The Best Team in Baseball? (Comedy Category)

I'm not a sports nut (people could stone me 'cause I don't like American football), but I have an occasional and inexplicable soft spot in my heart for baseball. The baseball season is a lengthy and plodding affair that often reads like serialized magazine drama, except that the protagonists are overpaid men hitting a stick with a ball! I admit the game is boring, but there's something about the endless permutations of strategies, stats, skills, and traditions that can make following it enticing.

Last season I witnessed the highgly improbable triumph of my favorite team in the NL East -- the Philadelphia Phillies -- the surreality of which was heightened by the fact that I watched Philly fans dance with jubilation in South Philly on a tv station with Spanish-speaking commentators in Caracas, Venezuela. The Phillies had won nothing since a steroid-hulking Lenny Dykstra and a fat-assed John Kruk had spit tobacco juice on foes and fans alike back in 1993. (That's 14 years people! Even the Sixers had made it deep into the playoffs since then!) They were consequently swept by the 'red-hot' Colorado Rockies in the playoffs (who -- oh this seemed like such sweet justice after their cocky remarks -- got swept on the big stage by the Red Sox!) -- but this was forgivable, given that they had managed to do something and had never seen the limelight before. (That Mets suffered an 'historic' collapse that allow the Phillies to steal the division, but that's another story.)

Today. The off-season's over. Players are tanned and well rested after spending languid holidays dreaming of pennants on exotic beaches around the world. Spring training has begun in Clearwater, Florida, for the Phils.

Yesterday the Phillies proved that -- though not world champions -- they are the coolest team in baseball, and that's got to count for something! Below is an article about a clubhouse prank and the 'trade' of one of the pitchers for a Japanese hot dog-eater. The experience for said pitcher was undeniably painful, but it was a joke. To all of those who call this kind of practical joke cruel, I would say that the spirit that was neither the intention nor the ultimate outcome of it. Teammates and media members react with unmitigated joy at the end of the clip (I recommend you watch the video), and Kendrick may even laugh at himself when it's all said and done.


http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/blog/mlb_experts/post/This-Phillies-prank-on-Kyle-Kendrick-works-on-so?urn=mlb%2C67279


We don't have Johan Santana but we've got some funny-ass chums! (Okay, maybe Santana is better).