“Prepare your body for the Asunder Dome.”
– Secret Umpire’s Guild in a letter addressed to Lawrie

Several days ago, NotGraphs informer syh sent us the preceding imagine. At the time, we found it curious but decided to sit on the unusual footage until we could better understand the matter. On Sunday night, we received the following letter, leaked to the NotGraphs Bilibino headquarters in the Bilibinsky District of Chukotka Autonomous Okrug, Russia:
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The following comes to us from NotGraphs reader Brian Reinhart — a gentleman’s gentleman, and a nerd’s nerd. By now, I trust you’re all familiar with FanGraphs: The Game. If you’re not, I’ll wait. Brian will, too; he’s polite like that. Anyway, Mr. Reinhart is reporting — and our Investigative Reporting Investigation Team has confirmed this — that a “grittily rebooted edition” of The Game is about to be released. And, well, he had us at “grittily.” Inspiring work, Mr. Reinhart. Thank you.

We are pleased to announce that, following the success of FanGraphs: The Game, beta testing has completed on a grittily rebooted edition, and FanGraphs: The Game: Washington Nationals DL Edition is ready for the fantasy-sporting, slightly-too-macabre public. The rules, as ever, are simple:

1. Every week, participants choose one member of the Washington Nationals whom they believe will make a trip to the disabled list, and specify the injury type.
2. Participants earn 10 points for every accurate prediction, as well as 5 points for specifying the correct injury type but the incorrect player, and 3 points for identifying an injured player but forecasting the wrong affliction.
3. It is possible to earn 5 points for accurately predicting a setback to a previously-DLed player.

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Most of the things I did today are shameful, and concern for the reader’s modesty forbids me from recounting them (i.e. those things I did) in these pages. Among the less shameful activities in which I engaged, however, was to visit the very excellent Grey Matter Books in Hadley, MA, and buy the book you see pictured here, lying on a friend’s rug.

A Baseball Winter: The Off-Season Life of the Summer Game is an account of the 1984-85 offseason of five clubs: the New York Mets, the California Angels, the Atlanta Braves, the Philadelphia Phillies, and the Cleveland Indians. As editor-authors Terry Pluto and Jeffrey Neuman note in the Acknowledgments, “its focus [is] on the backstage aspects of the game: contract negotiations, trade talks, in short, the games as it is played off the field.”

Having read the first 10 or so pages, I can speak to one of the book’s virtues — namely, that it’s written in diary form, with three- or four-page entries for each (or most) of the days of the offseason. The style lends itself to a sort of urgency, a sense of witnessing the events as they unfold, that’s very pleasant.

Usually when we’re hit up via our Team NotGraphs Hot Hotline, we’re sent a link, or a video, or a whited-out picture of Joe West, along with the words, “If you have some time, have some fun!” (We did. We definitely did.) You get the idea: we’re sent something that deserves our attention. We then give it what you now know as “The NotGraphs Treatment.”

Today’s a bit different: Avid NotGraphs readers Dave Yeager and Dan Ford have gone the extra mile, and below is their NotGraphs moment in the sun. Thank you, Dave and Dan. Thank you so much. The floor is yours …

Pictured above: Wilmington Blue Rocks mascots Mr. Celery (sans torso/head) and Rocky Bluewinkle (with giant toothbrush).

Is this what life is? The waiting between moments?

Does Rocky stand there with his oversized toothbrush, facing into the light, preparing to take a tentative first step into the unknown, bearing only tools ill designed for the tasks ahead? What can one moose do against the slings and arrows of the world at large? Better to be prepared in some way, I suppose, than not at all – for if nothing else, perhaps the toothbrush gives him comfort that no matter what, he faced what lay ahead the only way he knew how.

Or perhaps it is not that Rocky stands unprepared. Nay, perhaps he stands as a vigilant sentinel against what approaches, while Mr. Celery looks on. What is Mr. Celery doing in this scenario? Resting? Perhaps when Rocky can bear no more, the duty to maintain this vigil will fall to him.

Or perhaps it is that Mr. Celery has already surrendered, as he sits passively. Not Rocky though. He will face fate head on, toothbrush in hand.

Whatever it is, it belongs in a museum.

Photo courtesy Delaware Online’s July 2010 must-read article: Mr. Celery, unmasked!

The FanGraphs-reading baseball nerd doesn’t just beat you, the two-time defending champion, in fantasy baseball. No, he beats you, and more; he goes that extra mile. Today, at NotGraphs, we celebrate the commitment, and considerable street and lyrical talents, of one Mike Cook.

Mr. Cook, thank you. It’s no coincidence your initials are, of course, M.C. The floor is yours …

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On Thursday night, July 14, America’s elected officials took a much deserved break from trying to figure out what to do with all that debt, and took part in the most American of activities: baseball.

The 50th annual Roll Call Congressional Baseball Game was played at Nationals Stadium last week, and, thanks to a pair of well-educated NotGraphs readers, what you’ll find below is a brilliant review of the Democrats’ 8-2 victory, their third in a row since 2009, after they, the rest of the country, and, well, the world, took it on the chin from the Republicans for eight straight — and long — years.

Huge political props go out to Dara and Noah for their review. Thank you kindly, and long live the American spirit.

Even the participants in the annual Congressional Baseball Game are aware that it’s a slightly pathetic event. The only Baseball Hall of Famer who’s ever appeared in the game, former senator Jim Bunning, is not a member of the Congressional Baseball Hall of Fame, and the game program prominently features a quote from former Congressman Marty Russo calling it “the one thing that’s left where members (of Congress) get to have fun together.” Nonetheless, the 2011 game, played last Thursday at Nationals Park, managed a crowd of a few thousand Congressional staffers, interns, and hometown fans nostalgic for the lovable bumbling of the past few Nationals seasons. But fans on the left-field (aisle?) side were in for a pleasant surprise. The Democrats turned in an impressingly not-incompetent performance, winning 8-2 on the strength of a legitimate gem from pitcher Cedric Richmond.

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Via Pony Express comes to me George Vecsey’s Stan Musial: An American Life. As a Cardinals fan, I am, of course, in a perpetual state of adoration of all things Stan. After all, he was one of the greatest players in the history of ever, and, according to everyone in the world not named Murray Chass, he’s also a gem of a human being.

At present, I’m shin deep in Nixonland, which is quite good but decidedly tome-ish. So it’ll be a while before I get around to Stan. When I do, though, I’ll be sure to share my thoughts, which are as muscle-bound as they are lucid and handsome.

If the above image is slightly blurry, it’s because light is at a premium in my Upper Midwestern home at the moment: what my weatherman is calling “freezing rain” but what I’d describe more accurately as “liquid sadness” is falling all over the place as as I type these electronic words.

The good news is, thanks to the misguided kindness of Maple Street Press owner James Walsh, I now own all these frigging book things. In somewhat related news, it appears as though Walsh will appear next week on FanGraphs Audio. Join us for this landmark event.

One early and superficial observation about these assorted annuals: there’s a chance the Cardinal one will make people cry.

Regard:

Actually, I did not receive a tome called Diamond Dishes, but since this is The Day of the Ridiculous Person of April, I feel sanctioned in telling a humorous fib. Here’s the book:

So, “author” Julie Loria,” send me one of these, and I’ll stop talking (temporarily) about how your husband murdered Les Expos, about how his lust for the public teat knows no bounds, and about how he looks like a tanned and rested Uncle Fester. Fail to send me a copy of this cookbook, and I will continue doing these things without ceasing.

Also: Look at Joe Mauer baking and stuff!

I look forward to trying Prince Fielder’s lard wraps and Matt Stairs’s recipe for gorilla-meat tartare.

(Subtle head nod: With Leather)

Allow this post to remind all manner of book-writers: NotGraphs is in the business of receiving your books for free, reading them, and then writing thinly veiled advertisements on their behelf.

Courtesy of Amazin’ Avenue‘s Eric Simon, the NotGraphs Literary Bureau has recently come into possession of the forthcoming 2011 Amazin’ Avenue Annual.

A review will almost certainly follow next week. In the meantime, here’s a the table of contents:

Foreword
by Ken Davidoff

Introduction
by Eric Simon

Part 1: Looking Back On 2010
Chapter One: Ten For ’10
by Eric Simon

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