SHARK VS ASTROS

Sharkingly, the Nationals played another see-saw game... but managed to pull out a victory, beating the Houston Astros 5-2 last night.  It was the first game of the season that the Shark had faced the stars, but only needed a couple of innings to adjust.  He ended the game 1-3 with a walk, BUT his one hit came at a very important juncture during the game. With the game tied at two in the top of the ninth, the Shark led off the inning with a roped single.  His presence on the basepaths then inspired the rest of the inning to fall into place, with Ryan Zimmerman (who had a big game with a HR + 2 RBIs) bringing Bernadina in on a single to take the lead.

Mako Morse had a nice game as well, unleashing the Beast inside, and going 3-4.  Mako and the Shark combined to go 4 for 7 with a walk, 3 runs, and a HR.  The combined Shark Power contributed to more than half of the offense.  It was clear to see they were on the same page for most of the game whenever they high fived.

The Nationals continue their 3 game series with the Houston Astros tonight.  The Shark has ventured into space before, so he knows what to expect.  Something tells me this is going to be a delicious road trip...

A word of the wise, Astros MGMT, don't fly too close to the ground...

More to come.

Sharka-TEE-na

THE SHARK NICKNAME GROWS

Tyler and I were discussing recently how the Shark nickname has spread completely out of our control.  (Is that the definition of viral?)  You know what, that's okay.  Anyone who has found us in some way (through Facebook, Twitter, or accidentally stumbling on this blog, or through Roger Bernadina himself), know that we began the nickname and nothing brings more joy to my heart than a bowl full of candy in a doctor's office waiting area.  That, and following the snowballing effects of Roger Bernadina's nickname.  Years down the road, when the Shark has 10 Gold Gloves, 3 MVP (Most Valuable Player) awards, 15 MVP (Most Vicious Predator) awards, we'll look back and say, "we were there when..."

But that is years away!

In the meantime, it is fun to look at all the Roger "The Shark" Bernadina t-shirts on the market these days.  Without further ado, here is your Sharkadina T-Shirt Buying Guide, with every shark shirt we can find online and our unbiased opinions of them all.

First, the original:

Section 138 t-shirt

Tyler and I like this one a lot.  For one, it is a cool, fun graphic.  Also, we like Gavin a lot, because he was an early adopter of the Shark nickname.   He hopped on board the Shark Express and hasn't looked back.  Also, this shirt has been featured on MASN and I have personally seen several of them around the stadium. Also, the shirt is only $14.40 which is a great bargain in this day and age.


Second, The Sharkadina Shop:

 Sharkadina Shop t-shirt

Welcome to our shop.  Following the Washington Post article, in which Dan Steinberg called us out on not merchandising, we opened up a Spreadshirt shop to make some Sharkadina gear.  This is our newest design and I think one of our best.  While other places offer great Shark-themed apparel, this is the only place to get Sharkadina apparel (it is a subtle difference).  Tell everyone you are a fan of this blog and help support us so we can buy materials to make more Shark hoods!  Our tees start at $20 and any profit we make will go towards spreading the Shark nickname!

Third, 22 Fresh's "Shark Mode"

Today was an exciting day, as a brand new shirt debuted.  If you haven't heard the phrase "Beast Mode" yet, you obviously haven't been on Twitter when Michael Morse is up to bat.  For the whole story, read our good friend Dan Steinberg's article.  Basically, Morse wore a "Beast Mode" shirt from hip designer 22Fresh at a press conference during the height of his crazy power hitting streak earlier this summer and it has become a sort of catch phrase for him.  Once we at Sharkadina saw that, we thought, "Beast Mode is good...but Shark Mode is better."  We pestered contacted 22Fresh via Twitter asking him to make a Shark Mode shirt, and today it finally debuted:

Shark Mode

This shirt is $35 and also features Bernadina's number 2 on the back.  It is being advertised as "The Official Tee Shirt of the Nats Roger Bernadina," and is already getting some great press on Twitter, from none other than Nats closer Drew Storen:

So there you go, Loyal Shark Fans.  Some great options for supporting the Shark at Nats Park for the rest of the season.  Hopefully it is just a matter of time before the Washington Nationals start producing Shark apparel...

Let us know what you think of the different shirts in the comments below!

More to come.

Inside The Shark Home Run

The Shark was great in today's 9-8 loss to the Atlanta Braves.  It was a strange game right from the start, with Bernadina apparently getting hit by a pitch.  The replay showed that it didn't really hit him, but the home plate umpire game him the base anyway because he knew that you don't even want to throw anywhere near a Shark.  Once on first The Shark used his Shark Speed to steal second.  He would steal twice in the game bringing him up to 15 out of 17 for the year.

In the 3rd inning, Bernadina hit a bomb on a 1-1 pitch to right center.  Tom "Sloth" Gorzelanny tried to score from first but ended up colliding with the catcher and getting hurt.  He scored anyway and Shark uses his smart baseswimming skills to come home.  It was officially scored as a triple with an error, but it was in effect an inside the park home run!  Or as the title suggests, an "inside the shark home run"  The play tied the game at 2-2.

The game continued to sway back an forth, like a ship at sea, surrounded by hungry man-eaters.  The offense was there, as the Nats scored 8 (3 of which were from the Shark himself) but the pitching failed to pull it's weight yet again.  Get that All Star Rust off, fellas!

The Shark finished 2-4, with an RBI, 3 runs, and 2 SB.  I'm going to choose to focus on those great stats and gloss over the heartbreaking walk-off win that Freddie Freeman and the Braves pulled out in the bottom of the 9th.  Sigh...

SHARK ON THE BRAIN:
Every time I type a word beginning with "sha," I end it with an "rk" before correcting it.  Examples are share, Shakespeare, shape. My e-mails to parents at Imagination Stage are that much harder to get out, as I double, and triple check everything to ensure that I don't tell them there child is in SharkSpear Stories.... Though it does honestly sounds like a sh**king awesome camp...

CalTort Shark:
Apparently the CalTort Fish Taco Competition is heating up in the clubhouse, and Jordan Zimmermann and Mako Morse want free burritos.  Apparently, the two of them got a picture of the Shark eating a fish taco (as seen on the Shark's facebook page).  No fair!  Co-workers shouldn't count...but they do, so enjoy those delicious free tacos, you two!  Know that I am writhing with jealousy on the inside and outside.

The Nationals fly to Houston where the apparently transport to space to face the struggling Astros.  I don't know where else you can go to fight some stars....?

Don't worry Nats fans, with the help of our good friends at NASA (I literally know nobody at NASA), the Shark is ready...

Picture by Gary Storkamp

More to come.

ALL STAR RUST

The Washington Nationals had a tough time shaking the All-Star Break rust last night with the crushing 11-1 defeat handed to them by the Atlanta Braves.  The Nationals made 5 errors, including 3 in the first.  Remember when they went 12+ games without an error earlier this year?  Yeah... that was nice.  Despite managing to get 8 hits off of a dominant Braves pitching staff, one run was about 10 runs short of making this game interesting.  The Shark had a pretty good game, ending 1 for 5 with the only run of the game for the Nationals.  He now has a Shark Streak going of 7 games.

Also, when I say they had a hard time shaking off the rust, I mean that literally.  During the All-Star Break, Livan Hernandez retreated into his steel sarcophagus to wait out the game.  There is no explanation for why he did this.  What he wasn't expecting was the torrential downpours that soaked the casing and caused it to rust through.  When he emerged several days later (which required a lot of strength...so they called the Shark, the Jaws of Life himself), his skin was terrible discolored and he was literally rusty.  This was apparent, as he gave up 6 runs in only 4 innings of work (only 3 were earned though, thanks to the errors).

Google search for "Rust Man" came up with this...

OLD SHARK NEWS
In 1916, people were blaming The Great War for a slew of shark attacks off the New Jersey coast.  It was recently discovered that these people had actually just attempted to force a terrible nickname onto Bernadina... Watch out Bill Ladson!

INTERNATIONAL SHARK NEWS
The Shark is now being written about all over the world as you can see in this interview that we gave to the blog Deporte Awe!  This article is written in Papiamentu, the native language of Curacao, Roger Bernadina's homeland.

Papiamentu (or Papiamento) is a mixture of Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, English, French, and it also has some Arawak Indian and African influences. Papiamentu is one of the few Creole Languages of the Caribbean that has survived to the present day.

I ran it through a translator, but it still wasn't 100% understandable: "the two fanátiko they here is terry and tyler and all game of nationals with they visit they're go dress at shark."

Actually that is pretty accurate.

More to come.

SHARK VS BRAVES: ROUND 2

The Shark faced the Braves earlier this year.  That happened just after his recall from the Syracuse Chiefs... Now, fresh off some R&R over the All Star Break, he's ready to attack them again. This time, leaving no victims...

PLEASE NOTE:  This is arguably my worst "Shark Vs" ever.  MS Paint does not have the same precision as Apple Preview.  If you are so offended by this that you want to upchuck, please refer to the original SHARK VS BRAVES and lets forget this ever happened.

Shark Alarm!  Raise the black flag!

 No matter how bad this is, the SHARK WILL DRINK BRAVES BLOOD TONIGHT!

More to come.

A BREAK FROM THE ALL-STAR BREAK BLUES

For the second straight year, a Washington Nationals pitcher was the pitcher of record for the All-Star Game.  Tyler's second favorite player Tyler Clippard got the win this time, pitching to one batter. Considering he's a setup man, it is an impressive feat.

The day after the All-Star Game is probably the worst day of the year... No sports whatsoever, the Shark being far away, and this growing hunger from eating an insufficient breakfast combine to make a downright dreary day.  Here's hoping things will turn around and the rest of the day will recover!

Besides the countdown to Shark Week that is constantly ticking in my head, there isn't much news to report about, except....

THIS ROGER BERNADINA + FISH TACO THING IS BLOWING UP!

After commenting on California Tortilla's Facebook page, we got a lovely CalTort message response:

You know something, CalTort, we like you too!  In fact, with all this taco talk, I think I will have to get lunch at the Bethesda location today! I'm wearing my Bernadina shirt, too, in an effort to turn around the All-Star blues.  Gotta represent the Shark!

Anyway, since that time, a lot of things have happened.

First, our close friend (as close as you can be after a phone interview) Dan Steinberg, then picked up the story and posted it on his blog: Roger Bernadina taco picture could be worth a year of burritos.

After that, some rules were established, in order to prevent the Shark from being harassed and stalked.

Then BOOM , NBC Washington picked up the story, with a link to our blog.  We got 120 hits in an hour... Crazy!

More of these are on the way, but here is my first attempt with MS Paint to promote Roger Bernadina's Shark Week.  (More of these to come)

The only thing in question is how willing the Shark will be about this whole fish taco business.  Based off our meetings, Bernadina is so nice,  I'm sure he won't mind.  I think the Shark's Agent comes into play here.  I'm not sure what the necessary hoops he will have to go through for this unofficial contest.  All I hope is that Sharkadina doesn't get a Cease and Desist Letter...

Finally, we are totally loving the Shark nickname usage and we hope that it becomes even more widespread.  Also, we cannot wait until the Shark returns to the baseball field in Atlanta on Friday.. Should be a feast...

More to come.

California Tortilla Shark

ALL-SHARK GAME!

The longest three days of  the year have begun and Tyler and I are sitting at the TV wishing the Shark was participating in the Home Run Derby.  Obviously, that is a dangerous situation, because the Shark would put the other players to shame and probably bite off an arm or two.  The Shark does have the opportunity to accompany his friend Jair Jurrjens to the All Star Game, but we all know sharks like to stay closer to the water and the dry desert sun may dry out Bernadina's dentacles...

Now on to more important news...

We noted earlier that California Tortilla was offering to give out a free Shark Fin hat to anyone who buys a fish taco on July 28th.  The cost of the taco alone is worth a Shark Fin hat!  Be sure you go there for lunch that day, to eat fishy tacos and deck yourself out for future Nats games. Anyone who has a flexible work schedule should try to attend the Nats game that day to see the Shark in person while enjoying a delicious (I hope so.  I've never actually had one?) fish taco.  Since that point, fascinating things have happened....  Thanks to a lengthy response to the California Tortilla Facebook post about the shark hats, CalTort has created a new offer....

Game on Shark fans.  May the best Shark fan win!

Finally changes will be happening on the Sharkadina blog in the next few days...so pay close attention...

More to come.

Shark Breaks Up Pitcher's Duel

The Nats finally won, bringing their record back up to .500 just in time for the All-Star Break (Terry's favorite time of the year).  The game was mostly a pitchers duel with Jordan Zimmermann and the Rockies' Chacin dealing through 6.1 and 7 innings respectively.  It was 0-0 until the bottom of the sixth when Roger "The Shark" Bernadina hit his 19th RBI of the season to break up the scoreless game.  Rick Ankiel added on a homer in the 8th to make it 2-0 and Mattheus, Clippard, and Storen closed out the game.

Shark must have been inspired by all the Shark fans in attendance including myself and some fierce Mini-Sharks:

In addition to our Shark-posse, it was great running into people who recognized us from the Washington Post story as well as seeing Shark friends @LetTeddyWin, @sweetpearacer and @jorgath.

We will continue to bring you all Shark related news through the All-Star Break!

More to come.