Today at Fenway Park, the Red Sox decided to put that otherwise lame pink merchandise to good use: raising breast cancer awareness. The most adorable team spokesman? Hands down, without a doubt, D’Angelo Ortiz.

Or, as I like to think of him, Li’l Papi.

Happy Mother’s Day.

I have been waiting for this day ever since I heard Nomar Garciaparra, who was then the beloved shortstop of the Boston Red Sox, and Mia Hamm, who was then the idol of every soccer-playing girl in the Western Hemisphere (including this one), were an item.

Like two champion racehorses carefully selected for speed, agility, and bone strength, Nomar and Mia have produced two infants of prodigious athletic ability. The twins, whose dam surely spent the gestation carefully monitoring her intake of folic acid, calcium, and whey protein, are expected to hit .400, leap tall buildings in a single bound, and start speaking in about two years. With Garciaparra as their sire, however, doctors should carefully monitor their tendons.

From the AP:

LOS ANGELES –Former soccer star Mia Hamm, wife of Dodgers first baseman Nomar Garciaparra, delivered twin girls late Tuesday.

“Both are healthy and over five pounds,” Dodgers spokesman Josh Rawitch said, adding the births took place in the Los Angeles area.

While 5 lbs may not seem like much, we must take into account that at 3% bodyfat, the tykes are still in the 99th percentile for their age (1 day). Moreover, there’s nothing wrong with them that a little time and HGH won’t cure.

So my colleague Nick has thrown down the gauntlet, and I accept his challenge. Cute Baseball Babies it is! I started taking note of CBBs when I saw the photo below, appearing shortly after the Sox won the 2004 World Series. While Gabe’s li’l tykes are probably no longer small enough to properly be called “babies,” since this is the photo that started it all, we will begin with the Kapler kids.

Handsome Gabe, the World Series trophy, and his two adorable babies—it’s enough to send the ol’ ovaries into overdrive:

Honestly, would anyone expect less-than-adorable offspring from this couple? Of course, adding to their familial cuteness is the fact that Gabe and Lisa have their own organization combating domestic violence. Stand-up guys are always cuter.

Gabe Kapler retired earlier this offseason, and Nick and I were discussing the many reasons why this might be. Nick was puzzled because Kapler is young and in reasonably good health. I said, Hey, he’s a smart guy. He’s deep, even. The Sox have made him the manager for their Single-A team, the Greenville (SC) Drive. He doesn’t want to warm the bench forever. He doesn’t want to get bounced from team to team (or back to Japan, for heaven’s sake). And he probably wants to spend a lot more time with these cute, cute baseball babies:

Behold, Juliana Ramirez (right):

(That’s HBW alumna Michelle Damon on the left.)

The Boston Globe tells how Manny met the future Mrs. Ramirez, who was a waitress at the time:

Ramirez met his wife, Juliana, while he was working out at Bally’s Gym in Boston. “I came up to her and started talking to her,” he says. The future Mrs. Ramirez didn’t know she was talking to one of baseball’s premier sluggers. Manny liked that.

“She’s from Brazil,” he says. “They don’t know nothing about baseball.”

She’s sure been a quick study, judging from her somewhat obsessive MySpace page. (Also bizarre: this Manny MySpace page, complete with a blog entry advising Theo? Yeah, I guess it’s legit….?)

Manny’s missus also rocks that whole gorgeous-glowing-Madonna-and-child maternal look:

Extra points for the ADORABLE mini-Manny!