Windowless

You see that article in the Post about how much better things are now that Jim Bowden's gone? I don't know - something about that thing rubbed me the wrong way.

Some of is just really obvious "the king is dead, long live the king" stuff - I mean, we heard a bit about the horror of the Bowden Regime while it was going on, but it's just so much easier to complain about the guy when he's no longer around and is presumably handcuffed to a desk in the basement of FBI headquarters with a phone book-shaped bruise on his face.

The story around which Chico Harlan (who's embarrassed by all this) chooses to build the story is pretty flimsy. The agent for recently-signed reliever Joe Beimel gets a call from Mike Rizzo while Bodes is still GM. He hangs up on Rizzo. Four months pass, Bowden resigns and is hauled off in a windowless van by straight-faced men in black suits and sunglasses and - mirabile dictu! - a deal gets done. Clearly Rizzo is some kind of miracle worker.

Or (and just let me know if this doesn't make any sense) Beimel's agent discovered that the free agent market had turned scatological and suddenly his objection to landing his client with the Nationals disappeared. Like magic!

Also note the list of Rizzo's general manager-type moves provided by Harlan (who's just plain embarrassed): the acquisition of the some roster-filler that may or may not make the team; the Dmitri Young nonsense that the team's going along with because Bodes promised; and the Beimel signing, which was, according the beginning of this article, Bowden's idea.

I don't miss Bowden or anything, and I don't doubt that everyone hated him. Rizzo's probably fine. In fact, I don't really have a point here except that 1) this article is actually kind of worthless and B) anyone who just now started hating on Jim Bowden is about four years too late and needs to find more positive ways to kiss ass.

Meanwhile, I'm just going to keep linking to this. Unlike Chico Harlan, I have no sense of embarrassment.