Stephen Strasburg was erred by the scamp in blue!

Hi, ladies and germs. Miss me? Really? Well, I didn't miss you either, so there.

/Sobs in the corner while petting Danny Espinosa's bobblehead.

So, Stephen Strasburg (the latest member of the high profile Opening Day Starter club) pitched in yesterday's ballgame against the Mets. He was cruising along, you know, all Stras-like, when he ran into Lucas Duda HP umpire Hunter Wendelstedt. Stevie Stras had Lucas Duda 1-2 and threw a nasty breaking ball to strike him out. Only he didn't. Wendelstedt was too busy lighting his crack pipe to see the pitch, and called it a ball. You can guess what happened next, right? You got it. Home run. Hunter Wendelstedt 1, Washington Nationals 0.

A written description of these events really doesn't do it justice, so I made my first video of 2012. Hooray! Bully! Huzzah! (Come on, folks. Can you at least act interested? Sigh...) So, without further ado, I present to to, the worst call in the history of calls*.



As you saw, that ball was right down the middle. I mean, Strasburg starts heading off the mound, and Duda starts heading to the dugout, for Christ's sake!

Okay, I'm doing this post as a drive-by, so I'm outta here. Be on the look out for new posts soon, as well as a new shirt! Here's a hint - It's Gio Gonzalez. (That hint was for any Phillies fans that read this blog. I didn't want you all to have to waste half a day trying to figure out a harder hint.) Adios, muchachos!

*I apologize for the shakiness of the video. I had to hold up the camera and record the TV, cause, well, that's how I roll. I asked for a teeny tripod for Christmas, but no one got me it. Maybe I'll ask Hunter Wendelstedt for one, cause he appears great at granting people wishes. I guess I just need to write him that wishlist on Mets letterhead.

The Winter Meetings are here!

And they mean so much to us baseball fans right now that I'm capitalizing them! In fact, let's just rename them, shall we? The Goddamn Awesomest, Drinkinest,  Wheelinest, and Dealinest Winter Meetings are here!

Mr. Michael Rizzo and Mr. Mark Lerner are sitting in their booth, ready to wine and dine potential clients. Look, here's a picture of them! (Let me know if I did this right.)

"Can we interest you in some cool pens? Take as many as you want!"

If you didn't get the reference, then I'm sorry, but you're missing teh awesomest part of the internet. And I just feel sorry for you. (Or is it me that I feel sorry for? Yes. It's me. Curse you, Reddit! /Sobs quietly while eating Cheetos and browsing r/pics.)

How sweep it is!

Why yes, that headline is a duplicate of a tweet I made last night. Big whoop, wanna fight about it?

Our valiant band of brothers, dressed in red, white and blue, strode strongly into Citizens Bank Park (or is it Nats Park North*?) and proceeded to layeth the smack down on the Phillie's roody-poo candy-asses. (How many readers did I lose with a wrestling reference? Three? Gah! You other two, please stay! I'll make s'mores, and we'll sit by the camp fire singing songs and shit! Don't leave me!)

Three days later, and the final tally in games won was Nats: 4, Phillies 0. In high fa-looting baseball circles, where they use terms like "babip" and "fWar," they call this a "sweep." Wait... Did somebody say "Sweep?!" Clean up in aisle nine, Danny!

I really could have chosen a lot of Nats to be pushing that broom; any of the starters (besides Lannan), Wilson Ramos, or even Zim. But Danny gets the nod for two reasons:

1. His slash line was .313/.389/.750 with 2 HR during the sweep.
2. I gave up sponsorship of his baseball-reference page two days ago, and I'm still crying my eyes out about it.

Yes, gone are the days of seeing this glorious sight multiple times a day, as I had it set as my homepage for both home and work browsers. Baseball-ref wanted waaaay too much money for me to renew my sponsorship (we're talking multiple cases of Sam Adams Double Bock prices here! /no beer snob), so I'll now have to be content to just gaze upon it longingly, like Ray King does a cheeseburger. Like Lastings Milledge does a nice easy route to a flyball. Like Cliff Lee does a Danny Espinosa at bat against him resulting in, well, anything but a home run. (By the way, if anyone would like to donate money towards either renewing the sponsorship or Sam Adams Double Bock, well, what the fuck are you waiting for? Paypal: phishisgr8@gmail.com, dammit!)

* I don't know who to credit "Nats Park North" to, as I saw it floating around on Twitter quite a bit. So, to whoever you are, Mr. or Mrs. Witty Word Play, I salute you. May your house be blessed with many winning seasons, and shall no one enter with the intention of neither vomiting upon you, nor punching you in the face in the name of Philadelphia. If that does occur, however, feel free to mention the 2011 season, and how the final head-to-head series win count was in favor of the Nationals 10 to 8. But have at least 18 apples ready, as you will have to teach them what the numbers 10 and 8 mean, and how 10 is greater than 8. Might as well get at least 20 apples, though, as it could take days to teach folks from Philly how to count, and you're gonna need to eat. (Bang! Pow! Zip! Right in the kisser! I just said Philly folks can't count, which every 3-year-old in the country (outside of Philly, that is) can do! I WIN!!111!)

Ryan Zimemrman kills it, and Bryce Harper... also kills it. Too. As well.

If you didn't see Ryan Zimmerman's colossal shot that just missed hitting the left field concourse by a couple rows, well, you can click here. Or, just look below. In handy, dandy gif form is Zim just destroying some leather-wrapped cork and twine.

As a certain black orange brown (what the fuck color is Goofy?) animated dog would say, "GORSH!" Mike Leake probably wishes he would have stolen some sand to bury his head in instead of those t-shirts, AM I RIGHT?!?!? (Jokes about four-month-old news, folks. Yup, that's what you're getting right here.)

Not to be outdone, however, was Bryce Harper, who destroyed a baseball himself a couple nights ago. Not only was it his first homerun in front of the home field fans at Harrisburg, it was also a walk-off moon shot the likes of which, well, we'll get to that... First, witness the greatness:

Did you see where that ball went? It cleared the batter's eye in dead center field. That batter's eye wall is 400 feet from the plate. And its height? Great googly moogly! A closer look at that wall reveals just how incredible that home run was. I found this picture of it on the interwebs:

Now, what's that thing standing by the wall?

HOLY GODZILLA! Man! Whoa! A quick check of Wikipedia reveals that Godzilla stands 328 feet tall. His head seems to be above the wall, leaving the height of the wall to be from his feet to his neck, or, like, 300 feet tall. Now, if you factor in the height of the batter's eye (300') and the distance the batter's eye is from the plate (400') you get the true distance of how far that ball traveled. Don't worry yourself with the figures, though, as I did the math for you folks. (This is a full service blog, after all.) Are you ready for it?

Bryce Harper hit that ball 7,234,176 feet!!!!!!! That's gotta be, like, some kind of record, right?! Hey, Bryce, if that is a record, just let me know if you want me to get in touch with the folks over at the Guinness Book of World Records to provide them with my data. Then it can be all official like.

Did anyone get the number of that truck?

I did! It was #33, Juan Rivera. He decided (very wisely, no matter what the outcome of the play was) to bowl over Chase Utley last night on a ground ball to second, and I love the man for that.

Chase Utley's scummieness has been well documented over at these here parts, and it brought a large smile to my face when I saw this on MLB network this morning. I was so happy, in fact, that I made a video of the glorious event and put it to music. I think Mr. Ludacris did a bang up job of summing up my thoughts. (With special emphasis put on the last line of the video.)

Ahh... all is good for now. The Section 138 lynch mob has been pleased with Juan Rivera's offering. While the hit didn't put Chase Utley out, it did garner Mr. Rivera a free beer or three from me anytime he wants, and a spot in the Section 138 HOF*.

(*There is no Section138 Hall of Fame, unfortunately, as the more I thought about it, the more I saw the possibility of several members being admitted because I was blind drunk at the time. Seriously, the Hall would have, like, 4,345 members in it. Lastings Milledge? Sure, he made that play that one time. Todd Coffey? Sure, he made me giggle with his jiggle. See where I'm going with this? I'm pretty sure at some point in his tenure, I've even agreed with Bobby Carpenter, and would've pulled the trigger on electing him in. And the only Halls that should have Bob Carpenter as a member are the Hall of Corny, and the Hall of Generic White Announcers From the Central Time Zone Who Have Covered Baseball, Pro Tennis, Pro Golf, and Have Graduated From the University of Missouri-Kansas City.)