Spot the Made-Up Word

Yet another Baseball Bias column. This one's about the Nationals, so you can read it without guilt. Will the Nats get heavy and wreck them all? Click on the Orphans to find out!

We were so close to a successful road trip. Seriously -- I know I've been full of doom and gloom since the day the season started (and long before that, actually), but even as lame and occasionally disheartening our losses have been, we could have ended up 3-4, and it's not like we played any patsies. As it is, we're limping into our home opener, and it's even worse thanks to the unforgivably self-centered actions of Daryle Ward, my new least-favorite Nat. If he hadn't hit that home run in the top of the ninth, the Astros would have won it in the bottom of the inning. But he did, and now our bullpen is a mess. Thanks to Ward, we were forced to squeeze two more innings each out of Cordero and Majewski plus another inning from Rodriguez, and now the utter obliteration of our bullpen is that much closer. Daryle, I hope you enjoyed that fleeting moment of glory, you selfish son of a bitch.

The Mets come to town tomorrow, and this is no mere home opener. As I'm sure you know, we got crazy beef with the Mets thanks to that time Pedro Martinez and assorted New York relievers were permitted to pelotically assault as many Nationals as they desired, while the one attempt by the Nats to respond was greeted with ejections and suspensions. It was -- and here I step out from behind my ironic blogging facade -- a goddamn travesty, and MLB is ensuring that it's only getting worse.

Major League Baseball's vice president of on-field operations, Bob Watson, said the teams will be aware that no further incidents will be tolerated.

"There is a heads-up in place," Watson said. "But there's no conversation with the clubs. It's the normal provisions in place for a situation like this, but we expect them to just play ball."

What that means: this series with the Mets will have a preemptive warning on it. Which is to say, the first guy throw at someone gets ejected and suspended. This means the Nats will never be able to even the score except by pulling off a sweep, and I'm not willing to cling to that vague hope. Not to mention the fact that some 5,000 paying fans plus the Vice President of the United States of America are going to miss out on what should have been a rad beanball war. And while we don't really go in for topical, Bill Maher-style political commentary here at Distinguished Senators, I think we can all agree that that seems like the kind of thing Cheney would enjoy.

So what we have here is Bob Watson and the stuffed shirts at Major League Baseball preventing what has to happen and what everyone wants to see. I wonder if there's a bit of specious, infernal gnomic wisdom that would apply to such a situation . . .
As the catterpiller chooses the fairest leaves to lay her eggs on, so the priest lays his curse on the fairest joys.

William Blake, ladies and gentlemen! Give him a hand.