Among the many topics discussed during the course of Plato’s Symposium, one of the most significant is the question of when the Major League Baseball season actually begins. “Is it the moment after the previous season’s World Series is concluded?” Pausanias wonders. “Perhaps when pitchers and catchers report?” Socrates counters. Finally, Aristophanes lightens the serious tone when he offers, “I say it’s when Scott Boras utters the words ‘mystery team!'”

I don’t have to remind you, bespectacled reader, how hard laughter abounds at this particular juncture of the text.

In any case, the matter is of some interest to us here at Not- and FanGraphs, as it’s become customary for our Full-Time Employee Dave Cameron to keep track of those players who claim that they’re currently in the best shape of their respective lives.

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Follow Ken Davidoff on twitter and you’ll know that he is an even-handed and fair analyst of the game that is friendly to advanced statistics. If you’re lucky enough to be an Optimum Online cable subscriber, you also get his Baseball Insider column for free on Newsday.com. If not, his work (and Alan Hahn’s on the basketball side) are worth the cost of subscription.

Eno Sarris: What’s your background? Where did you grow up and go to school, and what did you study?

Ken Davidoff: I grew up in Edison, NJ, a huge baseball fan and a devout reader of the Newark Star-Ledger. I would read Moss Klein’s coverage of the Yankees, and I wanted to be Moss Klein (their Yankees beat writer, for young ‘uns who don’t know) when I grew up. I knew by age eight that playing Major League Baseball wasn’t going to work out for me.

I attended the University of Michigan, even though that was the one school to which I was accepted (the others were Syracuse, Boston University and George Washington) that didn’t have a strong journalism program. I figured I’d choose the best school and let the chips fall where they may. I joined The Michigan Daily my sophomore year, spent second semester of my junior year at American University and then returned to Michigan for my senior year.

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As I’ve noted already in two posts here at the site, I’ve recently purchased the Bill James Player Ratings Books for the years 1993 through 1995.

What I perhaps have not made clear yet is how I love these books sooooooo much. So much that I’m willing to write “so” with seven Os like a 13-year-old girl would. So much that, yes, in fact, I do want to marry them (i.e. these books) even though, yes, that’s not allowed and, yes, I’m already married.

In any case, if the movie Old Yeller taught me anything, it’s that if you love something, and it gets rabies, you have to shoot it you should share it with other people.

It’s no chore whatsoever to find examples of white-hot prose in the 1993 edition of the book, but these five haphazardly chosen selections will give you an idea.

Player: Vinny Castilla, Atlanta
Notable Thing: Things, actually. Plural. First of all, Castilla’s listed as a shortstop, which is surprising. Second of all, James writes, “[T]here is no indication that he’s going to be a major league hitter… Probably no future.” Castilla, of course, went on to post a 22.9 career WAR.

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Sleep easy tonight, my friends. According to Louisville, Kentucky’s FOX41 News, The Baseball Cap Bandit, responsible for keeping store owners in Kentucky and Tennessee up into the wee hours of the morning, has been captured. William Cunningham’s reign of terror is over.

Hillview Kentucky Police say 62-year-old William Cunningham was caught on surveillance tape at the Cracker Barrel restaurant gift shop in Bullitt County. They say you can see him taking collegiate caps, stuffing them in his jacket, and leaving.

Police believe the Nashville resident has a routine — traveling from Tennessee to Kentucky, normally on Tuesdays.

Detective Danny Cook explains, “Repeatedly traveling from Nashville where the gentlemen is from, up to Louisville, once a month, doing these kind of thefts is kind of unusual. But we see shoplifters hit the same locations that are local, but this is the first time where I have seen them travel from out of state.”

Shoplifting out of state. Every Tuesday. You know, there’s something to be said for routine.

This just in: The NotGraphs Investigative Reporting Investigation Team has learned that Hillview Kentucky Police, after being granted a special request by Albany Police, had Ken Griffey Jr.’s rookie baseball card work The Baseball Bandit’s interrogation. Mr. Cunningham refused a laywer, and admitted to his crimes. In record time, according to Hillview Kentucky Police.

Authorities are in the process of determining just how many baseball caps were swiped, but of this they’re sure: Cunningham was selling the caps on the streets.

Ken Griffey Jr.’s rookie card, lover of baseball caps, was naturally pleased with the outcome of the case.

“We’ve got to keep dirty baseball caps off the streets, man,” it said. “Or at least the clowns who wear them like douchebags.”

Image courtesy craniumfitteds.com.

For many 9-year-olds the country over, the 1989 Upper Deck Ken Griffey card was distinctly an Item of Interest. It was the No. 1 card in the company’s inaugural set, and it featured Griffey, who quickly became not only really good at baseball, but also the sport’s symbol of youthful joy — a trait he exhibited most conspicuously by, for example, managing to wear his hat backwards in a way that somehow wasn’t douchey.

With regard to the card itself, like I say, it was in the highest of demands. Would I, personally, have killed for it? No. That’s ridiculous, of course. But maimed someone badly? You know, it’s hard to say. All these hypotheticals, right?

In any case, beyond its other charms, the Griffey card is now also fighting crime!

Reader Steven brings this news story to our attention, courtesy of Albany’s WNYT (which, I’m told, offers “coverage you can trust”):

ALBANY – Ken Griffey Jr.’s rookie baseball card has led to the arrest of two men by Albany Police as detectives connect them to two burglaries last fall on Madison Ave. and Broadway in the city.
Gregory Amyot, 35, and Robert Spraker are charged with one count each Burglary (2nd and 3rd Degree) and Grand Larceny (3rd and 4th Degree).

Back on Nov. 4, 2010, Amyot and Spraker were arrested for possessing a stolen credit card, police said. Surveillance cameras inside the Price Chopper at 40 Delaware Avenue caught them attempting to use the stolen credit card in the early morning hours of November 1, according to Det. James Miller. At that time, officers found they had a valuable stolen baseball card – Griffey’s – that was taken during a burglary of 498 Madison Avenue.

Detectives investigating that incident, as well as a burglary of an architecture firm’s office on Broadway, were able to connect Amyot and Spraker to both. They were both charged late Friday afternoon and arraigned in Albany City Criminal Court on Saturday. Both men were remanded to the county jail without bail, Miller said.

Since that story ran, the NotGraphs Investigative Reporting Investigation Team has also learned that the Albany Police have, in fact, hired the Griffey card to help solve other difficult cases. “We don’t know exactly how we plan on utilizing the card,” said Police Chief Steven Krokoff, “but it obviously helped us in this one instance. Why not others?”

Krokoff also noted that, while he’s totally willing to keep an open mind about things, there’s no way he’s trading with Rochester for their dumb Canseco Rated Rookie card, so they better just stop asking.

Biggest of hat tips to reader Steven, who, again, alerted us to this very important thing via our hot hotline: not+tip [at] fangraphs [dot] com.

I’m sure it comes as little surprise that I am a fan of Star Trek. Although my favorite series of the bunch is “The Next Generation,” one of my favorite moments comes from the “Deep Space Nine” series. Commander Sisko, the first-in-command at the space station Deep Space Nine, was a big baseball fan despite the fact that the sport had largely disappeared between the mid-21st and 24th centuries. In one episode, Sisko leads a band of ragtag Starfleet officers in a baseball game (on the Holodeck, naturally) against a team of hard, logical Vulcans, and they somehow will themselves to a (moral and not entirely by the rules of baseball) victory. In other episodes, legends of the game are mentioned: Tris Speaker, Ted Williams, and Buck Bokai.

Here’s a brief summary of what is commonly known of Buck Bokai’s career.

– Made his pro debut in 2019 with the Crenshaw Monarchs of the Planetary Baseball League.
– Traded to the Gotham City Bats in 2020 in a 12 player deal.
– Plays for Tanis (an Earth city, apparently) in 2022.
– Plays for Seibu in 2023 and 2024.
– In 2025, Bokai joins the team he remains with for the final 17 seasons of his career, the London Kings.
– Breaks Joe DiMaggio’s 56-game hitting streak record in 2026.
– Loses World Series to the New York Yankees in 2032 .
– Hits game-winning home run in final World Series in 2042.
– Played second and third base and switch-hit, and was a prolific power hitter in his early career, hitting 20 home runs from the right side alone in each of his first three seasons.

Bokai must’ve been a first ballot Hall of Famer, but I think it’s possible that such BBWAE (Baseball Writers Association of Earth) curmudgeons as Dave Cameron and Carson Cistulli may have left him off of their ballots in their jaded old age.

Information from Memory Alpha, a Star Trek wiki

That, near and dear, is Ed Wade viewed from behind — or what he’ll look like to his doomed Houston Marathon competitors!

Yes, the Astros’ front-office lever-puller is in training to run that aforementioned Houston Marathon, and earnest props to him. Running that far without stopping is impressive enough, but doing so at Wade’s age of 54? Nifty indeed. I’m substantially younger than Ed Wade, and last night all I did was drink a sherpa’s load of Two-Buck Chuck and then set up an email alert to remind me to clip my toenails.

Really, though, I exercise regularly and have a treadmill that does not presently double as extra closet space, yet if I tried to run 26.2 miles my hips and groin would fly off after about mile 10 or so and annihilate everyone within the blast field. So congrats to Ed Wade for defying age and doing something not many of us have the will to achieve. And congrats to the Astros for having an AARP-eligble GM who’s in better shape than their left fielder.

Saul Steinberg’s classic New Yorker cover.

Yesterday ESPN announced 11 games in their 2011 “Sunday Night Baseball” schedule, including all games through May. You can check the schedule out on Fanhouse.

Mariners fans have noticed that the Mariners aren’t on this list. Likewise frustrated are Angels fans and the entire AL Central.

On the other hand, the Phillies (two games in May), Yankees (two games against the Red Sox, plus one against the Rangers), Mets (two games), and Red Sox (two tilts with the Yankees, plus two more games) are pretty well represented.

Hang on… New York, Philadelphia, Boston… two are former US capitals… also, two are kinds of sushi rolls… also, they’re the three MLB cities geographically closest to Bristol, Connecticut, where ESPN is headquartered… also, Boston’s Secretary of State was named Philadelphia, and Philadelphia’s Secretary of State was named Boston… WAIT. This might sound crazy, but: could ESPN have an East Coast bias??!?

Ok, so ESPN favors certain East Coast teams. But I doubt it’s an East Coast bias so much as a money bias. Here’s another way of thinking about it: in my opinion, Sunday Night Baseball’s main value add is allowing people who moved away from where they grew up to see their hometown teams. From this (limited) perspective, should Sunday Night Baseball maybe focus on the cities that generate the most domestic emigrant fans? And who would ever move away from San Diego or Chicago? Those are great cities!

Maybe we could develop some kind of inverse Sunday Night Baseball/quality of life index. Just something to comfort the people who are hurt that ESPN is ignoring them. I worry about those people.

The most attentive of readers will have noticed a slight change in the sidebar here at NotGraphs. If you cast your eyes to the space just above the Recent Stories area, you will notice something entitled Contact the NotGraphs Team. Turns out, our Dark Overlord, David Appelman, has recently used his specific breed of dark magic to create a place where you, reader, are able to communicate vital information to us at Team NotGraphs.

The email address, I’ve been led to believe, very much resembles this: not+tips [at] fangraphs [dot] com.

“What sort of things would I email to this address?” is perhaps one question you’re having. To that I respond: “Any sort of content you find — on the internet, in a book — that you think deserves a home on this most handsome of websites.”

“What sort of content might that be?” perhaps you’re following up. To which I say: “Oh, perhaps some gift ideas or a sweet idea for some t-shirts or a celebration of dipsomania. Really, so long as it has nothing to do with Brett Favre’s — or anyone else’s — beanbag we’re probably all set.”

“Will I be rewarded for my efforts?” is the final thing you’re almost definitely asking. “Yes. But only spiritually. And even then not too much.”

Fin.

(Get it, pitchman?)

Because when I want to advertise a beauty project, I call Randy Johnson!

This advertisement just adds to the legacy created by a previous Just for Men ad, starring Emmitt Smith, Walt “Clyde” Frazier, and Keith Hernandez (all of whom appear in the video above). These two videos truly stand alone when it comes to beard rhymes.

“Your beard is weird.”

“Your stubble’s in trouble.”

“Your ‘stache is trash.”

Sheer poetry. And hey, make sure you watch the petunias on the way out.