Ozzie Guillen said some bad things. It wasn’t the first time and it won’t be the last, but this one had a little more despot flattering than most, so it’s a big deal.

Of course, we at The Dugout believe in freedom of speech, so if Ozzie wants to say that Fidel Castro is better at skateboarding than Tony Hawk it should be his constitutional right as an American Sports Person Of Interest to do so. It should also be my right to explain why he said it in somewhat-antiquated chatroom form.

So here we are. The Ozzie Guillen Loves Fidel Castro Dugout is after the jump.

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Today is day two of The Dugout’s ‘Opening Days’, a celebratory maxi-series (maxi meaning “tampons”) that hopes to touch on every Major League team as MLB drags opening day out until July. Yesterday we took a look at the Tampa Bay Rays, and today we’ll visit the Pittsburgh Pirates, a young team that hopes to capitalize on the unexpected successes of last season with a focused, dedicated run toward the playoffs in 2012.

Just kidding, they’re the Pirates. Ah well, at least they appear in the strip this year, and I didn’t just have it be about Barry Bonds again. Note that today’s comic is based on an actual thing that happened.

Please enjoy today’s installment of Opening Days, and for any Pirates fans out there, I’ll see you in 365-ish days with next season’s strip.

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Baseball season is officially upon us, and that means only one thing — the return of The Dugout, the Internet’s longest running and most critically acclaimed webcomic about baseball players with pun screen names pretending to curse at each other over AIM. Yes, this is still a thing.

And to celebrate Major League Baseball splitting Opening Day up into like 40 smaller, less important games over the span of a month and at least one ceremony meant to humiliate Muhammad Ali, the normal Spring Training event we like to do has been replaced by Opening Days, a Dugout maxi-series that will span all 25 teams and let you find out what your favorite players are up to in 2012.

There are still only 25 teams, right? Well, 25 important ones. Or was that 5 important ones?

Anyway, whether it takes me a month or I’m still writing Opening Days segments into 2013, here’s episode one: The Tampa Bay Rays.

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One of The Dugout’s favorite recurring characters over the last seven years (holy crap) has been art dealer and owner of the Florida Miami Marlins Jeffrey Loria. He’s created championship teams on minimum wage, he looks like the lovechild of John Lithgow and The Great Pumpkin and he wears sunglasses with colored lenses because that’s the kind of thing cool millionaires do. He’s also sort of a son of a bitch, and the kind of guy who can be completely racist without ever really being racist at all.

Anyway, at some point between then and now, the Miami Marlins turned into a financial contender. They’ve got new uniforms, a new stadium, a new name … they’ve signed big name free agents and positioned themselves as a legitimate, unsurprising contender in the National League. Previous rationalization led me to just assume Loria had gotten a concussion and his friends were too afraid to bring it up, but it turns out I’ve got a better explanation.

Today’s Dugout is after the jump.

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hey guys, what's going on in this chatroom

After a brief hiatus caused by me doing this goddamn comic strip seven years in a row without stopping and needing a break inactivity in the world of baseball, The Dugout is back and ready to tackle the tough issues, such as Manny Ramirez going swimming with a bunch of old people in a T.O.-esque attempt to show he’s still athletic and able to play professional sports.

As we build to the greatest day of the year (pitchers and catchers report~), we’ll go back and touch on some of the stories we may’ve missed, like Jim Thome getting traded to Philadelphia, Kyle Farnsworth miraculously not being traded anywhere and Brian Wilson putting on spandex that looks like a tuxedo so people will write about him when he does his dishes. We’ll also become increasingly obsessed with Albert Pujols, despite his entire story being “I’m great at baseball so whatever, I’ll go play it for a billion dollars somewhere”. We may also write about Dan Quisenberry, even if you don’t give a righteous f**k who that is.

Anyway, welcome back to the weirdest, most well-established, most sorta-racist fictional world in pro sports reporting. Today’s Dugout is after the jump.

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The St. Louis Cardinals won the World Series. More importantly, I found out that Jim Thome autographs the Halloween candy he hands out.

That’s a Jim Thome signed Kit Kat, shared with Dugout co-founder Jon Bois by @bretwallin, and it’s right behind “that time he dressed as Paul Bunyan” on the list of things Jim Thome has done in real life to pull him closest to our fictional depiction of him here. The only way it could get better is if he accidentally kills something by petting it too hard.

Halloween was two days ago, sure, but this is the reason it should happen every day. Today’s Dugout follows.

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