Dirge

Well, that was just awful. Just completely, thoroughly, unjokeaboutably awful. Joking about that game would be like cracking wise at a funeral.

Speaking of which, I think it's time for a Manny Acta Getting Shitcanned Watch. Whether or not it's his fault, this team cannot catch baseballs, and it's gotten so bad that every announcer we've got (with the intermittent exception of Sunny Bob Carpenter) is all but calling for Manny's head. If this keeps up ("this" meaning "not just losing but playing like our shoelaces are tied together"), it's going to happen soon.

One thing about Bob Carpenter: when Elijah Dukes avoided that fly ball in center like it was a court order, allowing two runs to score and shattering Daniel Cabrera's porcelain self-confidence, this was the exchange in the booth, more or less. (WARNING: I went ahead and wrote out all the swears that Dibble was thinking but didn't say because he's a broadcast professional.)
Dukes dodged that fly ball like it was a court order! Two runs score!
Oh for fuck's sake! What the ballsack is going on here?
Yeah, that was pretty bad. BUT DAVID WRIGHT IS ONLY ON SECOND BASE!
I mean, why can't any of these dumb motherfuckers catch a fucking ball? Or hit a batter in the head, for that matter.
DAVID WRIGHT SHOULD BE ON THIRD BASE! WHY DOES HE NOT HUSTLE?
Yeah, whatever. Catch the ball, dipshits. This isn't fucking Mario Bros. You don't lose a life if it touches you.
DAVID WRIGHT IS THE SUCKIEST SUCK THAT EVER SUCKED!

It wasn't that Sunny Bob ignored the mistake. He briefly acknowledged it and then moved on to more homer-friendly topics. Dibble is growing on me precisely because he doesn't want to sweep that kind of stuff under the rug - he's just as mad as you are.

The Solution

I watched the whole game last night, and at the end of it, I was pleased. "I say, old man," I said to myself, realizing as I did so that I'd been reading P.G. Wodehouse again, "that was a diverting three hours. Time to polish off the last fourth of this fifth and totter off to bed." Obedient as ever to the instructions of my internal monologue, I did so.

I slept the innocent, dreamless sleep of a baseball fan who'd seen a fine pitching duel, a closely-contested 1-0 contest that pushed both teams to their limits. Both sides, I was sure, had walked away with their moral fiber more fibrous and with a healthy respect for their foes.

But that's drunk talk. I woke up to face several unpleasant realities: it felt as though I had been entrusted with the safe-keeping of an unusually valuable wad of cotton balls and had kept them safe from burglars in my mouth; work (damn the concept!) meant that I couldn't resort to my usual practice of staying in bed and crying meekly for Wendy's; and, worst of all, the Nationals walked in the winning run.

What kind of pitching duel ends like that? This wasn't the well-struck dinger or the crafty squeeze bunt - this was rank incompetence. There's nothing more humiliating - baseball-wise - than walking in a run.

The tightly-played, narrowly-won pitching duel is one of baseball's sweetest delights and most time-honored treasures. And the Nats screwed it up, as they screw up everything: trades, free agency, statues of legendary players, jerseys, drafting, the Dominican Republic, text messaging, giving the game situation on radio broadcasts, hitting coaching, everything.

At least I figured out a remedy, based on my 24-hour mood swing: DRINK. Drink and never let yourself sober up.

Unstengelian

So I was reading Chico Harlan's latest chat on the Washington Post site. I always check those things out since Harlan's embarrassment is palpable, and I really like the way embarrassment feels. It's warm and kind of spongy, and it leaves your hands smelling a bit like tar.

There was some discussion of Manny Acta's handling of Jordan Zimmermann during the young fellow's unwatched debut. With two men on in the sixth, and with Zimmmermannn having thrown just 72 pitches, Acta pinch hit for him - which was a good idea - with Alex Cintron - which was not. The issue was addressed in the chat.

Alexandria, Va.: Why is Cintron the go-to pinch hitter with Kearns and Willingham on the bench? Cintron repeatedly got the nod in the big spots over the weekend and last night. And he delivered like you'd expect a backup utility middle infielder.

Chico Harlan (mood: embarrassed): It was the sixth inning. It's OK to save your better pinch hitters for the latter innings. (Willingham, by the way, was starting LF last night, but Kearns was indeed available to PH.) But there's no problem is using a guy like Cintron in that spot. Plus, I believe Lowe was still pitching at the time. Kearns is 2-for-17 lifetime against DL.

This is utter tactical nonsense, right? The point of pinch-hitting in that situation is to blow the game open; to make it, as "Chico" himself mentioned earlier in the chat, 5-2 rather than 3-2. If it works, you won't need your better pinch hitters later, and it's a lot more likely to work with Kearns than with Cintron. But I don't need to explain this to you - "It's OK to save your better pinch hitters" is obviously moronic and requires no commentary. These aren't the higher Stengelian functions we're dealing with.

But why am I making fun of the sportswriter who defended the bad move rather than the manager who made it, other than to make fun of the sportswriter for hating his job? I guess it's because I don't want to see Acta fired just yet.

Steel

The "Natinals" incident has taught something about myself: I am steel. Maybe I'm wrong, but I'm guessing that a fan of a better team would be pretty upset about that, or at least amused. I am neither. It is as nothing. Years of constant humiliation have made me immune, and I'm betting you're the same way.

Yes, dear reader, embarrassment to us is like water off a duck's back. Our team makes headlines only for metaphorically peeing itself in front of the whole class? Well to us that's like a blown save to Joel Hanrahan or fatherhood to Elijah Dukes - not a big deal, happens every day.

So . . . I got to admit: I don't have a big finish here. I just wrote this so I could make that Dukes joke. I think it was worth it. There is a thing that I wrote, by the way.

Photo Dump, Featuring Kitten

I ambled down to Nationals Park on Saturday to make it my pastime and get my red on and whatnot, and you could not have asked for a better day. As long as you ignore the on the field happenings, of course. I was favorably impressed: the staff was almost too friendly, the place is quite nice when it's only half full, it was a pretty good game for eight innings.

One of my reasons for making a stop in Natstown was to get some personal, non-copyrighted photos of those horrendous, seemingly poo-covered statues they've just added. I did that, but I did not let my photo-taking rest with that mission accomplished. Please enjoy the sights of the first half hour of a day at the ballpark.
I'm not a huge fan of the park from an aesthetic standpoint (I'm even less of one from an ascetic standpoint), but this is pretty cool.
The sweet sounds of the Obscure Nationals Jazz Ensemble! I don't know who these guys are, but they made some interesting jersey selections. Which is more likely: 1) They did this on purpose, just as I would have done, as a gag? or 2) The Nats just gave them some jerseys they found in a crate in the basement? I wonder if the guitarist knows that Levale Speigner's a golem.
Ray Knight and Johnny Holliday! I don't know how they do their job with yokels like me this close to them. Shortly after this, Knight stood for the entirety of the national anthem, which I thought was nice.
Unattended snacks!
The ceremonial first pitch, delivered by a guy from IHOP. Probably because of his ground-breaking work in the field of hash browns.
Portait of the Artist as a Young Man Standing in Front of Walter Johnson who has Poop Shooting from his Shoulder Socket.
American, 2009
Artist: Ryan Moore, b. 1977
And here's the ferocious kitten who guards both my towels and my gin. I pay her in kind, but she's not interested in the gin.

PS. I wrote a thing.

Those Are Some Dumb Flute-Players

I think I'm going to the game on Saturday - I'll be the guy in the pink Nats cap with his head in his hands. But there's point in mentioning that, since I'm probably going to be only person there. Right? I'm also going to get some pictures of those nightmare statues, which must have been designed by Nyarlathotep, accompanied by the piping of two amorphous idiot flute-players.

See, that right there is why I like the Internet: all the info you need about Nyarlathotep, the Crawling Chaos, is right there on Wikipedia.

Incidentally, I wrote a thing. It's a thing full of delightful nostalgia, and you're sure to enjoy it. Have a couple drinks first just to make sure, though.

Your BREWPUB Has Evolved Into DISTILLERY

Do you like beer? Go to Denver! As I was strolling the ten blocks from my parking space to Coors Field, every third building was a brewpub. And, based on my limited sampling, a damn good brewpub. There was a even a distillery in there, which I like to think evolved Pokemon-style from a particularly accomplished brewery.

Like this pretty much, except replace "ABRA" with "brewpub" and "KADABRA" with "distillery."

Here's my report from the Rockies home opener: It's just like going to Camden Yard except that things that would be orange in Baltimore are purple. And there's more beer. There you go.

Anyway, I return to find that the Nationals are just awful. But I've reserved that kind of content for over here, where you should go right now. Also, I notice that no one gave me a suggestion on what to call my pieces over there. Don't feel too guilty, though, because it's not too late. Come on, people - I obviously can't come with a name. Help a brother out.

Is "Friends of the Nationals Zoo" too long? Too stupid? Will people not understand the learned allusion and think that I'm referring to the Yankees or Ol' Dirty Bastard? Give til it hurts, dear readers.

Right, so the Nats are lousy. But that is an ephemeral concern. The true Nats fan has his eyes on the future, on the generations to come. Maybe we're terrible now, but we're leaving a foundation for posterity, just as our Founding Fathers shot at Englishmen so we wouldn't have to put up with the Queen's bullshit.

Let's have a look at our latest contribution to the embiggening of baseball in the nation's capital.

WHAT IN THE FUCKING FUCK IS THAT?! I'll have more on this later - see the previous sentence for a preview.

Apologies

It's the second game of the season, and Rob Dibble is already apologizing for being repetitive before he talks about throwing at heads again. I guess we should congratulate him for his self awareness.

Others who should apologize:

• Lastings Milledge for fielding his position about as well as he raps.
• The Marlins for kicking the shit out of us in such a predictable, unimaginative fashion.

Holy crap, did you see the ump eat it on that pitch right down the middle to Kearns? Even Homeboy Bob Carpenter was outraged.

Oh, and speaking of which, is Carpenter completely full of crap on those homers to left field being mere flyballs elsewhere? Or not?

Game Notes

This is going to be one of approximately ten games over the course of the season that I'm going to be around for the end of, so I'm really paying attention. Starting . . . now! I missed the first three innings.

I LOVE the new road jerseys. I wonder why the Nats and the Orioles decided at the same time to do that right.

I'm good luck: I tuned in just in time for Guzman's single, and now we have a couple runs.

I'm enjoying the emerging narrative around Julian Tavarez: that he's a total dick who throws at people just because he can, but he's our total dick who throws at people just because he can.

Over on MASN1, Sabathia just got booed by a de facto home crowd.

And now I'm not good luck anymore.

I knew Bonifacio would turn out to be a player. Dammit. Lastings Milledge in center is going to be fun. Anyone miss Brandon Watson?

Josh Bard to went to frigging Cherry Creek High School? I have a new least favorite Nat. Fuck Cherry Creek. Smoky Hill 4 Life.

Rob Dibble is going to spend 162 games (plus spring training) advocating chin music, isn't he? I'm not saying he's wrong, but mix it up a little.

This rad, danceable simile just came to me: I miss Don Sutton . . . like the deserts miss the rain.

They probably should have gotten Nolasco out of there. Just sayin'.

It doesn't matter that he's a completely run of the mill hitter: Zimmerman's in there for his defense.

The first Dibble comment I liked, on Bonifacio: "He's hitting 1.000 right now. In two weeks he'll be hitting .220."

So it's gonna be like that, is it? Well get used to Hanley doing that to us, if you aren't already.

OK, so my wife is sitting here playing with a cat and not paying particular attention to the game. I present a transcription:
Bob Carpenter: "And at the end of the seventh, the Nats are down 12-5."
Wife: *SNORT*
Wife: "Sorry."
Cat: "Meow."

And finally, in case you were wondering when the Future was finally going to get here, wait no more. Here is a video of this very post performed by me in a butcher's apron, with commentary by my biggest fan, Australian Ben Franklin. I'm not kidding when I say: this is the best thing on this miserable blog since I called Dayn Perry an asshole.

Tonight's the night

Well, tomorrow's the afternoon, but whatever. This is going to the best one yet! I can feel it.

Seriously, though, it very well could be the best season since the first one (over/under on how long it'll take the Nats to break .500? Anyone?). While that's not a particularly high bar to leap, anything north of "watchable" will be a mood-changing improvement.

To see my mind-blowing official prediction, you'll have to go here.

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.

The Pride Is Back

You ever get internet nostalgia? The thing's been around long enough that it's inevitable. I miss ugly Geocities pages and Old Man Murray and websites with rumors about Diesel and Razor Ramon. But mostly Old Man Murray.

I'm pleased to announce that, thanks to some murky technological developments in the (probably Eastern European) parts of the internet that I do not and do not want to understand, Distinguished Senators is now once again home to a very special, part of internet nostalgia: as of my last post, random-ass comment spam has returned.

Man, does that ever take me back. I remember back in the day when some no longer extant blog whose name will not be mentioned but whose proprietor was schismatic had this 12,000 word comment that was just a list of . . . something. Porn sites? Something like that. Blogger subsequently came up a filtering system. It was a pain in the ass, but at least worked. Not anymore, though! Stay tuned to the undercarriage of this very post for more!

In completely unrelated news, those dudes who were reading my thoughts and columnizing them did it again. This time they even hired an accomplished male model to pose as me to give the content an immediacy it had previously lacked. Plus, you know, chicks come a-runnin'.

You may notice, if you happen to give it a click, that they're calling my contributions "Nationals Pride," and that name is already taken. So I'm officially submitting a request for suggestions. All the good "Nationals" puns are taken. Anyone got anything else? Readers? Spambots? Anyone?

I Knew It!

I have long suspected that my thoughts were being monitored, read, indexed, and catalogued. What could I do? The accepted method for preventing this is the use of tin foil, and I could have wrapped my trademark cowboy hat in it. But when the integrity of the inside of my brain comes into conflict with fashion, fashion wins. Obviously.

So I left my thoughts unprotected, unlike my legs, which were protected by stylish leather chaps, but very much like my ass, which was unprotected by stylish leather chaps.

I was therefore relieved to find out that my thoughts were being tracked not by the government - not even by a government - but by some website that distilled them into column form and was even kind enough to put my name on the result. I think that kind of consideration deserves clicking; maybe even many clickings. Don't you?

Central Casting

So, it turns out that the Washington Post's Nationals beat writer hates his job.

“I don’t like sports—I am embarrassed that I cover them,” Chico Harlan says. “I can’t wait to stop. It is a means to an end and a paycheck.”

And who can blame him? I mean, this guy had to watch Paul LoDuca in the outfield.

He apologized for this intemperate burst of honesty, and in doing so led us into Chico Harlan's Fantasy World, where archetypes that exist only in his head abound.

I didn't want to be portrayed, though, as some central casting sportswriter: the sort who always dreamed of athletic glory, lacked the skills, and chose the next best thing. That's not me.

You know anyone like that? I can honestly say that I don't, and it strikes me that Harlan could only have further revealed his ignorance of and distaste for the whole milieu if he'd said something like, "You don't cheer in the press box, even when the home team kicks a home run in the last period."

Well, whatever. As they would say on the internet, snotty j-school grad is snotty. I really don't care - he does a fine job, and the knowledge that he'd rather be Woodward and/or Bernstein bothers me less than that he pretends his first name is Chico.

Spanish, Guitar and Awful Hair, Manny, Sugalumps

You'd think that just posting once a week I'd be able to come up with something. But thinking like that is what led to the Spruce Goose, Daikatana, Communism, and Lenny Harris: Hitting Coach. Julian Tavarez said some funny stuff, but the only jokes I could come up with about it are far too edgy for a space as high class as Distinguished Senators. So here's some Youtube videos, some of which I haven't watched.

Here's ¡LIVAN! talking in Spanish about . . . hell, I don't know. Even if I had watched the thing, my Spanish is as bad as my Akkadian. Enjoy!

Hoo boy is that guy ugly. Did he say anything rad? Anyone?

Here's Cristian Guzman performing a tune for us - he's our very own Bernie Williams! I don't understand why when "doing" a "gig," as they say, he looks like Moqtada al-Sadr, but I'm sure he has a good, artistic-type reason.


And here's Manny Acta talking about Toby Keith and related issues.

That's really endearing, actually. Manny deserves better than this shit-making team.

Finally (and I shouldn't have saved this for last, since I can't imagine that anyone's still with me at this point), the greatest thing English-speaking culture has ever produced. Seriously, I cannot overstate how awesome this is. I have tried, and it didn't work.

Met With a Paradox

Good news for fans of things existing: scientists have determined that, contrary to some apparently reasonable theories, things - everything, for instance - do continue to exist even when they're not being observed. Don't ask me how they did it, but quantum physicists have managed to look at photons without really looking at them. The verdict is that they're still there even when they don't know we're watching them, which is kind of a relief.

Something like this happened to me recently. I could have sworn that I saw a very intelligent article about the Smiley Gonzalez mess. Specifically, it related that the Smiley Gambit was a terrible, laughable (in the sense that people on the scene who worked for good teams actually laughed) move; that even if Lugo or whatever actually were 16 when they signed him, the Nationals overpaid. This was common knowledge at the time. A case, as I recall it, was made that this hugely important signing, a representation that the days of MLB-enforced cheapness were over forever, was just another bone-headed pratfall.

The problem is that I didn't bookmark this article or send myself the link or whatever. Basically, I didn't observe it for something like a week, and in that time it stopped existing. Except that quantum physicists are now telling me that that's not how things work, so something else must have happened. Maybe I dreamed it. Anyway, if I could have posted about that article, I would have reiterated the point that, although the organization has been purged of anyone who may have had a personal financial interest in overpaying for second-rate prospects, the numbskulls who signed the checks are still around and can never be purged since they own the damn thing. Keep in mind also that not only did these marks get juked out of $1.4 million (at least), they also failed to budget for their first round draft pick. I wasn't hugely upset about the non-signing of Aaron Crow at the time, but ever since it's come out that the Nats blew about a third of what Crow wanted on Smiley, it's been bothering me a bit.

And really, if you have on the one hand some guys who successfully relieved a sucker of well over a million dollars American, and on the other hand the fools who were soon parted from their money, whom would you rather have in charge of ripping off others on your favorite team's behalf? Because the situation now is that we got people running this team who, whenever they walk past a sharpie leaning against a wall wearing a purple zoot soot and flipping a coin, appear as cooing pigeons with big dollar signs on their sides.

The other thing about quantum physics is that while photons and whatnot continue to exist even when people aren't observing them, baseball teams don't. So they better keep racing those presidents and unveiling re-worked Screeches until those season ticket numbers get a little healthier.

Casimir Pulaski Day

Happy Casimir Pulaski Day, everyone! As far as regional holidays go, this is definitely my favorite. It's much better than Lee-Jackson Day. Please enjoy this artistic representation of the last thing many a redcoat ever saw:

You limeys are about to get PULASKIED!

A further Bowden thought that has very little to do with Polish cavalry commanders: It seems like Bodes had been on kind of a hot streak, and I wouldn't be surprised if some of his more recent moves had an impact on that thus far only hypothesized entity, a Good Nationals Team. Jesus Flores, Lastings Milledge, Elijah Dukes - good players, acquired for very little.

But didn't Bowden's moves always seem like that, only to fall apart when confronted with on field reality? I don't want to single anyone out, but I can't help but be reminded of a certain outfielder whose name rhymes with "Costin' Earns." Also, if that unnamed outfielder wanted to follow Milledge into the field of terrible hip-hop, there's his name right there.

I asked Casimir Pulaski about all this, but he just gave me that "why are you spending all this time worrying about a children's game when you could be trampling Englishmen with a horse, you peon" look. It's this look:

*Snort*

Ave Atque Vale, Bodes

We're finally rid of Jim Bowden. Let's be honest: he had his moments. He pulled off some really nifty deals. Jesus Flores for nothing, for instance. He pulled off some other deals that sure seemed like coups, but didn't work out for one reason or another - the infamous Cincinnati hijacking, after which everyone we got turned into a pumpkin. Or my personal favorite, Vinny Castilla for Brian Lawrence.

He had other virtues as well. He couldn't keep his mouth shut, he couldn't keep the tracksuits in the closet, and he couldn't keep himself off that damn Segway. For a franchise desperate to establish a brand name, these kinds of things are, if not important, at least worth something. Look at the racing presidents.

His virtues, though, are swamped by a tidal wave of whatever the opposite of virtues is. Not all his deals were good ones. I still think shipping out Maicer Izturis and Juan Rivera for Jose Guillen was a huge mistake; even huger once the Guzman contract is appended. Smiley Gonzalez for $1.4 million proved to be a loser as well. But beyond any individual decision, Bowden presided over a team that had gotten steadily worse, with a stagnant player development system and lagging fan interest that not even the dopest tracksuit could allay. A lot of things had to go wrong for the Nats to lose 102 games last year, and the fact that Bowden wasn't responsible for all of them doesn't mean he wasn't responsible for any of them.

And that's why it's worrying that it took a massive scandal to finally bring Bowden down. You can't find fault with Bodes getting the GM job in the first place. The Nats were wards of MLB, and there was no guarantee that whoever took the job would keep it for more than a year. Better men than Bodes turned it down, so they settled. Bowden was a stopgap, a bargain bin GM for a bargain bin franchise.

My hope, and I don't think I was alone in this, was that the new owners would come in and hit reset, that they would purge all the vestiges of the Nationals' embarrassing orphan background. New stadium, new players, new management - imagine my disappointment when the first thing the Lerners and Kasten did was confirm Bowden in a post he hadn't earned. There was to be no clean break; the owners were not saviors. They were just some guys with a lot of money and too little judgment.

Jim Bowden should have been fired on Day 1 of the Lerner regime. The fact that he wasn't is a sign of complacency, and nothing that's happened since has changed my mind. And that's why, as welcome as Bodes' final dismissal is, I'm skeptical that much will change. That 100-loss season, that unsigned top draft pick, that million-plus paid to Dominican con artists - these things happened under management that is by and large still with us. If Bowden is responsible enough for these things to be fired, what about his bosses?

Still, it's at least a step in the right direction. We won't get a completely fresh start, but at least Nationals management will not consist largely of people being investigated by the FBI. The team's Dominican operation (at least) has to be rebuilt from the ground up, but a good GM can do it. Let's hope we get one for a change.

As for Bodes, I just hope he uses all his newly-found free time to write a book.

Heartache to Heartache

A quick non-Bodes note. MLB Network has demanded that I pass along the following announcement:

On Monday, March 2 at 9:00 p.m. ET, MLB Network will debut the first-ever original film from MLB Productions, We Are Young: A Baseball Family, the story of MLB players and brothers Dmitri and Delmon Young, who overcame personal struggles to persevere in the Major Leagues. . .

We Are Young: A Baseball Family, the first-ever original film by MLB Productions, chronicles a seven-year period of MLB players and brothers Dmitri and Delmon Young, and their demanding father, Larry, who helped guide them into the Major Leagues. The film documents Dmitri, currently on the Washington Nationals, who makes the All-Star team in 2003, watches with joy as his brother is selected as the number one pick in the Draft that same year, but then begins to battle alcoholism and is released by the Detroit Tigers in 2005. Soon after, Dmitri comes close to death due to an undiagnosed case of diabetes, and then bounces back to make the All-Star team in 2007 and become the National League’s 2007 Comeback Player of the Year. We Are Young: A Baseball Family also chronicles the controversy that has surrounded Delmon—the first overall pick in the 2003 Major League Baseball Draft—ever since his 50-game suspension for flipping a bat in at an umpire during a Minor League game. Delmon would learn a valuable lesson, and eventually is called up to the Major Leagues in the fall of 2005, where he would make an immediate impact with Tampa. After finishing second in the American League Rookie of the Year honors the next season, Delmon was traded to the Twins. Monday will mark the television debut for the 96-minute film, which was selected for inclusion in the first annual U.S. Sports Film Festival, held in Philadelphia last October.

Could be interesting. And it emphasizes what I love about the MLB Network: Their first in-house documentary is about two less than famous players on two less than famous teams. If ESPN had done this, it would have been a 13-part series about the relationship between Derek Jeter and A-Rod. Plus they named it after Pat Benatar lyrics!

Bowden Resigns

From the Nationals Journal:

Jim Bowden resigned this morning as Washington Nationals general manager. The team has not yet named a successor, even on an interim basis.

Another original Nat bites the dust, and Bowden's one of the few (according to my recollections) who wasn't traded to Arizona. More later.