Quantifying clubhouse chemistry

DJ Gallo from the Internet passes along some interesting bits from ESPN The Magazine’s baseball preview:

“Well-aligned subgroups.”

I ...

This brings up something that’s been bugging me for years. Whenever there’s a Japanese free agent, certain people use the presence of other Japanese-born players to speculate where the free agent might go. As in, “Yu Darvish? I’ll bet you he’d love to head to Seattle to be with Hisashi Iwakuma. Or maybe New York, to be with Ichiro.”

Except, picture this scenario: You’ve accepted a position in Bali. You’re going to move 10,000 miles away for work, and you’re happily terrified. Before you leave, your new supervisor tells you, “Oh, good news. We just hired another American. You’ll have a countryman here!”

When you get there, you find out you’re sharing a cubicle with Ted Nugent.

“Wang dang, sweet poontang! This tuna fish is spicy!” he says, chewing with his mouth open as you walk in the office for the first time.

“How many shotguns do you think I can fit in my pants?” he says before attempting to find out before leaving for lunch. The answer is nine.

“Did I ever tell you about the time I messed my drawers to avoid the draft? I’ll tell you the biggest problem with that: matted fur. You know? Down there? Matted fur,” he says within minutes of returning from lunch.

“I scrub ‘em and scrub ‘em and scrub ‘em, but they still smell like dead trout floating down Lake Erie. Getting ‘em some fresh air every hour is the only thing that works,” he says, removing his shoes for the eighth time that day.

That is your first day working with Ted Nugent. He’s from the same country as you, so you’re happy, right? Wow, another American!

All I’m saying is that maybe one of the Venezuelans in the Giants’ “well-aligned subgroup” is the Ted Nugent of Venezuela. Or A.J. Pierzynski. Or whichever one of the Oasis brothers is more irritating, I can’t remember. Maybe that guy is ruining the Giants’ clubhouse right now.

Maybe that guy is a chronic farter.

Those two are both from the same country, you know. Yet for some reason, there were at least several seconds where Jose Mijares thought, “Boy, I do not enjoy working with my fellow countryman right now.” Maybe that happens all the freaking time.

So trying to figure out clubhouse chemistry by tallying up who’s from which country? Nah. There are assholes in every country. Literally and figuratively. You can think of six people from your high school you still want to punch. Now picture yourself working with them for seven months, traveling with them, sharing airplanes and buses with them.

Also, those graphics are stupid and whoever thought of them should feel bad.