we were going to watch it together!” “What? How do you know I watched 30 Rock?” “There’s a crumb of cereal on the floor near the couch, that I can somehow see from fifteen feet away. So I know you were eating cereal on the couch, and so I know you must have been watching something on TV while you were eating it, and since there was nothing else on the DVR, I know you watched 30 Rock without me.” It’s like “The Mentalist.” Which I also watched on the DVR without her.
BEHOLD! THE WORLD’S MOST INSTRUCTIVE SPECTRUM, THE MUSTACHE-SPECTACLES SPECTRUM:
THIS IS THE MOMENT THE PROPHETS FORETOLD, WHEN THEY SPAKE:
…AND THERE SHALL COME A SPECTRUM, A BEAM OF WISDOM AND ETHNICITY THAT STARTS THICK AND FUZZLED AND CURLING AROUND THINE UPPER LIP, BECOMES THINNED AND VAGUELY HISPANIC WITH AN AFRO SQUEEZING FROM YONDER CAP, AND ENDS PURE AND PURELY BESPECTACLED, YET MILDLY UNSURE IF THE PICTURE HATH YET BEEN TAKEN — AND YE SHALL UNDERSTAND THE LOCKED CAPS AND WHY WE HATH TO YOU GIVEN THEM. LET IT BE SO. (AXFORD 5:9)
NOW IT ALL MAKES SENSE — LENNY SAKATA, WILLIE MUELLER, AND DANNY BOITANO.
DANNY BOITANO, WILLIE MUELLER, AND LENNY SAKATA. ALL ONE TEAM, ALL ONE SPECTRUM, BUT EACH A SEPARATE GLORY.