A Clean Sweep Of Gold And Silver For Zimm

Ryan Zimmerman Takes The Gold Glove and Silver Slugger Awards

Ryan Zimmerman pulled off a rare sweep last week as he took home two of baseball’s post-season awards (although they are of lesser significance than some others).

Zimmerman captured the Gold Glove Award and the Silver Slugger award in the National League this year. Unlike the Rookie of the Year or the Most Valuable Player, these awards are given out to one player at each position and Zimmerman earned both awards for National League third basemen.

All-in-all it was a great year for the Nationals’ young third-sacker. He went to his first All-Star game this year and now has added two yearly achievement awards to his resume which is growing each year. On top of all that, Zimmerman signed a contract extension with the Nats earlier this year which bought out the last two years of arbitration as well as the first three years of his free-agency. The deal will pay him $45,000,000 over the course of his contract (plus tons of incentives) and will culminate in 2013 with a $14,000,000 salary.

Zimmerman had a career year this year with career highs in AVG (.292), OBP (.364), SLG (.525), OPS (.888), HR (33), and R (110). He also played in 157 games at 3B.

Of course, what Nats fans are hoping is that this is just the start of a budding superstar career for Zimm. Hopefully the team continues to build around him and put the pieces in place to help him succeed.

Good Business or Evil Empire? Or Somewhere In Between?

Senator Palpatine and Anakin Skywalker Looking Over Their Empire

Now that the 2009 season has come to a close it’s time to start talking about off-season issues.

An interesting topic was on the docket this morning as the folks on Baseball This Morning (XM-175 from 7:00 – 10:00 Eastern) discussed some of the issues facing the general managers this week as they begin the general managers’ off-season meetings. The question was posed, “if you could change one thing about baseball, what would that be?”

A lot of listeners called in and discussed things like: (a) whether or not to let the National League get the DH (or force the American League to lose the DH); (b) whether or not to continue to allow the World Series home-field advantage be determined by the All-Star game or to go by some other merit based achievement; (c) the expansion or abolition of instant replay; and the most popular (d) what to do about the economic disparity of the sport.

After listening to the entire show and now hearing former Nationals general manager Jim Bowden expand on the topic, I have decided to give my cents to the argument on how to make the economic situation better.

When first addressing this subject, the immediate, knee-jerk reaction that everyone wants to touch upon is a “salary cap.” Many people point to the NFL and the NBA as successful examples of how a salary cap works. Well, I’ll admit that I don’t watch any professional basketball (it sucks) but I remember the 1980’s successful franchises: Boston, Los Angeles and Detroit (and eventually Chicago). The last two franchises to win the championships? Boston and Los Angeles and recently Detroit won a couple as well. It’s not like the NBA is spreading the wealth.

The NFL which is supposed to be king actually works under a much more stringent cap than any other professional league with a cap. Over the course of the 15 years the NFL has operated under a salary cap, the league has seen 11 different teams win the big one while MLB has only seen nine over that same period of time. But a little further analysis shows that despite having more teams make the playoffs every year, the NFL has sent 20 of its 32 teams to the Super Bowl while MLB has sent 16 of its 30 teams to the World Series. Not exactly a huge difference and the NFL has a hard cap. Even further, the cap really hasn’t helped defeat the notion of building a sustained winner – Pittsburgh, Denver, New England and Indianapolis have all proven to be perennial powerhouses in the NFL and make the playoffs seemingly every year and Pittsburgh, Denver and New England all have multiple Super Bowl championships in the salary cap era (Pittsburgh has been to three Super Bowls, won two of them; New England has been to five Super Bowls, won three of them; and Denver has been to and won two Super Bowls).

It seems like MLB’s economic problems all stem from one team: The New York Yankees. The Yankees spend the kind of money that the other 29 teams simply cannot generate on their own – but is a salary cap really the answer?

The current economic system of “revenue sharing” is working according to the folks who make a living covering these sorts of things – the good folks at Baseball Prospectus. In an article published on August 12th by Shawn Hoffman, B.P. posits that the system needs some tweaking but essentially the system may be a better fit for baseball than the hard cap of the NFL or the soft cap of the NBA.

You'd be hard-pressed to find a solid subset of franchises that's fully
satisfied with the status quo going forward. But the thing is, baseball's
current revenue sharing system has actually worked pretty well—the goal is to
balance competition and profitability, and MLB has had a pretty good share of
both over the past few years. If the owners were to completely reinvent the
wheel for the next CBA, they would be taking on a significant amount of risk,
which really isn't necessary given how well the current system has worked.

Mr. Hoffman goes into a little detail as to how the current revenue sharing system works – albeit an over-simplified version - but he does a great job of breaking down the system into material that a dope like me can understand.

Essentially the current system takes the amount of money a team spends over the “threshold,” assigns a percentage of that money as form of “luxury tax” and combines that with the revenue generated from national media coverage and splits that pot between baseball’s 30 teams. Currently, only the Yankees are paying the luxury tax.

We can run through an example. The teams brought in about $6 billion in revenue
last year, and will probably be right around that figure again in 2009. (I'm not
counting the half-billion or so that flows into MLB Advanced Media and MLB
Network, but doesn't reach the teams themselves.) Let's assume that about 20
percent, or $1.2 billion, came from national sources. That means each team would
collect about $40 million.

To me this means that the clubs who are the beneficiaries of the revenue that the Yankees (and a couple of other teams) are throwing into the pot, they’d be loads better than they are currently.

Here’s where I will veer from the Mr. Hoffman’s theory. Since the Yankees seem to have a bottomless pit of money, let’s test that theory and make it a “dollar-for-dollar” system. That way, if the Yankees want to push the payroll to $250,000,000 every year, so be it – they’ll just continue to pay a higher luxury tax than anyone else. I’d even see if I can push it one step further. Perhaps you could penalize teams that go over the payroll threshold by taking away a percentage of the national media income the league gets from Fox, ESPN and TBS. This could be offset by only airing a certain number of Yankee games on the national networks, but it will certainly make the ratings at YES go up as they carry more games and the demand for the network goes up.

It’s an overly simple answer to a much more complex problem. But it seems to me that if a moron like me can come up with something, then the folks who know these things a lot better than I do can get something done.

At the end of the day, I am strongly against a salary cap. I cannot watch the NBA anymore (though it may have less to do with salary structure and more to do with the style of play of the modern game) and I can’t help but notice that what the NFL touts as “parity” to me looks more like “mediocrity.”

I honestly believe that while I hate watching the Yankees win a World Series that they essentially bought, this sort of thing is good for baseball in the long-run. Over the course of history, a good, entertaining play or film always gave you a hero to root for and a villain to root against. There is no more polarizing organization in all of sports than the Yankees. Baseball needs the Yankees to be good so everyone pays attention.

For what it’s worth, Shawn Hoffman does a much better job of describing why the system of MLB is better than the NFL or the NBA. I recommend purchasing a subscription to Baseball Prospectus and reading up on topics such as these because with the expiration of the Collective Bargaining Agreement on the horizon, this could become a huge issue if the Yankees win it all two more times in a row.

Hey MLB.com - Eat a Dick

Apparently MLB.com Hired The Bobs As Market Researchers For MLB.com's "Customer Service"

Wow, just wow.

While I was on vacation, I received word from my bank that my checking account went negative because a charge came in from MLB.com stating that I had been charged for a monthly subscription to MLB.tv for the end of the regular season and then again they graciously charged me for MLB.tv’s post-season coverage as well.

The charge only amounted to about $30, but since I was on vacation and couldn’t take care of it, my bank charged me a $25- overdraft fee.

I also have EZ-Pass which we were using to cover tolls to and from Florida. EZ-Pass is set up to hit my account whenever there is less than $10- to cover tolls on my EZ-Pass account. Care to guess what happened? That’s right. EZ-Pass dinged me for another $25- which then gave me yet another $25- overdraft fee from my bank (who at least was kind enough to give EZ-Pass the money so I wouldn’t be arrested for tollbooth hopping).

Here’s where I admit to my fault: I purchased MLB.tv back in June so I could watch my beloved Nationals every night and I could watch them in HD since my computer has an HD monitor for viewing television broadcasts online. Well, about 30 seconds into my first game, I realized that my internet connection wasn’t conducive to receiving live broadcasts in HD so that feature was rendered pointless.

Add to that the fact that the Nationals really sucked this year and I saw no reason to continue paying for the service. Knowing that I had checked the little checkbox that said, “Please do not renew my subscription when the current subscription expires” I just let it go dormant. Well, the “good” folks at MLB.tv didn’t see it that way. On July 27th they hit me for $19.95. They did so again on August 27th. And then again on September 27th (while I was in Florida) and added to it the post-season subscription (that I didn’t ask for). So that’s $70-. Not a big deal, but they did add another $50- in overdraft fees bringing the grand total to $120-. Usually no big deal, but we were on vacation and came back from Florida with no expendable cash.

Again, my fault for not checking my account thoroughly enough during July and August and noting that MLB.tv had charged me despite my not using the service.

Let's go Back in time a bit...

Last year when I signed up for Gameday Audio through MLB.com, I was enrolled in a subscription for Sports Illustrated despite the fact I asked them to not give me the free three months trial subscription. I got it anyway and cancelled the subscription after receiving my first magazine (I hate Sports Illustrated). The “good” folks at S.I. told me that they cancelled my subscription but that I’d continue to receive the magazine for the three free months. I said, “fine.” I have friends who have birds and they could use the magazines as cage liners.

Well, when the three free months ended, I was hit with a one-year subscription charge from S.I. for about $90-. It hit the same day that my XM radio renewal hit for $85 which, of course, threw my account negative and incurred another $50 in overdraft fees.

The process of recouping my costs was as excruciating as a non-anesthetized root canal. I spoke with countless “customer service” representatives at S.I. who all told me that I could not contact any managers or anyone in their finance department via phone – the only way they could receive a message from me directly was BY FAX! At least six different times I had to have a friend of mine who works at my bank send the finance department faxes of the transactions which caused my account to go negative as well as a letter on official bank letterhead explaining how to refund the money. SIX TIMES. I called Sports Illustrated EVERY SINGLE DAY trying to get this rectified – and while I was going through this fiasco which took close to three weeks to resolve, EZ-Pass hit me again and I got hit with another $25- overdraft.

The whole situation became comical. My brother suggested that after my fourth fax which they claimed the never received I should send one fax every hour which states, “If you feel you’ve received this fax in error – then give me my fucking money.” My friend at the bank theorized that the finance department was actually run by a group of people who all worshipped a worker droid that collected faxes off the fax machine and deposited them into the shredder.

Anyway, after about three weeks, Sports Illustrated finally gave me my money back as well as gave me $50- of the $75- they were responsible for in overdraft fees.

Needless to say, I recommend that everyone out there NOT subscribe to Sports Illustrated.

Fast forward to last week. I found the phone number for “customer service” at MLB.com and contacted them about my problem this year (in which they charged me four months worth of fees for one month worth of service). I spoke with a nice young man who went over the account with me and saw my login history and noticed that I stopped using the service when my one month subscription ran out and helped me put in the request for a refund. I also asked for the pie in the sky in the form of my $50- in overdraft fees which this transaction caused but I thought it was a stretch. He said he’d make a note about it, but frequently when the finance department of MLB.com issues refunds they do not refund overdraft fees. I said that I understood that but it would be nice to have that note in there.

We ended the conversation with him saying that I’ll get my $70 but that I’d have to wait and see what the finance department says about the $50-. I’ll receive an e-mail within 7-10 days regarding the refund.

Well, late last night – while I was watching the Phillies/Dodgers game - I got the e-mail which stated:

Dear Valued Subscriber:Your request for a refund in connection with your 2009
MLB.TV Premium Monthly Subscription subscription has been denied in accordance
with the terms of your purchase Should you wish to discuss your subscription
further, please contact Customer Support toll-free at
1-866-800-1275. Sincerely,MLB.com

So not only were they not going to give me my $50- in overdraft charges, they weren’t going to give me my $70- either.

I was a bit miffed.

I waited until they opened this morning and spoke with another “customer service” representative. I expressed my displeasure at the decision and she explained away by stating: “the box you checked was for automatic renewal of a YEARLY subscription and not the monthly subscription. The monthly subscription automatically renews and said so in the disclosure. You need to read it more carefully.” I then asked why they would even give me the option to check the box for non-renewal if I wasn’t signing up for the yearly subscription (when you sign up, you are asked on the front page which service you want, the monthly or yearly; after that you are taken to another page to process payment at which point you are offered the checkbox – so I again ask, why offer the option of non-renewal on the monthly page if your intent is not to offer it no matter what choice you make?). Her response? “I’m not sure, but I don’t work in billing.”

At this point I ask to speak to the person who made the decision not to refund my money. She says that those people don’t have phones or e-mail accessible to the general public. SOUNDS A LOT LIKE THE FAX-EATING DROIDS AT SPORTS ILLUSTRATED.

Exasperated, I asked “well, where do I go from here.” She informed me that she will make a separate request for a refund of my $120- and that I should receive an e-mail within 7-10 days. After that I asked what my options are when this second request is inevitably declined and she told me that I can call back and ask to speak with a manager. I asked if I could do that right now and she said none are available.

In the meantime, my account still sits negative. Luckily this is my travel account that I use for my play money so it’s not affecting mortgage payments or food or heat but it’s still pissing me off.

Sufficed to say, if there are any baseball fans out there who use MLB.com’s services and pay for them – I hope nothing ever goes wrong for you because getting through to anyone who can actually help you is darn near impossible.

MLB is a multi-billion dollar industry. For years there have been questions on whether or not the sport has lost touch with its bread-and-butter fan base.

I’d say these examples answer that question.

When Baseball Is This Bad - I Turn To College Hockey

The ECAC Makes a Bad Decision - And I'm Angry

Well it’s been a while since my last post and for very good reason: this baseball season sucks. The Nats were pathetic and the one team I am rooting against in the post-season (the Yankees) just swept their way past the Twins while the only club that could give them any competition whatsoever (the Red Sox) were swept by the Angels.

Because the thought of Alex ROIDriguez and Mark Te$$eira raising a championship trophy makes me want to vomit on my own shoes, I instead am going to focus on something that ordinarily makes me happy – college hockey.

If you recall from my very first entry, I reserve the right to not talk about the Nationals or baseball in general so that I can focus on writing something I care about when neither of those topics give me anything worth writing about.

I recently read on USCHO.com the pre-season predictions on how the college hockey season will play out in the 2009-10 ECAC season. Typically I follow the Clarkson Golden Knights and the Cornell Big Red.

I was excited to read the pre-season column looking at each school by USCHO’s ECAC correspondent Brian Sullivan. Sullivan’s been covering the ECAC for years now for USCHO and he generally has a good bead on the schools and he always manages to get great interviews with coaches because he’s got a good relationship built in.

It was a bit disappointing reading his wrap up of the Knights but it’s hard to argue with his reasoning – at least he thinks Cornell’s up for another great year.

So while it’s exciting for me that ECAC hockey is starting up, I did receive some sad news. A buddy of mine informed me that the championship rounds of the end of season ECAC Hockey Tournament is being moved from my back yard here in Albany, NY down to Atlantic City, NJ. I want the person responsible for that decision to tell me why they chose Atlantic City.

In the ECAC, you have only one school who’s fans travel really well: Cornell. So if Cornell makes it to the semis, you know you’ll have great attendance from them. Other than that, fans will travel modestly to get to the championships if their team makes it, but only one school from the ECAC (Princeton) is in New Jersey and Trenton is a hike from Atlantic City.

Of the 12 schools in the ECAC, six are from upstate, NY (Clarkson, St. Lawrence, Colgate, Cornell, Rensselaer and Union), one is from New Hampshire (Dartmouth), one is from Massachusetts (Harvard), one is from Rhode Island (Brown) and two are from Connecticut (Yale and Quinnipiac). So they move the championship rounds to NEW JERSEY?

Seems to me that if Albany, NY wasn’t central enough for them the least they could’ve done to maximize attendance would be to move it to Springfield, MA – that way the New England schools would travel a bit better.

Beyond that, you’re going to send college kids to a city that’s known for debauchery, gambling and prostitution? How’s THAT a good idea? I know most of these kids are Ivy Leaguers and the brightest minds out there, but they are still kids.

This just sounds like a really bad idea.

In March, I will purchase by tickets for the final season of ECAC hockey championships at the Knickerbocker Arena here in Albany and hope that Clarkson and/or Cornell is there. If not, I’ll still attend and watch some great college hockey – all the while lamenting that it will be my last opportunity to do so for at least three years; because I’m not driving six hours to Atlantic City for it.

2009 has been a colossal disappointment.

When is Spring Training?

Milton Bradley Embarrasses Cubs - Awesome.

I'LL SHOW YOU BALLS!

I must start by saying it’s been a while since my last post. My wife and I recently celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary and have been planning our 2nd honeymoon to Disney World with our three kids (we leave on Wednesday). Plus, lots of travel for work has left me bereft of free time.

That free time that I had? I certainly didn’t want to waste it writing about the disaster in DC. We suck; and my mom always told me that if I couldn’t say anything nice about someone I probably shouldn’t say anything at all. So I took a hiatus. But now I’m about to throw mom’s advice out the window.

Now what fun would it be to pile on the lowly Nats, though? Everyone knew we were going to struggle this year. That’s like giving the nerd in high-school an atomic wedgie - WAY too easy. Just once I'd love to see the nerd slip the smokin' hot cheerleader a rufee and nail her - thereby embarassing the high-school football team she's been laying pipe with. So instead of giving the Nats the atomic wedgie, I’d like to take a moment and once again laugh at the Cubs and nail their girlfriend.

After the 2008 season the Cubs were said to be desiring a RFer with some pop in his bat (an opinion I find curious since they really had an average CFer and a defensive hack in LF, but okay). They focused on Milton Bradley and Bobby Abreu. The Angels moved pretty quickly on Abreu once they stopped focusing on Mark “the Anti-Christ” Teixeira.

Once Abreu signed with the Angels the Nationals offered a contract to Adam Dunn for 2 years at $20 million. He begged the Cubs to match the offer and the Cubs instead decided to offer a three year/$30 million dollar contract to the often volatile Milton Bradley. Dunn ends up with the Nationals.

So the Cubs who were already in bed with one hot-head (Carlos Zambrano) added Bradley and all his baggage. Almost immediately – as could’ve been predicted by anyone with any common sense whatsoever – Bradley started lashing out at the Chicago media and the Cubs fan base. The big blow came in late August when he interviewed for an article by the Associated Press which include these clips:

"I'm talking about hatred, period. I'm talking about when I go to eat at a restaurant. I've got to listen to the waiters badmouthing me at another table, sitting in a restaurant. That's what I'm talking about. Everything."

"All I'm saying is I pray the game is nine innings, so I can go out there the least amount of time possible and go home,"

So does he regret signing with the Cubs, who are his seventh major league team?

"I don't regret anything," he said. "I regret that there are idiots in the world, that's what I regret."

Bradley is the idiot. I hate the Cubs; and even I wouldn’t say that the fans are brimming with hatred. Their fans don’t strike me as the types of fans who would “badmouth” him while at a restaurant with his family.

Lately, events transpired that led to a quick spiral into the abyss.

Bradley was pulled from his game early on in a double switch. Apparently, the move really angered Bradley and he pulled himself from the Thursday game with knee soreness. After the Thursday game Bradley had this exchange with members of the media:

Reporters: What happened with the injury?

Bradley: "I'm not talking about that. What else you got?"

Reporters: Why did you come out?

Bradley: "I got knee inflammation. I got two knee surgeries. That happens when you got knee surgery, in case you don't know. What else you got?"

Reporters: How long will you be out?

Bradley: "What else you got? Anything significant?"

From there, Bradley refused to play in Saturday’s game which precipitated a verbal argument with Cubs hitting coach Von Joshua. The following day (yesterday) Bradley interviewed with the Daily Herald. The following is an excerpt from that story:

Bradley claimed to have no opinion on where he bats - “In the lineup,” he said of his preferred spot - and the only time he became expansive at all was when he was asked if he had enjoyed his first season in Chicago.

“Not really,” he said. “It’s just not a positive environment. I need a stable, healthy, enjoyable environment. There’s too many people everywhere in your face with a microphone asking the same questions repeatedly. Everything is just bashing you. You got out there and you play harder than anybody on the field and never get credit for it. It’s just negativity.

“And you understand why they haven’t won in 100 years here, because it’s negative. It’s what it is.”

Asked whether he was talking about the fans, the media or even the Cubs organization, he replied: “It’s everything. It’s everybody.”

This finally led to Cubs GM Jim Hendry suspending Bradley for the rest of the season. The following is an excerpt from the Tribune quoting Jim Hendry:

Hendry mentioned the "issues we've all lived with during the year," referring to Bradley's publicized battles with umpires, fans and the Chicago media.

"The last few days became too much for me to tolerate," Hendry said. "I'm certainly not going to let our great fans become an excuse. I'm not going to tolerate not being able to answer questions from the media respectfully. Whether you feel like talking or not, it's part of all of our jobs."

There's a right way to do it and a wrong way. I'm not going to allow disrespect to other people in that locker room and uniformed personnel, and I'm certainly not going to let a player, as was mentioned in the article today, (talk about) negativity of the organization."

Hendry added the "only real negativity" was Bradley's production (12 HRs, 40 RBIs in 393 at-bats).

This leaves him only with the option of finding some sucker to actually give him more than a cup of coffee for Bradley. If the Cubs fail to find a trade partner for Bradley’s services, they’ll have to cut him and eat the contract.

They could’ve had Adam Dunn for the same salary with less commitment. Dunn has had a great year at the plate hitting nearly 50 points higher than his career batting average and hitting his usual 40 homeruns and 100 or so RBI. Ao they instead signed Bradley who caused problems with the fans, the media and the team all while hitting 12 homers and 40 RBI in nearly 400 at-bats. He embarrassed the franchise, embarrassed his manager and now forced his general manager to eat his contract.

It's sorta like we actually did nail the girlfriend AND we got to give the starting quarterback the atomic wedgie.

All of this while they’re trying to sell the team.

Hilarious.

Oh My Achin' Ass

Sorry Steve. I Wish It Were Different For You, But Alas, You're Hosed

You know who really angers me? The mainstream media. Part of what really annoyed me as a Yankee fan was the circus that followed players everywhere they went and the fact that their announcers were so overtly homeristic in their coverage that it made it impossible to listen to them and actually follow the game – you know? The reason we tuned in? Not to listen to your pathetic prattling over homerun calls and what Derek Jeter had for breakfast?

Well apparently Stephen Strasburg feels the same way. He had his first workout session in Viera on Monday and addressed the media that was covering him there. Do you know what Strasburg had the audacity to say?

"I thought I'd get a little bit of peace out here, but you guys are following me everywhere. It's something I guess I gotta deal with. I guess it just goes with the territory."

[sarcasm lock on] Oh my God! HE HATES BEING A PROFESSIONAL ALREADY!!! WHAT’RE WE GONNA DO?!?!?!? [/sarcasm]

Really – why is this such a big deal? He’s from Southern California and isn’t used to this sort of thing. He’s 21 years old and has a lot of stupid things he’s going to say ahead of him. In fact if you read it and imagine it being spoken, it sounds like he’s saying, “it’s really no big deal, I just didn’t think you guys would think that a throwing session would be newsworthy. Whatever.”

And you know what? HE’S RIGHT. This kid has more perspective at the tender age of 21 than these overbearing blowhards in the media have despite having more years experience than Strasburg has years of life. The kid’s 100% correct. IT’S A THROWING SESSION. Any baseball fan worth his or her salt understands this isn’t going to translate to a call-up on Friday and a no-hitter on Sunday. It’s really no big deal.

And if that’s not enough, he even made light of the whole fiasco by stating:

"Once I get into playing games and stuff, it should be able to die down. Hopefully it will die down sometime soon. . . . I'm just a baseball player. It's not like I'm the President or anything."

A - f’n - men. This isn’t a peace accord negotiation, this isn’t even a Major League debut. It’s a pitching session. The actual team is in San Diego. Why not spend your time with that?

The “outrage” on display by the columnists who are wasting their time talking about this act indignant. John Feinstein wrote about it yesterday. XM-175 and their morning baseball program is covering this thoroughly and while I fully appreciate the coverage, it would be nice to actually talk about baseball and not dissect this kid’s off-handed comments.

Honestly? Baseball This Morning's hosts are spending time comparing a 21-year-old freshly drafted Washington National to a player like Derek Jeter. Jeter was drafted by and brought up in a system that is world-renowned. The New York media is notoriously relentless. It’s not like the Washington sports media has a reputation – most people are dimly aware that there is a Washington sports media and the only columnist they can readily identify is George Will and he’s more of a political columnist than a sports columnist.

This kid was probably genuinely shocked that so many people cared about a throwing session that took place 3,500+ miles away from where the big-league team was getting ready to play a game.

In my heart of hearts, I believe these knuckleheads in the media are insulted by comments like these. When an athlete calls them out and asks them if they really don’t have anything better they could be doing it’s a personal attack. The audacity of some player actually telling them what’s news and what isn’t? Preposterous! I’ll write a column that’ll show him who’s decides what’s news and what isn’t!

Please. Leave the kid alone and cover the Nationals. This kid’s a minimum of three years away from positive contributions to the big-league club and you’re following his every move?

Wake up Washington sports media: YOU’RE NOT NEW YORK. There’s nothing endearing about the New York media to players or to fans that really follow the game. Shut up. Leave the kid alone and let him develop. Don’t you have any questions for Ryan Zimmerman – or anyone else actually on the team for that matter?

In all their angst, the columnists and op-ed folks apparently missed this little gem:

"I am going to take what's given to me. I know the organization has my best interest [in mind]. . . . When they feel my time is right, I'll go up there and pitch as good as I can. . . . This is the game I love. It's something I love to do."

But then again, it doesn’t help perpetuate their make-believe story.

AAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAA!!!!

Do I Really Need To Write A Caption?

What a great day to be a Nats fan and a Cub hater. Taking two-out-of-three from the Cubs has been one of the few bright spots in this season of discontent. Nothing makes misery tolerable quite like company.

The Cubs now stand at one game over .500 – a full nine games behind the Cardinals for the division and 7 ½ games behind Colorado for the wild card. Certainly not an impossible task with 37 games to play, but the way they lost those games and who they lost them to indicates that this team doesn’t have the moxie to pull it off.

J.D. martin was less than sharp yesterday and managed to get out with his hide. Martin allowed three runs (two homeruns) in only five innings of work. The Nats bullpen (that’s right, THE BULLPEN) bailed him out allowing only one run over the last four innings to hang onto the 5-4 win.

The night before, Livan Hernandez (more on him in a moment) allowed only 2 runs in six innings. Speaking of Livan Hernandez, I was on the road for work on Wednesday and had not heard about the acquisition of Hernandez until about a half-hour before game time. What the hell? First the Nats front office states they will NOT acquire veteran free-agent pitchers to supplement the rotation. Not only do they throw that plan out the window, they do it FOR LIVAN HERNANDEZ?!?!?! Should we expect Orlando Hernandez next? Perhaps Bert Blyleven would like to come out of retirement to bolster his Hall of Fame chances? Really? Livan Hernandez? I live in New York and I could’ve SWORN I saw Livan in the line to sign up for social security back in June. I swear it was him.

Tuesday night, Garrett Mock was less than perfect but when you get two homers from Josh Willingham and a grand slam from Elijah Dukes, do you really need to worry?

So the Cubs lost to Mock and Martin who are both still developing and hoping at some point to be major league-caliber pitchers. The only win came in the Livan game and that game may have gone to the Nats if Jorge Sosa (who someday hopes to develop into a major league-caliber bathroom attendant) didn’t allow 5 runs in ONE-THIRD OF AN INNING.

Random thoughts……

Say, you know who’s had a career year?

The Guy On The Right

The photo comes courtesy of Nationals Inquisition who represented at bloggers day and got a photo op with Josh Willingham’s gigantic guns (apparently Dangernat had his tickets to the gun show).

Willingham is hitting 25 points higher than his career average and has 21 homers so far – only five fewer than his career high for a season. If the Nats hadn’t wasted their time with Willingham toiling away on the bench early in the season, just think of how much better they’d be. This team benched him and then when they finally gave him his shot, they asked him to change positions – then after they traded away Nick Johnson and moved Adam Dunn to first, they asked him to switch back. All of this and he never moped, never complained and never publicly blasted the team. Instead, he went about his business and earned the job that probably should’ve been rightfully his to begin with.

If I had disposable income, I’d get me a Nationals “Willingham” jersey because these are the types of players worth rooting for.