The Juiciest Fruits of the Internet Tree

I have very little in the way of words today. I decided that my sabermetrically sound, dry-as-unsold-brisket take on Nook Logan and Cristian Guzman can wait for another day -- a day when I've come up with some jokes. So I'll let other media do my communicating. Choi Hoon, who of all my heroes has the fewest stolen bases and leadoff home runs, has a typically puzzling piece on Chipper Jones. Here's Larry being invited by Sleep's brother Death to crawl into a volcano or something.

This one is somewhat less baffling.

Here's one for the ladies: Buck Martinez, with moustache buddy.

No doubt you palookas have been wondering how a 21st-century gazookus like myself speaks such perfect 1930s slang. You didn't dass ask for fear of being biffed and buffed. Well, here's your answer. Honestly, I can't think of a more educational two minutes and fourteen seconds anywhere.

A skillful writer could probably craft a pretty compelling metaphor out of this.

Discussion Question: What's your favorite song about Jimmy Carter? Mine is "Jimmy Carter Says Yes." Can our government be competent? Listen to find out what Jimmy Carter's answer is! More here.

Rickey caught a foul ball!

So let’s get some things straight. First of all, of course Rickey’s going to catch the ball instead of the kid. Rickey’s taller than the kid, by at least two feet. Scientists call that Natural Selection. And even if that wasn’t the case, Rickey’s got great ups. That ball was Rickey’s the minute it left the bat, and everyone knew it.

Macta, Rickey, Carpenter

Another sweep! At least the Brewers are kind of loveable. Basil summed this up with his usual insight:

This is a talented and exciting team, folks. I listened to the BrewCrew radio broadcast for a couple innings on my XM while driving around Friday and Saturday nights, and Bob Uecker's excitement seems explained by something other than a hidden flask of hard liquor. Miller Park was rocking.

I have a feeling the Cubs may yet prove a bugaboo for the 2007 Brewers, but isn't it something that Milwaukee fans can revel in this level of excitement? It's been fashionable to mock Bud Selig's self-serving "Hope & Faith" language, but it seems evident that several baseball towns have lacked the same in the last decade. But now Milwaukee is rid of the Seligulan legacy and looks like it has a winner. It's a win-win.

This good will was reinforced by Don Sutton's obviously sincere affection for Milwaukee, his favorite stop in his five-team career. It appears that the Cardinals have in fact penny-pinched their way out of a chance to repeat, so I say go Brewers. I was worried that, having had our bones picked clean by the Cubs, there's be nothing but backbone left for the Brewers, and I'm somewhat relieved that we didn't show much.

The game was apparently the Citizen Kane of terrible managing, and I urge you to stay tuned to Channel Needham (as if you weren't already) for some grade A excoriation. I can feel it coming in the air tonight. Somebody -- somebody whose name rhymes with Anny Macta -- is about to get his ass kicked.

Meanwhile, Rickey! Big ups to a pair of anonymous tipsters (I'll call them Chris N. and W.F. Yurasko) who alerted me to Rickey Henderson's musings about a comeback. If Clemens can do it, Rickey's awesome thinking goes, why not Rickey? The headlines are overblown, though; even Rickey recognizes that it's not going to happen.

"I'm through, really. I'm probably through with it now. It's just one of those things. I thank the Good Lord I played as long as I played and came out of it healthy. I took a lot of pounding."

You're probably expecting me to call for an invitation to Rickey to join the Nats. While he would be an improvement on Robert Fick (am I joking? I don't think I am), I am opposed to a Rickey comeback. If Rickey gets back on the field, he leaves himself open to the cruel jibes of loathsome vultures like ol' "Bathhouse" John Feinstein. Plus, it would mean that we'd have to wait that much longer for Rickey to join his peers in the Hall of Fame, and once that happens, we as a nation will take a moment to reflect on Rickey's gifts to humanity. No one will dare speak against him.

Don Sutton Watch
First off, I've been negligent in not noting that the infamous Larry Flynt joke was prompted by a question sent in by the Natmosphere's own Joe Riley of Nats Power. Based on his experience, I suggest that we bait Sutton by sending in questions likely to send him into questionable territory. For example, "Hey Don, what do you think 'Brown Sugar' by the Rolling Stones is really about?" or "What's your favorite Chick tract?"

An interesting development: an anonymous commenter at teh CP reports that Bob Carpenter, Sutton's partner in crime, mentioned during the sausage race yesterday that the Italian sausage had "offly fair skin." The only explanation: Carpenter and Sutton are having a suspension contest. First one to get taken off the air wins one million dollars.

Be Aggressive

Since the start of the 2006 season, I've been tracking the on-field indignities suffered by Nationals fans. There's a line between rooting for a bad team and rooting for a humiliatingly bad team, and I've developed a sixth sense that tingles whenever the line is crossed. That first series against the Mets last year really set it off. Remember when Pedro Martinez hit eight or nine of our guys without the umps saying a word of warning? And then Felix Rodriguez hit a Met and everyone wearing a W got ejected? It wasn't the losing. It was the sensation of being pantsed.

This season, Dmitri Young's been providing that feeling, and he did it again last night. The Nats didn't look good against the Brewers exactly, but they were part of a crisp, well-played ballgame. And they even had a chance to win as they fought back against a dominant Chris Capuano to put two men on in the ninth. Then up lumbered Da Meat Hook. It's not nice to laugh at a man's disability, if having a big fat ass counts as such, so I'll focus on his performance. With a strike on him, Milwaukee closer Francisco "The Cordero Who's Better At Closing" Cordero threw an obvious waste pitch. It hit the dirt well before it got anywhere near Dmitri -- I think it bounced three or four times before the catcher got it. Young took a huge, pants-ripping, all or nothing fat guy swing and missed by a couple yards. Then the exact same thing happened again. It looked like an instant replay. A cloud of dust, a huge pair of gray pants tearing, game over. He looked like a beer league softball all star called up to face a major league pitcher.

It's about to get worse: Tony Batista has joined the team. Batista is an unusual player. The all or nothing approach Young took last night -- well, that's a normal at-bat for Tony. He's the kind of guy who can hit 32 home runs and still have to go begging for a job in Japan the next year. We last saw him in the Caribbean World Series and couldn't believe that he was only 33. He has skinny little Tyrannosaurus Rex arms, which is even weirder looking what with his gut and ass having a perpetual protrusion contest below them. He looks like a fertility idol.

If he hits a homer, the crops will grow tall and fruitful.

The Nationals just got a little bit funnier and a little bit less major league.

Don Sutton Watch
I'm still reeling from the Larry Flynt joke from last night. So many questions: why was it so jarring? Did anyone say anything about it to him behind the scenes? Would it have been funnier if he'd said Teddy couldn't outrun his cousin Franklin?

Whatever the answers, Don continues to justify close attention. After Felipe Lopez led off with a homer, Sutton said "What was that? Be aggressive. B-E aggressive." So I guess he spends a lot of time on the internet. Or maybe I'm projecting.

Two Observations As We Get Outclassed By the Brewers

Separated at birth

Geoff Jenkins (left) and Jandek (right)

A Fact About Don Sutton
When Don Sutton gets bored (with the game, with Carpenter, with Matt Chico), he starts working edgy and saying things like "Teddy [Roosevelt] couldn't outrun Larry Flynt." That's the only good reason I can think of for keeping Chico around.

And Puzzled I Shall Remain

I don't see much of the weekend games. I got stuff to do. That lawn isn't going to mow itself, and the damn zoning board won't let me buy a herd of ill-tempered goats to do it for me. But I'm not regretting it this weekend, because getting swept by the Cubs isn't something I necessarily want to savor every moment of.

Here's something to think about: we've had Ryan Langerhans for three games now. How is he being used? Let's take a look.

May 4: defensive replacement in 8th inning for Casto

May 5: defensive replacement in 6th for Casto

May 6: started, 2 hits in 3 ABs, pinch hit for by Da Meat Hook with two men on in the 7th

The Nats are apparently thinking that the dude isn't good enough to start more than once a series and isn't good enough to be entrusted with an important at-bat. Then why did you trade for him? Nook Logan's coming back tomorrow -- how many defensive replacements do we need? If you're willing, as the Nats seemingly are, to trust the results of Atlanta's experiment in letting Langerhans hit (the result: he can't), then there wasn't any reason to get him. I continue to be puzzled.

Yet Another Ryan

I had no idea the front office was this vindictive. Trading my favorite player just because I linked to that Rosenthal article? That's cold.

I don't like it. That's not an overwhelming emotion. The word that keeps popping up in my head is "whatever." This isn't a huge deal, even if it is my favorite. So keep that in mind.

In terms of absolute talent, we lost. Snelling is still only 25, and with a little luck he could be an excellent hitter for years to come. Ryan Langerhans is 27, and in a couple of years he has the chance to be 29. He can't hit, he's out of options so we can't send him to the minors, and he doesn't even have the decency to be right-handed.

The counterpoint: Snelling makes Nick Johnson look like Cal Ripken. There's no reason to think he's going to play enough games to make an impact. Langerhans is apparently a great outfielder -- he'd have been playing center in Atlanta if Andruw Jones didn't already have it on lock. Jim Bowden's stated goal is give up offense to get defense, and that he did.

But that's dumb. Give up offense? We don't have any. We can't spare a hitter, especially if Manny Acta's serious about putting Guzman back in the lineup. Especially especially if he's also serious about giving Nook Logan a starting job. The only way this trade makes sense, in fact, is if it leads to Logan being jettisoned. The Nats are very worried about outfield defense, and that's a good thing to be worried about. But it's not worth it if you're letting Nook Logan bat four times a day. But if Langerhans is our everyday centerfielder, I could live with that. When I said he couldn't hit, I certainly didn't mean to suggest that he was as bad as Logan.

Even if that happens, it's quite possible that this trade makes us not a bit better. The A's, probably a more intelligently-run team than the Nats, like Snelling better than Langerhans. The Braves, certainly a more intelligently-run team than the Nats, liked "a player to be named later or cash considerations" better than Langerhans -- that's just the technical term for the proverbial bag of baseballs. Needham looks at the defense and concludes (or maybe summarizes someone else concluding) that "at worst, he's a league average performer." Well, no. At worst, he's a guy hitting .063 who's just been dumped by two good teams in the space of a week.

Apropos nothing, the worst-written subheadline I saw today came with this Michael Wilbon column.

Golden State is trying to disprove the NBA axiom that says the superior team always wins against regular-season juggernaut Dallas.

Ah, yes. I remember Hubie Brown repeating that one ad nauseam. "Now Marv, the superior team always wins against regular-season juggernaut Dallas, a'ight." It's one of those things that you get tired of hearing no matter how true it is. Defense win championships, every team makes a run, the superior team always wins against regular-season juggernaut Dallas.

While I Look For My Black Armband

I'll talk about Snelling later. This is time sensitive, though: Ken Rosenthal, who wrote that piece on how terrible the Nats are being run, is chatting about it at the Post at 1 today. Could be interesting.

UPDATE: It wasn't that interesting, unless you're interested in what a bunch of pathetic whiners share with me an interest in the Nationals. "You�ve given us 4,917 words of negativity. Is there anything positive that you can think of ?" Nice job with the question marks, crybaby. That wasn't even the worst one.

Unrelated in any way: for some reason ESPN thought some O's executive resigning was a big enough deal to put on the ticker. It's not, but it's a shame I didn't hear about this Joe Foss earlier. He would have been a nice addition to my shit list.

Perhaps Foss' most lasting contribution to the Orioles was negotiating and finalizing a compensatory deal with Major League Baseball after the Montreal Expos moved to Washington before the 2005 season.

Included in the landmark deal was the creation of a regional broadcast arm, the Mid-Atlantic Sports Network, which airs Orioles and Washington Nationals games as well as other Beltway-area sporting events, but is owned primarily by the Orioles.

So what does an agent of pure evil do after successfully screwing us for years? He's going to run nursing homes!

Joe Foss, Orioles vice chairman and chief operating officer since December 1993, tendered his resignation Friday and will leave May 11 to become chief administrative officer of Erickson Retirement Communities in Catonsville. . . [Foss] said he'll be "added to the executive team" of Erickson, which manages 20,000 residential units on 19 campuses in 10 different states, including Charlestown in Catonsville, Oak Crest in Parkville and Riderwood in Silver Spring.

I'm glad they named some of the homes. If you're looking for a nursing home, I'd recommend you stay away from these. Given this guy's history, I'm sure there's going to be some serious senior-browbeating and will-tampering going on.

Dysfunction

Sure, the Nationals are terrible. Can't hit, can't field, about to put Cristian Guzman back in there with a not-insane expectation of improvement. And yeah, local interest is at an all-time low, all-time being defined as about two and a half years. The Nats are reduced to sending some dude to my office to beg us to buy steeply discounted tickets (true story) (I didn't buy any). But at least the front office is doing the right things. Building the farm system, putting good men in charge, making sure that the minor leaguers have all the sunflower seeds they need.

Or maybe not. Ken Rosenthal -- sort of a younger Peter Gammons without the rock star wannabe weirdness -- has a surprisingly long and in-depth look at the dysfunction in the Nats' front office. I say surprisingly because the piece can be of interest only to Nationals fans, and of those only the ones who spend too much of their time thinking about the team. So I'm glad it's there, but I'm surprised the Dayn-lovers at Fox Sports considered it worth effort.

It confirms what people who have more dealings with the business end of the Nats than I do have known for a while: things doesn't work. Quite a bit of it I'm willing to dismiss: there are quite a few former employees who don't have anything good to say about Bowden, and that's to be expected. Rather more troubling is that no one in baseball except Stan Kasten has anything good to say about Bowden. Similarly troubling is that the Nats can't seem to anything right and chalk it up to inexperience. Well sure, it's not like that one Lerner or that other Lerner or Stan Kasten has any experience . . . hey, wait a damn minute! If they can't run a baseball team, why is Kasten hanging around? Eye candy? Needham fodder?

I'm not in a very analytical state of mind right now -- that picture of Feinstein has me kind of dazed -- and I look forward to what the Natmosphere has to say about this thing. It doesn't make me despair over the future of the franchise, but I'm a bit less sanguine than I was this morning.

Feinstein, You Ignorant [Promiscuous Woman]

The Post, adhering to its tarditional policy that its sports opinion pieces are to be as bad as its reporting is good, ran a piece by this John Feinstein guy about teh roids. It's nothing you haven't heard before. Maybe you agree with the premise, and maybe you don't, but I hope we can all agree that it's illogical, poorly-argued, and just not very good. But whatever. No one over there bats an eye when Boswell changes his mind about everything every couple of weeks, so this kind of thing is bound to happen.

The reason I'm bothering to talk about this is that Feinstein takes a completely gratuitous shot at Rickey "RICKEY!" Henderson. Yes, that Rickey. The greatest leadoff hitter of all time, greatest base-stealer that ever lived, and greatest living American. RICKEY! I was so mad I had to go back over this thing after I wrote it and bowdlerize myself.

Lots of bad guys have set important records. Rickey Henderson was as hard to take as anyone. Who can forget his, "I am the greatest of all time," speech after breaking Lou Brock's record for stolen bases.

Bad guys? Who the [heck] do you think you are talking about Rickey like that? Bad guy? Ask Tony Gwynn if Rickey's a bad guy. Hell, if you feel so bad for Lou Brock, ask him. Brock helped Rickey write that speech, you know. Because Lou Brock isn't a player-hating [glans]. Calling Rickey a bad guy should be a felony, and comparing him -- as this [rear-facing orifice] does -- to Pete Rose and Ty Cobb should be a gas chamber bounce.

You've got to know your place, Feinstein, and yours is way below Rickey. Rickey's better at everything than you are at anything. He's a better ballplayer than you, he's a better dresser than you, and he's a better [goshdarn] columnist than you.

Above: Rickey with the fans.
Below: Feinstein with a naked man.

If you want to whine about steroids, fine. Just don't bring Rickey into it. Does Rickey come to where you work and slap Tony Kornheiser's [REDACTED] out of your [REDACTED]? No he does not. So stop player-hating and maybe spend a little more time on your next book so the New York Times doesn't [defecate] all over it. Just because you're the poor man's Mitch Albom doesn't mean you should be taking your frustrations out on Rickey.

I mean, really, who's setting a worse example for the kids? Rickey, who has triumphed over every obstacle that's been set in front of him, including being way too old to play baseball? Or John Feinstein, who's been known to throw around the term "[ucking-fay] refs" on live television, where it could be heard by children?

Don't be a [vinegary feminine hygiene product], Feinstein. Keep Rickey's name out of your mouth.

It's A Dull and Rusty Razor

Do I pick these players because they need to someone to argue for them, or do they need someone to argue for them because I pick them? I don't know what it is, but as soon as I stopped worrying about Ryan Church, things started to go well for him. The moment I declared my allegiance to Chris Snelling . . . well, you can't say his luck's gotten worse, but he has endured a string of setbacks at the hands of the front office. Over the last couple weeks, he's been losing starts in left field to the likes of Michael Restovich and Robert Fick, the latter of whom proves conclusively -- as if we needed any more evidence -- that a gritty, scrappy attitude and left-handedness can get you a long way baseball, even if that's pretty much all you've got going for you.

Now we've got Kory Casto, already vanquished once in this positional war, back from AAA. This move comes, of course, just as I'd forgotten how to spell his name. It also comes as Snelling isn't hitting. He's down to a Guzmanian .208 average, and he's not making up for it with power. What he is doing is getting on base, with his antipodean mixture of walks and hit by pitches giving him a more than respectable .367 OBP. And that's part of what makes me think Snelling should be playing every day -- his batting can't not go up. There's no way he keeps hitting .208, and when he snaps out of it, that tasty on base percentage is a nice foundation to build on.

Manny Acta sees it differently, though: Casto is going to play every day until the little-missed Nook Logan comes back, whereupon he becomes the fourth outfielder. Snelling, out of options and therefore un-Columbusable, gets to sit on the bench and wonder why he went through all that rehab.

This may well be the right decision for the team, but who's pretending to care about that? Not the front office, that's for sure. At this point, it's every Nat for himself and every blogger for his Nat, so I don't feel too bad in hoping that Casto and the three or four other outfielders I need out of the way fail miserably.

We dropped the series with the Mets, which is predictable, but at least we got some nice pitching out of it. Jerome Williams, who was responsible for six innings of it, is on the DL now, but I didn't feel the need to put an "unfortunately" on the beginning of this sentence, which only now have come to the end of. For one thing, six innings of no runs doesn't mean he doesn't suck. More importantly, watching this guy work is pure torture. There's already far too much Steve Trachsel on the MASN family of networks, and I have no desire to watch a Hawaiian Steve Trachsel imitator take three hours to get through five innings.

A word on Tony Randazzo, the umpire who possibly cost us the rubber match with the Mets. Maybe you remember -- in the seventh, down a run and with a man on second, Snelling and Fick came up to hit. They thought they were playing baseball, but Randazzo without warning switched the game to single player Random Strike Call, and they both struck out. Keep in mind, though, that the night before he blew a double play call that let us score a run. It didn't give us a win, but it did make us take a long time to lose, and that's something. Maybe he was trying to make up for his gaffe on Sunday, or maybe -- and Occam's holding a razor to my neck and telling me that this is the explanation -- he's just not very good at his job.

I Also Miss Deivi Cruz and Keith Osik

This is no fun at all. Brian Schneider's losing balls everywhere you could think of, including under his own, and Robert Fick is not only starting over Chris Snelling but making the kind of mistakes that would get Ryan Church benched, suspended, demoted, and maybe executed.

So, last night. That's the kind of game you have to win to get out of last place. We're not going to get out of last place, so we didn't win. And vice versa.

It's a shame to waste such an effective start by Jay Bergmann, but that's one of the nice things about this team: expectations are so low and accomplishments are so modest that a heartfelt but metaphorical pat on the butt and and a "good effort, kid" are all that's really merited or forthcoming. I mean, it's not like we wasted a no-hitter or anything.

Over at teh Journal, Barry Svrluga asked some questions.

1. Who is the former National you miss the most?
2. Who is the National acquired in a trade or free agency who you most like?
3. What deal would you most like to see undone?

1. ¡Livan!, obviously. I don't know what makes me miss him more: watching another four-inning start from some 25-year-old I'd never heard of before March, or realizing that Church, Bergmann, Zimmerman, and all the other fresh-faced white kids stuttering through the same old cliches might as well all be the same person.

2. Chris Snelling. That's all covered right here.

3. One of the first ones: Juan Rivera and Maicer Izturis for Jose Guillen. I know you all loved Guillen because he hit a little bit and yelled at Angels, but he's a bad person and a pain in the ass, and better he does the more convinced I am that there's no justice in the world. Plus he didn't do a damn thing for about 7/12 of his Nats career.

Rivera and Izturis aren't All Stars and they keep getting hurt, but they both had very good 2006s and cost less together than Guillen did alone. Furthermore, retaining Izturis would have meant that Cristian Guzman wouldn't be getting four bills a year from us to hurt the team by playing or hurt the team slightly less by getting injured, AND there's a better than even chance that we would have gotten to watch Barry Larkin's farewell tour in a Nationals uniform. No Guillen or Guzman? If you gave me a time machine and a choice to go back and stop Hitler or go back and stop this trade, I'd have to think about it.

Will's Corner

The corner Will Carroll's painted himself into keeps getting smaller. Ever since he first "discovered" the gyroball (i.e., looked at the pictures in a book he couldn't read), he's had to walk back expectations of it as qualified, scrupulous experts have horned in on his turf.

The most direct, embarrassing setback came when Daisuke Matsuzaka himself denied throwing the thing, and things have only gotten worse since then. The problem is that Matsuzaka signed with Boston, and the Red Sox are always on national TV. Thus we -- not to mention Orel Hershiser, Joe Morgan, and all the other professionals in ESPN's employ -- can judge for ourselves. Hell, with all the technology we've got on the internet tubes nowadays, it's be easy!

NOT SO FAST, YOU COPYRIGHT INFRINGERS! Will would love to break it down for you, show you in slow motion that Daisuke's a liar and Will was right along, but . . .

See those pretty pictures on the front page? They cost money. Video? Way more. If we doubled subscription prices and ad rates, we’d have almost enough.

Will cares about nothing more than his credibility, but he's not about to post or even link to something on Youtube that's copyrighted, even if it would prove him right. Will wants you to see it, but a law's a law, which you'd probably understand if you weren't staring slack-jawed at "pretty pictures."

Here I am setting myself for a lecture from Will and doing his job for him. Here's a gyroball video that's helpfully translated so Will doesn't have to beg someone to figure out what it says for him. There's got to be gyroball somewhere in here, right? I mean, there would be if Matsuzaka actually threw it. And here's a video that's, like, nothing but science. I'm sure a fully qualified expert like Will could glean some gyriffic info from that.

Finally, here's what looks like Bob Wickman awkwardly talking into a webcam. Looks can be deceiving, though, because it's actually Will Carroll talking awkwardly into a webcam.

Note where he mentions that Daisuke's "every game last year was available on the web." I know it would take a lot fact-checking and actual reporting to get through them all, not to mention cutting into time allotted to posting the wildly popular Baseball Prospectus Video Unfiltered programs that have been burning up Youtube, but the world needs to know what the world's foremost expert on imaginary pitches has to say about this one.

I will say, though, that Will and I have something in common: disdain for his fans and correspondents. See at the end of the post how a friendly inquiry on a subject Will's staked out as his specialty gets you not only a condescending crack about pretty pictures, but also some simultaneously pious and smart-assed demands for increased awareness of universally ignored law. Will respects his fans just as much as I respect Will's fans.

David Halberstam, R.I.P.

I was saddened this afternoon to hear of the passing of author David Halberstam. In an eerie coincidence, I had this very morning picked up Summer of '49 -- by no means for the first time -- to read on my commute.

Halberstam was best known for his political writing -- Vietnam, Kennedys, that kind of thing. That's how he got his Pulitzer, and that's what his obituaries will lead off with. I don't know anything about any of that, but let me explain briefly how I know he was a great writer: I hate the Yankees; I hate the Red Sox; I hate nostalgia. Summer of '49 is about the Yankees, the Red Sox, and the formative memories of Baby Boomers, and it's still one of my top five baseball books.

More satisfying if less accomplished is October 1964, a morality tale in which the good guys win because the Yankees are racists. I heartily recommend both and regret that there will never be another installment.

Slap A Fonzie On It

That was a rough weekend. I'm not talking about mine, which wasn't all that bad -- it looks like most of the charges are going to be dropped, and what the hell, I've always got that second kidney. I'm talking about the Nats, who have reverted to the frustrating ways of their first week.

I've commented once or twice that while the Nationals are losing a lot, they're doing so in a salubrious manner. Their scrappy, never-say-die performances teach the youth the importance of teamwork and good attitude. Their competence teaches the youth the importance of making sure not to humiliate yourself even if you have no hope of winning. And Ryan Church's performance teaches the youth that you can have a full, productive life even after Frank Robinson has called you names.

Now, however, I wouldn't recommend letting your kids watch these guys. Scrappiness doesn't do you a lot of good when you're losing by six runs twice in a row. Competence wasn't much in evidence when Matt Chico walked seven Marlins in 4.2 innings, or when Jerome Williams gave up nine runs in six. As for Ryan Church, well the honeymoon with his new manager lasted only 18 games. I'll get to that later.

The Nats have settled into last place with a clean, mechanical click; the right piece in the right hole. The sound resonated with finality. Maybe you heard it. We're home now, and we won't be leaving soon.

Ryan Church was yanked from Sunday's game with no explanation other than "he's not injured." Mark Zuckerman at the Times scooped everyone:

So Ryan was, in fact, benched by manager Manny Acta for not hustling down the line on his second-inning grounder today. Acta said he won't tolerate lack of effort, so he didn't hesitate to pull Church from the game and insert Chris Snelling in his place.

There comes a time when even Church's staunchest defenders have to concede that maybe there is some substance to all the complaints about his attitude. I'm not talking about me here -- I got to that point ages ago; I just don't care. A home run counts whether or not the guy hitting is a gritty, dirt-rubbing-in-it gamer. Brian Schneider not liking your look in the clubhouse is not, to my mind, a disqualification from the profession of baseball.
The Nationals' experience with Frank Robinson has led me to classify managerial discipline in two categories: Ohka Discipline and Soriano Discipline. The former is vindictive, the unprofessional action of an angry man. The latter is constructive, setting the tone for a successful team. Which is this? It could be because I like both the guys involved, but I'd say that it looks good so far. Acta hastens to point out that he's "a Ryan Church fan." Church is appropriately contrite: "I know I messed up. I got the message loud and clear. We'll leave it at that." This one gets a conditional Soriano.

Not Last

I'm going to be honest with you: I didn't stay up for this one. I went to bed after the 11th inning ended with, by my count, the five hundred twenty-fourth groundout with a man on second base.

As a battle for last place, though, it was perfect: epic, endless, boring, ignored. And we won! So bask in the glory of fourth place and try to forget that whole walking the pinch-hitting pitcher incident. It's all behind us, and we're guaranteed our spot in not-last at least until Friday night.

Like Shalamar in '81

I enjoyed the hell out of that baseball game. Yeah, we lost, but I've hardened myself to that eventuality, and there was a lot of good in this one.

The Virginia Tech caps were a perfect idea; a truly dignified tribute -- Washington Senator at the BPG board deserves a great deal of credit for this, as do the Nationals.

Chris Snelling, my new Ryan Church, was on fire: four times on base, including a triple. He had such a good game that Kory Casto had to go to Columbus to escape the shame of it all.

It was a tense game. The Nats got behind early, but got back into it thanks to the left side of Atlanta's infield suddenly displaying hands like Sonny Liston. In Renteria's case, I think we can chalk it up to Panda Express, and I'm sure you can come up with theories that explain what happened to Chipper.

The seventh inning was the game of base ball as it is played today at its best. Down one run and with men on 1st and 2nd, Ryan Zimmerman stepped in against Rafael Soriano, and they had themselves a classic one-on-one battle, with the RZA fouling off pitch after pitch until chasing a slider to strike out. Dmitri Young followed with an even better at-bat, fighting off pitches until he lined one into left field, only to have a perfectly-positioned Ryan Langerhans rob him of a game-tying double. It hurt, but it was a good kind of hurt. Character-building, you know?

The Nats lost, but at least we can blame it on Tom Boswell. If he really cared about the Nationals, he never would have written this bad hoodoo magnet of a column. But it's ok, really, because even though the Nats have lost a lot (the winning percentage stands at .286, and that's even after our recent "hot streak"), they've been in enough games long enough that it's not a soul-crushing chore to sit through them. This could change for the worse and probably will, so I'm enjoying it while I can.

Up next are the Phillies, who have been showing their brotherly love by keeping us out of last place. I doubt I'll be so magnanimous if we lose these.

Thanks, Jobu

Chris Snelling's radness and the public's awareness thereof continue to grow unabated. Barry Svrluga posted on his day off, which indicates that he's getting a little too into this whole blogging thing. The signs are all there: pleas for more comments and an unseemly interest in his own ranking within "teh community." Things may look bad for Svrluga's sanity, but good for us -- dude's a hell of a blogger, and if being behind the United blog prompts him to keep the content coming, then we -- the Nats fans -- win.

So anyway, Svrluga mentions a completely awesome play that Snelling pulled off in our win against the Mets on Saturday, when he conned overrated pretty boy David Wright into handing us a run.

With two outs in the fourth inning, Brian Schneider was on third and Snelling on second when Felipe Lopez hit a grounder to Mets third baseman David Wright. Snelling began running from second, and Wright kind of double-pumped the ball as he got it out of his glove. Lopez, hitting left-handed, was scooting down the line.

So Snelling thought to himself, "Oh, we can get a run here." He had taken off toward Wright, and Wright decided against throwing the ball across the infield, instead opting to tag out Snelling. "I was trying to get in a run-down," Snelling said, a hugely heads-up play. If Wright throws out Lopez at first, the run Schneider would score from third wouldn't count -- even if he crossed the plate before the out was recorded -- because it's a force play at first. But if Snelling gets tagged out -- not a force because runners were on second and third only -- the run would count if Schneider crossed the plate before Wright put the tag on Snelling.

So Snelling retreated toward second. Wright ran him down. "I didn't think I was in a run-down long enough," Snelling said. But he was. Schneider crossed the plate just before Wright put the tag on, and the Nationals went up 3-1.

I'm a smart guy, and that's too much for me to figure out. And I'm talking days later in the comfort of my den while I sit at my blogging desk in my smoking jacket and cravat holding a glass of cognac between my index and middle fingers -- I can't imagine figuring that all out in the microseconds Snelling had.

Above: This is what me contemplating Chris Snelling's baserunning would look like if I were a squirrel. Big ups to the master squirrel posers at Sugar Bush Squirrel. Please note the tiny bottle of Remy Martin to the right.

On the other end of the mind meets baseball spectrum is Chris Snelling's on base percentage. Needham notes that Snelling's OBP is impressive, especially when put up against his uninspiring batting average. But here's the thing: he's not walking all that often; he's getting on by letting pitches fly into his body. It's a simple, direct solution to the problem of not wasting outs. If I may engage in a little national stereotyping, it's an essentially Australian way of getting on base -- the baseball equivalent of making movies, making songs, and foightin' 'round the world.

Tonight's game - the last thing I was expecting. There are 30 teams in Major League Baseball, another 12 in Japan, and a couple hundred more in Division I college ball, and the Nats are the last one that I would have thought could have toughed out as crappy a start as Matt Chico had tonight. Five innings, five walks, no strikeouts? That's a recipe for a blowout unless you have both skill and luck on your side, and the Nationals have been lacking in both.

Tonight it hinged, as always, on the fat guys. Ronnie Belliard dropped another one, but he did have a hit and a run, and Da Meathook made it a definite fat guy night with three hits, two doubles, and two driven in. When Jobu lets the fat guys contribute that much and lets the rookie starter get by unpunished with that kind of pitching line, it's pretty hopeless for the other team.

To Franklinton

That weekend went pretty well. Yeah, we lost a game, but it wasn't humiliating, and I didn't see it anyway. Then we won one -- jacked a bunch of dingers and upheld the long-standing tradition of having Mets pitchers throw at us in April. Finally, El Nino stepped in and cancelled half the schedule, bringing with him two happy benefits: 1) We don't lose the series, and 2) We don't have to look at the Mets or their terrible stadium or their cheesy little moustaches for a while.

So it looks my yearly prayer to the baseball gods is paying off so far. I didn't ask for much -- requesting a World Series or 60 wins or something is hubristic and sure to end in disaster. Remember when Mo Vaughn fell into the dugout and messed up his ankle on his first play with Anaheim? That's because some Angels fan got ambitious and wished for an MVP. All I asked for was a .500 record against the Mets and a whole lot of Chris Snelling.

Above: A baseball god. Is very bad to drink his rum.

The gods saw to it that we're .500 against New York, and now they're looking after Snelling for me, too.

Manny Acta decided Thursday to make Chris Snelling his starting left fielder, a decision that has proven to pay off and could lead to Kory Casto's demotion to Class AAA Columbus.
After backing up Casto for most of the first two weeks of the season, Snelling was inserted into the lineup Thursday and has remained there since. And when he hit two-run homer and added an RBI groundout in yesterday's 6-2 win over the New York Mets, the 25-year-old outfielder further cemented his place with the Nationals for the immediate future.

I wonder why this wasn't the situation from the beginning of the year. Snelling and Kasto are the same age, and all indications are that the Aussie is a better player. Why were they so desperate for Casto to win out? I really don't know. Maybe they explained it while I was in Europe taking important photographs. I know they wanted to get Casto regular playing time, but this is (technically) a major league ballclub. If you need more time in the nursery before you can contribute, well, that's why Lucas Sullivant founded Columbus, Ohio.

"No, Not Really. I'm Just Here For the Cruise."

At the thankfully still going Nationals Journal, Barry Svrluga poses a question that I'm sure has been asked more than once in the trailers the Nats are operating out of: "Will you remain interested throughout the course of the summer?"

The responses to the post are positive, but that's to be expected. People who post on Nationals Journal are a subset of people who read it, who are themselves a subset of people who are interested enough in the Nats to go to the trouble of finding online discussion of them. The hardcores, in other words. It's like going on the Buffy the Vampire Slayer cruise to Alaska and asking who likes Buffy.

My response to Svrluga's question . . . well, I know I resort to quoting Zhou Enlai far too often around here, but it's too soon to tell. I haven't made it through a whole season yet, but there are a couple of things working to make it possible that this is the first: 1) TV coverage the whole year. This is really, really important. B) Trust me, losing interest in an 81-win team only to be enthralled by an 18-win team is exactly the kind of thing I'd do. I think I'm a Dadaist at heart.

A helpful comparison can be made with the team forcing us to preempt BookTV, the Baltimore Orioles. The O's are bad, of course, and have been for a very long time. No hope to compete, little hope of a future, etc. I follow the Orioles, so I know what I'm talking about when I say that they're the worst kind of team to follow. They're going to win 70 games, but they aren't going to win 90. Last night I went to bed after the 10th inning -- I figured that if they lost, that's no reason to stay up. If they won, well that's just one of the not quite 81 they'll slog through. They lost, by the way.

The Nats, on the other hand -- Oh, the Nats! If they lose, it's comedy. Bunts into double plays, fat guys dropping balls, Disorderlies-style comedy. It's like Stan Kasten hired the Three Stooges to fix his plumbing in the middle of a hoity-toity dinner party! (And you're welcome for that link -- God bless the internet and all who sail on it.)

A win for the home nine, though, is a stunning upset, a do-you-believe-miracles once in a lifetime (well, once in a weektime at least) event. Every Nationals win should be commemorated with a bronze statue and an epic poem. The Nats' season is -- for lack of a more original metaphor -- a roller coaster ride of humiliating lows and lung-taxing highs. The Orioles' season is like getting up and going to work every day, and I get enough of that without having to listen to Jim Palmer talk about it.

UPDATE: I was thinking of hundreds of different ways the Nats could blow that game (meteor shower makes Church drop a fly ball, Bill Buckner comes out of the stands to play first, hara kiri). It never occurred to me that they'd win. Where should we put the statue?

Fat Guys Dropping Balls

I gotta say, my first Nats game was not satisfying television. It could have been. The main thing I took away from it was fat guys dropping balls. In many other contexts -- the circus, a sumo tiebreaker decided by juggling, the Caribbean World Series -- this would be high entertainment. But as jaded as I've forced myself to become about my favorite team, they're still my favorite team, and that kind of thing can't help but hurt.

Dmitri Young does no team credit. I've found that any predeliction has something that's very difficult to justify to outsiders. For example, I enjoy a little mixed martial arts from time to time. I'm not huge fan; I'm not going to pay for it, but I'll watch some human cockfighting when it's on. The problem is that most UFC bouts have a point -- and this point can stretch for several excruciating minutes -- where the one muscular man wearing nothing but some little combat panties is lying right on top of the other muscular man wearing nothing but some little combat panties, and neither of them is doing much but breathing heavily. Try explaining that to a wife or girlfriend or parent or spiritual advisor.

As a Nats fan, that point came last night during Dmitri Young's first at-bat. He's a fine figure of a man with his zeppelinish ass, his jersey protruding over his belt like he's trying to hide a tortoise flat against his belly, and his not insignificant yellow sheet. Seeing him wheezing his way up to the plate, my wife turned to me and said two words: "Professional. Athlete." I knew she was just trying to get me to hit the recall button on the remote and get us back to MASN1 so she could indulge in elaborate house-playing fantasies about Brian Roberts, but she had a point nonetheless.

And then he dropped a ball. My attention wandered, but as far as I'm concerned the game was decided by a big fat guy (Young) and a little fat guy (Ronnie Belliard) having baseballs clank uselessly against the instruments they carry specifically to hold them, and that's not an honorable way to lose. Plus no one could hit. Because we suck.

Sorry to be a downer, but I'm just catching up to where the rest of you have been for a week or so, and I'm finding that it's true what everyone says: we suck. But to cheer you up, my absolute favorite Korean baseball cartoonist, Mr. Choi Hoon, has finally gotten to the Nationals, and the results --as usual -- make me realize that I've wasted my life by not learning Korean. Here's Bodes sightseeing:


And here's Da Meat Hook dispensing wisdom. Or something.


Thank you and goodnight.

Tonight's the night

I'm about to watch my first Nationals of the year, and I'm excited! It's on MASN2, a concept that's got Needham's Underoos in a twist, but I'm OK with it. 68? I can remember that.

In other humiliating undergarments worn uncomfortably news, I actually met someone who's upset about CSPAN2 getting preempted. I was aware that these people existed, but, like Devil Rays fans or Scientologists or Luxembourgians, I didn't have any personal experience with them. I'm kind of shaken, actually. This is a guy I've known for some time, and just now I find out that he's A) such a tremendous dork that he'd rather watch Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kansas) drone on about stem cells than some ~BASEBALL! and 2) so very perturbed by this that he's willing to admit it in public. I half-expect my wife to admit that she's been from Luxembourg this whole time.

They've Got Piazzas Named After Everything But Mike Piazza

So I get back to this glorious nation of ours, a place where you can get great big glasses of water with fist-sized ice cubes in them for free, and Baseball Tonight is talking about how the Nats have had a lead in one (1) of the 63 innings they've played, and I'm all like, "Wow, that many?" So it doesn't seem like I should be upset that I missed all of those 63 innings, except the ones that included ¡Livan! wreaking terrible vengeance, which I probably would have enjoyed. But I'm on board now, I've made it my pastime, and I guarantee that I won't get frustrated and quit blogging for at least a couple of weeks.

My jaunt to Italy wasn't all not thinking about the Nats and complaining about the lack of ice. I learned a lot, and in the interest of international understanding I present the following:

A Partial List of Italian Words That Sound Like Swears But Aren't

• Fagioli
• Ponte
• Focaccia
• Fagottino
  
• Sporco
• Funicolare
• Vongole
• Faccio
• Tu sei il figlio di una puttana
  

So . . .

I'm going to Italy. Back in a week. Anyone need anything?

Season Preview

It's the 2007 Distinguished Senators Season Preview! Previous editions were read and in some cases enjoyed by literally tens of people, and this installment is sure to be the best yet. We've got rodents, we've got Korean, and we've got an unashamed ignorance of anything that happens west of Philadelphia. It's going to get a little thin at the end because I don't pretend to know anything about the American League or the west, so of course I saved the American League West for last. And it's pretty long, so don't read it all at once, because this is the last content you'll be getting from me for a while. So buckle up and get Vegas on the line, because my predictions are ironclad.

NL EAST
New York
Atlanta
Philadelphia
Florida
Washington

Mets: So yeah, the Mets are going to win the division. I'm not happy about it, but it would be surprising if my happiness just now started to have any bearing on anything. And speaking of my fragile happiness, I got myself a brand new pet peeve in the playoffs last year. It seems like everywhere I went, someone was making sense of the NLCS by citing stuff that happened 20 years ago. "Well, we'd better hope Willie's boys play like it's 1986 and not 1985." This was being presented as serious analysis, and it's just stupid. To paraphrase Rick Pitino, Keith Hernandez is not walking through that door.

Braves: I'm fascinated by the Braves, in large part because I don't know who a lot of these guys are. I was aware of Brian McCann's incredible season, but only vaguely. Like how I'm aware of the fact of agriculture, though it doesn't weigh heavily upon me. But this looks to be an interesting team: storied veterans, ambitious youngsters, and Bobby Cox's grumpy ass watching over them all. I think I would have enjoyed following the various personnel moves and positional battles Atlanta's had to deal with, as these fellows have. I have this weird suspicion that the Nats aren't going to win the division this year, and if that happens I'm pulling for the Braves, not least because their recent signing of Mark Redman will give me a chance to dig into my endless supply of pictures of rappers.

Above: When there's smoke in the air his nose like Basset Hounds.

Phillies: I like old players. The older the better. If Julio Franco were wearing any other uniform, I'd have a shrine to him in the pantry. This creates problems for me from time to time. Randy Johnson is a hideous redneck headhunter who looks like he participates in Civil War reenactments and on the wrong side, but he's really old. What do I do? There is no such conflict with Jamie Moyer, however, and I'm glad to see him on a team where he'll be regular presence on my television. One thing I don't like: clown red uniforms. So on balance, screw the Phillies.

Marlins: You already forgot about Anibal Sanchez' no-hitter, didn't you? Here's something to guarantee that you'll remember it for the rest of your life.

Nats: So Bill James once wrote this essay about how everyone thought free agency and whatnot was going to ruin competitive balance in the 1970s, but it didn't happen until the 1990s. He was so wrong he might as well have been talking about Pete Rose, but that's beside the point. The 2007 Nationals are going to be what I thought we were getting in 2005, i.e., a really really atrociously bad baseball team. I thought the first edition was going to be awful, and they weren't. I thought the 2006 version would fulfill my prediction, but they were just run-of-the-mill, Orioles-style bad. Finally the apocalypse is upon us.

It'll be interesting to see, inter alia, how long it takes for the opinionists in the media to get angry. At this point, it's not like anyone doesn't think they're going to be really bad, but no one seems to mind. The Plan is still getting the benefit of the doubt, and it's easy to be flip when the awfulness of the team you have to watch all the time is still only theoretical. I figure by June, Tom Boswell's columns will be nothing but jaggedly sarcastic variations on Nats marketing catchphrases. "Stan Kasten can pledge his allegiance . . . to my ass!"

NL CENTRAL
Um . . . Astros
Cardinals
Brewers
Reds
Cubs
Pirates

Astros: I have no idea. None of these teams is that good. The Astros have a disturbing willingness to let Guzman-level offensive zeros play every day, but if their continued enabling of Roger Clemens' yearly prettiest-girl-at-the-dance routine pays off, they could do it.

Cardinals: Why are they being so damn cheap? I mean, they've got a new ballpark, a rabid fanbase, and a frigging world championship, and they're nickel and dimeing themselves out of what should be the easiest divisional crown since . . . well, since the 2006 NL Central. You can make an argument that they're not any worse than they were, but they won 83 games last year, so that really isn't good enough. I was about to pick them first, but I really can't justify it.

PS You should always read Yard Work, and you should especially read this. That site gets just transcendent sometimes.

Brewers: How long have we been waiting for these guys to get good? Seems like a while, but maybe I'm getting them conflated with Cleveland. Well, it's time to strike, because the iron is hot. Here's the secret decoder ring for that last sentence: "iron" means NL Central, and "is hot" means sucks. And "strike" means win 85 games.

The only thing I regret about canceling my MLB Audio subscription is that I won't get to hear Bob Uecker. If TBS maintains their long-standing policy of showing Major League five times a week, that'll take the sting off it.

Reds: I remember when Dunn/Griffey/Kearns were going to be a historically great outfield and push the Reds over the top. Hell, I was a Cardinals fan back then, and I worried about it. Couldn't sleep, lost hair -- all that. That's got nothing to do with nothing, but I'm getting to the point that I feel like I've been following baseball for a while. I remember a time before Sean Casey, and now he's already washed up. Clearly, I have nothing to say about the Reds.

Cubs: Yeah, whatever.

Pirates: Every pious complaint I make about the state of the Orioles applies here, too. This isn't based on anything but personal observation, but Pittsburghers seem to have a well-developed interest in their own baseball history, which is downright impressive considering how bad they've been for so long. They deserve better -- the decor at your typical expatriate Pittsburgh bar needs the kind of update that only a World Series can provide. By the way, that's one hell of a ballpark. You should see it.

NL WEST
Los Angeles
Arizona
Padres
Giants
Rockies

Dodgers, featuring special guest posters Dayn Perry and his trusty thesaurus: The Sidesteppers of the Municipality of the Heavenly Messengers anticipate that the annexation of the erstwhile supreme hurler of their bêtes noires will engender supplementary conquests.

Diamondbacks: New uniforms! Exciting prospects! ¡Livan! This is the first time in my life I've wanted to be anywhere near Arizona. Seriously, I've been thinking about it, and the D-Backs might be the funnest team to be a fan of right now. They've got a farm system to make Stan Kasten drool, and there's nothing sweeter than seeing a young athlete you've been observing for years establish himself as a major leaguer. Well, I suppose there are sweeter things in, like, real life, but we're focusing on baseball here. I'm not talking about a child's laugh or whatever, you sissy. If you're looking for that kind of thing, go here while I talk about Randy Johnson.

And they got Randy Johnson, which has got to be fantastic. According to sociologists, 95% of this glorious nation hates New York City, and Phoenix is no exception. Johnson is going to be way better here than he was with the Yankees, so that's one point. Plus his return reminds everyone of the 2001 World's Series of Base Ball, a triumph for Yankees-haters everywhere, so that's two points.

Then there's the new uniforms, which may not be great but are certainly an improvement. I'd always been vaguely embarrassed about the very existence of the Diamondbacks. They conformed to every detail of the stereotype of the classless expansion team, and as a modern baseball fan I felt somewhat responsible. All that purple, the swimming pool in the ballpark, the awful name voted on by locals, the whole thing. They were like the Rockies, but with a more effeminate shade of purple. Now the purple's gone, so all they have to do is change their name and move to Boston.

Padres: Cornering the market on Gileses, just as the Nats are buying up all the Ryans. I'm still waiting for my offer.

Above: the only Giles not under contract with the San Diego Padres, with hind.

Giants: Barry Bonds is going to be huge this year. His knee's better, he's out to piss everyone off, and he's going to overshadow completely another almost 80-win season. Which isn't a tragedy or anything.

Rockies: The Rockies have a chance to the be this year's Marlins. And by that I mean "finish well under .500 and not make the playoffs."

AL EAST
New York
Boston
Toronto
Baltimore
Tampa Bay

Yankees: You don't need me to tell you about the Yankees. I feel about the Yankees the same way I feel about American Idol: it's this thing that everyone's always going on about, and I just don't get it and wait for it to blow over. It worked with the New Kids on the Block.

Red Sox: You know what Daisuke Matsuzuka doesn't do? There are many correct answers to this question: photosynthesis, play the balalaika, throw the gyroball, write detective fiction. For some reason, gullible sportswriters accept that he doesn't do three of those things, but can't get their minds around the fact that he doesn't throw a gyroball. They're fixated on the damn thing. Which he doesn't throw. I felt like repeating that because you're going to hear he does over and over again from lazy, ink-stained wretches who use their deadlines as an excuse for not figuring things out for themselves and repeating utter codswallop until it becomes conventional wisdom.

Blue Jays: Seriously, how many of you remember that the Jays wound up in second place last year? They could finish first this time around (well, theoretically they could) and the headline on ESPN would be "Yankees and Red Sox: What Went Wrong?" Serves them right for Alex Trebeck, I guess.

Orioles: Another year in the mines. The only thing to look forward to is Buck Martinez saying "Chad Bradford." That's gonna be pungent!

This was one of the first entries I wrote, but thinking about it further, the Orioles really make you appreciate baseball. Yeah, they're not going to be very good. No, they don't have a chance. But I'm still going to watch, and there are things to look forward to. Miguel Tejada is a great player in his prime. Erik Bedard could be one of the best pitchers in baseball. Nick Markakis might be at the start of a Hall of Fame career. You're going to see Daniel Cabrera scare the hell out of batters, Corey Patterson run really fast, and Leo Mazzone rock back and forth all season long.

The fact that such a sad franchise can afford the viewer so many pleasures is a perfect encapsulation of baseball's awesomeness.

Devil Rays: I wouldn't begrudge the Rays their utterly meaningless existence except that it seems like they play the O's 40 or 50 times a year, which means that I spend far too much time watching games from the hideous domed putt-putt course they call home, and every time I see that place I die a little.

AL CENTRAL
Cleveland
Minnesota
Detroit
Chicago
Kansas City

Indians: I love this division. Nobody's too good, only Kansas City is too bad, and you know Ozzie Guillen is going to blow up in a totally hilarious manner at some point. I picked Cleveland simply because, all things being equal, they're the only team whose youth makes improvement likely.

Twins: I still can't believe Justin Morneau won the MVP. But I'm one of those stat-head dorks grizzled newspapermen are always complaining about, and I think the MVP -- as well as everything else you foolish hyoo-mans are concerned with -- should be decided by a series of ones and zeros.

Tigers: Remember when the Marlins won the World Series (the second time) and suddenly speed was cool? And teams were getting in line for the chance to give Juan Pierre money? I hope the lesson that managers take from the Tigers' unexpected success is that heavy smoking is cool. We need more public figures who smoke heavily.

White Sox: But that probably won't happen -- I didn't notice a lot of managers calling Magglio Ordonez names after the Sox won.

Royals: Everything you need to know about the Royals is right here.

AL WEST
Oakland
Los Angeles
Seattle
Texas

A's: Just when I think my ignorance can't get any more ignorant, I get to this division. Are we still supposed to mention Moneyball when we talk about the A's? I'm serious; I haven't been keeping up.

I like that Jason Kendall, even though by all accounts he's as dumb as two donkeys tied together. He's got an odd statistical profile: no power (career high in HR: 14), little patience (career high in BB: 79, but that's 20 more than he's had in any other year), and he doesn't strike out (career high: 79, but that was another aberration). You look at his batting line and you think middle infielder, but he's a 150-game-a-year catcher. It looks like he's declining quickly -- what used to be little power is now deadball era-type power -- but he still gets on base, thanks to decent batting averages and lots of HBPs. That decline's come too soon perhaps for a Hall of Fame bid (he's only 33 this year), but I'm rooting for him to bounce back.

Angels: Every angel exhausts his species. Especially these two:

And as long as I'm stealing images to fill out comments about team I don't know nothing about and care nothing about, let me assuage my guilt by telling you to investigate the works of Nedroid. If you're going to listen to my dumbass baseball predictions, listen to this: Beartato is the star of the new millennium. This one's my favorite. Beartato, suckas. Get used to it.

Mariners: The Mariners have a chance to be this year's Marlins. And by that I mean "get their manager fired."

Remember when they won 150 games or whatever because they got rid of A-Rod? I guess they need to do that again, because it's been all downhill from there. Ichiro's had enough of this crap. He's going where the action is. He didn't come all this way to let some Orioles cast-off "baseball man" (defined as someone who's been fired twice) tell him what to do.

Rangers: So, the Rangers . . . should I just wrap this thing up? I think I'll just wrap this thing up.

ILL-THOUGHT-OUT BUT NONETHELESS GUARANTEED TO COME TRUE MISCELLANEOUS PREDICTIONS

MVPs: Pujols and Ortiz
Cy Youngs: Schmidt and Halladay
Wild Cards: Arizona and Boston
World Series: Dodgers over Yankees
Kenny Rogers suspended for: upon being discovered with a copious amount of wood glue on his glove, giving the home plate umpire a brisk, open-handed slap across the jaw
Cristian Guzman's batting average: .214
Cristian Guzman's on-base percentage: .214
All Star Game result: don't care
Number of times I re-use that squirrel picture: 7

Essais de Théodicée sur la Groin de Logan

Theodicy is the branch of theology that endeavors to explain the existence of evil in a world governed by a benevolent and all-powerful God. Providence is the idea that God provides for and takes care of us. Sometimes the difference is a matter of perspective.

Nook Logan messed up his right groin (I only have one myself) on Saturday and is probably headed for the disabled list. Rough stuff. Here's a guy who's struggled for years, shuttling from the minors to the majors and back. He finally finds a team desperate enough to give him a chance to be a starter. Just as his dreams are in reach -- WHAM! -- one of his groins fails him. A theologian's rationalizations, I think, would be no comfort to Nook Logan right now.

Consider the Nationals, though. This works better if we pretend that the team is a sentient animal, one that's incapable of taking care of itself. It lives in some kind of open to the public pen, surrounded by slack-jawed yokels watching its every move. Its handlers do their best for it, constructing a shiny new pen and making sure it gets the best diet they can afford. But sometimes things get a little tight, and the Plan just doesn't have room for the top-of-the-line chow in the budget. So they're going to feed it Nook Logan, which at the very least is going to give the Nationals a very severe case of indigestion, the worst it's had since so much money was sunk into that four year's supply of Guzman. Well, Logan's injury, like a bolt from the heavens, may have just saved the Nationals life. That'll make you think and make you grateful, and you're not particulary concerned that some poor fellow just lost a groin.

And that's pretty much how I feel. I'm sure Nook Logan's a nice guy and all, and we're all brothers on Spaceship Earth and all that crap, and I suppose on some kind of philosophical level I'm deeply concerned about his groin. Or, to be more precise, I know I should be deeply concerned about his groin, but I'm not going to lie to myself. Nook Logan can go ahead and schedule a full-on double groinectomy if that means Chris Snelling gets to play every day.

Off Topic

It's no news to dedicated consumers of Nationalistic bloggetry that the Nats are having a hard time holding peoples' interest. Instead of bellyaching, though, I'm making my own interest. You can probably guess what that means: Terps! And -- what the hell -- Orioles!

It was kind of a rough week for my beloved Maryland scholar/athletes. They dropped their second ACC series on the road to Miami the One in Florida, and then got roughed up at home by James Madison. Perhaps the 27-0 drubbing of Coppin State, called off after eight innings, made them feel better, and they're head into a weekend home series with Clemson on a high note, having beaten VCU just tonight.

No doubt you're wondering how Brett Cecil's doing. Quite well, thanks for asking. He picked up his sixth save of the season on Sunday when he faced five batters. He did take the loss on Saturday, but it was in a valiant effort: he entered in the seventh inning and would have gotten the long save if he hadn't been betrayed by his defense. So, an actual loss but a moral victory, and I hope the scouts appreciate it.

I've got a new position player to start following: freshman outfielder AJ Casario. Not only did my wife chat with his stepmother at a game, he's hitting .387. Not a lot of power, and a less than enviable K/BB ratio, but .387 is .387, and he's, like, 18, so lay off. He went 7 for 11 against Miami, so it's not like he's just fattening up on Coppin State, either.

In other Ich bin ein Marylander news, the Orioles are all screwed up. Still. Tom Boswell had a really good column as to why, prompting to me to wonder why he can't make this much sense when he's talking about the Nationals.

"I just thought that Brian [Roberts] should stay an Oriole, not that the front office didn't think so. They were looking at it from a standpoint of improving the ballclub," Angelos said Sunday, confirming that he nixed an offseason deal for slugging first baseman Adam LaRoche. "And they may have been totally right. I looked on it as the retention of a player that came through our system and who is of such great value to the club for all the things that he does out there with the public and in the hospitals and so on."

I mean, honestly. It's like some dumbass who thinks Preston Wilson should have gotten a big fat extension because of his community service is running the team. A major league team, not that he hasn't tried to make that difficult to figure out as possible. You can make the argument that the O's shouldn't have made the canceled-at-the-last-minute Roberts for Adam LaRoche trade. I would have done it, but it's not a Bowden vs. Bavasi slam-dunk. But this particular non-trade isn't the problem. Boz:

What Angelos refuses to grasp, no matter how many times he is told, is that the issue is not the merit of any particular trade, free agent signing or draft pick. The problem, and it is absolutely central to the Orioles' organizational disaster, is that Baltimore is cursed with a billionaire who is constantly injecting himself at the last minute to reverse decisions that have been made after long labor and best judgments by his baseball people.

It's really a shame. I'm not exactly an Orioles fan, though my marital status, my hatred for a fair number of the O's divisional rivals, and Buck Martinez make it so that I'm rooting for them more often than not, and it would be nice to see them win half the time. It's going to be tough going a whole year without seeing one meaningful game on MASN that doesn't have Frank Robinson playing right field.

Speaking of MASN, Dick Heller has a column I didn't read about how much we should hate it because it means mad scrilla for Angelos. I'm of two minds about this. On the one hand, 300 more baseball games on basic cable is awesome. ¡Livan!-level awesome. On the other, though, I've learned what can happen when you make a deal with the Devil. The Green Angels, for instance, sold out for mainstream pop success, and they got it. But look what happened with the bill came due:

I know we have a lot of readers from Haiti and Cote D'Ivoire, and I really want to drive this point home for them.

And this one's for all my kamraten holding it down in Sweden.

So don't enjoy MASN too much, because I can only imagine what kind of brollopspresent Angelos has waiting for us.

Whims

It's Chris Snelling Day! The Post, the Times, and the Official Propaganda Organ all covered the wild card in the outfield horse race, if you don't mind me mixing my metaphors. Snelling is making the most of his opportunity: Ryan Church isn't hitting, Nook Logan isn't hitting, and Snelling is healthy, which is really the only problem he's ever had. Of course, that's like saying that the only problem with the Nats is that their players aren't any good.

Given the occasion, this seems to be the right time to announce a very important conclusion I came to some time ago: Chris Snelling is now my favorite National.

It's been hard for me since ¡Livan! was traded. I weighed all the possibilities, and I came up with nothing. Ryan Zimmerman's the obvious choice, but he's going to be everyone's favorite player for the next ten years, destined to be wildly overrated by everyone within a fifty mile radius. It's the same thing that turned me against Cal Ripken. As good as Zimmerman is and will be, he's not a very interesting story. Great baseball player kicks ass in college, kicks ass in the minors, kicks ass in the majors. I can't relate to that, and it doesn't lend itself to insights on the human condition, which is what we're all after when we watch baseball. Right?

Nick Johnson is a marvelous, efficient player, but he's as exciting as watching George F. Will watch Ben Stein watch paint dry. So forget that.

John Patterson kind of lost me with the whole "Call me Big Nasty! Everyone call me Big Nasty!" thing, and my near-clinical pessimism makes me suspect that he's never going to be very good for very long.

All other candidates -- including Chad Cordero -- are out because they're either likely to be gone too soon or unlikely to be in the majors this year. Absence does not make my fickle heart grow fonder.

So what was it about Livan Hernandez that made me such a fan? It came down to three factors: ¡Livan! is unique; my team screwed over another team to get him; and he required my advocacy. I hope we remember what it was that made ¡Livan! so unusual: his girth, his Cuban raftiness, his much much better-looking half-brother, his hitting ability, his uncertain age, and his lackadaisical pitching style. This was before my time as a fan, but he was acquired for pretty close to nothing as far as talent goes (Jim Brower and Matt Blank in case you're curious), so ha ha take that Giants. And finally, ¡Livan! was criminally underrated for most of his Expos/Nationals tenure. Despite being completely awesome in 2003, even better in 2004, and still really good in 2005, he didn't receive even one Cy Young vote over that span. Naturally, this brought out my pronounced activist streak, and I spilled far too many words trying to convince the world of his radness. Like here (special guest stars in that post: a Replacements reference, a long-defunct blog, Will Carroll being well over 100% wrong about something, Yuda).

Chris Snelling, despite lacking in physical size, fits quite neatly into the ¡Livan!-shaped hole in my fandom. Uniqueness? Well, he's Australian, which, though not unique, is at least out of the ordinary. Given the endless catastrophe's of Snelling's career, you'd hope he has someone to offer him the spiritual guidence he needs to keep going at it. And he does: Yoda.

The Yoda thing. Well, many people have asked me this and it's hard to explain to a person why I write the name of an ugly looking green guy in my autograph. I do it not because of what he looks like. It started back when I watched Star Wars every day for about 5 years, all through my high school years. I do it because it's my focal point. To me a focal point is something to get your mind off worrying about your technique. When I'm feeling down or unconfident I go back to what he said to Luke Skywalker on planet Endor just when Luke is about to fight Darth Vader in 'Return of the Jedi'. He says, 'Try not, do or do not, there is no try'.

How's that for unique?

And that kind of quirkiness is one reason Mariners fans were so sorry to lose Snelling. The main reason, though, is that a suddenly and unexpectedly cutthroat Jim Bowden plundered the Mariners to get him. Hell, I would have given up Jose Vidro just for the three-fourths of his salary Seattle sent over. To get that plus my new favorite player plus a pitcher who has a pretty good chance to replace Livan at least lardwise . . . well, that's one for the ages.

As for advocacy, the recent turn of events detailed in the articles I mentioned up top make mine much less essential as well as putting me in a difficult position. Thanks to Manny Acta's and Jim Bowden's stubborness about letting Nook Logan play every day, my favorite player is competing with my sacred cow, Ryan Church. I can hold out hope that Logan takes his proper seat on the bench before too much damage is done, leaving us with our correct Snelling-Church-Kearns alignment. But until then, Snelling should be the starter, if only because he can probably lift a bunch of rocks with his mind while balancing on one arm.

First Base

We may look back and conclude that it was Nick Johnson's broken femur rather than any conscious personnel decision that made the 2007 Nationals unwatchable.

Driving this home now is the latest twist in the low-stakes competition for the interim first base post, which, depending on how Johnson recovers, could mean a whole season's worth of work for the lucky winner. Coming into camp, it was clear that Nats management wanted Larry Broadway to win the job. Broadway is a prospect only in the same sense that William Hung is a wildly popular recording artist: it's certainly not true now, and it may never have been true at all. He (Broadway, not Hung) has failed to impress in spring training. His .333 batting average is nothing to be ashamed of, but it's kind of cheating when you do it with nothing but singles.

So Broadway's been sent back to AAA and his spot, both on the roster in the desperate hopes of the brain trust, is occupied by Dmitri Young. Looking at this Post piece, the ghost of Jose Guillen reminds us how risky this is. Opinion of Young, as it was with Guillen, seems divided between those with experience of him (negative) and those who are dealing with him for the first time (positive), with Jim Bowden again on the sidelines assuring us that everything's going to be just fine.

Tigers left fielder Craig Monroe declined to answer a question about Young on Thursday, and another Tigers player interjected, "I think what [Monroe] is saying is, 'If you don't have anything good to say about someone, don't say anything.' "

It's worse than that, though, because Young's offenses are much more serious than Guillen's -- Jose was a hot-head who got exiled from Anaheim for locker room incidents. Young beat up his girlfriend and skipped out on his court date, among other things. Plus there's the fact that he can't play first base.

One Tigers official, informed that the Nationals plan to play Young at first, said, "Believe me, they don't want to do that." Young's last appearance there for the Tigers ended disastrously, with Young making three errors in a game July 31 at Tampa Bay. After that, Young would play only 23 more games for the Tigers -- all of them as DH.

On top of that, Young hasn't had a good enough bat to carry first base since William Hung's heyday. Put it all together, and there's a miniscule chance that this is going to work out satisfactorily.

The alternative is even worse: we haven't heard much about Travis Lee because there's nothing to say about him. He can't hit. He can maybe field. He's more suited to a job as Matt LeBlanc's stunt double than as a major league first baseman.

There is a way out of this mess. Kory Casto is one of few nice things in the Nats' farm system, and now that he's gone from third base to the outfield, he's picked up a first baseman's glove. This is the right thing to do, for a number of reasons.

• Casto's upside is higher than that of any of the other options, including Broadway. He's already displayed impressive patience and tantalizing power, and it's not going to take much for him to be a defensive improvement over Da Meathook.
• Casto is one of our guys. It's a lot more satisfying to root for someone who grew up in your system and is going to be around for a while. The fan appeal of the players shouldn't be the primary factor in deciding who plays, but a team that's admittedly not really trying to win should probably throw the cranks a bone every now and then.
• In the glorious tradition of Cristian Guzman and Terrmel Sledge, Kory Casto will be a real test of who's paying attention; that name requires an almost monastic concentration not to spell wrong.
  

Up Yours, Leather

I stopped reading Deadspin a while ago because . . . well, I really don't know why I was reading it in the first place. Because everyone else was, I guess. I was interested, though, in seeing who they'd get to do their Nationals preview. The Twins got Aaron Gleeman, the internet's leading Twins guy. So good job there. Some of the others were doled to out the site's various cronies and hangers-on, but at least they were fans of their subjects.

We got Dan Shanoff. Who's Dan Shanoff? I'm just finding this out for myself, because as a Nats fan, I have no reason to know who he is. He's some out of work blogger. Is he a Nats fan? No. Is he a Nats expert? Not unless a Google search counts. Does he have any business writing a preview of this team? Not as far as I can tell. Maybe it's funny -- I never found "You're with me, leather" either funny or believable, so I'm not one to judge the comedic standards over there.

OK, so there's a crappy article about my favorite baseball team. Big deal. What bothers me is the idea that they gave it to Shanoff because they couldn't find anyone else to write the thing. Did Needham want too much money? Did Basil not want to ruin his cred with Can't Stop the Bleeding? Did Ball Wonk die? I could go on, but the point is that the Nationals have an usually large and unusually talented cadre of bloggers, which Shanoff himself acknowledges. So why do we get an ill-informed non-fan turning an uninterested and uninteresting pile of links as a preview? Does getting shit-canned from ESPN lend one that much celebrity appeal?