Via Deadly Don Hammack comes this find by Nats Enquirer. This find is also, quite understandably, your Daguerreotype of the Evening:

The grainy, sepia-toned image you see above, which was created using silver halide, heated mercury, cold-rolled cladding, and a dipping solution of sodium thiosulfate, is of the lotto ads at tonight’s Phillies-Nats tilt (and also what appear to be some lovely geraniums). The discerner will observe that the Pennsylvania Lotto would seem to be claiming that in excess of 1.2 billion clams and or pieces of cheddar are in play at the moment. But hold everything!

MASN’s F.P. Santangelo pointed out during Tuesday night’s Nats-Phillies broadcast on MASN that members of the Nationals bullpen had messed with the jackpot numbers on the PowerBall and MegaMillions boards out in the visitors bullpen at Citizens Bank Park. And suddenly, a couple of paltry $25 million and $75 million payouts become $521 M and $705 M, respectively.

I’m pretty sure Sarbanes-Oxley expressly forbids the manipulation of powerball boards by NL East relievers — even decidedly merry relievers such as those boasted by the Nationals — but sometimes the law must be broken in the service of comedy jokes.

This I roar: #estimatedannuity

I was all prepared to launch into a tenuously humorous explanation of the genesis of Peter Gammons’s latest mistweet. I was going to speculate that this tweet was actually intended to be received by Theo Epstein. Then, I was going to fabricate the text conversation between Epstein and Gammo. It would have looked something like this:

Theo (617-XXX-XXXX): Hey Pete

Peter (857-XXX-XXXX): Theo. What’s up buddy?

Theo (617-XXX-XXXX): Nothin much. I just need ur help wit sumthing.

Peter (857-XXX-XXXX): No problem.

Theo (617-XXX-XXXX): So Marie is sayin she wants 2 go on a cruise after the season is ovr. I was wonderin which company u think is the best cuz I kno u n Gloria have been on a few.

Peter (857-XXX-XXXX): Do you want to know what I really think?

Theo (617-XXX-XXXX): Hell yea!!!

Peter (857-XXX-XXXX): Come November there will be lots of rich people willing to take you on their yachts

But then it dawned on me that Gammons’s tweet looked very familiar. I had definitely seen it somewhere before. But where?

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On the one hand, the equation that is the title of this post doesn’t really make sense. On the other hand, the author — owing to a lack of training in what many have taken to calling “physics” — doesn’t know that.

What the author does know is what side his bread is buttered on. And he also knows that, in addition to eating buttered bread, he likes to watch PYT Mike Stanton jack the hell out of some dongers — which, that’s precisely what Stanton did in the first and third innings, respectively, of Monday night’s contest between the Braves and Marlins.

The first homer, embedded above, is the sort that would be, in the parlance of a fictional Cleveland Indian fan, “too high” — if it weren’t also “too far,” that is. The second homer (below), while lacking the sheer loft of Stanton’s first, in fact traveled over 50 feet further than its predecessor.

You can watch both homers here, if you have time in your busy schedule. If you have even more time after that, you might consider writing the Great American Novel, with Mike Stanton as the protagonist.

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This past weekend, I had the great honor of sitting down with two-time Academy Award nominated actor and star of the upcoming film “Moneyball,” Brad Pitt. In the film, Pitt plays Oakland Athletics general manager Billy Beane, who used unconventional methods for evaluating baseball talent to construct a playoff team on a very limited budget. Incidentally, at approximately $47 million, the cost of making “Moneyball” was, in fact, higher than the payroll of the 2002 Athletics. So that’s something.

We talked about everything from his career, to sabermetrics, to his family life. 

Eric Augenbraun: Thanks so much for taking the time out of your busy schedule, Mr. Pitt. Before we start, I just want to say I’ve seen all of your movies and I’m a big fan of your work. 2005 sticks out in my mind as the year of two great snubs: Johan Santana losing the AL Cy Young Award to Bartolo Colon and you losing the MTV Movie Award for your performance in “Troy.”

Brad Pitt: Well, thank you. That’s very kind of you. To be completely honest, I had forgotten I was nominated for anything for my role in that.

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The heinous act above — the silencing of Tony Campana — was captured by a brave Getty Images photographer last Thursday. Naturally, as you’ve by now come to expect, we sent one of our correspondents, part of our award-winning Investigative Reporting Investigation Team, to, well, investigate.

When asked over the weekend about what exactly happened in the dugout at Great American Ball Park last week, all the color, all the joie de vivre, as Chairman Cistulli would say, left Tony Campana’s face. He wouldn’t speak. He couldn’t speak. Campana shook his head, from left to right.

“Is that a ‘no comment’?” our intrepid reporter asked.

Campana, again, said nothing. He shook his head once more, this time up and down. No comment.

Our investigate reporter pressed on. (This is why we’ve won awards.) Finally, after looking to his left, and then to his right, Campana motioned for our reporter to move in, to get closer. Then Campana whispered:

“… I see Carlos Zambrano.”

As soon as Campana had opened up to us, had let NotGraphs in, Alfonso Soriano walked by in the clubhouse, and stopped to the right of our reporter. Soriano then took two fingers, pointed them at his eyes, and pointed them at Campana. The interview was over.

Tony Campana’s been through a lot in his young life. He’s forever been told that he was too small to play in The Show. He’s battled, and beaten, Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Now he’s in for the toughest fight of his life: Being a Chicago Cub.

Image courtesy, as mentioned, the one and only Getty Images. Via Daylife.

Until last night, a confluence of circumstances known for centuries as “The Gentleman’s Whoops-A-Daisy” was presumed to have been lost to history. Here, for instance, is proof of its diminishing cultural footprint.

Time was when a man of high breeding would often swing for the downs against a tailing pitch and somehow konk it off his own top story for the amusement of all those assembled in the parlor, particularly chaste maidens who seemed likely to birth sons. But, for reasons sufficient unto those scoundrels who oppose things like monarchies and legacy admissions, The Gentleman’s Whoops-A-Daisy has fallen out of fashion. That is, until Mr. Eric Thames of Toronto, Ontario, U.S.A. revived it last night. Bear humble witness:

Thankfully, Mr. Thames was not seriously injured by his curator’s efforts. And solely because of Mr. Thames’s toil, no one in the world will ever die again.

We’re always trying to search for meaning here, even (especially?) among the Joe West ejections and hot GIF action posts. So when we hit this next picture from a Mets game, it was clear that the search must continue. Why? Why?

Can you spot the second meme?

Well, so, yeah. Why? I mean we can find the original Banaphone song by Raffi and there’s little that seems to predict the explosion of an internet meme. The word ‘ring’ might make up half of the lyrics, and the topics, yeah he sings for children:

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Your Daguerreotype of the Evening? Courtesy of Mark Topkin, it’s the Tampa Bay Rays — clearly hail-fellows-well-met, all of them — about to board a Pullman car bound for New York City. Click and embiggen for a dose of Varsity Sweater Loveliness …

Contrary to appearances, the Rays are not about to waltz into a leafy campus novel centered around the sons of Connecticut gentry and the submerged angst of same. Still, not pictured is team captain Aspen D’Iberville, whose honey-colored bangs and social polish hide the tempests within. Is it possible that his perfect-seeming life is something less than perfect?

When we last checked in with Red Sox paterfamilias Terry Francona, he was making comedy jokes during an in-game interview with NESN broadcasters Don Orsillo and Jerry Remy.

If the above video — from another mid-game interview, from the very next day — is any indication, it appears as though mixing bidness with pleasure is not so uncommon for Signor Terry.

In this instance, FOX broadcaster So-and-So notes that Francona has decided to utilize the Fashion Hoodie made popular by footballing evil genius Bill Belichick — to which Francona responds that he’s always cold. In a different context, we might mistake his comment for a Natalie Imbruglia lyric, but Francona knows what all good comedians know: comedy is tragedy, plus time.

Nathan (aka: Adrastus Perkins; aka: Splendor, the Automaton of Handsome Pictorials; aka: Nate) recently shared with us the following dagger… daggeroh… picture of Ichiro Suzuki:

Not only does Ichiro looked good in the Mariners’ uni, he also works a suit and tie like a pro. And what can be more inviting than handing us, the viewers, a frosty Japanese beer whilst apparently standing just outside a posh golf course clubhouse?

Consider the above picture now in conjunction with the previously swoon’d of picture of Justin Verlander:

Regard: poll (refresh may be required).

So who would you pick: That debonair, cigarette-toting Justin Verlander, or the beverage-sharing, dressed-to-impress-yet-out-of-doors Ichiro Suzuki? Tie, or no tie? Dark, mysterious room, or bright, blinding landscaping?