The first few days of National’s spring training have been centered on the Houston Astros, whose sign-stealing practices are now widely known, and who the Nats still beat for a World Series title. Things are tense, to say the least, as the teams are currently sharing a training facility in West Palm Beach.

But on Monday, when the full Nationals club reported to spring training, the players did something other than answer questions about the biggest scandal in Major League Baseball, and instead, celebrated the national holiday.

No, not President’s Day. National Cabbage Day.

That’s right, the defending World Series champs started the first full-team day of spring training with a relay race, punctuated by the closers smashing leafy vegetables on the concrete. On the winning side, closer Sean Doolittle spiked the cabbage and let out a battle cry.

Team Scherzer beats Team Strasburg in the #Nationals Cabbage Day competition. pic.twitter.com/JTCfMCEDfh

— Jessica Camerato (@JessicaCamerato) February 17, 2020

That team won all three legs of the race. First there was dinner on the line. Then there was $1,000 on the line.

— Jesse Dougherty (@dougherty_jesse) February 17, 2020

“The boys like their cabbage,” manager Davey Martinez told the Washington Post last year, when the tradition began. Third base coach Bob Henley started the competition last spring training when he discovered that Feb. 17 was National Cabbage Day and decided to use the vegetable race to encourage players camaraderie. The team brought the cabbage along on the road and raced in clubhouse rematches to celebrate wins.

Since then, “Washington Cabbage Club” tank tops have been sold, and writers have uncovered baseball’s century-old ties to cabbage—Babe Ruth was known to place chilled cabbage leaves under his wool cap during games.

But even in a sport built around weird traditions and superstitions, this pre-season ritual ranks among the most outlandish, even for a team that once called in live camels to get over the postseason hump. (It worked?)

And so, at this year’s spring training, the so-called “Cabbage Smash Kids” put dinner and money on the line, tossed the cabbage from hand to hand like quarterbacks on a goal-line rush, and continued the one-year-old tradition with childlike joy, all in the pursuit of team chemistry and another title.

This cabbage is not in the best shape of its life. #NationalCabbageDay#NATITUDE pic.twitter.com/t3V6WzArmA

— Washington Nationals (@Nationals) February 17, 2020