Well, that settles it: I’m done with cocaine.

H/T: Things I Never Threw Away.

In my first ever post for NotGraphs, I wrote about feeling sorry for C.C. Sabathia after a bad start, even though I know that he makes millions of dollar bills. I wrote “You ever watch a kid try to do something and not be able to work it out? They just watched some other kid do the same thing, but they just can’t get their chubby, tiny hands around the pieces to do the thing themselves? Or when an older woman starts digging for change in a tiny coin purse and she just can’t pull the pennies out because her hands are shaky? That look. Helplessly watching someone struggle with something they know they should be able to do is in my all time bottom five of feelings, right next to when I make a special trip to 7-11 and the coke side of the slurpee machine is broken.”

Which is exactly how I feel watching Pujols this year. I’m not going to join in the discussion of whether he’ll turn it around, because I’m not an expert on swing mechanics or regression and aging. He’s on my home league fantasy team — I used my first draft pick on him two years ago and people made fun of me the following year when I used my one “franchise pick” on Matt Wieters instead, but obviously that doesn’t look so dumb now. Which isn’t to say that I anticipated this, not by any stretch. I put him on my bench the other day and played Todd effing Helton instead. It felt so wrong that it made me kind of nauseous.

Selfish complaints aside, I just feel sorry for the guy. Maybe other people (Angels fans? St. Louis fans?) look at Albert and see a guy who’s raking in millions and not doing shit for it. I see the same thing, except I just know it just kills him. This guy cares so much that it physically hurts me to watch him fail. He’s so stoic about everything and there’s barely ever any outward sign of his frustration — which just makes it all the more poignant to me. Now the Angels have fired his hitting coach, which will either “work” as a placebo to start to improve his season, OR make him feel even more guilty because a guy lost his job over something that we all know deep down probably wasn’t really his fault.

Dear Albert,

It gets better?

Hopefully,
Summer Anne.

From the Worldwide Leader:

I never watched Pete Rose play baseball. He was before my time. What I know about Rose comes mostly from books, most notably Joe Posnanski’s “The Machine.” Look, I don’t know much — I chose to become a journalist, after all. But I know this: Pete Rose belongs in Cooperstown.

The ESPN short makes me sad. Especially Rose’s quotes.

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Baseball fans of all stripes were disappointed to hear Thursday of an injury to Mariano Rivera that will keep the closer out for the remainder of what was supposed to be the last season of his storied career.

In Rivera’s honor, NotGraphs presents…

Three Epigrams Concerning Mariano Rivera

Epigram No. 1

Legend has it that Mariano Rivera once performed an area bris using only his cut fastball.

Pardon me, did I say “legend”? I meant “the Daily News.”

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A confession: I’m a user. Been using for years. Since high school, actually, the summer after grade nine, in 1997. I even let my friends use it.

I bought the “Perfect Curve” from a Lids store in Manhattan, for something like five, or maybe 10, American dollars, back when American dollars were actually worth something. Truthfully, I don’t remember how much it cost. It didn’t matter then, and it doesn’t matter now. After using it once, leaving my hat it in it overnight, I was hooked. On the Amtrak back home to Toronto with my brother, my gloriously curved cap on my head, I overheard a kid a few seats up from me, looking back in my direction, tell his – presumably – brother, “Wow, look at that guy’s hat. The curve is perfect.” The irony wasn’t lost on me.

Today, almost 15 years later, we live in a different world. Kids no longer curve their caps. They leave the stickers on, too, something I’ll never understand. Even more disturbing: The “Perfect Curve” is no longer available at Lids, as far as I can tell. Hell, it isn’t even available at perfectcurve.com. When did we lose our way?

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This video, by Toronto celebrity Kathy Anderson, speaks to me, man. You haven’t lived until you’ve walked drunk up the many, many ramps to the Rogers Centre’s Skydome’s 500 level.

I’m ready, too. So ready. All I want is some meaningful baseball. I’m not asking for much.

(If you’re going to comment about the shot of the wave at the end of the clip, don’t do it. I get it: everyone hates the bloody wave.)

MLB.com’s Doug Miller has written a profile of FanGraphs managing editor Dave Cameron and his contretemps with stupid leukemia.

Along with what is a decidedly touching portrait of a person (i.e. Cameron) who is respected by readers and colleagues, Miller’s article reveals some other facts that will shock and/or amaze.

To wit:

• Cameron, who is obviously funny-looking, is somehow less funny-looking now that at any other time in his life. Photo evidence confirms this.

• When a 14-year-old Cameron asked Derek Zumsteg (his future USS Mariner co-editor) to remove David Pease from the alt.sports.baseball.sea-mariners newsgroup because he (i.e. Pease) was a “moron,” Zumsteg replied thusly: “[I]f we had a ‘No Morons Allowed’ rule, I’m afraid that would mean you couldn’t post either.”

• While thorough, Miller’s pieces is incomplete for its total omission of this image (courtesy Dayn Perry):

WARNING: This post is earnest and unfunny. Proceed with caution.

Last night the Astros unveiled the first of their series of throwback uniforms celebrating the franchise’s 50th anniversary. After a minor kerfuffle over the use of a firearm in the logo, they look the field with guns blazin’. I don’t care much for weaponry myself (bad Texan, I know), but the sight of my favorite team in these beautiful retro uniforms was enough to put me on the edge of the kind of happy tears I normally reserve for sloths and compliments on my hair.

photo via @MLB

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We — those watching at home last night on television — didn’t see this clown while he was running around the field. We only heard about him, and his antics. But, as the Getty Image above shows us, he was no ordinary streaker. He was a streaker with a message: YOLO; You Only Live Once.

Now, I’ll be honest, I’ve never understood streaking. I don’t see the joy in removing one’s clothes, running around a baseball field, and then being tackled, and perhaps tazered, by the police. But, hey, that’s me; there are some things I’ll never understand. But he — the streaker — is right about one thing: we certainly do only live once. And if streaking almost naked across the Rogers Centre field with YOLO written on his chest was on that young man’s bucket list, it no longer is today, and I can respect that.

I’ve learned a valuable lesson from last night’s streaker: life is short. Too short. Who knows if we’ll be here tomorrow. Tackle your bucket list, friends. Because it won’t tackle itself. I’m going to buy that iPad after all. Probably today. Thank you, anonymous streaker. Your arrest wasn’t in vain.

In his Discourses, noted Roman Stoic Epictetus proclaims that, to live a life free from anxiety, that each of us must become like a “spiritual athlete.” To that end, NotGraphs presents this exercise, with a view towards helping to tighten and tone the spirits of the readership.

The price of spiritual infirmity: death by bears.

Notes: Toronto right-hander Henderson Alvarez and Oakland left-hander Tom Milone make their respective season debuts tonight — the former at 7:07pm ET; the latter, at 10:05pm ET. While throwing from different sides and at considerably different velocities (Alvarez’s fastball sat at around 93-94 mph last season; Milone’s, at 88 mph), the pair posted almost identical strikeout and walk rates during their major-league debuts: 15.4% and 3.1% for Alvarez, 13.6% and 3.6% for Milone. Furthermore, Steamer projects the pair for almost identical FIPs this season: 4.12 for Alvarez, 4.00 for Milone.

Exercise: Consider how Alvarez and Milone use different means to arrive at a similar end (i.e. being a mostly effective pitcher at the major-league level) — Alvarez with plus velocity and very good command of a fastball and changeup, Milone with below-average velocity and plus-plus command of up to six pitches. Now consider what would happen if Alvarez attempted to imitate Milone; or Milone, Alvarez. Each would likely fail.

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