Short Relief

Short Relief: Into the Fray

by Jason Wojciechowski, Holly M Wendt, and Bret Sayre 6/04

Intentional violence does not inhere in baseball, though you could be fooled by, you know, watching a major-league game and seeing the not-insignificant amount of actual and threatened violence regularly on view. I apologize for the hot take because those are not this forum’s métier, but life would be better if fact matched theory in...

Short Relief: Ode to Our Families

by Sara Novic, Matt Sussman, and Patrick Dubuque 6/01

Every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way—ours is a family of Mets fans. My dad and his younger brother have always loved baseball, but my grandma was by far the biggest diehard in the family. This is our first season, and the Mets’, without her. My grandma liked to tell the story of...

Short Relief: All Part of the Plan

by RJ McDaniel, Beth Davies-Stofka, and Zack Moser 5/31

I am trying to go to more than one major league baseball game this summer. It’s the first time in my life that I’ve had the financial means and the time available to do so, and I have to go now, because who knows what might happen in the future? Things have changed so much...

Short Relief: The Shallow Fly Effect

by Matt Ellis and Nathan Bishop 5/30

Chaos is not anarchy. In the latter, one might imagine the chaotic bellowing from the throat of a toddler, drowning in small plastic toys and dirt stains left on the kitchen linoleum. Or perhaps the twisted metal resting peacefully on the side of a highway onramp, attesting in its relative state of calm to that...

Short Relief: Arts and Crafts

by Kate Preusser and Mary Craig 5/29

Nothing marks time quite so clearly as being in elementary school. A flotilla of cereal-box ships for Columbus Day, Tootsie Roll pop ghosts for Halloween, turkey hands for Thanksgiving. Pieces of copy paper folded and snipped into snowflakes, then taped to windows to shiver over heating vents, to mark the long winter months, and wads...

Long Relief: The Greatest Baseball Scenes in Non-Baseball Movies

by BP Staff 5/28

Welcome to the second annual Short Relief Memorial Day extravaganza. Last year, we took the holiday as an opportunity to discuss our favorite baseball commercials. This year, our focus moves to the big screen: mostly films, with the occasional television show thrown in. There’s no shortage of material, both published and slurred drunkenly on a...

Short Relief: The Ball Isn’t Even a Ball

by Matt Sussman and Sara Novic 5/25

After a 10-year study, countless hours of research and several per diem meals reimbursed, scientists and analysts in professional baseball in conjunction with the Tabletop Gaming Association of America have reached the following conclusion about the changing shape of the baseball over the past few decades. The baseball as we know it, gradually changed from...

Short Relief: Updated Policies and Procedures

by Beth Davies-Stofka, Justin Klugh, and RJ McDaniel 5/24

(Must be Posted in a Conspicuous Place In Every Eligible Place of Employment) In American higher education, only one-third of professors are tenure track, down from two-thirds forty years ago. The majority of courses are now taught by adjunct faculty with little job security and low compensation. Major League Baseball (MLB) has determined that this...

Short Relief: Unreliable Narrators

by Nathan Bishop and Matt Ellis 5/23

“I love you,” Hernandez said. “I love you, Robbie, and you know I’m with you. You know I’m with you, bro.” Felix Hernandez believes in Robinson Cano. What, exactly, does he believe? “I’ve been talking to him a lot. He seems fine because he don’t make any mistakes. He’s a smart person. I don’t think...

Short Relief: To The Quickly Departed

by Kate Preusser, Patrick Dubuque, and Mary Craig 5/22

(with apologies to Natasha Trethewey’s “Myth”) The starter is the closer is the opener again, baseball writ by Rilke’s refrain: we must change our lives or suffer being left behind. Adapt or die. Some dislike the new, what’s bad for baseball, bullpen starts. Or: the JUCO prospect who almost didn’t play. Realize the scrap of...

Short Relief: In Darkness

by Holly M Wendt and Patrick Dubuque 5/21

By Wednesday, the arugula had drowned. One of the pepper plants sank in its pot, and the basil, larger, more robust, was covered in slugs—the small invertebrate crew of some verdant, sinking Pequod, clinging to their own green mast. The plants themselves had conditions of their own: every leaf riddled with holes, symptoms, surely, of...

Short Relief: Satisfaction Guaranteed

by Mary Craig and Matt Sussman 5/18

In many ways, the history of Major League Baseball acts as both love letter to and commentary on American society, imbibing both its best and worst elements and reflecting them back to the public. The precise degree to which Major League Baseball encompasses the American psyche is likely something that cannot be arrived at quantitatively,...

Short Relief: Knowing Nothing, and the Case For and Against

by Beth Davies-Stofka, RJ McDaniel, and Matt Ellis 5/17

In the final hours before his death, to the surprise and dismay of his closest friends, Socrates refused to flee into exile and instead imparted his beliefs concerning the importance of technology in baseball. His ideas on the subject were immortalized in one of Plato’s best-known dialogues, Phaedo (from which we get the dog’s name...

Short Relief: These Teeth Were Made for Biting

by Justin Klugh and Nathan Bishop 5/16

With another season in front of us it’s time to discuss baseball’s most penetrating current problem, which is of course the feral, mouth-breathing cats invading the diamond. Oh sure, it’s a moment that’s always good for a larf between broadcasters as we admire in slow motion the physics of the feline form. But under that...

Short Relief: Fans Can Get So Close

by Kate Preusser and Patrick Dubuque 5/15

For the first couple of weeks, he tries to learn everyone’s names, from the trio of outfielders who all look alike, young and tanned and hungry, to the seemingly unending stream of guys coming out of the bullpen, a clown car unloading. So many he sorts them into two groups: Beard and No Beard, and...

Short Relief: Meanwhile, in the Minor Leagues

by James Fegan, Jason Wojciechowski, and Holly M Wendt 5/14

Sure, Shed Long pic.twitter.com/O6r1Plwrox — James Fegan (@JRFegan) May 8, 2018 What other uses does Pensacola Blue Wahoos second baseman Shed Long’s weird plastic thing–which he places on his bat for wind resistance on practice swings–possibly have? (Note: It has his name on it. His name is Shed Long.) –A nametag, obviously. It’s unwieldy and...