Weekend Reading: Remains

• Mark Twain’s love of baseball, documented in “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court,” was the subject of a New York Times profile. He once lost an umbrella at a professional game and placed the following ad in his local paper:

FIVE DOLLARS REWARD

At the great base ball match on Tuesday, while I was engaged in hurrahing, a small boy walked off with an English-made brown silk UMBRELLA belonging to me, and forgot to bring it back. I will pay $5 for the return of that umbrella in good condition to my home on Farmington avenue. I do not want the boy (in an active state) but will pay two hundred dollars for his remains. SAMUEL L. CLEMENS

• Speaking of iconic artists, Walkoff Walk shares an old  commercial featuring Whitey Ford and Salvador Dali.
• Patrick Truby attempts to assemble a fantasy team consisting of only plus-sized  players over at No I in Blog. My complaint? Not enough Garces.
• FreeDarko remembers Alex Chilton.
• “I try to pretend I’m a clock.” Albert Pujols breaks down his own swing using the full power of multimedia over at USA Today.
• Jake Peavy brought together’s baseball’s best musicians for Woodjock, and David Brown from Big League Stew was there to witness it.
• And the Rogue’s Baseball Index continues a-humming. New forays into the baseball world around us not once, not twice, but thrice weekly.