A random statistical analysis of one writer’s 2018 baseball season

The baseball season is long, with constant games and even more constant random on-field shenanigans like birds landing on people or birds getting caught in a stadium or wow there sure were a lot of birds in baseball this year huh. We might want to keep an eye on that for next year just in case that’s a trend and the birds are planning something by targeting baseball first.

Anyway.

The season is long, was my point. There are always surprises, but some things can be more or less expected as the season goes on. So at the start of the year I started a sheet of categories that I anticipated recurring throughout the year and kept track during every shift.

The king of puns in the SB Nation slack is one Eric Stephen, and when I say the king I mean the true pun ruler who possesses the One Ring To Rule All Puns, Lord of the Rings style. He’s prolific, and every one one of them will make you want to laugh or cringe or roll your eyes or all three at once.

It’s impressive, really. Here’s a sampling.

After he debuts any of his handiwork, this usually happens courtesy of everyone else in the chat. No. Not usually. It always happens.

If you just search “eric” in the Slack archives you’re guaranteed to find a pun that will make you smile because of the sheer over-the-top nature of them all. It might have been a long season of some truly corny puns but the cheesiness is what made them.

There are also puns that are so good the I can’t even pretend anyone thought they were corny. Because again, Eric is a pun master. Sometimes he really does rise to the occasion and make a pun no one else could that’s super smart. Other people also contributed to these counts, but you can be sure he was the primary contributor.

I am not innocent in this season of punnery. Not even close. If you let up on an opportunity to drop a perfectly corny bit of wordplay then you’re stronger than the large majority of the employees at this company.

I’ve never told a non-cringeworthy pun. Has literally never happened. Probably never will.

I was only there for three and a half days. I interviewed people who should never have seen me sweat that much. I expensed cabs with just “please don’t let me die in the humidity” in the detail box. They should just close D.C. for the summer. The Nationals can play somewhere else.

Every single one of them happened when I was on deadline. Funny how that works out.

The devil’s streaming platform. This does not even account for the times it stopped working twice in one night. Or the fact that they updated the app so it wouldn’t work on a three year old TV. This is how you make sure your audience stays looped in.

Sorry to those three people. It was very awkward for us all.

Like the puns, I separated out the bad PR pitches from the good. From homemade baseball art, to official team grills, to a book written by someone no one knows about a topic that is barely related to baseball (or any sport) there is at least entertainment to be found in some of these emails. The good ones fell short of the bad tenfold, but at least it’s fun.

Except for when someone emailed me a blind pitch after midnight during a playoff game. That one was not fun.

Listen, I am a baseball writer. This is practically a requirement. It also seems a little low? Something to strive for in 2019. Always have to have concrete goals, I say.

Again, this seems a little low! I guess it should be a good thing that the unhealthiest things on this list are coming out a little lower than expected. Finding a cheap brand of cold brew at my deli was the best thing that happened this baseball season. Besides, uh, the Red Sox winning the World Series.

I’m not talking about “oh I’m nodding a bit maybe I should go get a coffee or an energy drink of something” I’m not talking about full-on keeling over on accident and falling asleep on the couch or in bed or wherever I’m working, then jolting awake 20 minutes later wondering where I am and why my computer screen is so bright.

The absolute worst example of this is on a reporting trip when I woke up in my hotel at 2:15am with my computer still on my lap (draft open and not even close to done), mozzarella sticks on one side of me, and a half-eaten pizza on the other.

Never let anyone tell you this isn’t a glamorous business.