It looks like the Miami sports community has learned from its mistakes; after assuming that signing all the best players would win them a championship in basketball, Miami has taken a different route with the Marlins and will be signing all the best players to win them a championship in baseball. The play-by-play, from birther John Heyman:

hearing #Marlins boosted offer to pujols to 10 years, matching arod’s in length. they are obvs pushing hard.

everybody should have been convinced after reyes for $106M, but this is no publicity stunt by #marlins. #pujols, #perfect10

#marlins strong pursuit of pujols realistically has winnowed the field for pujols to them and incumbent #cardinals.

Cardinals have been resistant to upgrade pujols bid. With marlins strong push, they have tough decision to make.

Yes, they do, almost as tough a decision as whether or not to write the phrase “winnowed the field” anywhere on your Twitter.

As Heyman notes, this 10-year offer to the secretly-31-and-a-half-year old Pujols comes on the heels of the 6-year, 106 million deal for Jose Reyes, so we need to go ahead and get comfortable with the Miami Marlins being a thing … at least a bloated, gangly thing that smells like a National Leagues Red Sox and looks hilarious finishing behind Aramis Ramirez (or whoever) and the Phillies next season.

"Sit down," yelled the no one behind them.

Miami Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria must be having a pretty good laugh right now, because we had mostly assumed that the rumors of his courtship of this offseason’s biggest free agents were a load of fish poop. The Marlins had been publicly enamored with Jose Reyes, Albert Pujols, Mark Buerhle and C.J. Wilson, but, by all accounts, their offers were riding a fine line between low-balling and insulting.

But low balls are better than no balls, because Loria flopped his big, ol’ pouch on the table as the winter meetings are kicking off in Dallas. The Marlins and Reyes have agreed on a 6-year deal worth $106 million, which ends the former Rookie of the Year’s 9-year stint with the New York Mets. The Mets wanted to keep Reyes, but they would need money for that and they don’t have any. Whoops?

By increasing their offer to Reyes, they knocked the Mets out of the running to hang on to their shortstop. The Mets were reportedly willing to give Reyes no more than five-year deal worth $75 to $80 million.

(Via the Miami Herald)

And that’s actually smart thinking by the Mets, seeing as Reyes will turn 29 next season, and he has missed 191 games over the last 3 seasons. That’s a pretty bold investment for the Marlins. I know what you’re thinking, though – don’t the Marlins already have a stud shortstop? Sure they do, but screw that guy!

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ESPN The Magazine has released a batch of photos from the 2011 installment of their annual “The Body Issue”, and while full-on nudity isn’t something we can really share with you at With Leather, we can’t see a picture of Blake Griffin dunking with his pants down and not share it with you. It gives the whole “dunking over a car” thing an extra degree of difficulty.

This year’s issue isn’t as conservative as 2009, when most of the athletes were wearing shorts, but it remains tasteful and doesn’t tread near the whole “seeing Patrick Willis’ pubic hair” thing from last year. There are a lot (a lot) of gorgeous women from nearly every corner of the sports world featured, including-but-not-limited-to Hope Solo, LPGA rookie Belen Mozo, foxy roller derby star Suzy Hotrod, the WNBA’s statuesque Sylvia Fowles and the lady pulling a LeBron James in the image up top, Olympic silver medal gymnast Alicia Sacramone. I’m really glad that isn’t LeBron James.

Of course, the following gallery is only a sampling, and you should head on over to ESPN The Magazine The Website to see more, including the pictures I’m not authorized to show you (or, “Wow, time to Wikipedia the sh*t out of Stephanie Gilmore”). Also, consider buying the magazine itself, if that’s your bag. Now please click through and laugh at that weird picture of Jon “Bones” Jones peeing in his swimming pool.

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In case you haven’t been paying attention to the Mets since last Friday, these are the scores from their last four games, not counting the one in progress as this is being written:

6-25 @Rangers W 14-5
6-26 @Rangers W 8-5
6-28 @Tigers W 14-3
6-29 @Tigers W 16-9

Something crazy is happening to the Mets, and in the world of the Dugout that’s a more dangerous topic than “Roger Clemens stabbed somebody in the heart and paid to have it covered up”. The job of The Dugout is to emasculate the Mets at all cost, and if they keep playing like this I’ll have no choice but to start posting wistful Dugout retrospectives about them on Faith and Fear in Flushing.

Today’s Dugout follows.

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New Mets manager Jerry Manuel has a clear message for his players, and that message is "I will fucking cut you." 

Shortstop Jose Reyes felt tightness in his hamstring on Tuesday night, causing Manuel to pull him from the game.  Reyes disagreed, even throwing his helmet in the process.  Reyes later apologized to Manuel, a possible result of the threat of physical violence. 

"I told him next time he does that I'm going to get my blade out and cut him. I'm a gangster. You go gangster on me, I'm going to have to get you. You do that again, I'm going to cut you right on the field," quipped Manuel.

That's some pretty big talk for a guy with the name "interim" in his job title.  When I was interim manager of the Taco Bell I made sure that the first thing I did was threaten to cut the cashiers.  I'm sorry, but the sour cream gun is not a toy.

[Hugging Harold Reynolds]