So you put it on the hogs or in the hogs?

It may sound like hogwash is meant to clean hogs, particularly right after castration. Most likely, though, the term was coined to describe a pig swill that was intended to feed our porcine friends. In the same way, we might get all up in arms about the hogwash in our national pastime, and yet we eat it up. This week in Google Baseball, we’ll tackle the dual meanings of this old-school word.

The true nature of the nuance in this word is not about feeding an appetite, though. It’s more about the cleanliness or legitimacy of the thing being described. Hogwash is ridiculous — because the word sounds laughable — and anything is therefore rendered silly by being paired with the adjective. Even when John Thorn says something serious about steroids, the use of the word brings a hint of a smile with it.

“This whole thing about McGwire simply permits sportswriters to imagine themselves to be Woodward and Bernstein, people who see themselves as guardians of a sacred portal, the last best hope for truth and justice – and it’s all hogwash and baloney.” – John Thorn, baseball historian

What do we find when we play Google Baseball with the word? We find the unwritten rules of baseball. Ridiculous! We find spray charts. Ludicrous! The derby jinx. Debunked! Weekly highlights of the Lehigh Valley IronPigs. Clever! Dirk Nowitzki as a pitcher? Clearly farcical. Most of these examples use the word to emphasize the absurdity of a thing.

Instead, how about Team Hogwash, a slow-pitch softball team giving up about 13 runs a game on average? Or an oyster topping called “Hog Wash” from Hog Island? Clearly these two entries into this week’s edition of Google Baseball are a step above. They show a sense of pride in the word, an enjoyment of the zany. They own it.

Clearly we’ve learned one thing from today’s game. If that thing wasn’t the true nature of the word, it was the best way to find nourishment from hogwash.

Embrace the hogwash.

While Keith Comstock’s major-league career is a bit on the undistinguished side, his Las Vegas Stars card — which is absolutely your Daguerreotype of the Evening — is a many-splendored thing. First comes the power, and then comes the glory …

While I suspect that the baseball-to-the-rascal-basket situation — a situation known in some circles as “the nobleman’s pickle” — is a staged pratfall, there’s still much to appreciate about this work of high, higher and highest art. Even so, the romantic in me wants to believe that Mr. Comstock legitimately took one to the pills courtesy of an offstage teammate given to madcappery in all its forms!

For a moment — just a moment — I forgot that all of us will die.

(Well-meaning groin shot: A gentleman named Steve)

Faithful NotGraphs reader P. Agnello brought this little dandy to our attention:

Why yes, that would be real Americans digging through real trash for a real foul ball and then getting into a real fight for said Trash Ball.

After the frenzied waste-search led to a frenzied trash fight, ballpark security had to intervene. According the intrepid Todd Kalas: “Bad behavior; nobody gets the prize.”

Leave it to TK to use a semicolon in speech. Well, nonetheless, that real foul ball became real trash in a slightly askew retelling of Solomon’s Judgement, a retelling in which neither mother relents and the baseball ends up in Sheol.

Oddly enough, this may not be the most epic dumpster dive in baseball history.
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As a wise man once said, “It’s dangerous to go alone.”  Sometimes, however, a man has to break away from his predecessors and forge his own path.  He has to challenge the accepted wisdom of their time.  He has to fight for the downtrodden, the shamed and ridiculed.   But despite his leadership and vision, unlike heroes like Jackie Robinson and John Glenn, one particular man will never have his number retired by major league baseball.

The problem: we aren’t exactly sure who that man is.

The spring of 1956 saw a country still gripped in the fear of the McCarthy era, a culture terrified of deviance.  It was the time for keeping one’s head down, maintaining the status quo.  And yet two men stood up to the crowd, unashamed of being who they were.  Unashamed of being nearsighted.  But which umpire bared his soul first?

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Daniel Bard threw 17 pitches in the Red Sox’ victory over the Yankees on Sunday night, but only one those (i.e. those pitches) was a changeup — the 3-2 pitch to Mark Teixeira you see GIF’d below.

Before we cut to the videotape, some notes on Bard’s offering:

• Per linear weights, this lone pitch was worth -0.35 runs — that is, it cost the Yankees that much.

• The pitch was recorded at 93.9 mph by Pitch F/x. Among pitchers who throw a changeup more than 1% of the time, Bard’s is the fastest, averaging 90.5 mph. This pitch was over three miles per hour faster than that.

• Provided the Pitch F/x data is correct in this situation, Bard’s changeup appeared to break even more than usual. On average, Bard’s changeup features 8.8 inches of armside run and 2.4 inches of rise (relative to a spinless ball, that is). This pitch (courtesy Brooks Baseball) was recorded as having 9.5 inches of armside run and 4.5 inches of drop.

If there’s a drawback to this situation, it’s that ESPN doesn’t appear to use the straight-on center-field camera at Fenway, which would give us a sense of how impractical Bard’s change really was.

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Over yonder at MiLB.com, they’re hosting a voting-enabled hootenanny to determine the best human-person name in minor-league baseball. I find that I support this exercise, with some qualifications. To wit, I expect — nay, demand! — great things for the likes of Jetsy Extrano (pictured above!), Dusty Harvard, Dock Doyle, Mark Hamburger, and Cameron Greathouse, who’s always using his fortunate station in life to lord over the chimney-sweep with the lazy eye.

Jetsy Extrano!

I’m definitely exaggerating when I say that the ad pictured above is literally the only one I ever see when I visit NotGraphs; however, I’m definitely telling the truth when I say that the golfer in said ad has blue and green light coursing through his body.

In any case, I find myself growing curiouser and curiouser: is this the perfect golf swing? Knowing little about the sport, it’s a question I’m unprepared to answer. However, utilizing the wisdom of the crowds, the solution to this once unsolvable question is only one expertly embdedded poll away from being discovered.

Below, you’ll find said poll. You’ll also find that, beyond a simple “Yes” and “No,” there’s a space where the reader-commenter can enter his own answer — a feature I believe will help us achieve Maximum Knowledge in this endeavor.

The earliest cave etchings teach us that the protective backstop netting is there to prevent fans from being ritually abused by the wayward cowhide. While this ancient practice is perfectly adequate for most mortal tossers, its shortcomings have been exposed by Aroldis Chapman and his weapons-grade left arm …

I’m no science-face, but clearly the netting at Wrigley needs extra polymer sauce when Mr. Chapman is on the bump. One does not simply walk into Mordor, just as one does not separate the people from Aroldis Chapman with anything less than a web of battleship chains.

(Errant fastball: HBT)

For those who were too young to watch — or just didn’t care about — Game 2 of the 1991 World Series, the abovely embedded image appears merely to be a depiction of the Kama Sutra maneuver known as the Melancholy Sea Captain.

Those familiar with the aforementioned game might be amused to discover that a bobblehead of the very famous Ron Gant/Kent Hrbek contretemps (pictured below) is being distributed as we speak to 10,000 friendly faced Minnesotans at Target Field.

Relive the excitement of the event via this low-resolution daguerreotype:

Historical event brought to author’s attention by THE Dan Lurie.

If someone were to ask you what you know about Tony Phillips and your reply were something to the effect of, “He was a great, if underrated, player for the A’s and Tigers,” then your reply would be incorrect, on account of it (i.e. your hypothetical reply) is in the past tense.

In fact, Tony Phillips, who turned 52 in April, appears to be an active ballplayer — for the Yuma Scorpions of the North American League.

Signed in mid-July, Phillips has posted a line of .317/.417/.415, with more walks than strikeouts, in 41 at-bats — i.e. not entirely dissimilar from the .266/.374/.389 he posted as a major leaguer.

Granted, that’s less impressive when considered in the context of the NABL’s league-wide line of .295/.378/.449, but it’s still above average and Phillips is still, uh, aged.

At this time, NotGraphs is unable to substantiate the mostly related rumor that Stan Javier and Walt Weiss were seen taking grounders in what was described as a “purposeful” manner.

Pauly Shore-style weasel handshake for Mike Silva.