Or, “Dude, yer gettin’ arrested for a hate crime”.

From the Detroit Free Press:

Detroit Tigers outfielder Delmon Young was arrested and faces a hate crime-related charge in connection with a dispute outside a hotel along New York’s 6th Avenue early this morning, a New York police spokesman told the Free Press.

“Basically, there was an incident at the hotel (and) some anti-Semitic remarks,” said Det. Joseph Cavitolo, who added that alcohol was involved.

Our exclusive, three-part report on this very serious matter is after the jump.

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In “piece of information included in passing that we’re contractually obligated to cover” news:

[Minnesota Twins star Justin] Morneau has been taking infield before every game, and said he also expects to be play some first base before that series in Milwaukee.

“I’ve been over there, trying to keep myself in shape, my legs in shape, and to stay sharp for whenever I get out there,” Morneau said. “It’s just a matter of time.”

Morneau entered Saturday’s game hitting .231 with a homer and two doubles, and said he’s still trying to adjust to serving as designated hitter. He said Thursday that he plans on calling former Twins DH Jim Thome for advice. (via MLB.com)

That call, presented in its entirety, is today’s edition of The Dugout: Opening Days ’12.

[h/t to Matt Dillon]

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Jim Thome hit his 600th home run.

Everyone who has ever read the Dugout sent me a message saying “hey, can’t wait to read the Thome Dugout”. He’s been our signature character for over seven years now. ESPN stuttered saying “Jim” and I couldn’t tell whether or not they did it on purpose. Maybe this dumb baseball webcomic will be erased and forgotten in a hundred years, but I hope the big goofy rosey-cheeked manchild we spotlit along the way gets his big shiny face in the Baseball Hall Of Fame and is never forgotten.

Today’s Dugout follows.

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Jim Thome’s back was aching, his toe was throbbing and his quad was cramping, turning his pursuit of 600 home runs into a painful endeavor that made him wonder if he would even reach the milestone before season’s end.

I’m not going to write anything like that, but I’m happy to put up something here about every good-hearted man’s favorite rosey-cheeked, corn-fed baseball player roped his 600th dinger (or tater, if you will) during Minnesota’s Monday night game at Comerica Park in Detroit. The ball sailed over former teammate Delmon Young’s head and into the stands, capping off a 20-year stomp to the milestone and seven years of Dugouts with capital letters. Jim now enters the official twilight of his career, which will mostly involve pinch-hitting and having to listen to people rationalize why he doesn’t deserve to be in the hall of fame.

Another important part of Thome’s post-600 lifestyle, apparently, will be the nonstop f**king of ladies. Bet you didn’t want that image in your wistful retrospective. According to CBS’ elder statesman (I’m assuming) C. Trent Rosecrans, NuVo condoms have sent 600 samples of their product to the Minnesota Twins to commemorate the event. Also, to reveal that nobody from NuVo condoms has ever watched baseball.

From their full release:

Jim Thome(notes) has reason to celebrate today after hitting his 600th homerun last night versus the Detroit Tigers. As a congratulatory gift for Thome’s incredible feat, NuVo sent the Minnesota Twins 600 condoms. NuVo hopes this offering to the team will help keep the Twins players and their partners safe during their celebrations. The Minnesota Twins aren’t the only people that the NüVo team is looking out for — NüVo has already distributed over 200,000 free condoms this year alone. You can always hit a home run with NuVo Condoms!

I like the idea that a condom company assumes that sports celebrations involve rampant, unprotected intercourse. Man, Yankee Stadium must look like Caligula.

Jim Thome is batting about .001 this season for the Twins, but he’s closing in on 600 home runs, and the one thing Thome has never been lacking is raw, monstrous cornfed power. If you didn’t see him crank #596, it was the longest and most awesome looking/sounding homer in Target Field history, going farther than the previous champ: a different Jim Thome home run. I’ll let the animated gif (with a hat tip to my good friend and associate Jon Bois) do the recapping.

Be sure to watch that gif for about twenty minutes before reading today’s Dugout. It makes the strip better, and honestly the longer you watch it the funnier it gets. After about eight minutes you expect Thome and Delmon Young to turn and look at you through your computer screen.

Today’s Dugout is after the jump.

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For those of you who are new to The Dugout, each year we spend March writing “The Dugout: Spring Training.”  We cover 30 teams in 30 days, and fans of the Pirates or the Astros get their one strip a year before we start calling Alex Rodriguez gay and Manny Ramirez stupid for seven months.  With a March 15 end date set for FanHouse, I started 2011′s Spring Training in the middle of February, thinking it would give me time to get to everyone before I was outsourced.  Out of nowhere, the Sporting News decided they wanted FanHouse to be incomprehensible and awful RIGHT AWAY, and March 15 became March 1.

Now that The Dugout is back in full swing on With Leather, we can pick back up where we left off.  Today’s Spring Training is about the Twins, and it has nothing to do with Jim Thome being a member of the team and me wanting people to like these right away, swear to God.

So read, enjoy, and drop a comment.  I love The Dugout fan community more than I love baseball itself (which is not a lot, apparently), so make your voices heard.  Dugout got, after the break.

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