A popular myth holds that George Washington once threw a silver dollar across the Potomac River. Right-minded people everywhere know the truth, of course — that it wasn’t a silver dollar but the testicles of British general Henry Seymour Conway, and that it wasn’t the Potomac River but the Atlantic Ocean.

Right-minded people are also aware that another strong-armed American, Nationals uberprospect Bryce Harper, has recently made his home at the mouth of the Potomac.

What we don’t know is which of the above-named and strong-armed Americans (i.e. Harper or Washington) is the strongest-armed.

To sort out this mystery, we turn — via poll — we turn to the metaphorical (and, in about 30% of cases, actual) sons and daughters of George Washington himself.

We turn to a poll like this one:

Yesterday, the readership was asked to use their hearts and brains and computers to address the moral quandary of DRaysBay editor and RotoGraphs contributor and bearded gentleman Erik Hahmann. Specifically, said readership responded to this query: would he (Hahmann) — as someone who actively supports the Tampa Bay Rays — would be a bad fan were he to buy some form of Blue Jays team apparel?

After 24 hours of polling, it appears as though the bespectacled readership has answered, loudly and decisively, “Meh, whatever.”

Regard the startling, entabled results after the jump!

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Editor at DRaysBay, contributor to RotoGraphs, and bearded gentleman Erik Hahmann has a tough question in these even tougher times: is he — as someone who (a) cares about the Tampa Bay Rays and (b) also has a beard — is he a bad fan if he wants to buy some form of Blue Jays team apparel?

Hahmann brought this question to the present author last night, and I, perhaps too confident in the precision of the readership’s moral compass, bring it to said readership now, via the embedded poll you find below.

Save Erik, reader, and save yourself.

On Monday, I called on the slobbering NotGraphs masses to help out some of my fantasy league mates in procuring better fantasy team names. The response was, to say the least, heart warming. But kind of heart warming like heartburn is heart warming. Warm, but troubling. And bad for esophagus.

Anyway, we NotGraphers voted for their favorite names in the league, and — much to my exhausted dismay — we had a tie for worst. The voters collectively decided that the Edmonton Trappers and chy924′s Team (which I think is a default team name) needed some nominal surgery.

The suggestions ranged from crass to clever and back to crass again. I have compiled a number of the best names, as well as some duds (for profiling purposes) and now:

I call on you once again, diligent, critical, and largely male, bespectacled, and inwardly wistful NOTGRAPHS READERSHIP, WHICH NAME IS BESTEST???

This poll closes Saturday morning with the beginning of Spring Training games — because by then, we should all be firmly planted in front of our Baseball Viewing Devices, and not voting in silly polls or spending time with silly wives and silly, stinky spawn.

Of course it is the fantasy baseball season now.

So, what have you named YOUR team? Carson Cistulli recently mentioned the Second Fangraphs Writers Ottoneu league — here shortened to THE AWESOME LEAGUE — during his podcast with Dayn Perry (FanGraphs Audio: The Gainfully Employed Dayn Perry) and the topic of team names briefly surfaced in their 43 minutes of otherwise unredeemable radio ranting.

There are lots of great fantasy baseball team names out there, and because THE AWESOME LEAGUE (my league) is comprised (a) entirely of writers and (b) partly of NotGraphs writers, who are the beatnik poets of the FanGraphs staff, we NotGraphers have the burdensome task of out-awesoming our peers in the most shortest form of poetry — yes, the fantasy baseball team name.

But, as we are all writers and thereby unreliable, backstabbing, self-loathing types, we cannot be trusted judges of our own team names — it is obviously that mine is best, but still we should put it to a vote and find who is the obviously second and the obviously worstest.

So, dear NotGraphs rabble, speak your soul:

Though I don’t even have like permission to share these THE AWESOME LEAGUE team names, I think we should compel the lowest vote-getter (by, oh, let’s say Wednesday) to change their fantasy team name.

What should they change it too? (tell me in the comments)

Update: The voting is closed.  Old Hoss Radbourn, quite properly had the most votes with 94.  We’ll use that as a baseline, assuming no one could be foolish enough to not vote for him.  75% of 94 is 70.5.  We’ll round down to 70.  Which means that our inaugural Ron Swanson Baseball Hall of Fame class is as follows:

Old Hoss Radbourn, 94 votes

Ty Cobb, 89 votes

Nolan Ryan, 80 votes

Jeff Bagwell, 70 votes

Lou Gehrig, 70 votes

Frankly, that seems reasonable.  You win this round, John Locke.

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When our country was born, our founding fathers mistakenly bestowed upon us a republic, in which the will of the people would determine the course of our nation, rather than an enlightened despotism based on the whims of Ron Swanson, as Thomas Hobbes had been advocating all along.

And so, since our Belovéd Swanson is barred from ruling by decree due to the Constitution and the fact that he is indeed fictional in nature, it falls to us, the multitude, to choose for him who belongs in his Baseball Hall of Fame.  I don’t like it any more than you do, but such is the will of John Locke, who fricking ruins everything.

Yesterday, you recall, we proposed several candidates.  Today, we will choose the introductory class for the Ron Swanson Baseball Hall of Fame.  Everyone on the original list I proposed, as well as those players and managers both nominated and seconded in the comments section are available for your vote, and you can vote for multiple candidates.  As with the regular Hall of Fame, a candidate requires 75% of the vote to make it in, unless no one achieves that threshold, at which point, we’ll just give it to the top three vote-getters or something.  It should be chaos…glorious chaos…which will demonstrate once and for all how stupid John Locke was.

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On to Tatts!

Here is my favorite tattoo:

It’s the famous Drunken-Double-Flamingo-In-Sunglasses-Flanking-Generic-Hawai’ian-Sunset neck tatt! It is my favorite tattoo because it is so far removed from any practical or even meaningfully expressive purposes. It was acquired in irony, almost assuredly while inebriated, and probably regretted to the point of deep depression immediately upon sobering. Then again, maybe its bearer is such a deeply ironic (or vapid) individual that he has no regrets. It is hard to tell. Perhaps he loves turtlenecks, and will relish an opportunity to wear them to all job interviews, family outings, and first dates for the rest of his days. More power to him. I mean, if a highly privileged, secular Westerner is going to get a tattoo, why should he not pile on the frivolity?

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Stephen Strasburg is scheduled to make his season debut tonight in Washington, DC, but it’s possible that inclement weather will postpone the game and, subsequently, Strasburg’s first appearance of the year.

Using “instruments” and “data,” the National Weather Service has forecasted things like “flash floods” and “a 100% chance of precipitation” for DC tonight.

That’s one perspective, sure. What does the Wisdom of the Crowds — i.e. the One True Authority — tell us, though? The NotGraphs Department of Matters Entirely Scientific is apparently the only institution forward-thinking enough to facilitate such an endeavor.

Which, you’re welcome, Whole World:

Best of Other (updated at discretion of author):
• A vale of tears.
• Meteorology is a fraud perpetrated upon us, the same as alchemy and phrenology.
• Raining men. Hallelujah!
• Probably what the frigging National Weather Service said, you sultry thing.

I am a Cardinals fan. Our own Jack Moore is a Brewers fan. These are well and good facts and signifiers of a healthy Republic. Still, these allegiances have put us at cross purposes this season, despite the NotGraphs ties — sexy, buckled latex ties — that bind.

Generalissimo Cistulli is fond of calling Mr. Moore “America’s Kid Brother,” but of late I sense a darker side to Jackie Hazelnuts — a side that will be laid bare by the following exchange of Twitter Tweets. I present this unfortunate brannigan with a touch of formality that will call to mind either an Ionesco playscript or Atticus Finch cross-examination of titillating righteousness …

@daynperry Does anyone really doubt that the Brewers will win tonight?

@jh_moore Suck it, Perry. RT @daynperry: Does anyone really doubt that the Brewers will win tonight?

@daynperry @jh_moore I vaguely compliment your team’s hot streak, and that’s the thanks I get?

@jh_moore @daynperry Apparently.

@daynperry @jh_moore You just cost the Brewers the vastly more lucrative People’s Championship.

@jh_moore @daynperry I thought Nyjer Morgan did that a long time ago.

If you know nothing else about our traffic-contriving strategies here at NotGraphs, please know that a Call-to-Action Poll is forthcoming forthwith …

A couple days ago, we here at NotGraphs utilized our powerful power to facilitate a crowdsourcing effort of great relevance to our “human” “condition” — namely, to determine whether, in fact, the image above represents the perfect golf swing.

A total of 104 votes were cast — many of them by living people — with a distribution very similar to this one:

No.	54	42.19%
Yes.	25	19.53%
Other:	25	19.53%

The general feeling is that, in fact, we are not seeing the perfect golf swing in the embedded image.

Of note are some of the answers provided in the Other column, as follow.

This is a man who’s been exposed to Gamma Radiation. Don’t make him angry.
Sound advice.

Yes, if you happen to dwell in the world of Tron.
Some cursory research validates this claim.

Inverted stapler. Tommy John candidate.
Science-y!

Polls are a cheap way to drive traffic to a webiste.
By his own admission, this answer was submitted by reader glassSheets.

glassSheets’ mom is a cheap way to drive traffic.
“Snap” is the word for which you are busily searching.

African or European?
A troubling question for these troubled times.