Bronson Arroyo, “aspiring musician” and erstwhile starting pitcher, knows that he is getting older (he’s 35, now). He says he’s worried about his “23-, 24-, 23-year-old” competition. He says he’s worried that he might not look good as an old man. With these concerns in mind, Mr. Arroyo has forayed into new territory this spring: the kitchen!

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No chef’s hat!

Let it be known (mostly to the ladies) that Bronson Arroyo, “seasoned” “veteran”, still got it:

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The damning evidence.

One of my favorite games to play is the Blame Game, which is why I’d like to begin this post by blaming the parties most directly responsible for my heinous actions on the afternoon of February 9th, 2012 — which actions involved mainly the prolonged research, and subsequent purchase, of 24 baseball cards, coming to a total of approximately $50.

I blame the internet’s Common Man for forcing me to attend TwinsFest the weekend before last, an event (i.e. TwinsFest) that forced me to become curious about The State of the Hobby. I blame the editors of BaseballCardPedia (and recent podcast guests) Chrises Harris and Thomas for patiently answering all my questions about The State of the Hobby. I blame my wife for leaving me at home, unattended, for hours at a time, as if I knew how to take care of myself. I blame the neurotransmitter dopamine — and the reward system of my brain, generally — for somehow allowing the research, and subsequent purchase, of baseball cards to provide me with great pleasure. And finally, I blame Big Oil — which, even though they didn’t do anything specifically, they’re probably somehow involved.

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It gets hot in these rhinos.

When one reads the play-by-play transcript of World Series Game 5, one is reminded of some of the finer works of Eugène Ionesco.

This is not an excerpt:

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Jobs, not to be confused with: Job, the Book of.

Presently, 1 out of every 10 Americans is looking for full-time employment; and, presumably, 5 out of every 10 NotGrapher is looking for full-time employment to prove to mom that, yes, I can indeed pay you the damn rent some way other than selling my Pokemon card collection one precious Charizard at a time.

Well, recent reports indicate one can actually make money from the sport of baseball without twirling balls or swinging sticks. To test this theory, we suggest any and all seeking-full-time-employment NotGraphers to consider the following job openings across the MLB:

Baltimore Orioles — Corporate Sales and Sponsorship Intern
Live in the Baltimore area? Tired of getting pushed around by Omar Little? Well, the Orioles have an internship that may just offer you a chance to rise up out of the gritty, realistic mire that is Baltimore Life.

From what we can glean from the internship description, the prospective intern will need to be a present student of not-unintelligent quality (3.0 GPA or higher) and available for full-time hours from February through May. Prior experience with a double-action Police-issued revolver not required.
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Today I have something in common with the idle rich. I am manifestly not rich, but I am now quite, quite idle. That’s because yesterday, after nine years of service — service that gave off every appearance of being loyal — FOXSports.com let me go. It was a budgetary decision, which allows me to fall on the less displeasing end of the somewhat blurry laid off/fired continuum. So that’s something. Right?

Anyhow, I’m not going to sit here and meow on and on about my grim circumstances. Plenty of people are much worse off, and I have cabinets full of canned goods, SSRIs and mind-altering spirits. I’ll be fine. Rather, I’d like to reflect upon some positives that have arisen from my new, blighted condition. To be sure, I have some regrets right now — no longer working with some terrific editors over at FOX is chief among them — but some things sustain me …

Above all, I carry with me no hard feelings, and I still, in my own estimation, number among the lucky bastards of this world. And as with all things in life, an Internet meme provides guiding wisdom …

Thank you for listening.

So I picked a fight with the Internet, and the Internet is beating me as though it entered a cheat code. The blow-by-blow …

Yesterday, I threatened to Ruin Everything^TM by posting the same thing as Eno Sarris, a mere hour later. Content redundancies are frowned upon, particularly by Dear Leader, so after I spent a sleepless, unmentionable night in the NotGraphs Dungeon of Citizen Reprimand, one would think the scales would have fallen from mine eyes. One would think …

Yet, lo, I awoke, fired a Tweet through the Internet, and watched disaster unfurl before me like Dave Cameron’s rolled-up knapsack of Medieval torture devices …

I thought Jose Reyes’s projected stat line was pretty cool, but it did not rise to the fleetingly rare level of “cool enough to repeat this four or five times in succession.” I don’t repeat things like that. I repeat drink orders just to be sure. And I repeat, usually in moments that don’t seem to occasion it, my refusal to quarter soldiers in my home during wartime because the third amendment means that much to me. But I don’t repeat Jose Reyes’s projected stat line. At least, not unless the Internet makes me.

So what does one say at this point? This? “I’m sorry, Internet. Please leave me alone.” Also: Et tu, Firefox.

That’s a picture of Teddy Roosevelt putting some lead in Bigfoot.

And right now it’s the only thing that helps.

Why my long face? As you have no doubt heard, my team’s ace, the lovely and talented Adam Wainwright, is probably out for the season and facing Tommy John surgery. Needless to say, this likely dry-gulches our chances in the balanced (if unspectacular) NL Central. Given the subsequent pitching shortage and the lateness of this hour, I fully expect that an NRI will soon be extended to Charlie Brown or Scott Stapp or, worse, Jaime Navarro.

And here I am, left with nothing but beery regrets.

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Kommissar Cistulli has already regaled you with the back-story of Billy Ripken’s “Fu*k Face” card, which is beautiful in its awfulness and awful in its beauty. And now we learn that Fu*k Face has a legacy that’s as enduring as any other cherished artifact of Western civilization — like the Magna Carta or Vicky Lawrence. Let Billy’s lesser known older brother Calvin tell the story …

Peter Sagal, host of the show, asked Ripken if he ever gets tired of living up to his good-boy image.

“Does that ever get to be a drag?” Sagal asked. “Do you ever, like, want to go out and behave really badly, but you can’t because you’re Cal Ripken Jr.?”

“The answer to that is yes,” Ripken said. “I’d like to be able to behave really badly and not have it matter. … I’m OK with being out in public, except when you get in a fight with your wife or you get in a fight with your kids or your daughter calls you a name and storms off and you feel pretty helpless to do anything.”

Faith Salie, a panelist on the show, piped up: “Did she call you the name that was on the bottom of your brother’s bat?”

“Sorry,” Ripken said. “My daughter’s name is Rachel. Sorry, Rachel, but yes, she did.”

Because it will make me sound like the Man of Letters that I am not, I’ll leave you with a quote from something called “Mark Twain”: “Under certain circumstances, urgent circumstances, desperate circumstances, profanity provides a relief denied even to prayer.”

What should the elder Mr. Ripken take from this? Consolation, that’s what. The next time your daughter calls you “fu*k face,” it should be viewed as something more uplifting and adorable than whispered prayers at bedtime.

Remember, children of the world: Curse without ceasing.

(Curtsy: Da’ HBT)

A recently re-broadcast episode of This American Life begins with host Ira Glass in conversation with author Neil Chesanow. Chesanow is respsonsible for Please Read This for Me, a self-help book that, as the show’s website explains, “doesn’t just give you general advice. It gives you actual scripts to use in various difficult situations: Pre-written speeches to deliver if you’ve fallen out of love with your boyfriend, say, or if you’ve decided you want to have a baby.”

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