This Sunday Fox aired the 500th - yes, five-zero-zero - episode of its flagship program, "The Simpsons". Once one of the greatest shows on television, the show has had it's ups and downs since the turn of the century, but it's still going strong ratings-wise. To celebrate the remarkable occasion, I've pulled out an old favorite from the Wezen-Ball archives. The post doesn't quite analyze the single-greatest "Simpsons" episode ever - sadly, Hank Scorpio bought Homer the Denver Broncos and not, say, the Chicago Cubs for helping him take over the East Coast - but it does analyze the single-greatest baseball-themed Simpsons episode ever.

So - how good would a 1992 baseball fan have considered the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant team of ringers to have been?

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In 1980, the Elias Sports Bureau - baseball's statistical keepers - quietly introduced a new statistic into the sport's vernacular: the game-winning RBI. The introduction was so quiet, in fact, that I can't find a single article mentioning the new statistic in 1980. Instead, it just suddenly appeared in box scores that spring, innocently tracking players' ability to hit in the clutch. Or so Elias hoped.

The phrase "game-winning rbi" invokes images of big hits, players coming through in the clutch to put their team ahead for good. A two-run double in the bottom of the eighth to make it 3-2, a tenth-inning leadoff home run, even a bases-loaded sacrifice fly... The problem with statistics, though, is that they need a rigid definition to be useful; a vague "I know it when I see it" just won't do. The game-winning RBI was defined in Rule 1004-a as "the RBI that gives a club the lead it never relinquishes."

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So, you think your slightly ironic call for "robot umpires" is a recent development in baseball fandom, a product of this awe-inspiring age of technology? Think again.

From a 1939 "Popular Science" spread called "New Inventions in the Field of Sports: Novel devices provide thrills for players and spectators, and give aid in practice":

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Found in the May 14, 1946, Charlestown Daily Mail:

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On a Friday afternoon when all the "baseball talk" around the web has been decidedly not about baseball, how about a little fun?

They say the PED problem in baseball is a recent issue in baseball, with most experts placing it's emergence to somewhere around Jose Canseco's career. Well, as this 1937 video shows you, it's been around for far longer than that.

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The 2012 Topps Baseball Card set hits the store shelves on Wednesday. Earlier this week, an image of one of the set's most creative cards was released to the public:

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I'm always in awe of the digital age we live in. Everything is on demand and at your fingertips. Music, movies, television, video games - they can all be enjoyed anywhere you are almost instantly. Books are the same way, with all the various e-book readers on the market now. In fact, instantly downloadable electronic books are so prevalent that each and every one of us can even read books about baseball written by turn-of-the-century Hall of Famers with just a few clicks of a mouse button.

Currently, there are at least five different baseball books available free on Google Books written by early-20th century baseball stars, including legendary Hall of Famers John McGraw and Christy Mathewson. These books are also available in other ebook stores, but the prices and availability differ.

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As Big League Stew and others have pointed out, professional sports teams with publicly-funded venues in Florida (including spring training facilities) may soon be forced to deal with an obscure law if one state senator has his way...

In 1988, the Chicago White Sox wanted a new, publicly-funded stadium and the city of St. Petersburg, Florida, was desperate to lure Major League Baseball to its borders. After all, St. Pete had made the acquisition of an MLB team a top goal of theirs at the start of the decade. To that end, the St. Petersburg City Council voted to begin construction of the Florida Suncoast Dome (now known as Tropicana Field) in 1986, despite having no concrete leads as to a possible tenant. It would cost $85 million and be funded through a city and county tax. As you can imagine, when the storied White Sox looked like they were ready to leave Chicago for greener pastures, city and state officials fell over themselves in a rush to woo the club to the Sunshine State.

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Have you ever looked at a player's listed weight and laughed, wondering just how he could expect us to believe that it was true? Or maybe looked back at a player's career and wondered how exactly he went from that svelte 20-year-old body to that vastly different 35-year-old body?

Listed below are four players who have had an interesting physical journey throughout their playing careers. Using the official height and weight stats found on the back of their year-to-year baseball cards, I've traced each player's physical changes from his debut to his final year. It's not surprising to see obvious discrepancies between the official and actual weights, but it is enlightening to see them side-by-side. We'll never get complete and honest weights (and heights) from ballplayers; at the very least, then, we should try and recognize how we're being fooled.

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Where are we in the Ryan Braun saga? The initial report—a report based off of leaked information of a confidential process—came almost exactly a month ago and was followed by a flurry of activity: spirited denials from the Braun camp, analysis of the testing process, sources from the Brewers' camp claiming "highly unusual" circumstances, analysis of the appeal process, more anonymous sources claiming odd, "highest ever-recorded" levels of testosterone, confusing reports about a "second test" passed by Braun, analysis of Braun's denial, stories coming out about false-positives found in the minor leagues, ominous tweets from former MVPs, debates over whether his MVP should be revoked... I'm pretty sure someone even visited the Fortress of Solitude in hopes that it would help tell us what really happened. And that's just what happened before things started getting weird. If you followed the Braun case even a little bit back in December, you probably heard the rumor that Braun failed the test due to a medication he was taking for an, ahem, personal problem. It was difficult to get a grasp on everything in the wake of the announcement, to say the least.

But then things went quiet—as well they should. The drug-testing process was designed to be confidential. Mistakes happen, tests get overturned. If a player fails the first step (or four) in the process, he still has a path to innocence. As long as the player is moving along that path, the public should never know what's happening. It's only when a player has exhausted all available options and has thus been found guilty of failing the drug policy should that information be made public. It took a week or so (and the Christmas holiday break) for people to remember that about the Braun case, but news finally dried up as Major League Baseball and Braun's people took the necessary steps to determine Braun's guilt or innocence.

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