Let’s get a few things straight:  Upstate New York grows great apples. Upstate New York has vibrant rolling hills. And upstate New York is one of the only places you’ll find apple cider donuts (seriously, if you see one, grab it, they’re awesome). What upstate New York isn’t known for is producing athletes with fantasy team relevance.

This year, showing a clear lack of respect for tradition, Casper Wells is defying that trend. At this point I should probably apologize to the Capital Region’s Tim Stauffer, Brendan Harris and John Lannan. And I should also clarify “upstate” to mean Albany/the tri-city region, so that none of you smarty pants’ can point out that Joe Nathan is technically from upstate.

So, with great pride and a sense of James Lipton on Bradley Cooper, I present to you, the second installment of Inside The Baseball Studio (a project where I ask actual “Inside The Actor Studio” questions to actual ballplayers and get their real answers). Tonight we have the 518’s very own…Casper Wells….

He’d like me to start this with the preface that many of his answers are tailored to fit baseball…

1. What is your favorite word?

Uhhh, Tight?.. (Valverde’s) is probably “shut up.”  [as Valverde walks by,]

2. What is our least favorite word?

Can’t.

3. What turns you on?

What turns me?! Hitting baseballs solid.

4. What turns you off?

Umm, these are all pertaining to baseball, just so you know… probably striking out.

5. What sound do you love?

The ball hitting the bat.

6. What sound do you hate?

These aren’t cliche answers either. These are honest answers…What sound do I hate? Babies crying.

7. What is your favorite curse word?

I don’t even know if I should answer that one…but if others have said that one (f*ck) I’ll go with it. That’s a good one.

8. What profession other than yours would you like to attempt?

I’d definitely like to be in film or television somehow. I went to school for that so I would want to be involved in television or film, probably living out here (Los Angeles). I’d do a little producing and acting. I mean, I have had experience, minimal, but I’ve been around the acting world. I’ve had some success with my acting abilities with the little experience I’ve had. So that’s something I’d like to dabble with if I wasn’t playing baseball.

9. What profession would you not like to do?

I would not want to work retail.

10. If heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the pearly gates?

I’ve been waiting a long time for you, now enjoy paradise.

I look upon this as I imagine Rilke looked upon that statue of Apollo, or as Frank Sinatra first looked upon the naked bestowals of Ava Gardner.

The image journeys through my eyes, down my throat and into the flame-licked meadow of my guts, and all that is wrong or inadequate or too purple or too loosed from its moorings during last night’s storm recoils. It recoils not for fear of the unnamed something but rather in order to stop and listen to a sound that is at once the annihilation of ancient leaves under Charlemagne’s boot and the fife-and-drum corps that heralds the simultaneous birth and death and spectral presence of a great man. Or perhaps the screams of a pumice stone at the river’s edge.

Swing low, baseball’s chariot: I have laid eyes — yellowed, rheumy eyes — upon The Inside of Dick Allen’s Batting Helmet …

Regardless of where you were Tuesday evening – staring at your grill trying to invent the perfect combination of steak and hot dogs, say, or combating the bottom-left corner of the New York Times crossword puzzle – you probably paused and looked skyward for a moment.  Perhaps the air smelled a little sharper, somehow, tinged with lilac, conjuring non-existent memories of ancient, pastoral hillsides.  Perhaps the pain under your shoulder blades waned, or you noticed a shade of emerald in your vision that you needed to remember, to close your eyes and lock away.  Somehow, though, life just felt right for a mere second, as if every atom were arranged perfectly, every effect the rightful output of its cause.

I promise you that it was not imagined.  At that moment, out by Cunningham Ridge outside Kansas City, order was restored.

(Clicking on the picture will transport you via magic to MLB.com’s video highlight.)

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Given what we have long known about Mose Schrute of “The Office” and his baseball-ing double life, can the following striking resemblance come as any surprise?

First, Mose Schrute …

And now here’s major-league closer turned fearless opinion-shaper, Mitch Williams …

Not many beards these days say, “I was named for an Old Testament character, and I occasionally entertain the darkest of thoughts while churning butter,” but these two beards say exactly that. Can it possibly be a coincidence?

It has become apparent John Axford has recently joined or is petitioning for membership in the ever-popular bike gang the Hell’s Brewers. His time-tested, well-feared facial hair arrangement tells us his in fact a shoe-in:

Click to reverse-shrink it!

For reference, here is John Axford a mere 30 years ago:

And here is John Axford circa yesterday, on his way to the ballpark:

If you’re the sort of person who possesses a Y chromosome — and the anatomical features that come along with same — you’re very likely also the sort of person who understands intimately what sort of pain Brewer catcher Jonathan Lucroy experienced directly after this encounter with a foul ball off the bat of Rays outfielder Matt Joyce in the sixth inning of Tuesday night’s contest between Tampa Bay and Milwaukee.

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The following has already been linked to over at Mission Control, but IIATMS’s viciously sublime takedown of the McCourts is more than worth your while. Even in this day and age, when news of corporate malfeasance is mere background music, this raises one’s hackles. For damn instance:

How did the Dodgers manage to fund the McCourt lifestyle? Let’s start with salaries: Jamie McCourt received up to $2 million annually for her services as Dodgers’ CEO. Frank McCourt received up to $5 million annually from one or more businesses affiliated with the Dodgers. The Dodgers also paid up to $600,000 in annual salary to two of the McCourt children, one of whom was attending Stanford University and the other of whom had a full-time job at Goldman Sachs.

But $7.6 million a year was not nearly enough money to meet the needs (estimated at over $2 million a month) of the McCourt family. The McCourts spent money at a rate that turned heads, even in Los Angeles. Best known is the McCourt appetite for real estate. After buying the team, the McCourts proceeded to buy four homes in Los Angeles – two in Malibu, two near the Playboy Mansion – at a combined cost of around $89 million. This figure includes the estimated cost of McCourt “improvements” to these homes, including a roughly $14 million bill for tearing out tennis courts at one property and replacing them with a swimming pool. Then there were the other expenses: the vacation properties, the private jet, the private drivers, the hairdresser who worked exclusively for the McCourts five days a week … the list goes on and on. Here’s an expense that’s one of my personal favorites: over one 18-month period, Jamie McCourt paid over $100,000 to various florists, and charged the Dodgers for the expense.

There’s more. So, so, so, so much more. These people are beasts. I don’t wish death upon anyone, so instead I’ll hope that these two, upon being forced to live in the woods by the bankruptcy court, get permanent chicken pox.

Up here in Canada, we’re still grappling with the tough questions: Why? Why, after their Canucks lost game seven, did those laid back Vancouverites decide to show the folks in Montreal how it’s really done? What is it about hockey that makes the average, beer-drinking, eh-saying Canadian lose, well, his or her shit?

We’ll likely never know.

But that’s hardly the point. The point is: NotGraphs Investigative Reporting Investigation Team correspondent Steve, whose last name we have concealed in order to protect his identity, captured the footage above from Wednesday night. Below is his report:

After he finished making the calls at third base between the Angels and Mariners on Wednesday night, the Great Ejector took his talents where they were badly needed. He caught the Cascade up to Canada and used his immaculate talents for the greater good, clearing the hooligans and ruffians from the streets alongside Vancouver’s finest. However, it is unclear to this day if Mr. West is ejecting the defeated Canucks fan or the officer who dared sully the good name of the Vancouver P.D. by carrying his riot gear upside down.

I know; Steve does great work. Much like Joe West.

Seriously. Thanks, Steve.

Jack McKeon hasn’t been the boss for a day and the man is already making power moves. In the first official act of his second term as the manager of the Marlins, McKeon benched Hanley Ramirez for last night’s game against the Angels. Benching Hanley Ramirez is, after all, the way for a Marlins manager to declare his arrival, sort of like the new President and First Lady refurnishing the White House.

Fox Sports has the report:

When asked if there was a particular reason the star shortstop was not in the lineup, McKeon reportedly said, “Yeah, because I didn’t put him in there.”

But team sources told The Post McKeon made the move after Ramirez arrived late for a 3:30pm local time team meeting.

In eighth grade, I had a Spanish teacher named Mr. Ehling. He was a young guy and it was his first year as a teacher. He seemed smart, earnest, and certainly more than capable of conveying the subject matter to thirteen-year-olds, but he had a fatal flaw: he was a nice guy. I think he sincerely believed that he could be friends with every student in the class. Somewhat relatedly, he was a total pushover. Middle and high school students can sense pushovers like a shark does blood in the water, and they strike just as quick.

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NBC Universal’s “The More You Know” star doesn’t toss itself, you know.

Big ups: Shockingly enough, to NBC Universal. And Joe West. Always Joe West.