FB shares are going for around $40. I’d rather spend my money on any of this.

Baltimore Sun archive photo of Frank Zupo. $32.49, Ebay.

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It was inevitable.

[Nerd disclaimer: yes, the 2012 movie Avengers, I love comics as well, but this is a topical post and getting into complicated world of gray Hulk or whatever, is too much for me right now. I did spend 15 hours watching Avengers movies yesterday.]

Alex Rodriguez IS Iron Man.

Listen, it hurts me too, but no one fits the description “millionaire playboy narcissist” like A-Rod does. Does he have the charm of Robert Downey Jr.’s Tony Stark? Maybe not. Does he have the ridiculous amount of money, the ego, the ladies, and the genius for baseball heroics? Yes. Also, steroids = the suit, obviously.
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Add “in bed” to conclude the following opinions about that one thing, for hours of fun [in bed]:

• as phenomenally tacky as you imagined.
• every bit as trippy as we expected.
• really happening.
• an oversized shooting gallery.
• still terriesome…awerrible…
• alive and terrible.
• a real thing, and it’s monstrous.
• predictably amazing.
• fully operational.
• as frightening as you might have expected
• huge. That is all.
• fully working now.
• taller than a pyramid of bulldozers.
• a little big. Amazing.
• priceless.
• the most super thing in baseball history and I love it. [Note: This is obviously actually about Notgraphs. In bed.]
• way worse than I thought it could be.
• even better than i could have imagined.
• currently being erected.

Thanks for visiting today’s sexual fortune cookie!

This year’s Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show was held Monday and Tuesday at Madison Square Garden in New York City. A celebration of racial purity and shaved butts, it is a super weird event that I find relentlessly entertaining and fascinating, despite the fact that I have never and will never own a AKC registered purebred dog (since there are really cute mutts being put to sleep every day). Naturally, I spent Valentine’s Day eating failed meringues, watching the televised version of the event, and forming a baseball analogy for your edification (plus YAY DOG PICTURES YAY):

Palacegarden Malachy

Pekinese (Toy Group), Pitcher

2012 WAR: 7.1

Awards: Best In Show, Best In Toy Group, Best Pekinese, Cy Young

Malachy’s performance in 2012 was strong, but there are those in the sabermetric community who feel that he ran away with the BIS (Best In Show) award this year based on some outdated factors (weirdness, front fluffiness). Certainly, he is a dog who seems at first glance to lack the grit or determination necessary for this game, but those who judge him are missing out on this dog’s extraordinary (if a bit unconventional) control from the mound. Those that have questioned Malachy’s “hustle” and drive, consider this: he had the highest K/9 last year for a pitcher with at least 20 starts, and his shape kind of reminds me of Falcor.
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Over at the dad’s house, FanGraphs+ 2012 has been being touted as a “steal” or “deal”. The subscription includes over 1,100 player profiles written by the FanGraphs and RotoGraphs contributors, 11 in depth fantasy-themed articles — including the second annual Cistulli-Sarris faceoff, Mike Trout vs. Bryce Harper, and my new best friend “Ottoneu Strategies for Every Setting.” Oh, and it also includes 2-3 weekly articles written by FanGraphs staff for ESPN throughout this year, AND the FanGraphs+ archives from the last two years. Whew. That’s all for $4.99, which may lead you to believe that you would be hard pressed to find anything so awesome for such a small price tag. You’d be believing wrong. I present: Things Cheaper Than FanGraphs+:

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Last week Bill James gave to the internets this gift: a list of the 100 best pitchers’ duels of 2011.  Today I give to the internets my own small trinket of affection – the 5 worst pitchers’ duels of 2011.   Grantland touted James’ piece as ‘A totally, utterly, insanely completist list from the godfather of baseball stats’; none of those words have any business here.

James offers four criteria of a pitchers’ duel: low-scoring game, quality pitchers on the mound, pitchers pitch well, and something is at stake.  I offer only one criteria of a bad pitchers’ duel – a lot of runs are scored.  The more the better.

1.  May 16th, Cleveland at Kansas City.

Royals’ starter Kyle Davies stuck around long enough to get just one out, giving up two runs.  Nate Adcock took the game to the third inning, giving up only one run.  Vin Mazzaro pitched two and 1/3, giving up 14 runs, which is, literally, the worst pitching performance in baseball history.  Mazzaro after the game:  “It’s tough.  It was a tough game.”  Yes.  Indians win 19-1.

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Did you know you can search every place name in the U.S.? Here, now you can waste even more time than I did. Presenting: the most pointless list ever. If there are readers who live in any of these places, you are obligated to post in the comments.

I hereby propose a new Independent Baseball League, with teams in the following sabermetrically-friendly locations:

Eastern Division
The Fipsters, of FIPps Crossing, in Columbus, NC
The Winners, of WAR, in McDowell, WV
The Babips, of BIPpus, in Huntington, IN
The Walkers, of WHIPray Basin, in Monroe, FL

Western Division
The Wappers, of WPA Dam, in Muskogee, OK
The Zippers, of ZIPS Cabin, in White Pine, NV
The Ultimate Ratings, of ZONE Creek, in Dillingham, AK
The Powers, of ISOlated Peak, in Boulder, CO

Sportswriters, this nonsense really needs to stop. Refusing to vote Jeff Bagwell into the Hall of Fame because you believe he may have used performance enhancing drugs because a number of his contemporaries did so is shameful.

It’s shameful because there are literally 16 better reasons not to vote Jeff Bagwell into the Hall of Fame. During Bagwell’s lifetime, someone somewhere has been guilty of each of the things listed below, which means in turn that Bagwell cannot escape the umbra of guilt cast by other members of his species.

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Apophatic [ap-a-FAT-ik] Theology is that method by which one endeavors to describe God by describing what God is not — the suggestion being that fewer persons and places and things belong to the latter category than the former.

Apophasis [uh-PAW-fa-sis] is also the process by which one might most efficiently compile a list of major-league ballplayers, past and present, who could — via their fists or feet or, perhaps, just a particularly menacing stare — injure NotGraphs’ oldest contributor (by far), Dayn Perry.

Which is to say that, to construct such a list, it’s much easier to identify those players who do not have the capacity to fell Perry. Thanks to the search functions at Baseball-Reference, it’s easy to compile a list of such players.

Image courtesy Jason Thorpe.

Thanks to the death-infused search functions at Baseball-Reference, it’s easy to compile a list of ballplayers who selfishly ruined the holidays by dying on Christmas Day. Let us remember their crossing of the Styx and their insistence on doing so while everyone else was just trying to enjoy themselves.

Also remember this: As you open gifts, force chestnuts down the gullet and nod off in the glow of a D-level bowl game, someone somewhere is dying and thus soiling an otherwise fine day.