Stephen Strasburg is scheduled to make his season debut tonight in Washington, DC, but it’s possible that inclement weather will postpone the game and, subsequently, Strasburg’s first appearance of the year.

Using “instruments” and “data,” the National Weather Service has forecasted things like “flash floods” and “a 100% chance of precipitation” for DC tonight.

That’s one perspective, sure. What does the Wisdom of the Crowds — i.e. the One True Authority — tell us, though? The NotGraphs Department of Matters Entirely Scientific is apparently the only institution forward-thinking enough to facilitate such an endeavor.

Which, you’re welcome, Whole World:

Best of Other (updated at discretion of author):
• A vale of tears.
• Meteorology is a fraud perpetrated upon us, the same as alchemy and phrenology.
• Raining men. Hallelujah!
• Probably what the frigging National Weather Service said, you sultry thing.

What Billy Butler will look like when you see him on September 5th, 2011.

If ever, for the rest of your life, you go to the Royals-A’s game on September 5th, 2011, your experience will assuredly unfold exactly like this:

1. You’ll wake up, entirely healthy, in a small bed in Berkeley, California.

2. You’ll have an apple turnover and Americano at Berkeley’s Caffe Strada. Regarding the turnover, you’ll think, “I wonder how much longer I can eat these for breakfast without consequence?” The answer, unbeknownst to you, is “Slightly over a year ago.”

3. In a brief phone conversation with your wife, she’ll inform you that a husband you both know has left a wife you both know for one of his undergraduate students. Regarding this information, your first and least attractive thought will be “That probably lowers the bar, in terms of my wife’s expectations of me.”

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Without divulging too much about my personal political sympathies, I will admit to being an admirer of Noam Chomsky. In addition to being a man of letters with an impressive oeuvre spanning a wide range of topics, he is a native Philadelphian — something with which I can identify.

This fact recently prompted me to wonder whether Noam Chomsky is a baseball fan and, if so, whether he is a fan of the Phillies, which would be just another reason to add to the already long list of reasons that he is a cool dude. Well, as it turns out, Noam Chomsky’s brain is too big for him to be beholden to any one team. Thanks to the power of Twitter, I was pointed to this transcription of an exchange from his 1993 appearance on the talk show Pozner and Donahue (my efforts to locate video of the show were unsuccessful) in which he discusses the cognitive dissonance that is inherent to being a sports fan:

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The NL Central-champion Milwaukee Brewers recently commemorated their final 2011 trip to Houston by doing what people in Texas so often do, which is dress up like ranch hands and walk around in public. Regard, pilgrim:

Paula Cole once inquired, “Where have all the cowboys gone?” The first and most obvious answer is that, much like anyone else who reached adulthood in the 19th century, they are dead. The second answer, no less obvious on this day, is that they live in Milwaukee and herd not little dogies but rather our fondest dreams.

In any event, a couple of Milwaukee Cowboys merit special recognition. Prince Fielder’s large and provably in charge belt buckle suggests he will soon top the country charts with a song that celebrates the values of the Republic through a homespun narrative of family, God and country. And Ryan Braun — I think that’s Ryan Braun in the fetching boot-length duster — opts for the “High Plains Drifter” look, a look that says, “After I shoot someone at the poker table, I do believe I shall take on a whore.”

(Delicious wagon-train gruel: HBT)

What was that you were saying again.

Walk up the first base side of the 100 level at ATT Park and you spot the premium brew stands every once in a while. Sierra Nevada. Heineken. Anchor Steam. Blue Moon. Meh. Better than the alternatives but nothing to really pen the proverbial letter home (or beer review) about.

Turn the corner towards the outfield and your appraisal of the park shifts more positive immediately. For one, you’re looking out at the bay, down at McCovey Cove. And then you scan left and you get a view like the cameraphone snapshot above. Does it really matter what beer you have in your hand when appreciating that view?

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Jeff Francoeur’s crazy eyes have charmed, mesmerized, and terrified the masses for years. In (belated) recognition of Jeff Francoeur’s memorable 1000th hit, here is their NotGraphs debut:

This picture, courtesy of Minda Haas, was taken at the Royals’ off-season Fan Fest. It is perhaps the most chilling photo of Frenchy’s soul-windows yet. What could possibly be going through his mind?

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Last week, I wrote a series of fairly meaningless words about a largely forgotten group of men who, at one point or another in their lives, had baseball cards made of them. In my original draft, one of these players was Chris Brown, former all-star third baseman of the San Francisco Giants. He’d led the league in being hit by pitches in 1986, and I thought, hey, free Chris Brown joke, sort of. Once I discovered that Brown the Athlete had actually passed away several years ago in an unfortunate incident, I scrapped the joke and replaced him at the last minute with the least record-setting name I could think of, one who happened to be involved in a trade for the very same Chris Brown. That name was Craig Lindsay Lefferts.

It seemed a safe choice: he played the most obscure position in baseball, left-handed reliever, and he wielded (past tense, sadly) a healthy if ubiquitous eighties mustache. He also spent most of his career playing for the Padres and Giants, two west-coast teams with occasional success and similar orange logos. To be perfectly honest, if you’d asked me two weeks ago who Craig Lefferts was, I would have told you he was Tom Niedenfuer.

But as I learned, Craig Lefferts is not the Platonic form of the left-handed reliever I assumed he was. Craig Lefferts is instead the Platonic form of all Craig Leffertses: the perfect example of what it is to be a Craig Lefferts, and the one by which all others are reflected as mere shadows. To generalize him is an injustice; he, like each of us, is so much more.

Given these things, I’d like to share a few Entirely True Facts about the aforementioned:

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Jobs, not to be confused with: Job, the Book of.

Presently, 1 out of every 10 Americans is looking for full-time employment; and, presumably, 5 out of every 10 NotGrapher is looking for full-time employment to prove to mom that, yes, I can indeed pay you the damn rent some way other than selling my Pokemon card collection one precious Charizard at a time.

Well, recent reports indicate one can actually make money from the sport of baseball without twirling balls or swinging sticks. To test this theory, we suggest any and all seeking-full-time-employment NotGraphers to consider the following job openings across the MLB:

Baltimore Orioles — Corporate Sales and Sponsorship Intern
Live in the Baltimore area? Tired of getting pushed around by Omar Little? Well, the Orioles have an internship that may just offer you a chance to rise up out of the gritty, realistic mire that is Baltimore Life.

From what we can glean from the internship description, the prospective intern will need to be a present student of not-unintelligent quality (3.0 GPA or higher) and available for full-time hours from February through May. Prior experience with a double-action Police-issued revolver not required.
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Back in July, Navin alerted NotGraphs readers to an exciting new baseball meme that was sweeping the web.

This image of Orioles third baseman Mark Reynolds snacking on sunflower seeds as David Ortiz rounded the bases after hitting a home run spawned numerous quite funny photoshops over at the Orioles Hangout message board.

Well, last night we got our first evidence that the “Complacent Reynolds” is beginning to take hold among other Major League third basemen.

Behold:

That is Astros third baseman Jimmy Paredes striking the pose as Brewers catcher George Kottaras — who, by the way, became the first player to hit for the cycle this season — trots home after his solo shot.

In the coming weeks we shall see if this is simply a coincidence, or if the “Complacent Reynolds” is, in fact, on its way to becoming the baseball version of “planking.”

NotGraphs calls on readers to be on the lookout for other players taking part in this fad and to address any photographic evidence to our hot hotline — not+tips (at) fangraphs (dot) com.

Click to Gordon your Beckham.