leaderboard. A champion is crowned at the end of every season. At times, the Pirates will have faster runners wear costumes of pierogi that are behind in the races in order to keep the season-long competition "close", in effect making the races somewhat fixed. The event is sponsored by Mrs. T's Pierogies. 2009–2013 The animated sequence was dropped completely at the beginning of the 2009 season. Now, the race begins near where the tarp is rolled up on the third-base side, and the pierogi race around the warning track until the Clemente Wall in right-field. The race has lost many of the occasions of the Pirate Parrot influencing the ending; the races are generally won by normal means, although strange incidents do occur. In 2008 and 2009, the pierogi appeared twice at Washington D.C.'s Nationals Park in the nightly Presidents Race. The first night in 2008, the four pierogi were chased by President Teddy, wielding a large aluminum foil fork and knife. The second night the pierogi faced off with the presidents in a relay race. The relay race was repeated in 2009, with Potato Pete TKO-ing Teddy Roosevelt with a flying tackle, which was replayed over and over on sport shows. The Presidents appeared again at PNC Park during the Pirates series against the Nationals in April 2011, racing against the pierogi. In 2010, the Pirates fired one of the pierogi racers after he made critical comments of the team on Facebook, a story that received national headlines. Andrew Kurtz, 24, of New Brighton, Pennsylvania, had criticized the team's decision to give then-manager John Russell and Pirates GM Neal Huntington contract extensions in the midst of a 12-game losing streak. The Pirates later rehired Kurtz after the team discovered that his boss in charge of the race didn't follow proper disciplinary action within the organization. Russell himself would be fired after the Bucs finished a Major League–worst 57–105 record for 2010. 2014–present Return of Potato Pete During the race on July 23, 2014, where the Pirates were playing the Los Angeles Dodgers, Cheese Chester broke his foot while competing. Later on during the game the Pirates announced via their scoreboard that Cheese Chester was placed on the 15-day disabled list and Potato Pete would be making a return to take Chester's place for the time he'd miss due to the injury. The Pirates posted on their Twitter account a