I found these amusing. Maybe you will too.

It was more difficult to find funny reviews of baseballs. I don’t know why.

“You can call me ‘a source close to the family and familiar with the negotiations.'”

The life of a reporter covering Major League Baseball remains a difficult one. Not only has the job of a beat reporter expanded to require several blog posts and newspaper articles in a single day, but today’s scribes must also be ready 24 hours a day to break news. In the desperate race to break stories, they are forced to rely on new, and occasionally unreliable sources.

So it was yesterday that Texas sportswriter Jamie Kelly broke the news that David Murphy was going to sign with the Cleveland Indians, because Murphy’s daughter told everyone at day care she was moving to Cleveland (presumably prompting an tsunami of sympathetic responses and comforting pats on the back).  The news was relayed to Kelly, who told her Twitter followers:

David Murphy informed his daughter’s daycare that he is signing with the Indians. This is, again, per my source close to the situation.

— Jamie Kelly (@JamieSportsTalk) November 20, 2013

As it turns out, Kelly was absolutely spot on. But this sets a dangerous precedent where ballplayers’ children become not just adorable moppets who get to play on the field with their dads on Sunday, but legitimate sources for breaking news. Already, we’ve seen the following rumors crop up:

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Mere hours after being formally recognized for his performance at the Arizona Fall League, Chicago Cubs prospect Kris Bryant is demonstrating his skill alongside a different kind of plate — namely, the expensive and decorative sort commonly found at middle-class American wedding receptions.

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The following tweet is entirely and in-no-way altered from the original (click to embiggen):

Mike Pelfrey walks into a bar.
The bartender says:
“Why the long face?”

This has been Inserting Mike Pelfrey’s Name into Old Jokes.

(h/t to CJ Fogler)

Use a colorful stock photo to attract readers’ attention.

For more than a month, the present author has waged an on-again, off-again with a very persistent ear infection — a condition itself which appears to have developed owing largely to the dimensions of the author’s left Eustachian tube, which is roughly the size of an infant child’s. That’s the medical explanation distilled to its essence, at least.

A week of antibiotics did little to address the problem, initially. A second week — in this case, of steroids administered both orally and by way of the ear canal — helped some. The most recent treatment, however — of a second, more efficient antibiotic (according to the doctor) — has produced tangible results so far as the health of the ear in question is concerend. What else it’s done is to cause within the author’s body a condition that isn’t but ought to be known as Gastrointestinal Melee 5000.

Indeed, a brief inspection of the fact sheet for the drug in question reveals that users of same frequently observe selles molles. An exercise in euphemism, is how one ought to regard this.

At the very least, this (admittedly minor) ordeal has created a flimsy pretense upon which it is now possible to produce Internet Weblog Content. It has occurred to the author that it might be amusing to attribute to each major-league club the most common “side effect,” as it were, of cheering for same.

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(You may first want to read this article.).

Ruben Tejada
One day short of a season
Yes, a bad season

Ruben Tejada
Fell one home run short of one
He shouldn’t complain

Ruben Tejada
Should hope he is still playing
In 2016

Or 2014
His season was terrible
How can he fight this?

Ruben Tejada
At least they called you back up!
You cost them a win

Or a third of one
Depending on which site’s WAR
Can’t we all agree?

Ruben Tejada
If you file a grievance
I think you may win

But really you’ll lose
Because no one will sign you
Not that they ought to

Ruben Tejada
Why did your walk rate collapse?
This is the last poem

Wait — How you say poem?
It’s one syllable, or two?
Whatever, I’m done.

Brian Wilson recently crossed the New York Yankees off his list of potential team to sign with — due to the fact that New York Yankees can’t have facial hair (which is dumb because, among other reasons, damn near every “original yankee” had facial hair), and Brian Wilson refuses to shave (as per Andy McCollough by way of MLBTR).

The only shower “the Beard” has ever known?

The NotGraphs Investigative Reporting Investigation Team has discovered that Wilson isn’t the only 2013-2014 free agent who has ruled out signing with the Yankees. Indeed, there are several such players, and, like Wilson, their reasons for eschewing the Bronx Bombers are as colorful as their personalities (which is to say, not all that colorful, in some cases).

Those of you testing your Hot Stove predictive skills would be wise to take into account the following info (with the player’s FanGraphs Crowdsource free agent contract ranking in parentheses):
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“Hey, Cy, thanks for doing this.”

“Sure, anytime.”

“Let’s start with Braves catcher Brian McCann. Where do you see him ending up?”

“An Irishman, eh?”

“Uh, I guess so. Sure.”

“You don’t think he’ll stay with Milwaukee?”

“The Braves are in Atlanta now, actually.”

“Atlanta, really? Where’s that?”

“Georgia.”

“Hmmm. Awfully far south for a baseball team.”

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DJ Kitty,
nominated for Best Movie
in a bus
in South Korea.
How–
     a paw to my lips
               says sometimes it’s better
                              not to ask.

Thanks to Erik Hahmann, who passes along this photo via means of human carrier pigeon, Carson de Cistulli.