When I think about what makes America great, I immediately think of two things: Baseball and cocaine.

Yes, like mom and apple pie, nose candy and baseball represent all that is good with this great land of ours. Teamwork, hustle, desire, and the ability to stay up all night banging whores and listening to Parliament Funkadelic albums is what truly makes the US of A the greatest country in the world.

A select few of America's finest have had the ability to sublimely blend the best of both worlds; to both cut toot and stretch a double into a triple.

The 1970's dawned a new era in Major League Baseball. The previous generation's players had been ravenous alcoholics. They boozed until the wee hours of the morning and then fought their hangovers off with ample amounts of amphetamines before game time, only to start the cycle anew once the final out had been recorded. This way of thinking was challenged by the young players of the '70's. They wouldn't be saddled with hangovers caused by alcohol, the drug of their parent’s generation.

What could possibly go wrong here?

No, they would ride the white dragon and trip the light fantastic, arriving at the ball park with energy abound and an itchy nose.

With a tip of the cap and a runny nasal cavity, The Phat Phree salutes these paranoid warriors with the MLB All-Coke Head Team:

The Position Players:
C: DARRYL PORTER
	The 1982 World Series MVP (yes, you read that correctly), Porter was a talented catcher with a taste for party. In the winter of 1980, Porter would often stay awake all night, tweaking out of his gourd and clutching a shotgun; waiting for baseball commissioner Bowie Kuhn to break into his house. Needless to say, the massive amounts of cocaine he used made him a bit paranoid. But, he was a heck of an athlete and in America, that's all that really counts. He played 17 years in the big leagues with an exuberant passion for the game and was a hero to many young boys in the St. Louis area. On August 5, 2002, he was found dead in rural Missouri from "toxic effects of cocaine;" which is to say he died the way he lived, much like Steve Irwin.
1B: keith hernandez
	Our second member from the St. Louis Cardinals 1982 World Series championship team (this will be a trend here), Hernandez was able to parlay his slick fielding first basemen's mitt into another World Series title with the 1986 New York Mets (you'll see more of them later, too). Keith's penchant for the coke is supposedly the reason for him being sent to New York from St Louis, as the Cardinals front office got sick of small Columbian boys pooping out balloons in their clubhouse. Keith later fell victim to one of the side effects of massive recreational drug use: finding Julia Louis Dreyfus attractive.
2B: joe morgan
	A Hall of Fame second baseman, Morgan ingested so much cocaine into his system during his heyday that he is now nothing more than a walking invalid who was given a job broadcasting baseball simply so millions of Americans could laugh at him every week. With some of the shit that comes out of his mouth, he is a poster child for the harmful effects drugs can have on your mind and a walking reminder of why kids should just say no.
SS: dale berra
	After growing up under the bat shit crazy eye of his father Yogi, Dale Berra really had no choice but to start using coke. You try being raised by a man who not only was a famous athlete, but also made a living after baseball by just being ridiculous. Plus, Mickey Mantle was probably always over at their house, drunk off his ass and yelling about blow jobs. God, I could use a rail or two just thinking about it. I don't blame you, Dale. Gotta ease the pain somehow.
3b: ken caminiti
	The man's bloodstream was a virtual cornucopia of drugs. Cocaine, steroids, opiates, and alcohol: Caminiti loved them all. In only eight short years, he went from winning a Most Valuable Player award to dying on the side of a road in the Bronx while tweaking. And that, my friends, is how one goes out in a blaze of glory.
OF: Ron LeFLORE
	Although I can not find any definitive proof that LeFlore danced with the lady in white, the dude did have sex with a hooker at the age of 12 and soon after was using heroin. To think that he never even once threw some imported dust up his nose seems a little obtuse. Plus, he is the only guy on the list who actually began his career in prison, where he was scouted and signed by Billy Martin and the Tigers in 1973. Anyway, even if he never snorted, LeFlore makes this list anyway for his impressive off the field career of vices (but if I were a betting man, I'd say he did coke, too).
OF: DARRYL STRAWBERRY
	The charter member of the All Cocaine Team, Darryl Strawberry was one of the most talented baseball players in the history of the game. And he threw it all away to get high. And man, oh man, did he ever get high. But, honestly you would too if you had people chanting "DAR-REL, DAR-REL" every god damn day at you. After the troubles of his younger days, Strawberry had a successful recovery and comeback with the New York Yankees. Since his retirement in 2000, however, Strawberry has been arrested 7 times. Charges have ranged from cocaine possession, to soliciting a prostitute, to blacking out while driving. Let's just say that if partying is a crime (and it is), Strawberry is guilty (ditto).
OF: TIM "ROCK" RAINES
	Urban legend states that Raines got the nickname "Rock" because he used to keep a vial of crack cocaine in his back pocket. That is also the reason why he would only dive head first… because he did not want to break the VIAL OF CRACK IN HIS BACK POCKET.
The DH & PINCH RUNNER:
DH: pedro guerrero