Sometimes readers will ask me — on the present site, on Twitter, on the lawless streets of America — they’ll ask me, “Hey Carson, will you keep me abreast of products that might be of some use to me, as a consumer of base-and-ball?”

To which query I’ll respond: “You want me to keep you a breast of products like that?”

To which they’re like: “Yeah, abreast.”

At which point, I’m like: “A breast?”

And then they’re like: “Yes. Abreast. It’s a real English word, and has nothing to do with the female anatomy, like you’re clearly pretending it does.”

In any case, my answer to the original question is: “Yes, but probably only, like, a month after such a product has been released, because what am I, a machine?”

A thing that fits all of the above criteria was brought to the author’s attention over the weekend in the form of this tweet:

You know how the Red Zone channel only shows you all the important stuff? Check out MLB version here with mlb.com/fullcount

— MLB (@MLB) April 28, 2012

In fact, some cursory research reveals that the operator of the MLB Twitter account is not lying. MLB Full Count (link) is a video service (in collaboration, it seems, with Yahoo) that provides “look-ins” to games in progress — and, it would also seem, highlights of completed games. Also, it’s free.

Read the rest of this entry »

The Society for American Baseball Research has announced today that, owing to the diligence of one Mr. Jonathan Frankel, anyone with a cursory knowledge of the internet can access all manner of scanned game accounts from the earliest days of base-and-ball.

Frankel has uploaded to Google Docs scans of newspapers from 1897 to 1912 from the following cities: Chicago, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Detroit, Louisville, New York, Philadelphia, and St. Louis.

As you might expect — and decidedly through no fault of Frankel’s own — the quality of the papers is sometimes compromised, nor does every article scale the heights of Prose Mountain (a mountain that doesn’t exist, but which I have just invented for the purposes of a shit metaphor).

As you might also expect, there are some excellent moments, such as this excerpt from what appears to be the August 12th, 1911, edition of the Cleveland Leader — a passage that it is literally impossible to read aloud except in a Mid-Atlantic accent and while drinking scotch in Bert Sugar’s den.

The real test of a pitcher is his work in pinches. Barney Pelty stood the test. Three times Cleveland batters had the chance to put the spectators in a happy frame of mind and three times these batters ignominiously whiffed.

Below is an image of the paper from which that excerpt is taken. (Note: if clicking doesn’t lead to ample embiggening, attempt to right-click for the purposes of opening in a new window.)

Finder’s fee owed to Mr. Larry Granillo.

If ever, reader, you were the sort to click on an image with a view to embiggening it, this post — and, specifically, the image embedded here to the right — represents an excellent opportunity to revisit that practice.

Never clicked and embiggened before? It’s not as difficult or dangerous as it sounds. What’s really central to it is the clicking part, as the embiggening is actually just the result of that cause.

What one will find in this photo, after the appropriate measures have been taken, is Hall of Famer George Brett and teammate Bo Jackson, circa 1989, presenting from the lush fields of Baseball City, FL what is known to aristocrats everywhere as the doigt d’honneur — presenting it both to (a) some sort of freelance photographer and (b) future Americans, like us.

This image, signed by Brett himself, appears to be available in exchange for American currency, via reputable online auction house and retailer of pornographic materials eBAY.

Finger of honor to FanGraphs editor Robert Sanchez.

The 1986 MLB season is the first that I can remember. The main reason that I remember it was 1986, I think, is that it was the year that I started collecting baseball cards — those Topps cards being so recognizable to me now.

While I grew up in Milwaukee, one of my mom’s best friends lived in Long Island at the time and was/is a huge Mets fan. Starting in 1986, he would collect all of the Mets cards from the year’s Topps set and send them to me. I remember Darryl Strawberry and Gary Carter being big, though I wouldn’t comprehend the extent of their greatness or tragedy until twenty years later. Read the rest of this entry »

Eddie Gaedel[e] has gotten a decent number of mentions at the FanGraphs subsidiaries and elsewhere. As I noted last week, poet and biographer Tom Clark has a long poem about him.

I am not here to weigh in on whether rostering little people constitutes a demeaning gimmick or is the answer to a market inefficiency in baseball.

Instead, I am here to offer you an opportunity to hold Eddie Gaedel’s real life game-worn jockstrap.^[1] You need only travel to the Baseball Reliquary in Monrovia, California where it is safely housed.

Smell it.

Read the rest of this entry »

I regret to be the one to inform you, but baseball as we know it was murdered in 2008. What you’ve been watching in the ensuing three years has been simply the death throes of a game we all love, gasping for air and seizing as it goes into shock…or something (I’m not a doctor; that’s a thing, right?)

“What felled mighty baseball?” you ask, in expectation that in the next paragraph I will tell you. “Surely no one human person is capable of destroying something so fine and beautiful.”

You would be correct. While some might argue that Ryan Braun is killing the game we love so much, baseball was not murdered at the hands of man. No. Baseball was ruined, as most things eventually are, by vampires. Observe:

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MLB Business PR Manager Jeff Heckleman brings our attention to the foodstuff you see situated to the left of these words (an image that you should feel very comfortable embiggening) — an item known either as a Smoked-Beef Brisket or Pulled Pork Parfait, depending on which meat you’d like to be the cause of your immediate death. The dish features two layers each of mashed potatoes and your preferred meat and is then topped with barbecue sauce.

When asked, one fan at Milwaukee’s Miller Park described the meat parfait as “delicious.” Another said, “I see a bright light at the end of a tunnel and my Grandpa Pat in the cardigan he always wore on gameday.”

Many will enter (bids), only one will leave (with an autographed Tom Milone hat).

The attentive reader, using the part of his brain responsible for memory, will recall how, yesterday, the author provided a clear-minded and level-headed status update on an autographed and game-worn Tom Milone hat recently made available at MiLB Auctions.

It’s with no little difficulty that the author maintains his trademark calm this Wednesday evening. For, in the hours between the present post and the one from yesternight, no fewer than nine bids have been placed on the Tom Milone hat in question, pushing the current high bid for said Tom Milone hat up to $26.00.

Despite the stark jump in price, many experts believe the game-worn and then autographed hat could eventually be worth enough to pay for an entire college education — or, that’s likely what experts would say were anyone to ask. With that sort of potential value at stake, it’s unlikely that bidding has ceased on this game-worn and autographed and green, yellow, and red Syracuse Chiefs hat from Latino night by Tom Milone at Alliance Bank Stadium on August 8, 2011.

“Instant collector’s item” is only one of many phrases that describes this autographed Tom Milone hat.

Hey gang, just wanted to let everyone know that the autographed and game-worn Tom Milone hat I’ve been talking a lot about lately — the one he wore during the Syracuse Chiefs’ game against the Buffalo Bisons on August 8, 2011 — is still available via auction for just 10 dollars.

I’m not sure if I mentioned it before, so I’ll say now that the hat is from Latino Baseball Night and is green, yellow, and red. Also, not to belabor the point, but “game-worn” means Tom Milone wore this specific hat in a game. Like, the Tom Milone.

The description also says that Milone signed the hat “following” the game. For me, I imagine Milone walking back to the Syracuse clubhouse. Like, the game has just ended and he’s gonna take a shower or whatever. And then the Chiefs’ manager of promotions is like, “Hey Tom, could I get you to sign the hat for the charitable auction?” And then Tom Milone takes off the hat he was just wearing and signs it with his own name.

Imagining that gets me excited about possibly owning this hat — something that I, or anyone, could currently do for 10 unbelievable dollars.

For those who were too young to watch — or just didn’t care about — Game 2 of the 1991 World Series, the abovely embedded image appears merely to be a depiction of the Kama Sutra maneuver known as the Melancholy Sea Captain.

Those familiar with the aforementioned game might be amused to discover that a bobblehead of the very famous Ron Gant/Kent Hrbek contretemps (pictured below) is being distributed as we speak to 10,000 friendly faced Minnesotans at Target Field.

Relive the excitement of the event via this low-resolution daguerreotype:

Historical event brought to author’s attention by THE Dan Lurie.