I missed Wednesday night’s festivities between the Toronto Blue Jays and Tampa Bay Rays. I was, believe it or not, playing hockey. I know: I am an actual, living, in-the-flesh Canadian stereotype.

Anyway, you can imagine my chagrin upon learning that I missed a Joe West ejection, two Chad Fairchild ejections, and all the drama that accompanied them. Life isn’t fair.

Thankfully, though, intrepid journalistic organizations — Reuters, for example — employ some of the finest sports photographers in the business, and they caught Joe West in action. It’s his form — his damn fine form — that I have become so enamored with.

Read the rest of this entry »

Turns out Dick Allen, your hero and mine, once cut a single with a doo-wop outfit called the Ebonistics titled, “Echoes of November.” Please enjoy:

Yes, that’s Mr. Allen stretching out the pipes. And fine pipes they are. Dick Allen can hit and is tuneful!

Also: Allen performed the song live on at least one occasion. That occasion was at a 76ers game in 1969 on “Think Mink Night,” a promotion that entailed the bestowal of a mink coat upon one of Philadelphia’s leading and lucky ladies (I’m quite sure a male was ineligible to win the mink — after all, it wasn’t yet the 70s) and the opportunity to hear Dick Allen sing! Hosannas all around!

Born in a blowout.

ottoneu creator Niv Shah wasn’t always a Cleveland Indians fan. In fact, he once cared little for baseball, instead focusing on basketball, football and video games when he had a free moment. Then one day in 1999 a friend gave him some free tickets to the game. Niv called friend Chad Young (currently blogging about being a member of the FanGraphs Experts League).

Any birth is uncomfortable at best, and this one had its ups and downs. I asked the pair about the experience so that we can learn a little more about how a fan is born. Perhaps in a bid to promote ottoneu, it looks like Mr. Shah forsook the capital letter. Poetic license!

Read the rest of this entry »

Dodgers closer Jonathan Broxton, who is substantially larger than Liechtenstein, is injured and is in need of an MRI. And thus our adventure begins:

Mattingly said one of the immediate issues was to find an MRI tube large enough for Broxton to get his 300-pound frame into.

This is about the only drawback to not having an NFL team in your town that I can think of: no medical equipment suitable for ogre-whoppers. Just to clarify, Mr. Broxton is not an ogre-whopper — he is a gentle giant — but NFL players are all ogre-whoppers.

European double-kiss: Aaron

Sometimes, great accomplishments are the product of ceaseless toil. Othertimes, they spring forth effortlessly and fully formed from their creator.

The image you see above is the latter kind of great accomplishment.

Here we see two men: one, Atlanta Brave starter Tommy Hanson; the other, actor Timothy Busfield of Thirtysomething and West Wing and Revenge of the Nerds and Field of Dreams fame.

Here’s the thing, though: it’s impossible to tell which is which. Is that Timothy Busfield catching a fish? Is that a headshot of Tommy Hanson? We just don’t know.

I know what you’re saying. You’re saying, “Carson, it actually isn’t that hard to tell. Sure, both of these men have red hair, but they have different enough facial structure, hairlines, etc. that I can tell pretty easily who’s who.”

Humility, reader: practice it. That’s the purpose of what I’m saying now.

H/T Me and my thoughts.

Click to embiggen… your dreams.

I don’t watch a ton of Pirates games, so I’m no authority on the matter, but, if memory serves, Andrew McCutchen looks less, uh, European in person than on his Yahoo player page.

UPDATE: As of 6:12pm ET, Yahoo appears to’ve changed the image to one much more closely resembling the Pirates’ starting center fielder.

Top Gun-style embrace for my friend Joel.

As someone who derives unusual joy from baseball statistics, I feel sanctioned in observing that this is a positive development for me and some of my fellow travelers:

The device looks like an ordinary box attached to a computer with a rotating straw. A closer look reveals otherwise. Students at Japan’s Kajimoto Laboratory at the University of Electro-Communications have created a small device that uses motor rotations with the aim to simulate the feeling of a kiss over the Internet.

…

Upon closer inspection, we learn that the kissing device responds directly to a person’s tongue. On one end, a person rotates the “straw” in one direction and the “straw” on the other end will rotate in the same direction. The result is a powerful tactile response that feels like you’re giving or receiving a kiss.

And best of all!

With the ability to record kissing patterns, the device could be a one-solution-cure to loneliness.

Some observations, bullet-pointed for today’s business traveler …

Smooch!

…but when he is, he prefers to emote in pithy quotes.

Life on the road isn’t always beers, broads, and brats.

There are those other moments, times where the grind gets you down. Those Tuesday double headers, those foggy outfield practices. Those moments of self-doubt. Those existential crises, when, perhaps the day after an oh-fer, you just want to sit on the warning track and emote quietly to the grass.

In those moments, take heart. Emo Juan Uribe knows your pain.

H/T R.J. Anderson

Gordon Ramsay, who is famous for heating up food while acting like a colicky infant, recently insulted the Dodgers by insulting them. This from obscure trade journal TMZ:

“Hell’s Kitchen” star Gordon Ramsay DISSED the Los Angeles Dodgers yesterday — because after he threw out the first pitch — he LEFT THE GAME — so he could sit courtside to watch the Lakers.

The caps lock and puzzling use of the em dash do not lie: this is deadly serious stuff. I’m normally not one to question the instincts of screaming, pink-faced Englishmen, but, look at me, here I am questioning the instincts of a screaming, pink-faced Englishman. Anyhow, why would someone would leave a pleasing game of base and ball for something called the “NBA Playoffs”? I assume the answer lies in the darkened crannies of Mr. Ramsay’s afflicted mind. Much like a meeting of the Junior League of Dallas, it is a place I care not to venture.

Shhh, don’t speak.

Showing an acuity of taste that has become his trademark, my colleague, Mr. Navin Vaswani, elected today to revisit a too-neglected category of posts here at NotGraphs, Great Moments in Spectacles, treating all of us to an image of former Rookie of the Year and Notable Spectacle-Wearer Bob Hamelin.

In this edition of Great Moments of Spectacles, the internet has revealed the image you see skilfully embedded above — namely, an photo of a bespectacled Dick Allen (a person of interest here at NotGraphs) doing his best to lay asunder Indians infielder Luis Alvarado circa August 1974.

I believe I’m speaking the truth when I say that, like a canvas by Pieter Bruegel (Elder or Younger, take your pick), the extent of this image can’t be entirely apprehended in one sitting.

Image courtesy of Dick Allen Hall of Fame via Big Hair and Plastic Grass.