In what should come as a surprise to no one, MLB and the Washington Nationals have run into yet another problem with their DC franchise. Is it the lack of an owner? Nah, they'll hammer that out by 2010. Is it the ongoing stadium drama, starring Councilman for Life Marion "Crack" Barry (seen at the right "campaigning")? Nope, they'll just play on the Mall if they have to. The newest dilemma for the Nats?They can't be the Nationals anymore. OK, correction, they can be the Nationals, but they just can't sell any merchandise with that name on it. As those Guinness guys say, "Brilliant". Once again MLB has pressed the big red button.
A Cincinnati company named Bygone Sports was granted a trademark last week on the name Washington Nationals. Hmmm, will that be a problem MLB? Bygone applied for the trademark in 2002, and it's not like MLB wasn't aware of this. MLB's executive VP John McHale Jr.'s response to this news:
"We believe we own the name and the rights."
OK, that's good. And why does he believe that? Because Bygone and MLB apparently had an oral agreement in place. Let me just get this straight - You are (finally) bringing a franchise back to DC, a process that could be termed arduous at best, and you couldn't manage to draft an actual document to secure the proposed name of the franchise? I mean, how mind-numbingly stupid are these people?
[Thanks to BenMaller.com for the heads up.]
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Nats prediction: 83-79
Sneaky good pitching in a pitchers' park. Slightly improved offense: Guzman can only get better (can't he?), assuming Soriano sucks it up, their outfield is improved (even though I loved the Wilk - he was really just a cock tease), depth at most positions, and still very young. A year (maybe two) away from seriously contending for a wild card spot as Zimmerman, Church, Patterson, Cordero mature. But they'll still give us something to cheer about in early September...
And can't we just leave my boy Quinn Snyder alone?? So, he did a little farm animal porn, he was young - he needed the money.
Nats prediction: 71-91
You can chalk at least 10 wins of last year's total up to the inaugural year excitement in DC, and the slew of good fortune that shone down upon the Nats. (Especially in the first 3 months.) This year that newness is gone, and yet the off-the-field frustrations remain. Bowden's back by default after getting suckered in the Theo charade in Boston. Big Frank is even older and more annoyed with the front office. And then there are the players.
Soriano is a nightmare. He hits spectacularly when you hide his defense (somewhat) at 2B and he's hitting in that softball park in Arlington. (Funny, I heard the same thing the other day about Rob Russell...) In RFK, as an outfielder, he may well be just average at the plate and atrocious in the field. And that's before you get to his increasingly carcinogenic personality. The best thing that can happen to the Nats/Senators/Baseball Redskins will be if he's traded, and soon.
Most of the rest of the team is intact from last season, minus Esteban Loaiza (replaced with Brian Lawrence), Hector Carrasco/Luis Ayala (replaced with Feliz Rodriguez), and Preston Wilson (replaced by Soriano). Those aren't necessarily upgrades, unless Soriano works out better than I think he will.
The one significant plus could be 3B Ryan Zimmerman, who could be a huge step up from Vinny "The Senior Senor" Castilla. Turn "could be" into "is," and have a few other things work out for Washington, and maybe Dennis's numbers get met. I just don't see it all happening.
The one thing that could happen to boost morale is for MLB to get its collective anterior extricated from its collective posterior and find an owner. Anyone want to bet me that the '06 season ends with no owner in place? Anyone?
Today the AP reported:
WASHINGTON -
Vice President Dick Cheney accidentally shot and wounded a companion during a weekend quail hunting trip in Texas, spraying the fellow hunter in the face and chest with shotgun pellets.
Vice President Cheney explained the shooting this way: “I was tracking a covey of quail with my gun barrel. Suddenly Whittington just popped up from the grass, directly in the way, so I shot him. I know my critics on the left will point out that Whittington is not a bird, but he was between the quail and my gun. My feeling is that when you harbor a quail, it’s the same as being one.”
A medical team quickly tended to the wounded man, much to Cheney’s disappointment, as the Vice President had already told friends he planned to mount Whittington's head over the toilet in his upstairs powder room.
A spokesman for the Whitehouse pointed out that Whittington was a known quail sympathizer. “Our intelligence told us he had WMD in his Elmer Fudd hat. A lot of people were fooled, not just us.”
Dennis, are we still doing Cheney jokes here? Let's at least move on to Ricky Williams cracks. Eddie Sutton material still works too.
Hmmm...
http://www.scooterlibby.com/
Yeah, next we'll be doing Brokeback gags. (Thinly veiled potshot at MLT.)
Robert Urich and the guy who played Matt Houston in . . .
Fighting Brokeback: The Rocky Bleier and Russ Francis Story.
Steve Guttenberg, Bubba Smith, David Graf and Michael Winslow star in Police Academy 3: Brokeback in Training.
By the way, kudos to you for digging up the Marion Barry "bitch-set-me-up" photo. I know OJ will always be your first love, but the good Mayor is still a threat to well-reasoned humans in the District, and he deserves every bit of the mock-heraldry you give the Juice. While OJ is on hiatus searching for his wife's killer at Club Med and the like, maybe you can take a more prolonged aim at MB? Just a thought.
Perhaps you've seen my off-off-Broadway production, "The Blacker the Berry, the Sweeter the Juice" in which Marion and Orenthal travel the US together looking for the real killers?
i'll take the under with Dennis please.
and any pitcher that ever throws soriano a strike is dumber than the democratic leadership.
Speaking of baseball, don't you boys have some prose to crank out?
Rob is "working on something," which is our vernacular we use to each other meaning "I had a baseball-related thought a few hours ago, but don't expect much in the next few days."
I'll be working on something tomorrow or Thursday.
CW (formerly UPN and WB) has greenlighted production of the pilot episode of "The Blacker the Berry, the Sweeter the Juice" so I'm swamped.
"The Blacker the Berry..." will most certainly garner "Save until I delete" status in my house once it hits the airwaves.
whitney has bingo
I think it got shortened to "Juice-Barry."
This site can't get enough links:
http://www.aaaugh.com/jokes/marion_barry.html
gheorghe sighting:
http://www.deadspin.com/sports/gheorghe-muresan/index.php
deadspin is my new favorite web destination.
Bode Miller, SHUT THE FUCK UP:
"If things went well," [Miller] told The Associated Press, "I could be sitting on four medals, maybe all of them gold."
How about Washington BulletWizardsO'Malleys???
We LOVE Gherogehe!! And Gheorge 77 blog!!!
xoxoxo,
www.wizznutzz.com
wow - our first wizznutzz shout out. that's bigtime. gheorghe's all growns up.
and if MLB had an ounce of sense, they'd call the team the Grays. it's marketing gold, i tell ya - gold. they'd instantly become black america's favorite squad, and every white kid who wished he were black would have to buy a jersey. mlb would have a legitimate way to reach out to the african american community that they've effectively ceded to other sports. think about it - i think it's genius.
What you didn't like my Brokeback links? Little homophobic are we? I know Dennis isn't. Last time I was there he was begging me and Swint to go see that. We had two choices... Brokeback Mountain or The Polar Express. We opted to see the train going into the tunnel - if you know what I mean.
I love the Wizznutz gang...time to get them in GTB's links section...
Not to be out done by Marion, OJ has a full page of head-scratchers:
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/
authors/o/o_j_simpson.html
Man, this TV show is going to be AWESOME...
Have you ever noticed every Thin Lizzy song sounds exactly the same?
You can't make shit like this up:
Star Trek actor James Doohan's ashes will be beamed into space next Month on a rocket ship and scattered across the galaxy. The actor played chief engineer Montgomery Scott on the classic TV show, which coined the famous phrase "Beam me up Scotty." A private company will launch the rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida, which will carry the ashes of 185 other people whose loved ones have paid between $995 to $5,300 for their remains to be scattered into space. Mercury and Gemini program astronaut Gordon Cooper will also be on board for his third trip into space.
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