Young Ryan Braun isn’t smiling because “intent with Buick-like seriousness” are his factory settings.

Young Ryan Braun doesn’t like posed senior portraits.

Young Ryan Braun doesn’t like portraits.

Young Ryan Braun is worried about some things but not Y2K.

Young Ryan Braun will go to prom and get under-the-bra action from Tiffany Blankenship and Jen DeLuca.

Young Ryan Braun’s prom date will be Amber Symanski.

Young Ryan Braun will sometimes work out while listening to “Country Grammar,” which he owns on compact disc.

Young Ryan Braun’s acne medication doesn’t work perfectly, but everything else does.

(HT: Snakkle and Todd’s championship Twitter feed)

When I look at a child, I see the future. When I look at my wife, I see the woman with whom I’ll be spending the rest of my life. And, increasingly, whenever I look at Charlie Blackmon, I see everyone I was friends with in college.

The image to the left — of Charlie Blackmon wearing a vest and wearing a tiger shirt and eating what appears to be some kind of delicious burrito — has provoked merely the latest in a series of small epiphanies regarding how the Rockies outfielder is actually probably just one of my roommates from college with whom I’ve lost touch.

To the photo, he appends this confident-sounding tweet:

what’s better than a tiger? A Siberian tiger. What’s better than a Siberian tiger? Four of them on my awesome shirt!

And what I believe is a student film made by Blackmon and this other guy with whom we roomed.

Truffle Shuffle in honor of reader Paul, who brought the above tweet to the author’s attention.

In the coming weeks, our comrades on the FanGraphs side of the site will make arguments for and against various 2011 MLB awards candidates. Here at NotGraphs, it’s our duty to allow said candidates to make a case for themselves on the poetic level.

First to step to the mic is AL MVP hopeful, Miguel Cabrera (aka Miggy Cashbery aka Playboy Man Baby).

Miggy Cashbery, ’bout to reck tha mic.

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In his Letter to Menoeceus, ancient philosopher Epicurus writes that a wise man “thinks it better to be unfortunate in reasonable action than to prosper in unreason. For it is better in a man’s actions that what is well chosen should fail, rather than that what is ill chosen should be successful owing to chance.”

Discuss the extent to which the above statement applies to recently retired manager Tony LaRussa and explain your reasoning for the position you take. In developing and supporting your position, you should consider ways in which the statement might or might not hold true and explain how these considerations shape your position. Also, meditate on the image embedded here and ask yourself — aloud, if you need to — if this is more likely the (a) best or (b) most absurd of all possible worlds.

You have 30 minutes for this section of the test.

Ignore, for the moment and if you’re able, the hipster virulence in the belowly embedded action-video footage — ignore Those Who Ruin Everything — and instead focus on what’s important and right-wise: that John Axford has been named the Mustached American of the Year:

While Mr. Axford is not American, he indubitably embodies the American spirit, particularly in his choice of tailored vests. However, he is not mustached. He is mustachioed.

He is pistols at dawn. He is making his fortune by importing silk garments and exotic spices. He is invading the Duchess’s boudoir. He is making love to love.

(Butterfly kisses: Hall of Very Good)

Yes, I too wonder where the hot dogs are.

Let’s see if we can answer your questions right out of the gate.

Yes, there is a site dedicated to making logos with food. Yes, that is an Oakland A’s logo made of relish and mustard. Yes, it’s both brilliant and useless. No, it isn’t plausible to ask anyone with any taste (cultural or epicurean) to eat a mustard and ketchup Pee-Wee Herman. Yes, the deconstructed red pepper of a Texas Rangers logo looks both disgusting and delicious, depending on how hungry you are and how much you like the Rangers. No, I do not want any pureed chicken salad, portobello mushroom and pepper Jason Voorhees. No, I do not know what the artist’s goals are. Yes, I also hope he really likes food that looks nigh inedible.

Hopefully that answers all your questions because thus concludes your lesson on the daguerreotype of the day.

No, this is not a post about, and nor will you see a photograph below of, Tony La Russa. You’re sick.

The best part? She’s not lying: I don’t see a ring.

It gets better: This photo was taken at game six. Game frigging six. Obviously she made the right decision.

And shout out to her soon-to-be husband for even putting a World Series game on the table, as a viable option to an engagement ring. That’s love.

I’d credit the image appropriately, but I found it on Tumblr. Let’s just thank the Internet.

Not, not, not, not, not pornography.

Beyond its propensity for killing cats, curiosity has other virtues, as well — namely, in that, by placing our trust in it, we’re led effortlessly to our respective vocations and become the people we’re meant to be.

Does that idea sound Emersonian to you? Shut up, it is.

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Back in the well-chronicled day, it was common for the Topps Chewing Gum Company to take photographs of baseball players in spring training, usually by camping outside Peoria’s only Sizzler steakhouse.  If said professionals were traded before their cards were released, Topps would simply break out the acrylics and airbrush a new logo on the cap.  Only trained professionals with jeweler’s loupes could tell the difference.

Drunk with power, the Topps executives decided to take this even further, by creating Rick Jones.  The plan was simple: using state-of-the-art Apple II computing technology, the company was able to create an amalgam of every single ballplayer in history.  They conjured up random statistics, including a solid 2.11 ERA at Winston-Salem.  They then slapped on a cascading waterfall of brown hair, a touch of neck-high chest hair for added virility, and as the piece-de-resistance, they added him to the Mariners roster.  Most regions of the country were not yet aware that Seattle even had a baseball team, much less who actually played for the team, and so the addition went unnoticed.

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Swoon.  C.J. Wilson is a free agent, and although not the prettiest girl at the dance (figuratively of course!) he is sure to have his fair share of sugar daddies vying for his services.  Where’s he going to end up? Straight from the (work)horse’s mouth, in an interview with ESPN Dallas last week:

“At some point you need to be made to feel special. If you have a wife or a girlfriend – or both, some people like to party – and you don’t make them feel special, eventually they feel neglected and they feel left out and like they’re not part of the party. So Texas is going to have their chance to do that obviously after the World Series is over, and we’ll go from there.”

Okay, so he needs to feel it.  I dig – I mean, who doesn’t want to feel special?  Who doesn’t want to party?!  Now, if only there was a video of some sort where C.J. Wilson talks about his perfect suitor.  If only…

Cut to some Yankee’s intern getting sent to the New York public library to find out everything he can about film noir. “Did you know that The Killers is an adaptation of a Hemingway short story?  Isn’t Chinatown great?  What do you think of the Coens’ work is more a tribute or a challenge to the form?”

The Bachelor, starring C.J. Wilson, Monday’s at 8, on NBC.