I almost went with “n/t” for the body of this, but here goes.

Baseball season is upon us (f**king finally), and to celebrate, I wanted to find the perfect video to encapsulate how the arrival of pitchers and catchers to Spring Training and the onset of Our National Pastime makes us feel as a people. What I’ve decided on is this clip (courtesy of Sportress Of Blogitude) of the GEICO Racing Presidents from Nationals Park trying to hurt each other on a hockey rink. Oddly enough, it’s a solid choice.

If you’ve seen a Presidents Race before (I’ve seen plenty, having spent a year living in Bethesda, Maryland, watching Nyjer Morgan whiff fly balls and give up inside-the-park homers), this one plays out like you’d expect … Teddy Roosevelt takes an early lead, but gives in to his hubris and ends up getting checked into the bench by George Washington. Later, he gets revenge with a flying cross-body from the top to take out all three remaining competitors at the finish line.

I have missed you so much, baseball.

… Moneyball Harder.

Although I guess the idea of Moneyball is that Beane’s system found under-appreciated value in players and was able to build a team using a system nobody else knew about or understood. Moneyball 2‘s plot is just going to be Billy Beane walking into the Washington Nationals front office and saying “give me all your best young players for this one dude because you’re stupid” and Ted Lerner going “DURRRRRR SURE”. And also Jonah Hill will be there.

Via Big League Stew:

ESPN.com’s Keith Law reported via Twitter that the Washington Nationals have acquired [pitcher Gio] Gonzalez from the Oakland Athletics in exchange for four top prospects.

On their way to a future in green and gold are pitchers A.J. Cole, Brad Peacock and Tom Milone, along with catcher Derek Norris. Cole, Peacock and Norris were among the Nationals’ top 10 prospects as rated by Baseball America. And Minor League Ball’s John Sickels had Milone in his Nats top 10, as well.

I guess I’m happy that Nats GM Mike Rizzo has a talking point for his offseason, and nothing the guys who gave Jayson Werth 130 million f**king dollars should come as a surprise. Chances are they’re still going to go after Prince Fielder, too, so maybe they’re going to tie the remaining six prospects together and FedEx them to someone to thin out the competition.

Regardless, Mike Cameron should start learning the words to “The Show”.

It’s no secret that women love baseball players, and they’re also pretty big suckers for Santa. So when you combine the two of them into one man with an engagement ring in tow, well it just flat out sucks for the rest of us. In a game that was highlighted by the year’s biggest phantom whistle controversy, the New Orleans Saints barely eeked out a 22-17 win over the Tennessee Titans. But one of the Titans cheerleaders made the only worthwhile headline when she agreed to marry Santa.

During their halftime routine of gyrating hips, Janae Kram was a little creeped out by the pervy St. Nick approaching her, until he revealed to her that he was her boyfriend and Washington Nationals minor league pitcher Ben Graham. Meanwhile, every kid at that game is still crying.

“I was trying to keep my cool and do the performance,” she said, “They were telling me [before the performance] that Santa was going to do something and it could be a little embarrassing, so I was thinking the old man is going to dance with me. When I looked over and saw Ben it was really exciting.”

(Via WKRN News with video of the proposal and their reactions.)

Kram is also an aspiring actress and we certainly wish her luck in her entertainment career, as she is marrying a Single A pitcher with a 4-4 record this year. Start saving, kids!

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If you’re a regular reader at With Leather, you know how much I love mascots. Keeping that in mind, know that while I find the above video to be hilarious, I also imagine that it might be what Hell feels like. I’m going to guess the D.C. Air All-Star team wasn’t voted on by the fans.

The DC Air All-Stars – Big George, Hippo, G-Wiz, Air Screech and Air Slapshot, joined forces to entertain the crowd at Colonials Invasion 2011 to help the GW men’s and women’s basketball teams start the 2011-12 right.

This routine, like so much trampoline slam dunking, would be embarrassing but forgettable if the George Washington University Midnight Madness crowd were clapping and enjoying themselves, but their dead silence takes it to another level. It’s one part Zooperstars, one part high school pep rally and ten parts those weird amusement park live shows where kids sit on bleachers in a crayon-themed amphitheater or whatever and listen to five young actors who wish they were dead smile through a Now That’s What I Call Music dance medley.

All kidding aside, there’s something concerning about watching an inflatable hippo do a headstand while FloRida sings about how great his blowjob feels.

[sorrowful h/t to Off The Bench]

When Stephen Strasburg blew out his arm last August, MASN analyst and former big leagues pitcher Rob Dibble told him to “suck it up” and play through the pain. When Strasburg’s rehabilitation from Tommy John surgery started moving ahead of schedule, Dibble said there was absolutely no reason to bring Strasburg back. The reason I bring this up is because that is a picture of Stephen Strasburg dressed as Papa Smurf from “The Smurfs”, and right now Dibble is hunched over his computer somewhere hammering out a paragraph about how the Nationals front office has no idea what they’re doing, and how the Snorks, specifically Tooter Snork, would’ve been a much better choice. Because Strasburg isn’t ready to be Allstar. Uh, cough.

According to the Nationals, this is the best thing that has ever happened.

“This is what baseball is about,” Marrero said, “being a rookie and being able to do this with my friends.”

Dress like Smurfs, he meant.

In case you were wondering, yes, that sentence fragment masquerading as a paragraph from the D.C. Sports Blog reports Chris Marrero as having said that “painting yourself blue and pretending to be a Smurf because the veterans made you” is what baseball is all about.

Jayson Werth appeared to be the ringleader, and the Smurf theme song played in continuous loop in the clubhouse during the dressing. F.P. Santangelo said the episode was “definitely” the best rookie hazing he’d ever seen in his baseball life.

I feel like somebody should’ve gotten Jayson Werth to dress up like Gargamel, because getting 10 million dollars to bat .233 is about as helpful to the team as tracking the rookies into the forest and cooking them to death in a cauldron. Maybe next year the rookie hazing theme will be “don’t finish in fourth place”.

[h/t Sportress of Blogitude]

If you watch this video of Richmond Flying Squirrel Eric Surkamp striking out Bryce Harper during Wednesday night’s Harrisburg Senators game, you’re allowed two trains of thought. The first is standing up and going YEAH, YEAH, YEAH, YEAH, YEAH like the spider monkey in the blaze orange The second is summed up by YouTube user samherb1, who cuts to the chase and says what every sports blogger would say if they didn’t get paid to be inflammatory.

Video after the jump.

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