Category Archives: Warm Thoughts for a Cold Winter

Warm Thoughts for a Cold Winter

Warm Thoughts for a Cold Winter: Charlie Brown’s Stats

For other Warm Thoughts for a Cold Winter, click here.

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Earlier this week, the Nerd/Baseball Venn intersection was all a-buzz with an amazing project done over at Wezen-Ball.com. Larry Granillo had gone through all the Peanuts comic strips from 1950 through 1970 and, based on the documentary evidence, calculated a whole slew of stats for Charlie Brown’s legendarily awful team.

By this point, I am the twelve billionth person to blog about this, but I’m posting about it anyway, on the slim chance that some of you may not have heard of it yet. And also, its awesomeness warrants as much exposure as possible. Charlie Brown and baseball are my two earliest obsessions, so this insane project is right in my wheelhouse. It also includes tons of scans of and quotes from classic Peanuts strips.

Now if someone would track down all the stats for Joe Shlabotnik, including his managerial stint with the Waffletown Syrups, I’d be a truly happy man.

Warm Thoughts for a Cold Winter

The Buck Stops Just Before Omar

beltran.jpgHey Omar, can we talk?
minaya.jpgSure thing, Carlos. How’s that knee?
beltran.jpgThat’s what I want to talk to you about. I spoke to you about this surgery earlier this week, and I thought everything was cool.
minaya.jpgYeah, definitely, sounds like something I’d say.
beltran.jpgBut today, your assistant GM made it sound as if I went behind your back to do this. What the fuck?! If you had some problem with how this went down, why didn’t we just handle it internally? Why did you go after me in public, by proxy, and make me and everyone else on this team look bad?

minaya.jpgI didn’t go after you, Carlos, my assistant GM did. But it’s clear that somebody pulled a real choke job here on the whole communication thing, and we’ll take care of that ASAP. Right after we work out that 7-year extension for Bengie Molina.

beltran.jpgYou’re responsible for this whole mess! Why are you talking like it’s somebody else’s fault?!

minaya.jpgCarlos, you’ve never been in charge of a multimillion-dollar operation…
beltran.jpgI am a multimillion-dollar operation…
minaya.jpg…so you don’t understand how this works. I am not responsible for the Mets. I am in charge of the Mets. Being in charge is not the same thing as being responsible.
beltran.jpgYou’re right, I don’t understand.
minaya.jpgYou see, people who are responsible are held responsible for their actions. If I were responsible for things, I would’ve been fired a long time ago. Remember that time we assed away a postseason berth in the last month of the season?
beltran.jpgYeah, that happened two years in a row.
minaya.jpgReally? I have no memory of it happening two times. Then again, there was that one season where I took a lot of naps. You see, Carlos, only schmucks are responsible for things. Men are in charge. Men lead. They lead by standing there, immobile, staring straight ahead while their ship runs aground.
beltran.jpgHow do you get to be in charge?
minaya.jpgYou thrust yourself ahead blindly, like a bull in a china shop, barreling all your competitors out of your path. Other guys in charge will admire your spunk and grit and determination, and they won’t care that you have no idea what you’re doing, because they don’t know what they’re doing either, and they’re afraid to have anyone too smart or principled around them to make them look bad in comparison.
beltran.jpgWell, unlike you, my job is based on performance. In the big leagues, you can’t fail upwards and hope to be rewarded.
minaya.jpgYou can’t? I assume you’ve met Oliver Perez.
ollie.jpgDID SUMBODEE TAKE MY FUNYUNS BECUZ I CAN’T FIND THEMM

Tuneage, Warm Thoughts for a Cold Winter

Warm Thoughts for a Cold Winter: El Gran Combo

Pitchers and catchers are a mere five weeks away, and it can’t come soon enough for me (even after last night’s hideous Carlos Beltran news). I am done with winter this year, at a record pace, and I’m normally a cold-weather guy. Or at least more of a cold-weather guy than a hot-weather guy. The sun is not my friend.

grancombo.JPGSo from now until players report, I will have a daily bit of baseball-iana to get you through the rest of the winter. The inaugural submission comes to me courtesy of WFMU’s Beware of the Blog, via Give the Drummer Some. Yesterday, he put up his weekly post of mp3s, and it included a beisbol-centric jam by Puerto Rican musical legends El Gran Combo.

They’ve been around for almost 50 years and are probably the most famous salsa group in the world. This tune, entitled “El Caballero Pelotero”, is about exactly what its title states: a horse who plays baseball.

My Spanish isn’t good enough to translate all the lyrics to this song. Or even most of them. In fact, all I can really catch are the lines “jugaba a beisbol” and “los Yanquis”. But apparently, this horse was quite the hitter.

Still, it puts me in the baseballing mood, and I hope it does the same for you. In addition to the original audio below, you can also see/hear El Gran Combo playing the song with another salsa legend, Hector Lavoe, on YouTube (which I would have included here, except the sound is sub-bootleg quality).

Download here.