MLB Business PR Manager Jeff Heckleman brings our attention to the foodstuff you see situated to the left of these words (an image that you should feel very comfortable embiggening) — an item known either as a Smoked-Beef Brisket or Pulled Pork Parfait, depending on which meat you’d like to be the cause of your immediate death. The dish features two layers each of mashed potatoes and your preferred meat and is then topped with barbecue sauce.

When asked, one fan at Milwaukee’s Miller Park described the meat parfait as “delicious.” Another said, “I see a bright light at the end of a tunnel and my Grandpa Pat in the cardigan he always wore on gameday.”

Observe, the Wikipedia page of one Eric Sogard:

(Click to embiggen. Like, a lot.)

Now, allow me to highlight some notable elements of said Wikipedia page.

1. I hadn’t heard this nickname for Sogard ever before, but in retrospect, it’s hilariously obvious. Check it out:

2. Said glasses:

3. Sogard. Home run. Record. Same sentence.

4. I have to be honest, that whole second round thing really dulls the allure of the story of that guy up there making it to the major leagues.

Eh. Still good.

5. I wonder how jean sales are in Oakland right now.

6. On that home run, the “# parks” according to Hit Tracker Online is zero. Not even one. Zero.

Yes, his second homer (against Koji Uehara, at that) went a respectable 374 feet and would’ve been out of 27 parks. No, I don’t care.

7. Of course. Of course he’s bunting. The two in-game shots are of him fielding a routine grounder… and bunting. This is his skillset.

Also,

While, at some point in the future of humanity, one man maybe won’t feel compelled to laugh at the site of another man taking it — where it is an object possessing some unfriendly combination of mass and velocity — taking it in the Most Important Organ, October 2nd, 2011 is decidedly not that day.

Accordingly, NotGraphs is pleased to present the following GIF — all 6.8 slow-motion megabytes of it — of umpire Tony Randazzo’s encounter with an Ivan Nova pitch in the dirt Saturday night.

Behold, schadenfreude:

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When we last saw Mark Reynolds, he was being complacent and inspiring an internet meme.

With one poorly/perfectly timed mouthful of sunflower seeds, hundreds of photoshops were born:

As it turns out, we may have been a bit premature in our judgments of Mr. Reynolds’s character. You see, recent .gifographic evidence via Orioles-Nation.com definitively shows him in a state of non-complacency:

In the ninth inning of Wednesday’s thrilling game against the Red Sox, Nolan Reimold hit a two out double to tie the game at three and Mark Reynolds went absolutely bonkers.

It appears that a mea culpa is in order. Mr. Reynolds, on behalf of everyone who drew conclusions about your character based on a single photograph, I apologize. BUT, on behalf of everyone who participated in perpetuating this meme by photoshopping that image of you into other photographs to humorous effect, I do not apologize. Those photoshops were hilarious.

Bouncing high five to Jordan Tuwiner of Orioles Nation for the master .giffery.

In this life it’s important for a man to know on which side his bread is buttered. The gentleman you see in the footage above is pretty aware that his bread is buttered on the Ranger side of things — which is why said gentleman takes it upon himself to return Kelly Shoppach’s third-inning home run back to the playing field almost as soon as it (i.e. the ball) departed same.

That’s just facts being facts, is what that is.

Merci buckets to JDanger at the FanGraphs Chat for bringing the author’s attention to this GIF.

We know that Carl Crawford loves antiquarian books. Does classic literature love Carl Crawford back?

The answer appears to be a resounding “Yes.” Regard:

Or perhaps you prefer a more modern printing:

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In this space, this writer has, for reasons sufficient unto himself, occasionally likened pennant races to the behavioral phenomena of the animal kingdom. While this practice is borne of laziness, it’s mostly in the service of entertaining you, the muscled reader.

The Action Video Footage that follows, which is — and I don’t use this word lightly — awesome, is of a Darwinist brouhaha in the wilds of Africa. It also, fittingly for our purposes, makes for a tidy metaphorical retelling of recent base-and-ball events.

Your cast of characters:

Lions: The Red Sox and Braves.
Water Buffalo: The Rays and Cardinals.
Crocodiles: The Angels and Giants. Or perhaps just crocodiles.

Please enjoy the following Action Video Footage:

What can future opponents of the Rays and Cardinals learn from this? If you’re going to try to kill a baby water buffalo, then you’d best be quick about it. This is the playoffs, after all.

Situated in the farthest reaches of Angels Stadium on July 9th, as part of this summer’s SABR fesitivites, a number of things occurred to me: this hot dog, with all this mustard on it, is delicious; this beer, with all this beer in it, is delicious; Mike Trout is secretly asking me to be his friend from right field or, like, a mentor-type person.

One thing that didn’t occur to me is where either of the teams playing — i.e. the Angels and Mariners — where either of them stood in the AL West or Wild Card standings.

The peculiar thing about this is that, a mere two-plus months later, the season was/is over — and, in the case of Seattle, has been over for some time. In the meantime, playoff races have materialized, have dissolved, have re-emerged in unlikely places, and have come to what can only be referred to as a “glorious, pulsating climax.”

Again, all in fewer than three months.

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Every time we leave our homes, we face risks. If you are like me and you frequently bring your toaster into the bathroom in order to toast bagels while in the tub, you also incur significant risks while inside your home. But there is nothing better than a perfectly toasted bagel, so the reward justifies the risk.

Similarly, the convenience of being able to travel long distances in short periods of time justifies the risk associated with using any given mode of transportation. As a matter of fact, many people prefer to not even think of the risks when they, say, get in a car or mount their bike so as not to cause themselves unnecessary anxiety. Some, though, take comfort in the fact that the one-year odds of dying in a plane crash, for instance, are somewhere between 1 in 600,000 and 1 in 2,000,000 depending on the source you use.

So what is my point? On Wednesday night, the Tampa Bay Rays and the St. Louis Cardinals completed Wild Card comebacks for which the joint probability was 1 in 250,000, according to the brilliant actuarial minds over at Beyond the Box Score. We watched the whole thing unfold right before our eyes.

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Walt Williams, man. What can you say? It’s one thing to have played Major League Baseball. It’s another to have played Major League Baseball without a frigging neck.

Respect, Walt Williams.

Chest bump: Old Time Family Baseball. They did incredible work this past season. I urge you to check them out, because I’ve no doubt they’re going to bring the blogging pain during the playoffs.