The following tweet, which appears to contain breaking news on the reading habits of certain major-league baseball clubs, is entirely and in-no-way altered from the original (click to embiggen):
Click to embiggen, something Gaedel himself never could do.
Basically all the big philosophers advocate on behalf of a perpetual contemplation of death. “One can’t truly live,” goes the reasoning, “until that same one accepts his mortality as fact.” A reasonable point, that, probably.
Today’s brief recognition of the Ultimate Darkness is facilitated by some trifling internet surfing by the author — which surfing led both to Eddie Gaedel’s Wikipedia page and also obituary. Capital-T Truth has revealed that, while generally remembered as a willing participant in one of Bill Veeck’s many amusing promotional ventures, Gaedel was actually afflicted considerably by life’s afflictions.
The Boston Globe has it right:
“Jacoby Ellsbury was never soft, but deal with Yankees proves he was a mercenary.”
It’s pretty crazy that Ellsbury has now become the first free agent to ever sign with a team that offered him a lot of money. A shock to the system given that Prince Fielder signed with the Tigers in 2012 for a bag of baseballs and a daily smile. Or knowing that Manny Ramirez signed with the Red Sox in 2001 for three hot dogs and a pair of shoes.
I am not a fan of Jacoby Ellsbury, for entirely I-made-a-fantasy-baseball-mistake-with-him reasons (I dropped him in a 13-keeper Scoresheet league, in favor of Austin Jackson, right before his 2011 breakout season, because I am bad at fantasy baseball), but that doesn’t mean I think it makes him a bad person to take the $153 million being offered to him and run, run, run into Adrian Beltre and Reid Brignac. The owners are certainly “mercenaries.” It’s a business. This is capitalism. He has every right to be celebrated for being a mercenary, not criticized for it.
Unless, of course, the Boston Globe means the other definition of mercenary, and Ellsbury has been hired for service in a foreign army… in which case, good luck to him! Though I expect, given his history, he may get injured in combat.
During his weekly appearance on Fangraphs Audio this Monday, Dave Cameron took a break from being frustrated with Carson Cistulli to express his frustration with how many transactions there have been thusfar, and how burned out he has been writing up reactions to them. This sounds like complaining to the layman, but is actually an early signal to the Dave Cameronologists of NotGraphs that we may need raise the Dave Cameron threat level:
Rays catcher Jose Molina is of course famously renown for his ability to frame pitches for strikes. Less heralded is his ability to frame founding documents — documents smithed in gory glory by that cocksure parliamentarian, Uncle History.
Bear witness, for God and country …
Bedrock Protestant Evangelical Christian principles for a called strike three!
Grab some pine, quislings.
(HT: Idea via Les Carter, attorney to the stars)
TROY — As another rosy-fingered dawn broke over the walled city on Tuesday, the Aegean League’s winter meetings suddenly ramped up the intrigue, with new rumors swirling over a potential “trade of the century” involving the league’s two biggest sluggers. Hector and Achilles are both coming off career years, with the former having rewritten the record books by personally slaughtering 31,000 Greek warriors, while his counterpart achieved the unprecedented feat of challenging and defeating the river-god Skamandros. The two men have spent the last four seasons trading off the league’s MVP award, and are widely expected to finish one-two in this year’s voting yet again.
DETROIT — Tigers general manager Dave Dombrowski accidentally hit save Monday, which inadvertently made his trade of pitcher Doug Fister irreversible.
“Nooooooooooooo! Shit! Shit shit shit shit shit!” Dombrowski shouted into his computer monitor. “God damn it! Now what do I do?”
It was reported that Dombrowki’s trade of Fister was a test to see what kind of players he could get back in a hypothetical transaction, with the full intent of closing without saving, so as to retain his starter as he continued to test the market.
“It was time for dinner, so I closed the window,” the GM said with a visibly red face. “That stupid window popped up asking me if I wanted to save before I closed, and without thinking, I clicked on ‘YES’ like a fuckin’ dummy. The same thing happened when I signed Torii Hunter. Luckily, that actually worked out. I hate these damn things sometimes,” he said, making a gesture toward a PC sitting on his desk.
Multiple inside sources have said that Dombrowski has since clicked that little checkbox requesting that he not be notified on closing the window from this point forward.
“We told him about that checkbox, but he never used it. We forced him to now,” one head-office source said. “I’m surprised it hasn’t happened more, to be honest. He would have traded Miggy that one time if the power hadn’t gone out.”
The NotGraphs Investigative Reporting Investigation Team was able to confirm that Dombrowski did try turning it off and on again.
This kind of translation-fun-times thing has already been covered by Mississippi Matt Smith here and elsewhere excellently and sans flaw. But I really love automated translators, and am dabbling today because there is a mystery afoot, possibly a sexual mystery, possibly a mystery involving a stiff suit, and definitely a mystery involving Koji Uehara. Observe:
http://www.koji-uehara.net/2013/11/26/1640.html
What a handsome and tall man! Let me draw your attention to a specific phrase:
やっぱりスーツって、身体が硬くなるような…。ユニフォームの方が楽に動けるからいいね。
And then supply you with some possible translations:
Google:
After all I suit, body such that … hard. I hope those of uniform because move easily.
Bing:
It suits me body hardens like… Uniform who can move effortlessly from Nice.
Freetranslation.com:
I guess the body suit is a lot stronger. The uniform is easier to move to it’s good.
translate.reference.com
After all.that a body is tense a suit…Because a uniform can work easily, I am good.
What is Koji saying? Something involving his body hardening and uniforms, clearly unclearly. The Bing translation is by far the most intriguing, as it involves the southern French city of Nice for some reason. Also a body in the act of hardening. Now THAT is interesting. Or perverse. Or just French, I guess. Why, how, wherefore, whence, and whoontz Koji needed to discuss his hard body and Nice, France are still completely unknown. Because I am out of worthwhile brainwaves this Tuesday I will let the mystery remain without further analysis. Instead I’ll leave you with the translation party tool and a song my friend made about Odysseus.
So here we are. A new year. The third year. When we began this little adventure through OOTP, things were looking good, things were coming up all Bradley. John Donne had just ranked No. 2 in the No. 1 in the prospect lists, and I was looking like a prospect genius.
But I think now we can agree, but clearly this game has many flaws. The first of which allow me to illuminate:
I believe on the merit of that very clearly flawed assessment of Yuniesky Betancourt we can deign to assume John Donne is still probably the best prospect of this whole system, if not of all time.but I am honorbound to play the game according to the rules. And as such I will offer henceforth a prospect list that utilizes the rating systems projection systems of OOTP, even if it is very apparent to me that justice has been usurped and genius has been restrained.
Here are the ratings for our dear 17 prospects:
Read the rest of this entry »
Tigers fans seem upset about the Fister deal. But who can they blame? FanGraphs provides the answer, at least in this reader’s browser:
Truth is, that answer may not be so wrong. IF perhaps Dave Dombrowski had a cold… a fever… an illness clouding his judgment… maybe it is indeed the fault of mucus. And maybe Mucinex should be top of the list for general managers’ toolkit this offseason.
Then again, according to WebMD, Mucinex may cause nausea or vomiting. So maybe it’s not the answer.
