Actual Conversations at First Base: Excerpts

Here at Joy in Mudville, we are privy to some fairly classified information coming out of the Big Leagues. One of us is actually an insider at MLB's recently established Transcription Office, which records and transcribes what players say while on the diamond. The following are actual conversations from the past few seasons, recorded at the most chat-fertile intersection on the field: first base. (Thanks to Clinton for his assistance.)

Manny Ramirez: "Dios mio, you look like that tío from The Green Mile."

Ryan Howard: "You think I look like Michael Clarke Duncan?"
Ramirez: "Oh sí, sí. Remember that scene in Daredevil when Ben Affleck told you to stay out of Hell's Kitchen?"
Howard: "I remember seeing it I guess. I'm not Michael Clarke Duncan. I'm Ryan Howard."
Ramirez: "Creo que no. Remember when you voiced Big Daddy in The Land Before Time XI?"
Howard: "Bro, I'm Ryan Howard. You know me, man. Are you on something?"
Ramirez: "No te conozco, hombre. Remember in The Island when they cloned you for your liver?"
Howard: "Strikeout! Thank god this inning is over."

Albert Pujols: "Oops, almost got you there, you silly man. You tried to steal the base. Not this time, my friend."
Hanley Ramirez: "It is true. My plan to move from this base to that base has been foiled. Good grief."
Pujols: "Praise Jesus, I now have more time to spend with a formidable colleague."
Ramirez: "Oh yes, it’s always a pleasure to be with you."
Pujols: ...
Ramirez: "Goodness, Albert, it appears you have a button undone there on your uniform."
Pujols: "Oh dear, where?" [looks down]
Ramirez: "Huzzah!" [steals second]

Derrek Lee: "Did I see you reading a book in the dugout?"
Paul LoDuca: "You did. 'The Wholehearted Way,' by Eihei Dogen."
Lee: "You were reading about Soto Zen before your at bat."
LoDuca: "Yeah, Coach Jackson gives us all a book to read during the season."
Lee: "Coach Jackson?"
LoDuca: "I got Dogen, Kobe got Thich Nhat Hanh. Not sure what Fisher got."
Lee: "Kobe and Fisher? You're describing the Lakers. You play on the Mets."
LoDuca: "If I weren't meditating right now I'd punch you in the goddamn face."

Rick Ankiel: "Hey Prince, you lost weight since the second inning?"
Prince Fielder: "I hope so. I puked six times during the last pitching change."
Ankiel: "Jesus Christ, why?"
Fielder: "Why do you think? My weight is constantly scrutinized and ridiculed. So I'm experimenting with bulimia."
Ankiel: "You can't 'experiment' with bulimia, it's a serious eating disorder."
Fielder: "Don't play semantics with me, pretty boy. I'll do whatever it takes. I've had enough."
Ankiel: "Your nose is bleeding."

Umpire: "Saw you at Angels & Demons last weekend."
Justin Morneau: "That right? What did you think?"
Umpire: "Provided a few cheap thrills, I guess, but the portrayal of antimatter was insultingly un-scientific."
Morneau: "I profoundly disagree. The picture did an admirable job alluding to the CP-violation by invoking how the Large Hadron Collider collides lead nuclei at an energy of 574 TeV per nucleus."
Umpire: "That's irrelevant. CP-symmetry notwithstanding, the film grossly oversimplifies the LHC by focusing on antimatter. It is anticipated that the collider will demonstrate the existence of the elusive Higgs boson, where two quarks each emit a W or Z boson. The relationship to antimatter was purposefully stretched to countenance the plot's clunky artifice."
Morneau: "That's a criticism of the plot, not the scientific merit of utilizing antimatter as a viable yet dangerous fuel source. In collisions between antimatter and matter, the mass of the particles is converted to kinetic energy. The energy per unit mass is four orders of magnitude greater than energy released via nuclear fission!"
Umpire: "You ever seen Joe Mauer naked?"

Kevin Youkilis: "Oh hey, Bennie, how’s your mother?"

Ben Zobrist: "Hi Kevin, thanks for asking. My mother is actually doing really well. She’s goi–"
Youkilis: "Yeah who gives a shit?"
Zobrist: "That’s a great point. I didn’t think of it that way. You’re absolutely rig–"
Youkilis: "Hey, you know what they used to call me before I was the Greek God of Walks?"
Zobrist: "Did they call you Mr. Youkilis? Ha ha, uh."
Youkilis: ...
Zobrist: ...
Youkilis: "They called me the Greek God of Fucking Your Mom."
Zobrist: "That’s great. LOL."
Youkilis: "Did you just say 'LOL'?"
Zobrist: "Yes."

Unshakable Faith

Pujols has been a low profile lightning rod internally here at JnM since long before we started the site.

A certain member of our staff who tends to be more numbers-aware than I has posited, rightly so, that Big Al's numbers are in many ways face-meltingly incredible. I'll let him make his own argument, which will come here at some point this season, but I've been less than impressed with Pujols as a player than he. It's not for lack of remarkable moments; as the city of Houston can probably attest to. It's been hard for me to pin down what exactly it is I don't like about Albert, and my argument was mostly a hodgepodge of suspicion at his hitting prowess and physique, the lack of physical grace in the Maysian sense, and Pujol's own churlish comments at Howard's MVP award a few seasons back.

[Quick aside there: For background's sake, if you're unfamiliar, Pujols carried a pretty average Cardinals team to the WS in 2006, while at the same time finished second in MVP voting to the Phillies' Ryan Howard. The numbers sort of wash out, Pujols with a better average and Howard with better power - RBI and HRs - but Howard put up some gaudy digits towards the end of the season and was seemingly the only player in Philadelphia trying to win a baseball game, so in the end he won the award. The awards are largely subjective, and I don't want to step on the toes of an upcoming post about what the MVP award should mean, but it didn't then and doesn't now seem like that big of a deal. Especially considering that Pujols won the thing in 2005. And the fact that he got a ring should probably abate his pain, but he went ahead and decided to give his ridiculous opinion about the voting, which went:

"I see it this way. Someone who doesn't take their team to the playoffs, doesn't deserve to win the MVP."

(apologies for the easy picture)

Which came across as severely selfish and self-aggrandizing. It has actually gotten worse with age; seeing as how now Howard won his ring last season and Pujols was awarded MVP for a non-playoff eligible Cardinals squad; one would assume Pujols would turn down the trophy for philosophical reasons - unless he was simply being in a bitch. In any case, it didn't serve his reputation well.]

Which bring me to this recent Sports Illustrated cover piece on El Hombre, which I strongly encourage you to read. While not revelatory or even particularly interesting, it has swung me in a small measure to the side of fandom, for probably the opposite reasons that Mr. Posnanski wishs.

It's pat with the standard writery set pieces that in large part we hate about MSM sports coverage: kids with disabilities, straw arguments, very little actual baseball discussion, and so on. But what it reveals about Mr. Pujols is a consistent excellence that has had little conversation to this point (his thick/strong but not lean body style and almost flawless eye, combined with a swing that seems too perfect all land on the Bonds side of supplement-suspicion, as was his lack of fanfare coming up through the system [in the way Ellsbury or Sizemore were lauded], this piece explained how he's been a baseball prodigy since he started playing) and a religious devotion to baseball that has sapped him of all personality.

But maybe that's where his appeal lies. Duncan is, after all, one of my favorite basketball players, whose style exists as a negative (detailed here much more eloquently). While not a perfect parallel, I think Pujols might be the baseball version of Timmy D. It's exemplified best in his position; usually first base is where the lumbering power hitters sit and hope to not be made fools of; Fielder and Vaughn spring to mind, but Pujols has made the non-remarkable and workman position a bastion of his proficiency and is quietly the best fielder on his team. His swing, too, is the most praised part of his game and almost without peer, but it's less memorable and flashy than we expect, somehow. See: Manny.

The sort of non-sport specific things we normally glean from our premiere athletes - the various stylistic changes Jordan inspired, or the backwards hat and easy grace of Griffey; hell, even the simple adornments of Ripken - are lacking from Pujols. Here too, he is in Duncan's good company: wearing an absurdly ugly goatee and that huge necklace, Pujols further manages to mess up his baseball uniform in a way Duncan could never attempt, tucking his pants into his cleats. Pujols, to his credit, makes this endearing; and really it all means is that outside of his stance we can't see any kids trying to emulate his game.

But this isn't a bad thing. Pujols, playing in and to St. Louis, will probably never be the hottest baseball player on the planet.

All evidence points to him being the best.