Oakland Athletics’ Pitcher Brett Anderson made a joke last night:

@BrettAnderson49: Gonna take the Brett Lawrie approach to use in everyday life…lookout cashiers/waiters/etc.

clique to embiggen

For a change of pace, I did today’s comic on my Wacom Tablet (which I never use).

The poet Phillis Wheatley believed that suffering in general and forced servitude in particular were large, good things, so long as they led to salvific awakening. Hall of Famer Mr. Bert Blyleven would seem to disagree.

Indeed, Hall of Famer Mr. Bert Blyleven has assayed this stinking life and determined that if suffering is the price of a divinely crafted world steered by something utmost and bearded, then he’ll just have the buffet, thanks …

Something Hall of Famer Mr. Bert Blyleven did not say but provably thought during a recent broadcast:

“If there is a God, then he lacks the power to stop what is happening to the Twins. Thus he is not omnipotent. Or perhaps he isn’t aware of what is happening to the Twins. Thus he is not omniscient. Or perhaps he chooses not to halt what is happening to the Twins — i.e, he is the absent clock-winder held up by the Founders before they became Evangelicals in the 1980s. Thus we are but handmaidens to his most baleful whims. If this — this — is my embarras de choix, then make mine darkness.”

So we shall, Hall of Famer Mr. Bert Blyleven, so we shall …

It is soooo HOT in AZ! How hot is it?? Just saw a woman driving her car with oven mitts on!!! #Hot

— Geoff Blum (@blummer27) May 15, 2012

Regarding the veal, try it. In terms of your waitress, consider tipping her.

A tweet from Brett Lawrie:

So he’s working out with some degree of zeal. He’s doing deep knee bends, leg lifts and trunk twists and then finishing up with a slimming routine, especially after last night’s London Broil, green-bean casserole and gelatin salad. I get it. Right?

Although, a part of me — the part of me that thinks he hears something in the basement even when he’s not at home — believes I’m missing something. From this pathetic remove of years and brown defeats, I wonder whether he’s invoking a rock and or roll Sousa march or perhaps a popular talkie or a dance that forces The Bandstand to aim their cameras above the girdle.

Maybe he really likes to work out, or maybe he’s conjuring up a secret something known only to Young American Thunderclaps and, hence, not to wasted me. I was really hoping he was talking about exercising — good-boy’s push-ups followed by a half-hour on the vibrating belt machine followed by a restorative crap. But I’m sure he’s not.

Brett Lawrie probably talks quite a bit about things I don’t even know exist, being as I am much, much closer to death than Brett Lawrie is.

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.

Wait, Jim Leyland is only 67 years old?

— Matt Klaassen (@devil_fingers) May 8, 2012

America’s response tells us something about something, I tell you what.

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I like writing about baseball because I like thinking about baseball. I like thinking about baseball because it’s such a complicated game. Often, the thoughts I have are critical, but underneath it all I have a great respect for those that play the game. I was a terrible baseball player, and I’m surprised John Flaherty, my coach, could even look me in the eye and keep a straight face when we talked about my development as a fourth outfielder and sixth infielder for the JV squad. These guys can do things with balls I can’t even imagine.

But I can think a little bit. So don’t ask me not to think.

#Rays Maddon on “minimalist” road trip to Texas: 1 pair jeans, 3 shirts, some socks, “those who wear underwear bring underwear”

— Marc Topkin (@TBTimes_Rays) April 25, 2012

Neither. Because, let’s face it, you always wondered.

We know too much, my friends. We know too much.

H/T: @AnswerDave.

Answer: Matt Holliday.

Credit: Fox Sports Midwest via Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

This idea was gifted to me by none other than Mr. Bradley Woodrum. There are a lot of ways it could have gone. This is the way it went. Disclaimer: pink packing peanuts are really very bad for the environment, guys. And as ever, click to embiggen — if that’s something you’re into.

P.S. So I’m not the first person to notice this, huh?

It’s a fact of science — and by “fact of science” I mean “I heard on the news or something once” — that the human brain is, more or less, programmed to search out narratives. The instinct is so strong that, in those cases where it (i.e. the brain) encounters seemingly disparate facts and events, it (i.e. the brain) will compel a human being to name Yuniesky Betancourt as the starting second baseman of his baseball team.

In maybe — although not definitely — related news, Newsday reporter Jim Baumbach’s Twitter coverage of this morning’s jury selection for Roger Clemens’ impending perjury trial is more amusing than all of your spouse’s work stories.

Some recent selections from Baumbach’s timeline:

Jury selection in the Roger Clemens perjury trial, take two, begins Monday morning. I’ll be live tweeting from inside the courthouse…

— Jim Baumbach (@jimbaumbach) April 10, 2012

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