The Nationals’ racing presidents and the racing pierogies of Pittsburgh have a 2-year tradition of traveling to each others’ ball parks when the teams play each other; but after May’s debacle in which the racing pierogies tricked the presidents and won a race at Nationals Park, fans were left wondering whether the embarrassed presidents would make an appearance for this weekend’s Nationals/Pirates series at Pittsburgh’s PNC Park.
On Friday night, the question was answered when the presidents appeared for a 4-team mascot relay race. Abe Lincoln was paired with Teddy Roosevelt and George Washington was paired with Thomas Jefferson, with Teddy and Tom poised to run anchor.
Abe Lincoln finished the opening leg in last place, but on the anchor leg, Teddy put on a burst of speed. That’s when pierogie Potato Pete, who had not been participating in the race, ran onto the field and straight into Teddy, leveling him to the ground. Here’s the race as it was called in the park:
The take-down was featured on ESPN’s SportsCenter, where SportsCenter anchor Scott Van Pelt called it “the greatest highlight I’ve ever seen”:
LET TEDDY WIN 
I hope you can find the version of this video that they played on ESPN. This is good, but that one showed the true devastation that Teddy suffered. Thanks for posting!
Im pretty sure that’s Potato Pete, not Oliver Onion that levels Teddy
@Rob, I have the ESPN video, but didn’t want to post copyrighted material without their permission
@Brennan, I thought Oliver Onion wore the purple hat (and Potato Pete was retired)
Would you mind e-mailing it to me? bamarob9 at yahoo
It was Potato Pete, he came out of retirement to help the Pierogies that night.
So were there 5 pierogies racing that night?
PLEASE email me the full Espn clip. Does it have the sound of Van Pelt and Anderson laughing their Butts off? I still laugh EVERY TIME I watch this
LOL, Rey Mysterio Called, he wants to learn how to do a Cross body block like that HAHA
Poor Teddy! We share a birthday and it makes me so sad that he’s never won! But he has his own food stand, so maybe that makes up for it?
BTW, I was at Nationals Park a few weeks ago – July 22 to be precise – and as I left, I saw a bunch of fans that had signs with “LET TEDDY WIN” on it. Was that you/your friends?
PS If you can direct me to the ESPN video, too, I would love to see it! I’m not in the Pittsburgh OR DC market, so would have had no way of seeing this. Thanks 🙂