That thing that you’re doing? Right now in presumed secret? Former Indians manager Manny Acta senses that you’re doing that very thing, and, if truth be told, he would like you to stop it right now … It’s fine. Manny Acta did things like that at your age, too (albeit without such an “artisan’s attention to craft” about the whole thing). But just don’t do that again. At least not when Manny Acta is trying to have an adult conversation. Actually, the more Manny Acta thinks about it, the more he believes that you should be utterly ashamed of yourself. … Continue reading Manny Acta would prefer that you not do that

It was with a measure of confidence that today, in the break room, you attested: “That Rudy Pemberton. He was just a ballplayer.” About this — in addition to your callow belief in a better tomorrow — you were horribly wrong … Sure, the image above shows Rudy Pemberton in professional action, but what of the disembodied spectral presence, the one whose soft, Olan Mills edges suggest a man of a poet’s dimension and discontent? He hovers about your assumptions like a reproving moon. You owe Rudy Pemberton an apology. (This piece originally appeared at FanGraphs. It has since been … Continue reading Rudy Pemberton is complex

Banknotes Harper is about business, except on those occasions when he is not about business, and even at those times he is about business. It follows, then, that Banknotes Harper’s unrelenting business travel schedule requires him to spend every spare moment in the high-level business skies and then arguing forcefully in Tokyo boardrooms, arbitraging on Abu Dhabi trading floors, and — while wearing an Oleg Cassini hardhat — pointing rolled-up architectural documents to indicate various cost-saving-but-against-code structural changes he’d like to see inside a Shanghai factory (“Rip down that load-bearing beam and have one of your boys make me a … Continue reading The Banknotes Harper Portable Conference Table, For Pounding

Matt Kemp — Chevalier Matt Kemp — wears what appears to be a double-windsor knot. He does this because he is a gentleman. He is festooned with a pocket square. On occasion, he uses it to wash his hands of the entire affair. He is not a frequenter of brothels, storefront or high-rise. This is because he need not pay for the hubba-hubba. Chevalier Matt Kemp is paid millions for being good at baseball. But even if he were not good at baseball, he would make the same amount of lucre from various wealthy patrons of the gorgeous and measured. In the … Continue reading Matt Kemp is business handsome

Study closely the countenance of American Baseball Broadcaster Jeff Huson … You’ll note the solemn look of disapproval in tandem with the finest in Evangelical’s Choice Menswear. Long ago, he leveraged carefully curated scripture against the city council. On pain of being voted out by Rev. Huson’s legion congregants, they moved to fill all municipal water tanks with Vitalis, which you see in abundance here. The entirety of it provides Huson with a mise en scène that is known variously as “Pastor Drugs” or “Comptroller of Jonestown.” The glowering reproach that issues forth is strong enough to chagrin Cotton and Increase Mather, … Continue reading Jeff Huson, possible televangelist

One day, Joe Pettini will show them all … Joe Pettini’s far-off gaze — it smoulders at the today about him just as it aches for the tomorrow before him. He is, for miserable now, a Le Tigre wearer lost in a remorseless hierarchy of Those Who Brandish Izods. Whatever mastery the lunchroom table — that steering committee of knaves, where he is not welcome — holds over Joe Pettini, it is as fugitive as the pupa. The ribs of Joe Pettini encase not only a mighty heart, but also a concrete intake facility — painted in mute, industrial gray, … Continue reading One Day, Joe Pettini Will Show Them All

This is Mike Shannon’s pencil: This is the very pencil that Mike Shannon used to bat .288/.339/.462 during the course of the 1966 season. This is the very pencil that Mike Shannon used to captain a gondola — a gondola handsomely crafted from the very same pencil — along every nautical spice route. All the while, Raquel Welch felt safe. She found the turmeric soothing. This is the very pencil that Mike Shannon used, in 1932 in Greenwood, Mississippi, to write the lyrics, “You’re closer to me, baby, than Jesus to the cross.” This is the very pencil that Mike Shannon, … Continue reading This Is Mike Shannon’s Pencil