“And then I heard that the Phillies signed Delmon Young and I was like ‘I’m not pitching to that guy. When he comes up I’ll just put my hands on my hips.’” Benny Sieu-USA TODAY Sports

The Nationals seem set, but then again they might just go out next week and burn down a small village because Mike Rizzo specify “decaf.”  The Braves are a lock for a Sports Illustrated cover of the Uptons standing back to back, arms folded and cheesing over the words “BASH BROTHERS” or “I’VE HAD IT UPTON HERE” or something equally asinine.  And as long as the Marlins say nothing, there’s no way to tell what clownish antics they’re engaging in at the moment.

So at the moment, we’re the divisional punchline, unless the Mets are selling their equipment for a handful of magic beans.

…Are they selling all their equipment for a handful of magic beans?

No.  They’re making trades that are at the very least attempts to make their team better. Yes, even the Pedro Feliciano trade was supposed to do that.  I don’t know.

But they closed a deal with starter Shaun Marcum yesterday and have been hunting Michael Bourn like those dogs outside Citi Field all week.

Ha!  Ha ha!  Shaun Marcum!  He’s a pitcher!  Right, rest of the NL East?

**Rest of NL East points and laughs at Phillies. Nationals throws a rock, striking Phillies in the forehead.**

Atlanta Braves

Well, it happened.  Justin Upton and the Diamondbacks finally broke up.

“I just feel so lost.” Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports

This has been a long time coming.  Some of us have been laughlessly drawing this metaphor for years.  Every week Upton and the Snakes would fight and scream at each other in the street in front of the bar with all their friends in it, and their friends would exchange looks like “Why don’t they just break up already,” and then Justin would storm off and the team would come back inside crying, and saying “Fuck him, it’s over.”

But then the next day they’d pull him off the trading board and the rest of us would have to go back to pretending Scott Hairston was this outfielder everybody wanted on their team.

This time, though, the Braves were waiting when Justin stormed off.  They told him how pretty he was and how the Diamondbacks didn’t deserve him and how happy could he really be with a team that dangled him out on the trade market every month?

Wouldn’t he be much more happy as power-hitting outfielder in the Braves lineup?  Atlanta is warm and accommodating, they have 20 people on payroll to come out to the park and pretend to like baseball every spring (double if they make the playoffs!), and oh yes; his brother is already here.

What better place to run off to after a nasty break-up then a team with playoff hopes and family connections?  Just think about, it Justin.  We’ll be here.

Washington Nationals

It was a crazy night for Mike Rizzo, who was dolled up as the belle of the ball for his Executive of the Year Award dinner.  Just before pulling his chair out, sitting down, and calling his t-bone steak a coward, he had some thoughts on the Justin Upton/Braves deal, that also sent Martin Prado to Arizona.

•  ”But Prado is a terrific, terrific baseball player.”
• “Upton is a terrific player and a guy I’m very familiar with and I love.”
• “He’s a great player.”
• “They had a good team before they got him. They’ve got a good team now.”
• “He’s going to be a good player for them.”

See how nice Rizzo can be when people aren’t throwing baseballs at his players’ spines?  Looks like they really have it all figured out in Washington.

Miami Marlins

“What? What’s happening behind me?” “…he’s got his foot stuck in the bucket again.” Steve Mitchell-USA TODAY Sports

After being released by one South Florida sports franchise, former Dolphins QB Pat White has decided to give baseball a shot.

Now, I’m sure Pat isn’t of the mindset that he can try whatever sports he wants all the time just by showing up.  But he is one of those guys whose been getting offers from different organizations to receive tons of money to play a sport for them since he was in high school.  So maybe he is kind of like that.

But if any team was trying to coerce a touching Miami sports love story out of the woodwork, and willing to spend money to do so, it would be the Marlins.

They need somebody to make them feel human again.  They need someone to indicate they are more than broken parts and Giancarlo Stanton trade rumors.  They need someone to prove that Jeffrey Loria isn’t a brainless monster, wandering the streets of the city, kicking fire hydrants open and laugh laugh laughing.

Is Pat White that story?  The 26-year-old has recently stated he’s probably going to try and get back into the NFL, but that didn’t stop the Marlins from offering him a minor league contract.  Is he good?  Can he produce?  Will he be effective?  Who cares!  He is a story, and one who could shoulder the hopes of the whole city and take them into the next generation of Marlins baseball.

UPDATE: Pat White has been cut by the team and is currently waiting in line for tickets to a Heat game under the assumption that is is a line for open tryouts.

MLB recently revealed its new line of batting practice hats for each team, so naturally, our freedom is being threatened as Americans.

The Braves went ahead and brought back their wordless, logo of a Native American who looks like he’s watching Louis C.K.’s “Chewed Up” for the first time.

First we had the reactions, then the reactions to the reactions, then the assembled collections of the reactions, and the “Am I the only one whose cool enough not to be offended?” argument.

The important thing in all of this is that no matter how Native American groups feel about being portrayed by sports teams, this overplayed narrative about a baseball hat is a pretty clear indication that liberals have taken complete control of the media and very soon we’ll all be rounded up and forced into Communist brainwashing compounds.  History will illustrate that this was merely the centerpiece of their slowly approaching endgame.

MY GOD.

WHY DIDN’T WE PROTECT THE HATS.

Miami Marlins

Stanton is baseball’s current leader in appearances as the blurry figure home run-trotting in the background of disgruntled images of pitchers. Steve Mitchell-USA TODAY Sports

Down in Miami, we have received word that at the very least, the phones are still working.

With large chunks of the roster being broken off and shipped out, it seemed that the Marlins were panicking, or calmly disassembling, or performing some kind of verb that, whatever it was, stemmed from a place detached from reality.  A year removed from doing the exact opposite of this, it appeared to the the case that you could approach the Fish with any deal and, googly-eyed and wearing an outfit comprised mostly of glow sticks, they would probably take you up on it.

So when it was reported that Miami was listening to offers on Giancarlo Stanton, the scourge that baseballs tell their children about so they’ll eat their vegetables, it seemed like the Philllies prayers had been answered.

Stanton is an outfielder that people have heard and has enormous power!  All Ruben has to do is trick a few nonfactor prospects into a road trip, leave them on the beach, and Stanton would arrive at Citizens Bank Park a few days later (The Fish aren’t going to pay for overnight delivery–they’re not made of money).

But alas, the Marlins are far more sane than they are being credited.  The Stanton whispers are, like any team listening to deals on any player, mere protocol, and the likelihood of his move is abysmally low.

You know what guys?  I think the Marlins are going to be okay.

New York Mets

PICTURED: a floating Mets cap, hanging in the air like a phantom knuckleball. Anthony Gruppuso-US PREWIRE

The Mets traded their ace, weeks after he won them a Cy Young Award, and now they have to live with themselves.

They’re the Mets, so this was no easy task to begin with.  And, in true Mets fashion, they’ve chosen to simply pretend R.A. Dickey never existed in the first place.

If you’re name is listed on the ominous scroll of people who receive a Mets holiday e-card, then you already know: The Mets saw some decent action in 2012; hanging around for a while, Johan Santana’s no-hitter, David Wright becoming the franchise leader in hits–all very nice things to squeegee out of another lost year.

What you also learned is that R.A. Dickey not only doesn’t play for the Mets anymore, he didn’t play for them at all in 2012, making zero appearances on the one minute summary of the team’s year, despite being voted the best pitcher in the league.

Was it all a mirage?  Could we all have imagined the mountain-climbing, Star Wars geek knuckleballer who slung blooping nonsense at hitters over a six-month period?  It certainly seems like it could have happened.  But I…

**Looks down, sees farewell note in New York Daily News**

He was real!  Then… then that means the Phillies–

**Checks 2012 standings, the Phillies are still terrible**

Washington Nationals

It was really hard for Mike Rizzo to call up baseball superhero Bryce Harper, you guys.  You really don’t even understand.  What if he, like, wasn’t ready, and stuff, you know?

On April 25, as the team he assembled prepared to play across the country in San Diego, Washington Nationals General Manager Mike Rizzo milled around a batting cage in Rochester, N.Y. He had flown from Washington the previous day with an intention he shared with few others, one of the organization’s most crucial tasks in 2012.

As the Syracuse Chiefs took batting practice, Bryce Harper spotted Rizzo and shook his hand.

“You’re here to bring me to the big leagues,” Harper said to Rizzo. “Aren’t you?”

–Adam Kilgore, Washington Post

Mark DeRosa got an earful of Rizzo’s feelings that day. Brad Barr-USA TODAY Sports

Also, Bryce Harper is a psychic, guys.  But he’s so good at baseball that his pinpoint knowledge of the future is often overlooked.

Also it doesn’t let him see walls.

June 29, 2012; Miami, FL, USA; A baseball hat and sunglasses belonging to Philadelphia Phillies center fielder Shane Victorino (not pictured) are seen on the arm rest of the dugout before a game between the Philadelphia Phillies and the Miami Marlins at Marlins Park. Mandatory Credit: Steve Mitchell-USA TODAY Sports

Today, through ESPN.com’s Paul Lukas he gives us a first look at the new MLB batting practice caps that all the teams will be wearing including your Philadelphia Phillies.

Many baseball and Phillies fans should be excited with these caps because they are different and gives every team a new feel. These new caps will be worn in spring training as well so fans go get them you will be sure to like them.

We all know the Phillies had the same old batting practice caps with the all red, the blue Phillies P, and the blue lining around it but it gets an extreme makeover this time around. The batting practice caps according to Lukas are an inverse of the Phils alternate caps and we all do like the alternate caps, well I know I do.

This batting practice cap will feature an all blue peak and then the cap itself will be all red and the Phillies P stays all blue. Now doesn’t it seem like that’s something you can wear all the time. Lukas gave the Phillies an A for their new batting practice cap.

Within the NL East the batting practice caps changed too! On the Mets batting practice cap Mr. Met himself will be on the front as the peak of the cap will be all orange. The Nationals are going for a more traditional look with their caps as they got an all red peak, but the front of the cap is white and Nationals W is all red.

The Marlins also do the same exact thing as the Nationals with their design but the Braves have the most interesting design out of everyone in the division. Instead of just having the regular A, they went and decided to put the screaming Indian on the front of the cap. We all thought that phase was over with but its not and Lukas gave the Braves a F.

Hopefully, you like all of these new batting practice caps from all the teams in major league baseball some of them have a keen sense of fashion while others need to reevaluate their fashion sense.

Jovan Alford is a staff writer for The Sixer Sense, a writer for Buzz On Broad covering the Philadelphia 76ers and Local College Basketball, and is a writer for Rant Sports covering the A-10 Conference for College Basketball.

Follow me on twitter @Jovan10 for Sixers, College Basketball, NFL, MLB, and all sports updates.

For any inquiries contact me via email: jovan.alford@gmail.com