David Eckstein’s Fake Ad for a Fake Law Firm Really Is Inside Baseball
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Behold this strange ad-like object, which is half internal joke and half attempt to prove baseball is still down with the hip kids.
It's a fictional ad for a fictional law firm created by Michael Shur, the head writer on Parks and Recreation. Shur used to write a lot about baseball, and made fun of one player in particular—David Eckstein, who got a lot of praise for being scrappy but whose stats were mediocre. Shur named the fake Parks and Rec firm after three sabermetric instruments used to analyze baseball performance: BABIP, PECOTA, VORP and combined them with Eckstein to create the law firm of Babip, Pecota, Vorp & Eckstein.
Recognizing the inside joke when it aired on Parks and Rec in October, MLB.com had Eckstein film a fake commercial for the fake law firm. In it, Eckstein talks about his "scrapitude" and tells those obsessed with statistics, "I have a number for you: four. It's the number of chambers in the best law book money can buy: my heart."
So, if you like baseball, or inside jokes, or fake ads about baseball's inside jokes, I'm pitching this one right down the pike.
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