A Project

I'm a big, big fan of Baseball Reference, it's one of those reasons why the Gorenets were inventified. There are similar sites for basketball, football, hockey and, I'm sure, competitive crappie fishing, but Baseball Reference is the gold standard for getting quick stats in the most stat-centric game and solving, once and for all, debates like this.

Two features that set BR apart from every other sports stat site are the Similarity Scores (in which one discovers that David Ortiz's career path mirrors Richie Sexson, Danny Tartabull and Ryan Klesko--ouch) and the sponsored player pages. Every player who's ever participated in a major league game has a page on BR, and anyone can sponsor that page. You can sponsor a good player like Reggie Jackson for $170, a bad player like Mike Jackson for $15, a disgraced cheater like Rafael Palmeiro for $135 or a hilarious nobody like Pete Rose Jr. (who was once traded for Joe Borowski) for, again, $15.

I think it's imperative that the House of Georges community participate and sponsor a page, and you, dear reader, can both help us pick the player and help us pay for it. And by "help us" I mean "completely bankroll," we are a poor outfit these days. Cecil is unemployed and selling oranges on a highway median, I just had a kid that requires 46 diapers a day and Banky has gone back to manning the graveyard shift on the gay phone sex line. Help a brother out, and you might even get a T-shirt out of it.

QUESTION 1: WHICH PLAYER?

To be true to the House, it has to be someone who's A.) relevant and talented and B.) flawed and makes you crack up. No sense picking a boring tool like Craig Biggio. No, I'm thinking along the lines of Jeff "Truck Wash" Kent or Derek "Operation Shutdown" Bell (you have to love any ballplayer whose Wikipedia page contains the phrase "warm crack pipe").

The perfect HoG representative, of course, is this guy. Played for some of our favorite teams (Cubs, Royals) and least favorite teams (Yankees, Braves). Has his own fake blog (best post ever here) and a sharp pair of spectacles. Doesn't cost much. So long as you KC fans can stomach it, I don't see a downside.

HOW DO I PARTICIPATE IN THIS MAGNIFICENT ENDEAVOR?

Glad you asked! All you have to do is find the t-shirt link along the right side of this web site. It advertises glorious Hank Stram Matriculate duds for the low, low price of $12.00. Ignore that price and make it $15, and they remainder will go into the kitty for our player sponsorship. In your email to Banky, include your vote for whom to sponsor and an essay of less than 6000 words as to why your guy is deserving.

Don't like the Chiefs? No problem, I don't either. You may send a request to the same email address for a genuine all-cotton t-shirt emblazoned with a pirated John Elway whisky logo. It will fade and shrink in key moments for 15 years but then look great at the end. If you include a really, really persuasive essay, I might even speed up the production schedule for these shirts, but it'll cost you $15.65.