Grissionometer

"...they won’t be satisfied with a ‘sissy’ game…They will expect and demand a stepped-up, more competitive type of play- rugged and hard, though fair. It is up to baseball to give these men the vigorous exhibitions they are expecting…It can be accomplished by good old-fashioned hustling on every play, and the display of an aggressive, competitive  spirit that is controlled, but not ruthlessly suppressed…"

I’ve discovered the sabermetric philosopher’s stone. I’ve discovered the formula to compute grission into a statistic that can be quantifiably expressed and compared vis-à-vis other players. I’ll admit, it involves some fairly complicated mathematics, but once you get used to the formula, computing grission into quantifiable units of measure, henceforth known as ‘Zerons’, becomes second nature:

[(St / LSm) + (M x Fu) / MLT] x FP

Where…

St: The total number of individual dirt/grass stains on the player’s uniform

LSm: Length of their smile in inches

M: Number of statements made to the media on average, per week

Fu: Number of times the F-word is used in a sentence, as an emphatic adjective

MLT: Divided by the length of their Major League tenure in years

FP: Average number of fist pumps into the air after getting an important hit/out

Now, mind you, this is only a basic formula. As the field delves deeper and deeper into this conundrum of quantifying grission, new formulae may become available...

0. These players fake injuries so that they doesn’t have to play, and don’t pay attention when they are playing, concentrating on creating new handshakes or dances instead.

1. Doesn’t care about baseball. Money is the ultimate goal for these kinds of players. They may or may not have souls.

2. Doesn’t care about their individual performances and aren’t devastated when they perform poorly.

3. The type of players that try, but just don’t have enough mojo. Wearing oversized helmets and dressing up as cheerleaders probably doesn’t help.

4. These players are prima-donnas who are very hair-conscious, and “pimp-out” their websites and cars.

5. Every player should be, at bare minimum, like these types of players. They often try to be even more grissiony, but don’t exactly accomplish it, leading to semi-comical outtakes.

6. These players have a lot of Zerons. Their bodies physically expand to accommodate the fact.

7. These players are so grissony, they are willing to play through injuries, and the fact that, overall, they really just aren’t great baseball players. They put their bodies on the line all the time, and when injured, refuse trips to the DL, in which replacements who are statistically better in many categories than they are are “forced” to take over their spot.

8. These players are stand-up guys. They’re class acts. They have heart. They’re gamers. They get their uniforms dirty. They’re winning players. They get those kind of hits, makes those kinds of plays

9. These kinds of players bathe in beer, and get pissed off when it’s light beer. They do douchy things on the base paths because they are willing to do anything to make sure their team wins. They are pesky, hypocritical anuses, plain and simple.

10. You know you’ve reached the pinnacle of grission when you psychologically abuse your friends to ensure that you have a higher batting average. These players live hard- they binge drink, they smoke heavily, and womanize. Assaulting disabled hecklers in the stands from time to time puts them over the top of the Grissionometer.