Ryan Howard Lawn Gnome is Creepy

Thanks to our friends at NBCPhiladelphia.com for passing this along.

On August 3rd, the Reading Phillies will give away a Ryan Howard lawn gnome to the first 2,500 fans. Well, I'm all for gnomes (more on that in a second), but this one is creepy at best, racist at worst.

It looks more like Eddie Murphy's version of Santa Claus than it does a lawn gnome.  Gnome Howard aspires to have great beard,  like that of Jayson Werth and Simon Gagne, but it falls wayyyy short. Literally.  Can someone please explain to me why the hell the beard is growing out of his neck?  NBC also reports the gnome to have clown shoes… lovely.

"The x stands for x-scape or x-con"

You want to talk good gnomes, here's one for you, our mascot Carlos.  He was born on Cinco de Mayo, and is 12-0 when watching Phillies and Flyers games.  He debuted his sports watching career the night Jamie Moyer threw a shutout and the Flyers won Game 4 of the Eastern Conference semifinals in overtime. We're not superstitious of anything (yeah we are), but Carlos is the main reason for the Flyers success of late.

Plus, he's got a great beard.