Benjamin Disraeli said that “Conservatism discards Prescription, shrinks from Principle, disavows Progress; having rejected all respect for antiquity, it offers no redress for the present, and makes no preparation for the future.”  Golly, he makes being conservative seem like absolutely no fun.  Wouldn’t you rather greet the future with optimism and wild-eyed hope, the better to be prepared for the non-stop techno dance party that your life is destined to become?

Take this intrepid soul, who has chosen to prepare for the inevitable rise of the Astros:

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“This was a childhood favorite of mine. Now it just really fu*king pisses me off.

If you enjoy hopelessly outdated video simulations, liberal and spirited use of the F word, pretend baseball, and a gamer’s discontent, then the following is for you:

This was once a good thing, but it is now a bad thing. Every day is better than the next.

This probably needs an introduction but I have no idea what to say other than that I believe I’ve lost touch with my demographic.

Britney Spears

Career WAR: 91.2

Comparables: Greg Maddux, Warren Spahn

Best season: 2000 (Stronger, Oops!… I Did It Again, 1.78 FIP)

Brit has managed to assemble a shockingly spectacular career with years left to go, assuming her antics off the field don’t catch up to her. No matter how you feel about her style of play, no one else who has debuted since 1998 can touch her when it comes to the raw numbers. You think she’s only “pretty good”? Look again. If we’ve learned anything from advanced metrics, it’s that the numbers aren’t the liars, our perceptions are. No matter how Britney makes you feel (and for me and for many others, the answer to that question is a jumbled and complicated tangle), she is among — if not the — greatest pop singer of my generation. Those who don’t agree do have some tools to argue with, specifically her extremely low BABIP. However, even after factoring in her extraordinary luck, Britney has still led the league overall every season that she has released a new album. Above all else, she is incredibly consistent, never having experienced a true slump in her entire career. Even 2008, the year she experienced an infamous offseason collapse, her sixth album sold half a million copies in the US in its first week, while Brit broke another record becoming the youngest player in history with five number one albums. Britney is an interesting case because to the naked eye she appears to have very little talent at all. Her voice is weak and forgettable compared to many of the other players on this list, her fastball never gets out of the very low 90s, and while she was once pretty good on the dance floor, that number has sunk as her later career has been plagued by injuries — from 2008-2011 she actually posted a negative UZR. She simply doesn’t have the natural talent to be the superstar that she is and year after year, experts predict that she will regress to her natural talent level, but somehow, some way, she remains at the top of her game.
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WELCOME TO THE WASH SHOW I AM THE MOTHER F**ING HOST.. #WashTime

— LeVon Washington (@L_wash) December 13, 2011

By day LeVon Washington is a minor league outfielder for the Cleveland Indians, but by night he is the mother f**ing (although we can’t be sure what F-word he meant to bleep out, I’m going to guess it was the normal one, despite not having enough letters) host of the Wash Show, the hottest minor league twitter in the game right now.  He’s still looking for his swag on the diamond (.218/.331/.315 split in A ball last year), but believe me, he’s dripping with it all over the internets.  It’s a legitimate crime that he has only 782 followers, so I’m passing the #FF buck to you, dear friends. 

Bill Simmons recently appointed me the ‘czar’ of MiLB twitters (much to Carson’s chagrin), so I have the power to name LeVon Washington top dog in the inaugural NotGraphs Twitter Prospect List, and also to issue this official word of warning @TheRealTPlush:  Your crown as craziest baseball twitterer is in jeopardy.  Consider yourself on mother-f**ing notice.  Batton down the hatches while you still can, because it’s bout to be #WashTime #WashTime #WashTime #WashTime #WashTime #WashTime #WashTime #WashTime #WashTime #WashTime #WashTime #WashTime

Although the convention floor, which is slimed in the residue of the basest of human urges, might lead one to think that the title of “Mayor of Babylon” hangs in the balance, it is actually the nickname “Gargoyle O’Boyle” that is at sexy stake.

The nomination process yielded many names, which have been whittled down to a tidy 10, according to the whims and impulses of the Utmost Culminating Exchequer, whose zippered latex mask is for purposes of maximum intimidation. He — is he really a he? — asks that you ponder carefully who should be known forevermore as “Gargoyle O’Boyle.” Now go and vote like everyone’s watching. Because they are …

Thank you for exercising the franchise.

I regret to be the one to inform you, but baseball as we know it was murdered in 2008. What you’ve been watching in the ensuing three years has been simply the death throes of a game we all love, gasping for air and seizing as it goes into shock…or something (I’m not a doctor; that’s a thing, right?)

“What felled mighty baseball?” you ask, in expectation that in the next paragraph I will tell you. “Surely no one human person is capable of destroying something so fine and beautiful.”

You would be correct. While some might argue that Ryan Braun is killing the game we love so much, baseball was not murdered at the hands of man. No. Baseball was ruined, as most things eventually are, by vampires. Observe:

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It should come as no surprise to you that Derek Jeter knows what the ladies like. And what the ladies like, particularly after a session of boozy coitus ‘neath a mirrored ceiling, are things they can sell on Ebay or give to their nephews:

Yankees star Derek Jeter, one of New York’s most eligible hunks since his split with longtime gal pal Minka Kelly, is bedding a bevy of beauties in his Trump World Tower bachelor pad — and then coldly sending them home alone with gift baskets of autographed memorabilia.

The Yankees captain’s wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am kiss-offs came to light when he mistakenly pulled the stunt twice on the same woman — forgetting she had been an earlier conquest, a pal told The Post.

“Derek has girls stay with him at his apartment in New York, and then he gets them a car to take them home the next day. Waiting in his car is a gift basket containing signed Jeter memorabilia, usually a signed baseball,” the friend dished.

Which brings us to:

Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein writes — or wrote, ca. 1921 — in his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (proposition 6.22) that “the logic of the world which the propositions of logic show in tautologies, mathematics shows in equations.”

In response to — and, perhaps, in spirited negation of — Wittgenstein’s declaration, American baseballing prospect Casey Kelly submits this via his Twitter computer:

To which sentiment Kelly adds in his next Tweet: “Vienna Circle? More like Vienna Apeirogon if you ask me!”

Thank you to Ben Carsley, whose chain the hottest girls in the game are undoubtedly wearing.

Let me lay it on the line . . .

Via Brad Neely’s awesome George Washington cartoon.

Our ongoing quest, in the manner of a noble knight-errant, is to assign cool nicknames to players rather than indulge in the tired, lamewad paradigm of assigning cool players nicknames. Last time out? Jeff Mathis laid authoritative claim to the nickname “Hot Lettuce.” So Mr. Mathis 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 …

“Bad Miracle” – Wily Mo Peña
“Captain Black Tobacco” – John Danks
“$45 Couch” – Yuniesky Betancourt
“Liván Hernández” – Liván Hernández
“Frog in the Pot” – Carlos Zambrano
“Aqua Velva Man” – Chase Utley
“Victorian Sex Rebel” – John Axford
“Good, Round Friend” – Prince Fielder
“I Am Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass” – Kyle Farnsworth
“Interrobang” – Adrián Beltré
“Turbaconducken” – Ty Wigginton
“Hot Lettuce” – Jeff Mathis

And the nickname now available for purchase? It’s “Gargoyle O’Boyle”!

Denotations, Connotations, Implications, Intimations, and Incriminations:

The nickname “Gargoyle O’Boyle” should evoke for you the late-19th-century and early-20th-century base ball-ist — a man of that blessed time when batting averages and infant-mortality rates kept close numerical quarters. It is a name that suggests a murderous intensity on the part of the base ball-ist, as well as offseasons spent working in the coal mine or astride the blast furnace. It suggests a man for whom base ball is an incurable disease. It suggests bunts, spikes-high stolen bases, games of pinochle played in the dining car, and a grim history of throttled elevator attendants. It suggests a man, full of bale and harm, who will die of too much corn liquor or perhaps a lung complaint. That is to say: It suggests beauty.

Or perhaps, for you, it suggests something else entirely. Whatever.

Prototypes from Baseball’s Gauzy Past:

Ty Cobb is the obvious model for all who would aspire to be Gargoyle O’Boyle. Tony Phillips is a worthy, more recent example, as is Lenny Dykstra. Of course, “Gargoyle O’Boyle” need not be a small-ball fetishist. Are you suggesting Eddie Murray couldn’t have played for John McGraw? Because I’m suggesting no such thing. Woe betide the man who does suggest something like that!

Guiding, Determinative Query:

What current major-league player should be nicknamed “Gargoyle O’Boyle”?

The convention floor, which is filled with actual, palpable misery, is open for nominations …