What was that you just said?

Well, that’s simply preposterous, and B.J. Upton does not believe it.

Oh, it’s not that Bossman distrusts you personally, it’s just that he doesn’t believe much of what he hears these days. Or sees. Or smells. In fact, the only sense that he trusts at all these days is taste. Perhaps if Bossman could have somehow tasted Evan Gattis‘s grand slam on Wednesday, he might believe it. If he could but taste the bullshit that you are spewing right now, he might believe you, too (but he would probably barf, if he could taste it).

Bossman has nothing against you, like he said. Bossman is cool. In fact, hey, he’s sorry for referring to what you were just saying as “bullshit.” Unbelievable is a better word, probably. Bossman doesn’t believe much of what he hears or sees or smells, but he is amused and befuddled and excited by it all. He just gets worked up, gets too excited.

So, Bossman is sorry: you’re amazing, you’re unbelievable — but that’s just the thing: Bossman don’t believe you.

Now shut up and have some candy — tastes like Truth.

One would be hard-pressed to find two people more different in stature than the author’s mother and Arizona Diamondbacks’ ace-in-the-making Archie Bradley. When one compares their use of social media, however, one finds two beings whose concerns, pleasures, and use of language are not that different at all.

Love pitching when family is in town! Great win for the #baybears had great hitting and solid defense! Time for dinner with mom!

— Archie Bradley (@ArchieBradley7) May 19, 2013

Celebrities: They’re just like us and/or our moms!

The idea of a world without Garfield has already been fully realized. But what of a world without Andrew McCutchen?

I’ve often wondered — fantasized, even — about what it would be like if I just disappeared from my life. Like, just totally evaporated. Usually, it’s difficult not to imagine a net positive. One less “first world” carbon footprint couldn’t hurt. The world — especially Carson Cistulli’s world — might be better off with far fewer very predictable jokes about genitals. Someone with more talent and ambition would inevitably fill my position at a very worthwhile nonprofit. The overall quality of NotGraphs would improve. My mother would not have to waste her time tediously preparing lectures to give me about my debt; she could actually enjoy her retirement. The list goes on.

When Andrew McCutchen disappears — just totally goes invisible — the world (well, the Pittsburgh Pirates, at least) still experience a net positive for an entirely different set of reasons. Really, it’s the same set of positives that McCutchen provides while not being disappeared. In his absence, he still catches balls while leaping into the wall, he still hits home runs, he still keeps the outfield at PNC Park clean of debris while maintaining an amiable demeanor.

Indeed, some people are such a positive force in the world that even in the absence of their corporeal self, their force continues to make a difference. I am not one of those people, but I am happy to know they exist.

Thanks, ‘Cutch.

The following GIF depicts the Gwinnett Braves not understanding baseball. It comes to you from indispensable friend-to-NotGraphs Well-Beered Englishman.

The following tune comes to you from the Harlem Globetrotters, by ways of YouTube, by ways of a website that rips YouTube audio and turns it into MP3s that you download. To me, the Globetrotter’s theme has always been especially evocative of the embarrassment they dole out to their opponents, of the unpreparedness or haplessness of said opponents.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

This has been “A GIF and a Tune”. It is a Tuesday.

Billy Buckner is famous for, well, you know what he’s famous for.

But did you know that, since retiring from baseball, he’s had serious work done by Flavor Flav‘s orthodontist? Well now, thanks to this week’s edition of the Friday Grill & Bill, which is as efficient as it is a waste of the reader’s time, you do know about Bill’s grill.

“Grilly” Buckner

In conclusion,

Last Saturday, while I convened with Master Cistulli regarding the Discretionary NERD Scores for that day’s games, the Master — past whom nothing gets — noticed, via an uninvited glance at my desktop, my Largely Unnecessary, Decidedly Large, Neatly Organized, and Fully Computerized Collection of Digital Baseball Images™.

Why?

“Why do you have so many images that, one guesses, might be easily found on the internet at any given time?” Master Cistulli asked, not without the condescension common in those who readily identify themselves as both “raised in the Northeast” and “fond of boarding schools.”

My initial response — “For ease of access” — has become unsatisfactory to me in retrospect, and has caused, of late, something of an existential crisis. It should probably be noted, though, that something as minor as one of my cats sneezing is enough to send me into hours of contemplation and deep feelings of meaninglessness.

Read the rest of this entry »

Gil Hodges’ large hands probably helped him to become a pretty good baseball player. The first-baseman hit 370 HR and had a career WAR of 41.8.

Those same hands might have made him good at murder, too.

Sure, Gil Hodges would be happy to crush your skull for you!

It’s easy to find several photographs of Hodges that highlight the size of his hands. Apparently, their size distracted both photographers and the public from the fact that Hodges always very literally had blood on his hands.

Read the rest of this entry »

Hopefully, dear reader, the weather where you are is nicer than the weather where I am. Should that be the case, mayhap you are gearing up to patio-grill some foodstuffs for dinner this evening — delicious flank steaks or cheesy broccoli in foil packets or build-your-own kebabs.

Before doing so, however, please consider abandoning your fancy foodtsuffs and your weak-ass grill in favor of building yourself a new Baseball Monster Grill using the following schematic.

The grill is portable, so that you can easily wheel it around your cul-de-sac, frightening neighborhood child and suburban rodent alike (who would likely try to steal your grill-things as you cooked them!). Use the Grill to clear the area of such pests before proceeding with preparation of the food. The wheels and handles also facilitate travel by airplane or motorbus, or a quick, evasive maneuver into an alleyway (zero turn-radius).

You might be compelled to ask, upon viewing this schematic, “Why would a baseball have a bat in its mouth?” It does not. Instead, that is a fifth of whiskey, built to the scale of the baseball’s face, fueling it with the menace necessary to frighten the aforementioned children and rodents. The whiskey also fuels the brain-flames of the Baseball Monster Grill.

Also please notice in the schematic: the Drunken Baseball Monster Grill is meant to grill in-can Chef Boyardee products and loose potato chips ONLY. Attempting to grill anything else will result in annihilative mutiny on the part of the Grill Monster. Should you bring that fresh tuna steak from Whole Foods within five feet of it, it will turn on you the way you previously turned it on the pests of the neighborhood.

This has been Your Friday Grill.

As for your Friday Bill, please allow me to (re)introduce more horror into your lives, readers: Billy Koch, a talented relief pitcher, you’ll remember, had his career ended early (at age 29) by the mysterious Morgellons disease.

This has been a very-appetizing-indeed Friday Grill & Bill.

Today when I got on the bus
I said to myself,
“It is like I don’t exist.”
At the doctor’s office on a papered table
in my boxer briefs
I was like,
It is like I do not exist.
When I am at home
in an armchair
when my mouth is full of food
or dong
when I pull a well-worn dollar bill
from my Genuine Leather wallet
wherever there are books,
websites, weirdos, women,
or dullards — or ducks, really: ducks
make me feel this way –
whenever I watch a drug dealer
teem w/ existential angst
on TV
I want to be a drug dealer and
it is like I do not exist.

When Joey Votto
wants to break a bat but does not
when Joey Votto curses himself –
in high socks, no less! –
when I noticed the elastic of knee-high knickers
at Joey Votto’s knees
when I closed my eyes
and saw nothing but Joey Votto’s
hairline it is like
I do exist,
am alive, am a part of everything
that there is
to be a part of
which is only one thing:
this world of shit
w/o which nothing would exist.

Would that Joey Votto will want to break a bat
at those moments
when I wonder
if there is life on other planets
for I am not large,

cannot get past
this earth.

I first saw this photo at Deadspin. Maybe you did, too.

Young Troy Tulowitzki wants candy. He wants a skateboard with orange not purple wheels and he wants, oh, a huge dragon decal on the underside of the skateboard and then he wants a soda. He promises to brush his teeth very a lot. Soda.

The expression “business up front; party in the back” means very little to Young Troy Tulowitzki — not because he is too young to know what that means, but because he is in the business of partying. He parties with the Ninja Turtles of his mind. Sometimes he calls them “Inja Turtles” and he doesn’t know why but he laughs every time he says it. He likes Splinter the best; even though Splinter isn’t a turtle he is an inja [heehehe] and he is their father. Cowabunga, dudes!

Young Troy Tulowitzki also likes classmates’ birthday parties because ice cream cake.

Young Troy Tulowitzki has figured out that if he puts one hand on his forehead when his mom hairsprays his spikes then his forehead won’t be shiny and sticky from the hairspray and then Galinda Jefferson won’t laugh at him at recess. Galinda Jefferson is not his girlfriend, shut up! She isn’t! Shut up!

Yes, Young Troy Tulowitzki picked out this tie. It doubles as an Inja Turtle mask.

What does Young Troy Tulowitzki want to be when he grows up? A ninja guy at night, and a baseball guy during the day. Or if he has to play baseball really late one night, he will be a day ninja that day. His best friend will be Vanilla Ice.

Young Troy Tulowitzki, for all his worldly fashion, possesses the kind of happiness that one possesses when one is insulated from all manner of worry. The insulation that is, for Young Tulo, provided by the proverbial coiffures of youth and darlingness, will give way to the insulation of focused greatness for Adolescent and Adult Troy Tulowitzki.