New Blogs Day!

A pair of new DC baseball blogs was brought to my attention today. Actually, they're not brand new, which leads to make this request: if you start a blog or see one I don't have linked, let me know. I want to stay on top of these things.

Ball Wonk reads between the lines and concludes that MLB's going with Grays as the new name, which sparked another name debate over at BTF (by the way, if you're going to suggest that they keep "Expos," please just stay out of it). Ball Wonk's been around since the announcement in September, so make sure to dig through the archives.

Capitol Punishment talks today about Bob Watson, presumed general manager of our beloved team. The more I think about Watson, the better a choice he seems. He excels at finding cheap veterans to fill gaps in a team. The Expos have little money, few prospects, and lots of gaps - a perfect fit. Anyway, he'll be around for a year at most, so as long as he doesn't get it in his head to try and win the division and start acting stupid, it'll be fine.

Some people are just assuming that our team is going to be run by idiots, for some reason. Steven Goldman of the YES Network and Baseball Prospectus is a heck of a writer, but I don't know that he's ever said anything about DC baseball that wasn't snide and ill-informed. In his Pinstriped Bible column today, for instance, he comments on the Yankees' CF situation thusly:

And where is Bernie Williams going to play? The only position at which his bat is an asset is center, and if he can't play center…Then there's that Lofton guy, who everyone assumes will be traded. Sounds like the Washington Expos are going to be taking on a lot of bad contracts.

Is there anything in Watson's history that suggests he'd be willing to clean up the Yankees' mistakes for them? It fits neither his professional profile nor his history with Steinbrenner, not to mention being out of step with the financial position of the team. I shouldn't let off-hand comments like this get to me, but I guess it means I'm a fan.

A near-endless City Council hearing (ten hours?!) about the financing plan is coming up this Thursday. Off Wing Opinion (which also pointed me to Capitol Punishment) has a run-down of this and other issues, including the whining of the DC United. That's a soccer team, apparently.

The Washington Baseball Club is sending an email around to get people to show their support for the city's team-buying largesse.

Here's the next way you can help: on Thursday, October 28, the D.C. City Council will hold a public hearing at the John A. Wilson Building, 1350 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W., beginning at 10:00 a.m. Your presence at the hearing will help to show support for the ballpark financing package. Furthermore, if you are a D.C. resident or operate a business in D.C., you can make your voice heard directly bytestifying at the public hearing.
If you are interested in attending the public hearing this Thursday, please email us back or call us at 202-266-6613 and we will contact you with more information, or you can simply show up at the Wilson Building on Thursday! Attendance for the whole day is certainly not expected; one hour of your presence (or more if you'd like) will go a long way in showing support for the ballpark financing bill.

I won't be there, on account of having a job and the fact that listening to the "concerns" of "community activists" is something I wouldn't want to do for ten minutes, let alone ten hours. (Thanks to reader Buzz for the email, which I didn't get for some reason. I guess the WBC found out I'm trying to buy the team out from under them.)

UPDATE! This is from Gammons on ESPN:

Bob Watson will meet with Bud Selig in St. Louis to discuss becoming the interim GM of the Washington Kerrys. But Watson is telling the commissioner that he doesn't want it on an interim basis, that he will want to meet with prospective buyers and have some long-term commitment.

Hmm . . . I can understand where Watson is coming from. I have no idea if he would be a good long-term GM; his two previous tenures were too short. He's never built a team from scratch, but he's never had the chance. I'm willing to give him a shot. It'd be better than Cal Frigging Ripken, in any case.