Guide To Naming Your Homogeneous a Cappella Group

A disproportionate number of emails I receive through this site read something like this:

Dear Jake Rake,

I am starting a homogeneous a Cappella group and have no idea what to call it. Can you help me??

Sincerely,
Confused in Canton

PS: Do you cry a lot? For some reason I picture you as a crier.

To aid these loyal, instrumentally deficient readers, I have compiled a guide to help name a Cappella groups whose populations make up for a lack of diversity with an abundance of spirited puns! In the grand naming traditions of the Treble Makers, Phila’cappella,  Shirley Tempos and the Emporia State University a Cappella Choir, the Rake Blog Guide to Naming Your Homogeneous a Cappella Group:

Arquettes Doing Their Part To Help Poor Kids

And David even dressed up for the occasion!

Andy Hull’s Dog A Total Faggot

Eban Singer passed along this gem, culled from Manchester Orchestra guitarist Andy Hull’s Wikipedia entry:

Also, Yovani Gallardo of the Milwaukee Brewers just pitched 8 scoreless innings against the Pirates, striking out 11, allowing just three baserunners and hitting a home run to score the only run in a 1-0 win. What a beast.

CC Me On That Email About How Awesome CC Sabathia Is [Ugh]

With the boo-birds out in full force over CC Sabathia’s slow start to his first season as a Yankee, baseball fans prove that they can always be counted on to completely miss the point. Rather than go into a tirade about how stupid everybody is, let’s just take a look at CC’s splits from last season, first his performance though April and then for the rest of the season:

As you can clearly see-see (LOLz!) there was nothing wrong with CC Sabathia in 2008, despite his slow start to open the season. Using a couple of games, in this case his first six starts of 2009, as an indicator of performance is almost completely worthless. Baseball players need hundreds, if not thousands of games to reveal the true level of their ability, and sometimes even an entire career isn’t enough. There is little doubt that CC Sabathia will be really fucking good in 2009, and as much as I can’t stand the Yankees, I’m excited to see him shove it in his naysayer’s faces.

Volvos Were Cool

For those of us who came of age during the 1990′s, when the 850 was dominant, it is easy to forget that Volvo used to make cool sports cars.

New York Jets Uncover Previously Unknown Species of SN GRN

Cross-posted from The Nooner

Monday, April 27, 2009; NEW YORK – The New York Jets of the National Football League made an important scientific discovery at last weekend’s NFL Player Selection Meeting, uncovering a previously unknown subspecies of SN GRN. The new creature, known as “Shonn Greene,” is a close relative of the previously discovered Shawn Green and Sean Green, however, reports from the field indicate that Shonn Greene is in fact a distinct entity.

Like its cousins, Shawn Green and Sean Green, Shonn Green has counted the greater New York area among its vast territory, which has in the past extended as far west as Iowa where, coincidentally, Shawn Green has been discovered as well. While Shawn Green no longer populates the New York area, the newly discovered Shonn Green is expected to thrive in the city’s dense urban environment and co-exist with the present population of Sean Green.

“He has the same name as two other professional athletes, but spelled differently,” SNY’s Ted Berg said during an interview following the Saturday discovery of Shonn Green. Added Berg: “It’s a mildly funny coincidence, but there is a whole lot of other stuff going on out there that you could be writing about.”

Shonn Greene

Shawn Green

Sean Green

This is What the Internet is All About

Wait, So If You Don’t Swing At Four Bad Pitches, You Get To Run The Bases?

The race is on, as the number of regular players who have yet to draw a walk in 2009 is down to three:

Yuniesky Betancourt (53 PA)
Bengie Molina (54 PA)
Ichiro Suzuki (33 PA)

Not surprisingly, considering that more than 20% of their starting lineup has yet to draw a walk, the Seattle Mariners are last in the major leagues with a .293 on-base percentage, barely falling below Arizona (.294) and Molina’s swing-happy San Francisco Giants (.299). (Point of interest: the Moneyball-inspiration Oakland A’s are next from the bottom at .307, which is certainly crappy, but the A’s look like the ’27 Yankees next to those other three dud-studded lineups).

Despite the Mariners’ unwillingness to take their bases on balls, unlike their impatient ilk they have been winning ballgames, entering Friday with a 3 ½ game lead on top of the A.L. West and having outscored their opponents by seven runs on the year. This scenario begets those two questions that drive all baseball research: how are they able to do this and can they continue?

Continue Reading…

“Women: Even After You’re Dead…”

When 31-year-old Johnny Quintana dropped dead from an apparent heart attack last week, his girlfriend of 13 years, Gisela Marrero, could think of one thing and one thing only: harvesting the last iota of man juice from Quintana’s cold, lifeless corpse.

A Bronx judge gave Marrero the legal OK to take the next logical step in the grieving process and go on in and do whatever needs to be done to extract sperm from the corpse that used to be Johnny Quintana so that she may impregnate herself with it. Marrero and Quintanta’s brother both claim that having another child was Johnny’s dying wish, however, something tells me they’re missing the point on this one.

Good for Johnny Quintana; I hope that when I die, my girlfriend is there to jerk off my corpse and harvest my sweet, sweet man fluids.

Officers Michaels and Slater couldn’t have put it any better.

Also, in doing the research for this post, it has come to my attention that in addition to being hilarious and super-satisfying, Necrophilia is apparently only considered a felony in eight states: Washington, Oregon, California, Arkansas, Georgia, Florida, Alabama and Wisconsin. Fuck away, cadaver-savvy Delewarriors!

New Baseball-Reference.com Interface Wicked Awesome

Sean Foreman has been oft-praised in this space for his contributions to the game with his exhausive database, Baseball-Reference.com. As Ted Berg puts it, “He’s fucking dominant at making information available to assholes like us.” Using Baseball-Reference’s brand-new interface, some baseball odds & ends:

Stuff That Won’t Last:

• The Pirates (the baseball team from Pittsburgh, not the bloodthirsty maritime criminals so beloved by Smoking Pancakes) having allowed the fewest runs in the major leagues.
• The Toronto Blue Jays and Florida Marlins being tied for the major league lead in wins.
• My willingness to bother with writing “Saltalamacchia” if the Rangers’ catcher doesn’t improve on his .645 OPS.
• Adam Eaton: major leaguer.
• The New York Yankees chances of finishing above fourth place if they continue to be outscored by their opponents, of whom thus far have included the Kansas City Royals as the only team with a winning record (which also won’t last).
• Major league second basemen collectively posting a .352 on-base percentage.
• Jose Lopez (career .302 OBP) leading the league in intentional walks; Even if teams continue to intentionally walk him, he’ll find a way to avoid taking his base (91 BB in 2379 career plate appearances; Jesus).
• Chien-Ming Wang’s legal residence in the United States, once his work visa expires after Hank Steinbrenner fires him for having the worst season of all time.
• My ignorance of the roster and statistics of the 1955 Mexico City Diablos Rojos, as Baseball-Reference has added comprehensive coverage of the Mexican, Dutch, Italian and Japanese Leagues to its archives.

Stuff That May Last:

• Zack Greinke’s 0.00 ERA and 11.5 K/9.
• Adam Jones, Nick Markakis and Brian Roberts all finishing among the league leaders in doubles.
• Albert Pujols and Miguel Cabrera each winning both the standard (AVG./HR/RBI) and rate (AVG/OBP/SLG) Triple Crowns in their respective leagues.
• If you are a first baseman hitting less than .280/.364/.479, you are below average offensively (Todd Helton, Jason Giambi and Derrek Lee, I’m looking your way).

Stuff That Will Probably Last:

• Milton Bradley never, ever playing.
• The Orioles allowing 10% more runs than any other team in baseball.
• The Long Island Ducks serving as a graveyard for ballplayers who have disgraced or otherwised washed themselves out of the majors, with the 2008 roster featuring former MLB players Jay Gibbons, Edgardo Alfonzo, Brent Abernathy, Carl Everett (who posted a 1.021 OPS that season despite still not believing in dinosaurs), Todd Williams, Bobby Madritsch, Nook Logan and Brian Shackelford.

Ball of Fame

“I just want attention.”
—Abraham J. Simpson

For better or for worse, it is currently easier to become famous than at any point in human history. (Save for the days of Adam & Eve, during which it was impossible not to be famous. For either one, literally 100% of Earth’s population was aware of them—a thought which Bono, sitting in a air-conditioned tent in some impoverished African nation—is surely salivating over). For most of history, however, fame has been the exclusive province of those:

a) Very good at something (Isaac Newton, Benjamin Banneker, Hildegard De Bingen)
b) Very bad at something (Montezuma, Sir Walter Raleigh)
c) Very wealthy (Various Di Medicis, Antoinettes, and Hapsburgs)

See where I go with this in Gelf Magazine…

Washington Nationals Becoming The France Of Baseball

Among the myriad quality Washington Nationals missteps chronicled in this excellent Yahoo! Sports article is this fantastic split photo of Josh Willngham and Adam Dunn taken during last Friday’s game against the Marlins:

Thanks to Orioles fan Adam Rosen for uncovering this beautiful nugget of foolhardiness.

“O” the Washington Nationals, it’s just so easy…

Daily News, Please

Great journalism is shares space with loyalty in the one and only New York Daily News, the newspaper that manages to avoid daily disgrace solely by virtue of existing in the same town as Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post.

Title: Pun On “Wang” As Double Entendre, As In “Penis” As Well As Yankees’ Chien-Ming

It’s the second inning of a Yankees game, so you know what’s going on:

Chien-Ming Wang is out of the game and has allowed a zillion runs. The Yanks’ opening day starter, who is owned in 91% of Sportsline fantasy leagues, was pummeled for eight runs in the second inning of today’s (Saturday) game against the Indians, including a three-run home run courtesy of fellow Asian hyphenated tri-name and Rake Blog mancrush, Sin-Soo Choo.

Wang, who is the only “Wang” to have appeared in a Major League baseball game, failed to improve upon his 28.93 entering Saturday’s game, instead ballooning that figure to 34.50. He has yet to see the fifth inning of a game this season, and has now been unable to make it out of the second in consecutive starts. The line, through Saturday:

The best part of this mess, outside of his name being “Wang” (grow up; sike, it’s hilarious and clearly the best part of any discussion about Chien-Ming Wang) is almost definitely Wang’s WHIP, which if you’re unfamiliar, is a pitcher’s walks and hits allowed totals divided by the number of innings pitched, or the number of baserunners allowed per inning. Allowing, on average, nearly five baserunners per inning is almost paradoxically bad. There are only three bases that can be occupied at anyone time, so allowing more than three runners to reach base in every single inning one pitches is a nice step to take if the goal is to reach an ERA of infinity.

A Compendious Guide To Little People & Their Owners