AL Central Standings a Result of Games Actually Being Played Upside-Down

CLEVELAND (Bottom of the Fourth) - The term "upside-down standings" has been thrown around a lot in the early baseball season in reference to the American League Central division, as the teams' current records reflect essentially the opposite of what pundits predicted prior to the 2011 season. However, while the small sample size of early season play naturally produces surprising results, this is one that can be expected to continue indefinitely, as there is a logical explanation for it: games in the AL Central are actually being played upside-down.

It is a well-established fact, of course, that physically inverting the game of baseball correspondingly inverts the expected results, as with mathematical functions. To be specific, this phenomenon is analogous to the mathematical reciprocal function, in which the function is flipped to the bottom of the fraction. This explains Cleveland manager Manny Acta's explanation for his team's excellent early-season play: "we've all got a common denominator right now."

For anyone who hasn't witnessed upside-down baseball, this may seem outrageous. How would one, as a fan, watch an upside-down baseball game live, in the park? And how could this have been going on for 10% of the season already without anyone mentioning, even off-handedly, "hey, isn't it weird that the game tonight was upside-down?"

In reality, the crowds haven't themselves been aware of the inverted nature of the games in the early going, as each AL Central stadium possesses a special gravity field that flips everything inside the stadium, not just the playing surface. Fans are watching the game while upside-down without being aware of it. And for some reason nobody has yet questioned the "re-orientation chambers" by which all fans are required to enter the stadium, assuming it was just some sort of TSA-related cancer beam.

This concept was originally implemented as a joint project between the Kansas City Royals and Cleveland Indians. The two teams decided that rather than developing and acquiring talented baseball players in an effort to win, it would be easier to just turn their 50,000 capacity stadiums upside-down. Upon successfully completing the endeavour in their own parks, they hired an unlisted, independent contractor to stealthily install the system in their divisional rivals' parks without their knowing. Through a series of upside-down phone calls Bottom of the Fourth was able to reach Ali Sunderji, the contractor, who was surprisingly candid about his work.

"Oh yeah, I mean the government hasn't really found out about LSP (Large-Scale Reciprocation, apparently the industry term for flipping huge things upside-down), so there aren't any laws against it," explained Sunderji. "I stay out of the spotlight to prevent regulation of my field, but what I do isn't actually illegal."

Sunderji went on to describe some of his other LSP work, including reciprocation of mountainous Peruvian villages ("to produce crops other than potatoes"), archaeological sites (funded by the Republican Party, "to unprove evolution"), and Mount Everest ("to make an awesome sledding hill").

But Sunderji says he's found his true calling in baseball. "I grew up in Cincinnati, home of baseball, and I've loved the game all my life. Pete Rose was my favourite player growing up, I idolized that guy. And there's nothing that gives me greater pleasure than bringing my work into the game to give certain teams unfair advantages because they paid me to."

Three Delicious Games in Baseball History

A twitter conversation in the wake of Tuesday's post on Sandy Koufax's Perfect Gingergame led me to wonder: was that the most delicious baseball game in history? Today we examine three other games in contention for the title.

Chili Davis' Chili Cook-off

In 1991, as DH for the Minnesota Twins, Chili Davis was given a rare start in the outfield in a game against the Texas Rangers. However, when he discovered that the scheduled starting pitchers were a couple of extreme ground-ballers, Scott Erickson and Kevin Brown, and he wouldn't likely have any plays to make, Davis took matters into his own hands.

"I wanted to support my team," says Davis. "We were in a pennant race, and we needed to do anything we could to get a leg up. Eat better, groom ourselves more neatly, learn more languages, anything where we can say we're better than the other guys." So, in that spirit, Davis organized an in-game, on-field chili cook-off between him and opposing left fielder Juan Gonzalez.

Davis showed off his 6th tool - culinary skills

Two portable kitchens were installed right in the middle of left field. Experts tasted each man's chili after every inning, assigning points for flavour, "chiliness", and flatulence potential. In the end, Davis won when Gonzalez bowled over his own chili chasing after a fly ball, severely bruising his ribs in the process, and to this day Davis credits the victory as the key to Minnesota's eventual World Series Championship.

Jeffrey Loria Feeds a Bunch of Hoboes

In 1996, Jeffrey Loria, then-owner of the Montreal Expos, decided that the team was spending too much of his hard-earned money, and ordered general management to slash payroll to minuscule levels. So minuscule, it turned out, that the only players the Expos could afford were rail-riding hoboes (as opposed to street bums, which are very different, as explained by Fran's Hobo Page:

A Hobo is a person that travels to work.
A tramp is a person that travels and wont work.
A bum is a person that will neither travel or work.)

At first, the Montreal crowds fell in love with these adorable scamps, the "Exbos" as they were affectionately nicknamed. But after an 0-37 start, the sentiment began to change. The frustration culminated on June 8th, 1996, the 60th game of the season, which also happened to be the night of an annual promotion: Free Poutine Night.

After the top of the first inning saw its third grand slam, all hell broke loose. French fries, cheese curds and gravy started pouring down on the field like a deluge of torrential rain, one third of which is solid and shaped like French fries for some reason, one third of which is melty and shaped like cheese curds, and one third of which is shaped like regular rain. Good simile.

Anyway, the hoboes, not having been paid enough by Loria to eat for the first two months of the year, were in absolute ecstasy. The game was cancelled, but the players stuck around until the next morning, collecting whatever they couldn't possibly fit in their stomach in their batting helmets to store for future sustenance.

Bob Lemon's "Lemon Shortbread Shutout"

In 1954, Bob Lemon was having one of his best seasons - in late May he was 6-0 with a 2.57 ERA. To the great amusement of his teammates, he very publicly attributed this success to his wife's lemon shortbread, which he claimed he ate before every start. Among his teammates, Lemon's wife was known as an absolutely awful cook - the Lemons hosted a pre-season dinner every year for the entire team, and the food was so inedible that Cleveland typically had two or three players out of the opening day line-up due to illness. But the Lemons were such a sweet couple that nobody ever said anything.

So Bob's teammates found his supposedly shortbread-induced success absolutely hilarious - that is, until he brought a team-sized batch to his last start in May. "He wouldn't take the field until we all ate one," remembers center-fielder Larry Doby. "The game was delayed by half an hour."

Third baseman Al Rosen clearly recalls the fear his teammates felt as they considered the prospect of eating a cookie. "We literally thought that was the day we were going to die," says Rosen. "I dunno how, salmonella? I mean, yeah, typically there's no raw chicken in lemon shortbread, but you never knew with Doris (Lemon's wife)."

Finally, veteran pitcher Bob Feller picked up a piece of shortbread, examined it, weighed it, looked his teammates in the eye, and took a bite. His face instantly changed. "Oh my god... this is amazing." One by one, the players were overcome with the same shock, followed by unbridled joy at the unexpected tastiness of the cookies.

The batch of shortbread was demolished, and the teams took the field. Cleveland won the game 12-0, Bob Lemon pitched brilliantly, and to this day the game is remembered as the "Lemon Shortbread Shutout".