At 61-101, the Chicago Cubs amazingly weren’t the worst team in Major League Baseball last season. That honor went to the 55-107 Houston Astros, but since they are already on pace to finish this season 162-0, the With Leather Worst Team Watch is focused solely on the Cubbies for the time being. Wait, that’s not fair. Let’s throw the Miami Marlins, Colorado Rockies and Minnesota Twins in there, too, just so we have a little balance and wiggle room.

But team president Theo Epstein doesn’t want us counting the North Siders out just yet. And maybe, this blogger writes with a partially serious face, we should take the Cubs just a little more seriously this year. After all, people thought the ’67 Cubs would suck just like the 59-103 ’66 team did, and we all remember what happened with them right? Of course not, so remind us, Chicago Tribune.

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"Where's Ben Wallace, String?"

HBO’s ‘The Wire’ is the best TV show ever made. There, I said it.

In 5 seasons over 60 episodes, David Simon’s law and streets epic was literature on television, an experience so dense and rewarding that it somehow managed to simultaneously depict life in Baltimore as realistic and hyper-romanticized. It’s one of those things you’ve either seen and worship, or have resisted all your friends screaming OH MY GOD YOU HAVEN’T SEEN THE WIRE NO SERIOUSLY BORROW MY DVDS AND WATCH IT for like ten years.

This week’s Sports On TV column is in reverence to this masterwork of Orioles jokes and cereal references, and my only real disclaimer is that there are tons and tons of spoilers inside, so it’ll work best if you’ve seen the entire run of the show. If you haven’t, you should still click through … out-of-context Wire quotes are like gold, glittery paint on the Internet and should be experienced.

And yes, I took notes on a criminal f**king conspiracy.

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Want to be as rich as these guys? Here’s your chance!

Well, not really, but With Leather is teaming up with FanDuel to bring you a free fantasy baseball game that can win you cash money from a $1,000 prize pool AND IT STARTS IN LIKE 30 MINUTES SO IF YOU’VE BEEN LOLLYGAGGING PLEASE STOP DOING THAT AND SIGN UP TO PLAY RIGHT NOW. Baseball is happening and this is the best, easiest and most cash-productive way to enjoy it without being a monster power superstar.

How it works, one last time:

It’s a one day contest and works like you’d expect … you draft the best team you can under the salary cap and play them against the league. You can track your team’s progress through live scoring, and you get paid out at the end of the day once all games have ended. Then you look at how I’ve performed and see if you’re better than me. Then you go to my website and brag at me until I shut down With Leather completely in anger.

You read our site, and it’s about time we paid you for doing so. So head on over there post-haste and sign up, set up your team and win some impromptu money. Use it to build a stadium nicer looking than Marlins Park! Use it for lunch! Who cares, it’s yours!

Fans of the Washington Nationals will be lining up at Nationals Park for today’s 1:05 game against the Atlanta Braves to mark the start of the 2011 Major League Baseball season. They’ll witness a flyover, observe a moment of silence for the people in Japan, and they’ll hear Washington D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray belt out the ceremonial “Play ball” to begin the Nationals’ 5th place campaign. But what they won’t see is President Barack Obama throw out the ceremonial first pitch, as members of the five branches of the Armed Forces will take the mound instead.

Last season, Obama’s opening pitch – while widely satirized for his delivery – marked the 100th anniversary of American Presidents being involved with MLB’s Opening Day ceremonies, meaning that this is the first time since 1909 that the Commander in Chief is not at a ballpark. The general media consensus is that Obama has taken too much criticism already over taking 2 minutes to fill out his NCAA brackets, or even that the administration doesn’t want fans booing to take away from the Nationals and Braves. I like to think it’s because he has really adopted the DC mentality and is just ignoring the Nationals.

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