Philadelphia’s Veterans Stadium was, provably and undeniably, the place where YouTube commenters gathered before there was such a thing as YouTube. As such, there are any number of ways to describe the angsty tincture of assholes and disimprisoned maniacs that prowled within its walls. And thanks to SI’s excellent and mustachioed Gary Smith, we have some championship examples of doing so.

First, a couple of warm-ups:

“It was San Quentin,” says Head.

“It was a circular concrete slab of crap,” says Boo.

Not half bad. But would anyone care to trump?

“It was a green dying turd,” says Dan Tarng, a first-generation Taiwanese-American fan who needs to meet Head and Boo.

In the course of stinking, meaningless human events, you might be tempted to describe Veterans Stadium in your own words. Do not. Instead, pay obeisance to Mr. Dan Tarng, who was through with it before you knew what to do with it.

What is rarer than a handlebar mustache?  More powerful than a pair of horn-rimmed spectacles?  The answer, by God, is Wally Moon’s unibrow, which we debuted last Thursday here on NotGraphs:

Wally Moon’s eyebrow, by itself can lift heavy loads.  It can do complicated maths.  It can convey emotions like disappointment, astonishment, frustration, and skepticism roughly 33% more effectively than your own two eyebrows together.

But it did not start that way.  Journey with me now to what looks like some time in the 1940s, before the eyebrow: Read the rest of this entry »

“I once thought this game of base ball to be something paltry — a trifling, a merest emanation. Yet, lo, across my years I have learned that the end of the base-ball season is as redolent of death, of foreordained annihilation, as the vicar’s withered corpse.” – Pauly Shore

This has been your Daguerreotype of the Evening.

Impress your friends and confound your enemies and frighten a couple neighbor children and force the police to take you downtown for questioning and get released after a few hours with this GIF of a half-coy, entirely irksome Melky Cabrera, courtesy of Bay City Ball’s Chris Quick.

The attentive reader will know that we at NotGraphs are acutely aware of the crippling nature of waking life, and will know, moroever, that the majority of us here engage in what Rabelais’ most faithful translators render in English as “tippling” — a practice that serves as a sort of spiritual analgesic in the face of life’s attendant cares and sorrows.

If a certain MLB press release — concerning the broadcast, on the MLB Network, of a documentary about the 1986 postseason — is to be believed, it would appear as though NotGraphs has found in former Red Sox pitcher Oil Can Boyd a “brother from another mother,” as it were.

Consider these choice comments from the aforementioned communiqué de presse:

[Former Boston manager John] McNamara on Boyd not being available to pitch in Game Seven of the World Series because he was drunk:
Well you said it, … that’s the exact reason.

Former Red Sox pitching coach Bill Fischer on Boyd not being available to pitch in Game Seven:
I came to the park and Al Nipper came up to me and said, “You should check on your long man. He was boxed up, under the weather from drinking, so we locked him in a room.

For anyone, like myself, who enjoys jumping to conclusions, then perhaps you’ll agree that the most entertaining one (i.e. conclusion) is of great surprise — surprise not that Oil Can Boyd was, on this singular occasion, too drunk to you-know-what, but that a man whose nickname apparently celebrates his affection for fermented beverages would have ever pitched sober ever.

In conclusion, therefore, vis-à-vis, a thing you can click and, in so doing, embiggen:

Jacoby Ellsbury is suave as hell. (See photographic evidence below.) In 2011, he returned from an injury-plagued and horribly disappointing 2010 to become a 30-30 man in his age-27 season. That, in addition to his superb defense in centerfield, is sure to garner some MVP votes despite a Red Sox collapse for the ages.

“I will have that award, and that one, and that one over there, as well.”

But how will he fare against the lyrical prowess of Miggy Cashbery and Joey Bats?

A one-two, a one-two: Read the rest of this entry »

A leaked recording of Ron Washington’s profanity-laced pep talk from before game seven of the World Series has caused quite a stir on the web (NSFW):

Ron Washington’s Game 7 Clubhouse Speech from JoeSportsFan.com on Vimeo.

The Texas Rangers are reported to be livid that this speech — second only to the St. Crispin’s Day Speech from Shakespeare’s Henry v among the greatest inspirational speeches of all time — was released for public consumption.

Little does anyone know that Washington actually borrowed large portions of his speech from a speech given by NotGraphs’s Steadfast Guardian, Carson Cistulli, before the baseball action of game 162 on Wednesday, September 28.

As you will note, however, Cistulli’s speech struck a slightly different tone:

Cistulli: Hey fellas, I just want to take a minute and, um, this is what we waited for all f***ing year. To get to this point. You know, when the season started I told you guys to keep your titles to one line. One f***ing line! We followed this convention the whole goddamn year and there’s no reason to not do it now. If you don’t know how close you are to running over onto a second line, please use the preview feature. This is one of the most tremendous baseball blogs that I’ve ever had the pleasure of being a part of. I hope you guys feel the same way. There are a lot of champions at this website–those f***ing guys at FanGraphs are champions too and good champions also. They’re blogging for a modest sum. They ended up keeping their titles to one line. Tonight, this is what it’s about. We’re gonna go back out there tonight and I’m gonna expect you guys to stop doing anything different than what you’ve been doing all f***ing year. Enjoy yourself, have fun, do what you gotta do, and like I told you, at this point it’s all about focus. And you’ve been great at that and you’ve always had each others’ backs. That’s what we gotta continue to do: have each others’ back. That’s all it is…We can keep our titles to one motherf***ing line. Ain’t no doubt about it. We can beat those motherf***ers over there. No doubt about it. But I can tell you this: they over there saying the same motherf***ing thing. Why? Because they a champion too. And we’re a motherf***ing champion. But we know we can outblog those c***s***ers. They’re not so sure about outblogging us.

Usually when we’re hit up via our Team NotGraphs Hot Hotline, we’re sent a link, or a video, or a whited-out picture of Joe West, along with the words, “If you have some time, have some fun!” (We did. We definitely did.) You get the idea: we’re sent something that deserves our attention. We then give it what you now know as “The NotGraphs Treatment.”

Today’s a bit different: Avid NotGraphs readers Dave Yeager and Dan Ford have gone the extra mile, and below is their NotGraphs moment in the sun. Thank you, Dave and Dan. Thank you so much. The floor is yours …

Pictured above: Wilmington Blue Rocks mascots Mr. Celery (sans torso/head) and Rocky Bluewinkle (with giant toothbrush).

Is this what life is? The waiting between moments?

Does Rocky stand there with his oversized toothbrush, facing into the light, preparing to take a tentative first step into the unknown, bearing only tools ill designed for the tasks ahead? What can one moose do against the slings and arrows of the world at large? Better to be prepared in some way, I suppose, than not at all – for if nothing else, perhaps the toothbrush gives him comfort that no matter what, he faced what lay ahead the only way he knew how.

Or perhaps it is not that Rocky stands unprepared. Nay, perhaps he stands as a vigilant sentinel against what approaches, while Mr. Celery looks on. What is Mr. Celery doing in this scenario? Resting? Perhaps when Rocky can bear no more, the duty to maintain this vigil will fall to him.

Or perhaps it is that Mr. Celery has already surrendered, as he sits passively. Not Rocky though. He will face fate head on, toothbrush in hand.

Whatever it is, it belongs in a museum.

Photo courtesy Delaware Online’s July 2010 must-read article: Mr. Celery, unmasked!

It’s time for another installment of “Shorter Baseball Columnists,” in which we read mainstream baseball columnists and marginalized bloggers like Murray Chass so you don’t have to! Let us begin!

Shorter Murray Chass: Let me tell you about the time that Tony La Russa had to go potty.

Shorter Dan Shaughnessy: OH HAI LARRY LUCCHINO!!11!ONE!!!

Shorter T.J. Simers: Don Rickles likes the Dodgers.

Shorter Frank Isola: Here’s the latest on Derek Jeter’s 3,000th hit.

Shorter Chris DeLuca: Theo Epstein still hasn’t won a World Series for the Cubs.

Every now and then, something truly epic comes along. Now, it’s not every day that it’s a Cuban ballplayer with a scouting video that has production values mirroring a 1980s sitcom, but this is your lucky day.

Domingo Ayala could not be reached for comment.

Jeff Passan could, however. He said these words.