Have you seen this, friend?

I like the looks of it. I am going to Borchert Field. I shall watch them play baseball on donkeys.

Part of me — the good part — hopes that the Tripoli Arab Patrol is a patrol made up of Arabs rather than a patrol in search of Arabs to be patrolled. But I’m still going to Borchert Field. I shall watch them play baseball on donkeys.

The Tripoli Arab Patrol is world-famous throughout Shrinedom, so it can’t be all bad. I’m told a band will play. I enjoy a good Sousa march. I’ll hope for a Sousa march, and I shall watch them play baseball on donkeys.

It will all unfold harmlessly, you see. The fun will approach such levels that a circus will come to mind. Or a riot. Would you call a riot “fun”? They promise laughter. I often find myself asking, “What’s so funny?” I ask this of myself sometimes when I’m alone. But I’ll go anyway to Borchert Field. I shall watch them play baseball on donkeys. “Who even has the energy anymore?” is something else I say a lot.

Milwaukee Gas Light Company is a name I can trust. Twenty-five cents sounds reasonable. I wouldn’t know what to do with myself in a grand stand. I’m on a budget like the rest of us. Does this look like scabies to you? No, not that. I hadn’t even noticed that before.

Yes, I suppose I shall watch them play baseball on donkeys.

I remember lying on the roof as a boy and looking up at the stars in mute suspension and talking about what scared me. I don’t believe I ever mentioned donkeys or Shriners. So I shall go to Borchert Park. The more I think about it, though, it seems quite possible that I would’ve mentioned donkeys and Shriners. That will give me something to think about on the bus.

“Should I watch them play baseball on donkeys?” is something I’m starting to ask a lot.

“Nite” sounds more promising than “night,” doesn’t it? “Night” carries with it the threat of menace. Or at the very least the threat of not getting to bed at a decent hour. I have a routine, you see. I suppose, though, that “nite” means the same thing. Stands to reason. They probably just spelled it that way in order to save space.

I don’t think I’m going to go see them play baseball on donkeys.

What do you think happens when you die?

While those disinclined to ponder the inevitable see the 31st of December as the precipice of a new year — a date rich with the illusion of possibility — those devoted to base and ball will know it as the “Day of Crap.”

Why, you may ask, are those poo-festooned hours festooned with poo? Because 12/31/11 marks not the death in hospice of another year but rather the point at which we are equally distant from having seen baseball and seeing baseball again.

You see, the last out of the most recent World Series — God’s favorite World Series — occurred on October 28, 2011. Actual baseball won’t occur until February 29, 2012, when the Phillies renew hostilities with their august rivals Florida State. That comes to 124 days without that which helps us through the night. Advising us the diseased to find any port in a storm is useful only when there’s a port in view. Tomorrow, there shall be no port in view.

At the moment of Camus’s death by French sports car, he was likely plagued (see what I did there?) by thoughts of Algerian colonialism. Tomorrow shall be 24 hours of that moment.

Let’s face it, reading a baseball site like FanGraphs (but not NotGraphs, of course!) is pretty nerdy. If you want to double down on being a baseball nerd, the best route is fantasy baseball. But what if you want to triple your nerdity?

To the Academy!

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Brayan Pena expresses the gratitude of millions.

I don’t know what the coverage of baseball was like last night for those of you in the U.S. of A., but up here in the Great White North sports coverage needs a bit of help with priorities. They were talking about games in Florida, Maryland, and other sordid little burgs, but hardly mentioned the story they should have led with: Bruce Chen‘s eight innings of shutout ball (somehow matched by Carl Pavano‘s nine) in Minnesota on an emotional night that might have been Chen’s last game in a Royals uniform.

We are all reeling from the emotional night at Target Field, but those who may have happened upon one of my FanGraphs chats know that this is particularly difficult for me. While I celebrate the greatness that is Chen, it is time to bid the meme him farewell.

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Dave Cameron, everybody.

As the reader might very well know, this past weekend-plus witnessed the descent upon Long Beach, California, USA, of the membership of the Society for American Baseball Research, for their 41st convention.

Malcolm Gladwell lookalike and Citizen of the World Eno Sarris has already provided some critical details of the FanGraphs event held Thursday night in conjunction with SABR 41. In what follows, I’d like to utilize that most helpful of typographical symbols, the bullet point, to provide as breezy and superficial an account of the Convention as possible.

To wit:

• Did I witness Dark Overlord David Appelman kill a man? No. Did I witness David Appelman order a man to commit suicide in front of him (i.e. Appelman)? Hmmm… Next question, please.

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We have, as you may be aware, reached the latter weeks of June.  It’s a time when a young man’s fancy lightly turns back away from love.  Youths of all ages escape from their brick-lined educational prisons, and celebrate their freedom by devoting themselves to console video games and working at fast food restaurants.  Finally, it’s that magical time of year when hitting coaches are lined up at the guillotine, sacrificed in the name of organizational change and statistical deviation.

Three men have already been led into the abattoir this season.    John Mallee lost his post with the Florida Marlins, replaced by a man in Eduardo Perez who has no coaching experience on any level.  Former corporate mouthpiece Edwin Rodriguez described him thusly: “…he doesn’t have much experience at teaching, as a coach, but he played in the big leagues for 13 years, so I think that’s good enough.”  Logan Morrison was so enraged by the move that he devoted more than 140 characters to his wrath.  Fortunately, as we can all agree, the move solved all of the Marlins’ problems instantly.

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Hard to argue with one Mr. Aron Bender’s bestowing of the title “Balk of the Year” on this little gem:

That’s Mike Pelfrey pitching for the Mets in Saturday’s game against the Phillies, with Dom Brown batting. The balk moved runners to second and third, but luckily for Pelfrey, he got Brown to ground out to end the inning. If Brown singles in one or two runs there, I’m sure Pelfrey hears about it the next day from Mike Francesa. Instead, it’s just a harmless (albeit hilarious) balk.

Pair your media experience with Trader Joe’s Mediterranean Hummus.

A teacher of mine in high school — one who was very enthusiastic about what I’m almost certain is called “experiential education” — had a number of guiding principles by which he conducted his pedagogical self. Of these, one he’d repeat pretty often concerned the idea of “authoring” one’s education. “A student,” this teacher would say, “needs to become the author of his education — of his experiences, in general.”

Though I’ve likely fallen short of this ideal — too many “experiences,” it seems, involve swimming nude in a public water source, an activity which I regard as indecent on multiple levels — it’s an idea with merit, this. The passive consumption of experiences/ideas/media is wrong not on a moral level, as many hippies/communists/Portlanders would argue, but on an aesthetic level. Which is to say, it’s imperative that we tailor our experiences to our own specific preferences and talents; otherwise, said experiences will surely underwhelm.

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The lamb is breaking the seals, or something like that.

I don’t know remember the exact passage, but certainly somewhere in the Book of Revelation does John note that, just before the rivers turned to blood or whatever, an auction was started in his fantasy league for Jeff Francoeur.

Well, thanks to Mike Axisa, that very same thing has just happened in my FanGraphs’ ottoneu league.

Thanks for nothing, Axisa. Hope you like your plagues in tens.

Born in a blowout.

ottoneu creator Niv Shah wasn’t always a Cleveland Indians fan. In part one of this two-part piece, we covered the beginning of that night when Niv called friend Chad Young (currently blogging about being a member of the FanGraphs Experts League) and said he had some tickets to the game that night between the Rays and Indians.

Though there might have been some resistance to the strange formatting, the die is cast. The format has been decided. Chad got Niv to the game, it turned into a blowout, and yet they stayed to appreciate the Jake. Now it’s time to bring this night to its thrilling conclusion!

Eno Sarris: Do you remember a moment when you were like, hey wait a minute, let’s sit down? A player at the bat, or some cheering or something?

Niv Shah: i honestly don’t think we did. i remember a point where we were like, wait a minute, we might come back here – i think it was fryman’s homer in the 7th… definitely a home run in the 7th that was like “Wait… we are not down that much”

yeah

david f*cking lamb too

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