Imitatio Fortium

More than anything, it's the feeling of betrayal. I thought Bodes and I had an understanding: he'd stop doing stupid things while he pursued the Red Sox job, and I'd stop calling him names and talk him up to Larry Lucchino. For a while at least, Bodes certainly held up his end: the Vinny Castilla/Brian Lawrence got me about as excited as a swap of such inconsequential players could. But by doing something so Bowdenesque as giving two years and nearly as many millions of dollars to a player whose best defensive position is "pinch hitter," he stabbed me in the back. No wonder my reaction was so swift and so embarrassingly emphatic.

That's not to say it was incorrect. You want a guy who can hit for average and not play defense? Rick Short is right there working for the Major League Baseball equivalent of free. Say what you will about Marlon Anderson's pinch-hitting effectiveness or his amazing ability to stand at any one of four different positions with a glove on one of his hands, he is simply not the kind of baseball player to whom you guarantee employment. The Mets didn't do it in 2005, the Cardinals didn't do it before that, and those teams have a lot more payroll flexibility than we do. Hell, the Nats didn't even do it last year with Carlos Baerga, last year's Marlon Anderson. It's like pudding. Everybody likes pudding, right? Our lives would be grimmer without it. But no one's paying 500 bucks for a Snack Pack.

The Atlanta Braves are an operation worth imitating, and the Nationals appear to be aware of this. However, instead of emulating the Braves' hugely effective scouting, their tradition of having a competent and interested manager, or even their refreshingly un-Fox-like TV broadcasts, the Nats have adopted a less pleasing Braves custom: dressing up like a damn signal flare once a week.

Just in time for Christmas, suckers!

And now it's time for me to do my duty as an upstanding citizen of Natsylvania. We have been instructed to humiliate Bud Selig with a Google-bomb, which is one of those things you can do on the internet and is almost impossible to explain to your parents. I'll let Rocket explain. So here we go: National Disgrace. And now that's out of the way, I'm going into business for myself: Charlatan. Pervert. Jon Rauch. Condescending Schismatic. Professor Bacon. Buffoon. I Love Derek Jeter. Asshole. Not Worth Forty Dollars. Buzz Machine. America's Sweetheart. Dutch. Dutch. Dutch.