So today I realized/learned that Detroit Tigers manager Jim Leyland is 67 years old. Seriously? Just 67? Look at this guy:
Stunned by my discovery, I did what any sane person would do: I expressed my shock and dismay to the approximately two dozen sad, lonely souls and spambots who follow me on Twitter.
While itself the very apotheosis of youth baseball controversies, the Big New Bedford Youth Baseball Controversy is not the only example of the genre.
In fact, the Internetting Gentleman, were he so inclined, could find himself googling the terms little, league, and controversy — and then, immediately after that, find himself becoming an expert on no fewer than five other youth baseball controversies.
These ones, to be specific:
Bountiful (UT) Little League, 2006
A coach orders an intentional walk of an opponent’s best hitter, in order to face Romney Oaks, a cancer survivor who “needs a shunt in his brain just to live.” Oaks strikes out.
All warfare is based on deception. Hence, when able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must seem inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near.
Roy Halladay and Chris Carpenter help a local fisherman who was bitten on the ass by an anaconda. They are celebrated as heroes. (In case you were wondering: anacondas don’t have venom, so there is no butt sucking.)
Chris Carpenter breaks his toe, but he’ll be okay. He’s a tough guy.
B.J. Ryan, meanwhile, drops a couple hundred bucks on a sweet fishing rod but it breaks on the second day of the trip and he spends the rest of the time sulking and cursing his own profligacy.
The San Francisco Chronicle recently reprinted a nearly fifty year old piece about Manny the Noodle and a supposed conspiracy to get the Dodgers into the World Series by slipping a mickey into a certain Giant’s outfielder’s oatmeal. A notable quote from the bookie incredulously asked “So baseball is different from everything else? Honest or something? Money wins every time, kid. You ride with the money or you’re dead.”
If only to enjoy more elite-level wordsmithing, we caught up with Manny, now fast approaching the century mark and enjoying his lime rickeys in Vero Beach. He had a few more revelations for us.
WHAT PARTY CAN YOU GO TO WHERE I AIN’T THERE YOU BITCHES ACTING LIKE YOU DON’T CARE
Ol’ Dirty Bastard shows up in the strangest of places. Like when you’re trying to find a new statistic to evaluate the old, dirty bastard-ness of baseball players. That’s a place where he shows up.
Good thing we got the dudes at SabeanMetrics (tagline: When the Best of the Worst Combine) to resuscitate (bad choice of words?) the hip hop icon. They recently unveiled wODBPS — weighted Ol’ Dirty Bastard Plus Slugging. Apologies to Bobby Abreu, the AL champ in 2011, because the Carlos Lee photoshop just makes too much sense not to post.
Philadelphia’s Veterans Stadium was, provably and undeniably, the place where YouTube commenters gathered before there was such a thing as YouTube. As such, there are any number of ways to describe the angsty tincture of assholes and disimprisoned maniacs that prowled within its walls. And thanks to SI’s excellent and mustachioed Gary Smith, we have some championship examples of doing so.
First, a couple of warm-ups:
“It was San Quentin,” says Head.
“It was a circular concrete slab of crap,” says Boo.
Not half bad. But would anyone care to trump?
“It was a green dying turd,” says Dan Tarng, a first-generation Taiwanese-American fan who needs to meet Head and Boo.
In the course of stinking, meaningless human events, you might be tempted to describe Veterans Stadium in your own words. Do not. Instead, pay obeisance to Mr. Dan Tarng, who was through with it before you knew what to do with it.
by Carson Cistulli - November 8, 2011
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The attentive reader will know that we at NotGraphs are acutely aware of the crippling nature of waking life, and will know, moroever, that the majority of us here engage in what Rabelais’ most faithful translators render in English as “tippling” — a practice that serves as a sort of spiritual analgesic in the face of life’s attendant cares and sorrows.
If a certain MLB press release — concerning the broadcast, on the MLB Network, of a documentary about the 1986 postseason — is to be believed, it would appear as though NotGraphs has found in former Red Sox pitcher Oil Can Boyd a “brother from another mother,” as it were.
Consider these choice comments from the aforementioned communiqué de presse:
[Former Boston manager John] McNamara on Boyd not being available to pitch in Game Seven of the World Series because he was drunk:
Well you said it, … that’s the exact reason.
Former Red Sox pitching coach Bill Fischer on Boyd not being available to pitch in Game Seven:
I came to the park and Al Nipper came up to me and said, “You should check on your long man. He was boxed up, under the weather from drinking, so we locked him in a room.
For anyone, like myself, who enjoys jumping to conclusions, then perhaps you’ll agree that the most entertaining one (i.e. conclusion) is of great surprise — surprise not that Oil Can Boyd was, on this singular occasion, too drunk to you-know-what, but that a man whose nickname apparently celebrates his affection for fermented beverages would have ever pitched sober ever.
In conclusion, therefore, vis-à-vis, a thing you can click and, in so doing, embiggen:
by Eric Augenbraun - September 6, 2011
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Without divulging too much about my personal political sympathies, I will admit to being an admirer of Noam Chomsky. In addition to being a man of letters with an impressive oeuvre spanning a wide range of topics, he is a native Philadelphian — something with which I can identify.
This fact recently prompted me to wonder whether Noam Chomsky is a baseball fan and, if so, whether he is a fan of the Phillies, which would be just another reason to add to the already long list of reasons that he is a cool dude. Well, as it turns out, Noam Chomsky’s brain is too big for him to be beholden to any one team. Thanks to the power of Twitter, I was pointed to this transcription of an exchange from his 1993 appearance on the talk show Pozner and Donahue (my efforts to locate video of the show were unsuccessful) in which he discusses the cognitive dissonance that is inherent to being a sports fan:
by Matt Klaassen - September 5, 2011
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Jeff Francoeur‘s crazy eyes have charmed, mesmerized, and terrified the masses for years. In (belated) recognition of Jeff Francoeur’s memorable 1000th hit, here is their NotGraphs debut:
This picture, courtesy of Minda Haas, was taken at the Royals’ off-season Fan Fest. It is perhaps the most chilling photo of Frenchy’s soul-windows yet. What could possibly be going through his mind?
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