In keeping with Carson’s explorations of Dick Allen, there’s this:

What to say about this thing of wonder? The White Sox wore red! He’s juggling! He has the facial hair of a 19th-century railroad baron! And: He’s smoking in the dugout!

I once heard an interview with Paul Stanley in which he said something to the effect of, “For a while there in the 70s, every song was about sex or what you were going to do that night.”

That’s as succinct and penetrating of a comment about a generation as I’ve ever encountered. The Dick Allen SI cover is similarly illuminating. This photo couldn’t be of anyone else at any other time.

Viva la Crash.

Readers over the age of 28 or so will almost definitely remember this very famous Billy Ripken card for at least two reasons: (1) because it was worth a whole bunch of money, and (2) because it had a swear on it and swears, according to all manner of research, are awesome.

In an interview with Bo of weblog Baseball Cards Come to Life!, longtime Fleer photograher Steve Babineau explains how the Ripken card happened.

Boom, blockquote:

I shot the Billy Ripken card – it was definitely not intentional. I was at Fenway, and everyone is out there doing BP. Billy is the only one wearing a game uniform with the number in the front. Everyone else is wearing their orange BP top. For everyone else I would need to make sure there was an identifying marker like a glove, or I would take their picture as they walked away to get their uniform number. I didn’t have to magnify Ripken’s card because the number was clearly visible. In the past Fleer used to send us full color sheets, which we would use to check for reverse negatives and other problems with the picture.

That year, to save money, they just sent us blueprints that were in three shades of blue. Your eyes don’t focus on something like that. After the card came out, my boss called me and told me to look at the knob of the bat. “Please tell me it says ‘slick face,’” he said to me. I had to look at it with the magnifying glass and tell him that that was not what it said.

The next year the first team I went to see at Spring Training was the Orioles, playing the Expos in West Palm Beach. I went up to Billy and he says “Thanks for making a nickel card into a thirty dollar card!” He told me he started using that bat as a BP bat on a road trip in Detroit or Cleveland before coming to Fenway. He said it was his brother that wrote that on his bat. I heard that he actually started signing that card for kids but had to stop.

As you can see from the other image here — one featuring the principal figures in baseball’s memorable Pine Tar Incident — not all of Babineau’s photos included swear words.

H/T: UniWatch

I’ve almost definitely mentioned, at some point in these pages, that, before my life as Semi-Professional Baseball Writer, I read and wrote poems quite a lot — sometimes to the point of a stranger actually publishing them.

If the reader is under the impression that most poems are terrible, then the reader is under the correct impression. In fact, most poems are written with the express purpose of emotionally scarring American high school students. However, there are other writers — ones who receive less attention, maybe — with the novel idea that poems could actually be enjoyable. These are the ones from whom I’ve shamelessly stolen everything.

In this game I made up, what you do
is think of exactly ten hundred things
better than discussing the role of poetry
in today’s society. If you’re looking
for an example, here’s one: “the role of
a donkey’s nads in today’s society.”
And also: “crackers — either in the racist,
or every other, way.”

Which, that reminds me:
you’ll never guess who I saw at the frigging
library yesterday. Former baseballing great
Dick Allen! He was doing some bizarrely intense
research on the historic Burlingame Olympics.
He was dressed in a jacket made exclusively
from the lapels of other jackets. When I saw him,
I was all, “Dick Allen! You suffered the slings
and arrows of outrageous Philadelphians! What possible
coping mechanisms could you have developed?” —
which question he answered by quietly lathering in Wite Out
all, or close to all, of his myriad interior scars.

Image stolen directly from Dick Allen Hall of Fame

One of the most underrated aspects of the blockbuster trade which brought Zack Greinke to Milwaukee is the potential clubhouse relationship between Greinke and Brewers superstar Ryan Braun. Both of these players have remarkable personalities, and they aren’t exactly kindred spirits. If they are peas, they certainly live in separate pods, if you will.

Greinke’s quirks are pretty well known, particularly in the saber community. His quote after winning the Cy Young Award in 2009 is especially famous among statheads: “That’s how I try to pitch, to keep my FIP as low as possible.” Some of his quotes can come a bit out of left field for different reasons. For example, another quote about the 2009 Cy Young, this time on whether he had thought about the award after the conclusion of the regular season: “Not really. I’ve been playing this World of Warcraft game.” This quote probably best sums up Greinke’s social adeptness:

“Zack,” a teammate once said to him, “I’m having this charity golf tournament. Was hoping you might play in it.” Greinke paused, as if considering the request. Then he said, “No. Why would I do that?”

On the other hand, we have Ryan Braun. The Ryan Braun who says “I’m kinda known for my confidence.” The same Ryan Braun who was described by the USA Today as “a mixture of SoCal and South Beach cool, with a New York flair for the bravado and a business mind that belongs on Wall Street.” He looks like this:

Who knows what will happen when these opposites share a locker room over the course of 162 games? I’m not sure we’ll ever see Greinke in a Remetee or Ryan Braun playing World of Warcraft, but perhaps each can learn a little bit from the other.

The whens and wheres and whys are unclear, but NotGraphs is able to report with certainty that what you’re seeing in this photo right here (courtesy of the team’s Twitter feed) is Twins manager Ron Gardenhire and new Twins middle infielder Tsuyoshi Nishioka both modeling a garment known as the Sluggie.

The Sluggie, as you’re hopefully unaware, is a Justin Morneau-inspired and perhaps -designed variant of the Snuggie — i.e. the sleeved blanket that has also doubled as pop-culture phenomenon. The entirety of its (i.e. the Sluggie’s) existence has been chronicled by the Star Tribune’s Michael Rand.

As for the people in the back there, while their identities remain unknown, we’ve confirmed that they’re the only ones in this photo enjoying the benefits of basic human dignity.

H/T: My friend Dan

But now, thanks to Kevin Burkhardt of SNY, you can!

Burkhardt joined R.A. Dickey in the latter’s Nashville home to ask the Met pitcher about his successful 2010 campaign, the art of knuckleballing, and three or seven other things.

The home viewer will do well to note, additionally, that Dickey has an unnaturally gentle speaking voice. Like, really gentle. Like, I want him to come over my house and read a bedtime story, is what I mean.

H/T: Mets Blog

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Fantasy Baseball 2.0?

Sega has a new baseball game coming out this March – MLB Manager™ Online – which will allow players to select and then trade players in order to accrue points and win championships (there’s even a WBC it looks like). Fantasy baseball veterans may have heard of such a game – but they might also admit that the game could use a facelift. Could a console-style user interface add a little spice to fantasy baseball? It’s possible.

The ‘news’ here, though, is that you, esteemed reader of NotGraphs, might be able to help them shape this game in time for its March 2011 launch. Through this link here, you are invited to apply for a beta test for MLB Manager Online. Applications are open to anybody with a computer that supports Flash 10 (not just PCs), and will remain open until December 27th. The test will begin January 7th. Good luck!

Recently, in these pages, I made a case for a way of discussing books in a manner conducive to NotGraphs. You can read those exact words, if you want. Alternatively, you can just believe me when I say that the basic idea is to share lightly annotated passages and ideas from interesting baseball-related books.

Text
Reggie Jackson: The Life and Thunderous Career of Baseball’s Mr. October by Dayn Perry

A Note on Very Bad Behavior
One impression that is impossible not to have while reading Mr. Perry’s book is how poorly behaved basically every single one of its protagonists is. A’s owner Charlie Finley? A miserly emotional terrorist. George Steinbrenner? Less miserly than Finley, but more — I don’t know — nakedly tyrannical (?). Billy Martin? Almost definitely a victim of untreated borderline personality disorder. Jackson himself? Less self-esteem, and a greater proclivity for drama, than every 15-year-old girl everywhere.

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I have long had a rather bizarre fascination with the inside-the-park grand slam. It has forever eluded me. I’ve seen Albert Pujols hit three home runs in a game, I’ve seen Melky Cabrera hit for the cycle, and I’ve seen Randy Johnson and Zane Smith flirt with no-nos. Yet not in person, not even from my couch — the sacred place from which I have witnessed so many of civilization’s miracles — have I seen the elusive ITPGS.

Anyhow, Wikipedia, which is an unassailable source of true facts, tells me that there were but 40 ITPGS’s through 2007. Then this thread from 2002 lists them. It’s on the Internet, so I assume pristine accuracy.

Some random amusements to be found therein …

– Honus Wagner hit five ITPGS’s in his superlative career. Five. I declare: that’s a lot.

– What I find to be more amazing is that teammates Joe Kelley and Jimmy Sheckard each hit one in the same game in 1901.

– Then Sheckard went and hit another one the very next day.

– Bombo Rivera hit one in 1976. Bombo Rivera is such a great name that all of God’s children should be named Bombo Rivera.

– And here’s what gobsmacks me the most of all: Ron Karkovice — Ron Slapping Karkovice! — somehow pulled off an ITPGS in 1990. Kark was slower than a Bergman film, so I can’t rightly fathom the absurd tapestry of events that led to his clumping around every base and then, I am forced to assume, collapsing face first onto home plate. I would give up multitudes to have been there.

So what’s the coolest baseball event you’ve ever witnessed in person?

This kicks off a mini-series of email-interviews with media members with interesting backgrounds. Shannon Drayer, who was gracious enough to answer my pestering emails while on the run, writes a Mariners blog and covers the team for 710 ESPN Seattle. As you’ll see, she has a unique story and take on baseball.

Eno Sarris: If I remember correctly, you’ve moved around some. How did you end up in Seattle?

Shannon Drayer: I moved around quite a bit as a child and in doing so I really failed to put down any roots so when it came time to pick a college and kind of go off on my own, the decision was all mine.

I was living in Normal, Illinois at the time and while it was a great town to grow up in it was getting a little claustrophobic for me. I needed to get out of the cornfield. In picking a college location was the number one factor for me. It had to be in a city. I would not compromise on that. I lived only two hours from Chicago at the time but with no car and strict parents it might as well have been two days away. One of the reasons why I wanted the school to be in a city was because I would have access to sports. The University of Washington fit the bill. Good school with good sports and only a few miles away from a ballpark. I never even took a visit. I sent in my scores and grades was accepted and headed to Seattle.

Eno Sarris: But you haven’t been in Seattle the whole time since, right?

Shannon Drayer: With the exception of a year spent in NY studying acting it has been all Seattle.

Eno Sarris: How did you get from studying acting in New York to talking and writing about the Mariners in Seattle?

Shannon Drayer: I enjoyed acting but wasn’t quite committed enough to become a starving actress so I moved home to Seattle. Qualified to do absolutely nothing, I took a job at Starbucks for the benefits and schedule flexibility. It was actually a great job. I spent my days making coffee and talking sports with everyone who came in. I was kind of known for that in the area.

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