NL East Infection: Jose Reyes Sells His Body

Miami Marlins

In a selfless, wonderful gesture, Hanley Ramirez recently opened a new baseball field in the Dominican for local youth.

That’s some kind, unmockable work by Hanley, whose offseason has been slightly mired by rumors of his irritation toward moving out of the way to third base so Jose Reyes can play shortstop.

Hanley must have been thrilled to learn, especially after traveling all the way to the DR and meeting with local kids and hanging out and talking to them and putting time and effort into his charity, that Jose Reyes just sold his hair for over $10,000.

But this isn’t the time to dwell on potential conflict in Miami!  Now is the time to embrace the re-invigoration of a franchise; to get swept away in the hype of a team that’s spent the winter hurling money into the air and seeing who it sticks to!  Why, it’s been such a free-spending offseason for the Fish that you probably assumed that their new stadium features a revolutionary new home run celebration in which Jeffrey Lurie sprints onto the field and tosses a live hand grenade into a wheelbarrow full of hundred dollar bills!

That’s fairly low key compared to what is actually going to happen, though.  An enormous sculpture, reminiscent of what Jerry Bruckheimer imagines Mayan civilization looked like, will feature sculptures of marlins diving in and out of the ocean while sea gulls fly around.  Also there will be lasers.

Duh.

Atlanta Braves

The times, they are a-changin’ in Atlanta.  Derek Lowe’s estate there has been put up for sale as he accepts his bright new future in the city of Cleveland.  The mainstay Native  American of the Braves’ logo has been removed, after decades of deep introspection as to what it’s still doing there.  But without Derek Lowe or racism, will the Braves even be recognizable?

For those of you lost souls gazing wistfully into the Georgia sunset, fear not.  Your club is about to become pretty identifiable.  For a day.

Bobby Cox is returning to the Braves organization, after spending an entire year trying to stay away.  Sadly, he will not be taking on a managerial role, or even a background/puppetmaster managerial role.  All he will be doing is managing the franchise’s top prospects in an exhibition game against the big club.  Which I guess is a managerial role.

To be played on April 5, the game is a transition from the warm potential of the preseason to the bitter reality of the regular season.  Think of it as the Braves’ version of our yearly clobbering of the Florida State Seminoles, but played in April, and with Bobby Cox in attendance.  And without Derek Lowe or racist uniforms.

New York Mets

The mayor of New York City, Michael Bloomberg, recently admitted that he 1. is aware of the Mets and 2.  has no interest in them.  Interest in buying them, anyway.  He did bother to say that Citi Field was “fine” and the Wilpons are “nice.”  Which is the highest praise the organization has received since 2006.

However, when it came to actually stepping forward to save the Mets, Mayor Bloomberg heartily admitted that he is content to sit back with some snacks and watch them implode, just like the rest of us.  With the way the NL East is improving, there aren’t too many complete and utter disasters to point and laugh at these days, so the Mets will have to make do with everyone doing just that to them for… many years.

Washington Nationals

But if you want to talk politics and baseball–get in line–then you can go no further than President Obama, who is planning on attending the hell out of some caucuses in the coming months.

We can all agree that the most humiliating moment of Obama’s presidency has been being seen in public wearing a Chicago White Sox hat.  However, the president will use Nationals Park for more than just embarrassing himself this year.  A Democratic Party event was just held there, and somehow, the leader of the free world made the guest list.

We can only assume the festivities will be kicked off by a stark, dignified display from the Nationals PR staff, who will undoubtedly have four men dressed as cartoonish versions of U.S. presidents run around the field during the proceedings, as well as not allow anyone to buy tickets for the event who has a credit card registered out of state.