The nominating ’tis done. The Presidium for Patriotic Arrangements has vetted and culled the list of nominees down to the 10 deemed most loyal to the Party. From these names you shall choose, and you shall do so with a reverence befitting your assigned caste. Vote carefully, citizens, for the nickname “Dionysus with Rabies” is at stake …
Now back to work with you.
America is dealing with some of the hardest economic times she has seen in recent years. Although professional baseball players tend to make a decent amount of coin, even they can’t remain blissfully aware of the plights of us plebeians. Observe the sight which befell Torii Hunter yesterday:
Times r getting hard out here twitter.com/toriihunter48/…
— Torii Hunter (@toriihunter48) January 11, 2012
My favorite base ball-ists from my period of actual, sentient fanhood are as follows: Ozzie Smith, Albert Pujols, John Tudor, and Ray Lankford.
In light of these facts, the following bears mentioning:
I am delighted by this turn of events. Mr. Lankford was galactically underrated during his time on the diamond and the subject of misguided scorn by those inclined to misguidedly scorn. Today, though, Mr. Lankford and I are united through media sociale. And it is wonderful.
I suspect, though, that Mr. Lankford followed me out of righteous pity. After all, I’ve been following him for months, and I recently re-Tweeted one of his vanishingly rare Tweets. He might have followed the trail and discovered that my Twitter background is a mosaic of his Topps rookie card. “The poor dear,” he may have said to himself before hitting the Follow button in the manner that one gives an extra pence to the newsboy. It is my hope that he will one day muss my hair and tell me to run along.
Did you know you can search every place name in the U.S.? Here, now you can waste even more time than I did. Presenting: the most pointless list ever. If there are readers who live in any of these places, you are obligated to post in the comments.
I hereby propose a new Independent Baseball League, with teams in the following sabermetrically-friendly locations:
Eastern Division
The Fipsters, of FIPps Crossing, in Columbus, NC
The Winners, of WAR, in McDowell, WV
The Babips, of BIPpus, in Huntington, IN
The Walkers, of WHIPray Basin, in Monroe, FL
Western Division
The Wappers, of WPA Dam, in Muskogee, OK
The Zippers, of ZIPS Cabin, in White Pine, NV
The Ultimate Ratings, of ZONE Creek, in Dillingham, AK
The Powers, of ISOlated Peak, in Boulder, CO
What we do is assign cool nicknames to players rather than perpetuate the tired, lamewad practice of assigning cool players nicknames. Last time out, Zack Greinke narrowly edged out Sam Fuld for the honor of being called “Science or Bravery?“. So Mr. Greinke has been added to our Hall of Honouur, which is so stately, so regal, so much itself a celebration of the Norman Conquest, that an extra British-English unstressed “u” is required for proper spelling …
Kenesaw Mountain Landis… you are not the father.
Update: The voting is closed. Old Hoss Radbourn, quite properly had the most votes with 94. We’ll use that as a baseline, assuming no one could be foolish enough to not vote for him. 75% of 94 is 70.5. We’ll round down to 70. Which means that our inaugural Ron Swanson Baseball Hall of Fame class is as follows:
Old Hoss Radbourn, 94 votes
Ty Cobb, 89 votes
Nolan Ryan, 80 votes
Jeff Bagwell, 70 votes
Lou Gehrig, 70 votes
Frankly, that seems reasonable. You win this round, John Locke.
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When our country was born, our founding fathers mistakenly bestowed upon us a republic, in which the will of the people would determine the course of our nation, rather than an enlightened despotism based on the whims of Ron Swanson, as Thomas Hobbes had been advocating all along.
And so, since our Belovéd Swanson is barred from ruling by decree due to the Constitution and the fact that he is indeed fictional in nature, it falls to us, the multitude, to choose for him who belongs in his Baseball Hall of Fame. I don’t like it any more than you do, but such is the will of John Locke, who fricking ruins everything.
Yesterday, you recall, we proposed several candidates. Today, we will choose the introductory class for the Ron Swanson Baseball Hall of Fame. Everyone on the original list I proposed, as well as those players and managers both nominated and seconded in the comments section are available for your vote, and you can vote for multiple candidates. As with the regular Hall of Fame, a candidate requires 75% of the vote to make it in, unless no one achieves that threshold, at which point, we’ll just give it to the top three vote-getters or something. It should be chaos…glorious chaos…which will demonstrate once and for all how stupid John Locke was.
Hey, Kenesaw Mountain Landis, nice pants.
I went to the unveiling of this mural here in Austin on Saturday, installed next door to the historic home of Willie Wells. Tim Kerr is a local artist who enjoys baseball, jazz, and skateboarding. I am a long time fan and I got a chance to meet him in a backyard full of hot dogs, mexican cokes, chickens, and towering over us all, this beautiful painting. The ‘signature’ on the mural reads “your name here,” which felt incredibly appropriate as I stood with my neighbors, honoring Wells’ legacy.
Wells played one season for the Austin Black Senators of the Texas Negro League before entering the big show, The Negro National League. He also played in Mexico, where he was nicknamed “El Diablo,” and eventually ended up in Canada where he was a player/manager for the Winnipeg Buffaloes. He often won batting titles and was elected to multiple all star games, as well as setting a Negro Leagues single season home run record in 1926 with 27 home runs in only 88 recorded games. He was also an excellent defensive shortstop – he was also known as the “Shakespeare of Shortstops.” He is credited with mentoring a young Jackie Robinson, and being among the pioneers of the batting helmet (his was a construction helmet he wore after suffering a concussion). He eventually returned to his childhood home in Austin, before passing away in 1989. He was elected posthumously to the Hall of Fame in 1997.
