Deadspin Classic: He ... Could ... Go ... All ... The ... Way!

There's no earthly reason to run this again today, except that it involves one thing America will be full of this weekend: a large man in a tropical shirt. And it remains funny as hell. You will always be with us, leather.

OK, we haven't officially done athlete run-ins for a while now, but this is too great. Besides, it doesn't technically involve an athlete. We just heard this story yesterday and will not let another hour go by without sharing, because it must be out there, in its glory, hidden no longer. This was told to us verbally, over the phone, and we actually at one point reflexively spit out a lozenge which very nearly struck someone close and dear to us. We recreate the story here. Enjoy.

A friend of mine just told me he's getting married. When he gave me the news I immediately thought of the time we were in Scottsdale at spring training, because it's the best pickup story I've ever been a party to. It was about nine years ago, and I actually forget the bar. But my friend was seriously putting the moves on this somewhat attractive young woman, who was wearing leather pants and had a leather jacket draped over her lap. They had been chatting at the bar for about an hour, and my friend thought he was in the house. I had never seen someone work so hard for a score.

But just as he was putting on the finishing touches, Chris Berman walks by. And without even breaking stride, Berman looks at the girl, points and says "You're with me, leather." And the girl looks up, instantly recognizes Berman, snatches up her jacket and walks out with him, leaving my friend in mid-sentence.

Because we made another call to independently confirm this tale, "You're with me, leather," now officially enters the pantheon of Chris Bermanisms, of which there were probably several more uttered later during the evening in question. Yeah, we should have noted earlier that this thing gets really horrifying if you think about it too much.

Story originally published April 11, 2006