What Happens to a Team Deferred?

Nothing, probably. In case you hadn't heard, Council Chairman Linda Cropp pulled some parliamentary chicanery and tabled both stadium financing plans for two weeks. Cropp claims that a mysterious developer has approached her with the idea of shouldering some of financial burden, so she's coming with a plan. Yeah, right. Anyway, the seven votes are there, and all this does is delay the inevitable. Who knows, maybe Cropp isn't hallucinating and actually will come up with a money-saving plan. And I might be elected pope in a couple months. Who knows?

There were a couple of polls in the Post this morning. No one in DC wants a baseball stadium, evidently. I attribute this to three factors: 1) They just don't want it 2) They don't trust their local government to do anything right 3) The opposition has effectively convinced people that they're on the side of the Children, and that automatically makes you right these days. How many times have we heard people yell "Stadium?! What about the SCHOOOOOOLS?! The CHIIIILLLDREN!!!!"? Never mind that this has nothing to do with DC's amply-funded public schools. If you can convince the people that you're the one with a baby dangling from your hip and a righteously concerned expression, you win public opinion.

I like this poll better:

Forty percent of all self-described baseball fans thought the team should be called the Senators, while 14 percent supported naming the team the Nationals and 10 percent favored calling it the Grays.

What more do you need? Nationals is tepid and no one likes it. That's not quite right, actually: people like it okay, but nobody loves it. People love it so little that even though it was officially the team's name for fifty years, no one used it. Write the mayor and tell him to get over the fact that he's not a governor.

Larkin update: This story popped up at the MLB.com site today.

Shortstop Barry Larkin has expressed interest in playing for the Washington-bound Expos and being reunited with interim general manager Jim Bowden.

I'm sure Larkin would express interest in anyone who expressed interest in him. He's not exactly Carlos Beltran in terms free agent desirability.

Larkin could also fill a leadership void that was left by Wil Cordero, who left the Expos after the 2003 season. As captain of the Reds, Larkin was known to be a mentor to most of the young players on the team.

Wife-beater Wil Cordero was a team leader? Was this only after Crazy Carl Everett was traded?

Larkin is considered one of the best shortstops to ever put on a Reds uniform. In 19 seasons, he collected 2,340 hits and has a lifetime batting average of .295. Larkin also has won three Gold Gloves during his career.

They're damning him with faint praise. Larkin is much more than one of the best Reds shortstops; he's one of the best ever. You know else is one of the best ever? Rickey! We demand Rickey!

One more thing. Check out this exchange from the Expos Mailbag:

I'm expecting big things from outfielder Terrmel Sledge this season -- maybe even a spot on the NL All-Star team. Am I being realistic? -- Gary Zeig, Pittsburgh, Pa.

If you said this to manager Frank Robinson, he would think you were realistic. Robinson has often called Sledge "a complete player." Robinson believes Sledge is capable of driving in at least 90 runs and hitting a lot of home runs.

Sledge will be the first to tell you, however, that he needs to improve his defensive skills. He often had problems with fly balls in the outfield and hard ground balls at first base.

So Frank Robinson considers "a complete player" an outfielder who admits he can't catch fly balls? He's 27 years old, and if he hasn't figured that out yet, I don't know if he's going to. If he hit like Manny Ramirez, we could overlook this fault, but his bat's a lot closer to Larry Bigbie's than it is to Manny's. Why is everyone so dead set against Juan Rivera being the everyday right fielder?