Novelty

Damn. Look, I'm used to History proving me right. Remember when Will Carroll said DC's bid for the Expos was dead, and I disagreed? Remember when Will Carroll said that Daisuke Matsuzaka threw an inscrutable magical demon dragon pitch, and I disagreed? Remember when Will Carroll said that he was going to work out until he looked like Brian Giles, and I disagreed? But generally, it takes a while, and generally it's the main thrust of one of my bodacious arguments that's proven, as opposed to some offhand, possibly libelous joke. So this is kind of a new thing for me. Check it:

Ryan T. Moore, July 22, 2008:

Jim Bowden seems committed to spending his time exploring, like a tracksuited Magellan whizzing around on a Segway, novel forms of bad behavior.

James Gordon Bowden III, July 24, 2008:

. . . . the Nationals have already decided that reliever Chad Cordero will be non-tendered. The news comes two weeks after Cordero had shoulder surgery.

General manager Jim Bowden first gave the news to Sports Talk 980 AM in Washington on Wednesday afternoon. Bowden would later confirm what he said in an e-mail to MLB.com['s Bill Ladson] during Wednesday night's game between the Nationals and Giants [we lost].

If I repeat myself, then I repeat myself: Damn. There's nothing wrong with cutting Chad Cordero, other than that he should have been traded a couple years ago. But announcing it like it's a damn wrestling promo -- well, that's what I meant by novel forms of bad behavior.

But, hey, as long as Chad's cool with it, right?

When reached by phone, Cordero was not happy to hear the news [from Bill Ladson of all people].

"I'm shocked he would say it now and make it official. It's a bit upsetting. It's early," Cordero said. "I understand that it's a business."

Good going, Bodes. The guy as responsible as anyone for the miraculous, Bowden's-job-saving 2005 season now thinks (knows?) that you're an awful person. Only now does he realize that the Cincinnati Reds, people who were kind of upset about September 11th, and robbed Dominican teenagers were right all along. Welcome to the club, Chad. If you're looking for a place to complain, I can guarantee that anything you want to post here won't fall off the front page for six or seven months.

P.S. And in the category of weird stuff you find while idly Googling instead of typing out the content, here's this. Jim Bowden for Congress: Because nothing says sound governance like a pixelly picture of a couple of boats.

Jon Rauch is Tall Quadrennium Canceled

It started as just a celebratory week and became a full three years, but the Jon Rauch Is Tall Quadrennium celebrations have been canceled; tattoo enthusiast, original Nat, and staunch gay marriage advocate Jon Rauch has been traded. The man with more career home runs off Roger Clemens than Albert Pujols is off to Arizona -- just as our raddest pitcher donned the preposterous colors of the Diamondbacks, so follows our second raddest. As ever, the tallest follows the fattest.

We got some papally-named infielder I ain't never heard of in return. Is this good? Well, here's how I look at it: Jim Bowden seems committed to spending his time exploring, like a tracksuited Magellan whizzing around on a Segway, novel forms of bad behavior. Every minute he dedicated to exiling Giant Jon to the desert was a minute he wasn't stealing money from Dominican teenagers, so whatever the outcome from a practical point of view, morally the trade's a winner.

Still, I can't help but get wistful when I look at this file photo of Rauch (left) and former Nats beat writer Barry Svrluga (right) talking about Panera during our very first Spring Training.
First Svrluga ran off to run his clothing empire, and now this. Every time an original National leaves, I can't help but think of inexorability of, you know, time and decay and stuff, and that makes me think that someday I'll be dead and that when that happens, this blog will actually be updated less often than it is now. Think about that.

But that can't happen, according to this theory of 2005 Nationals-related immortality I just now developed, as long Cristian Guzman's chubby ass is still around, so hey -- $16 million? That's a damn bargain for keeping me alive and the Distinguished Senators content coming at such a frantic pace.

IT'S UNDER NINE THOUSAAAAAAND!!!!!!!!

I had no idea I was a member of such an exclusive club. You've probably heard by now that Nationals games on MASN draw . . . well, look: it's not often that something reflects badly (really, really badly) on Nats fans and happens to be a completely inexplicable internet meme, so I'm just going to let the Internet itself explain this for me. One thing bigger than the viewership of Nats games? Goku's power level:


Another thing bigger than the viewership of Nats games? The number of licks it takes to get to the Tootsie Roll center of a Tootsie Pop.

"Content"

Amazing. Immediately after I lamented the end of my symbiotic relationship with the news-breakers at Formula PR, Dan Guzman of WUSA-TV stepped in to the fill the void. Dan, no doubt driven by a burning desire to rehabilitate his last name among the Nationals cognoscenti, passes along this exclusive look inside the new ballpark that I had kind of forgotten they were building. Story by Dan Guzman, photos by Dan Guzman, video presumably by Dan Guzman: add some paisley and a fuzzy guitar solo and you could call it the Dan Guzman Experience.

It took less than a day for the folks at channel 9 (right?) to solve one of my blogproblems, so I assume that they're already hard at work blowing the lid off what I've termed "VenezuelansWithCarthaginianNamesGate." I mean, if you're going to name your kids after history's most notorious repeat losers, there are better choices, like Jim Kelly or Adlai Stevenson or Bowser.

So, with "content" out of the way, I resume pimping. That article that I want you to click on is still there, thirsty for clicks and even moreso for diggs. And now there's bonus content in the form of insane comments! Here's a fun game: try to identify which of the comments almost make me regret writing the damn thing.

I Hope You Like Our New Direction

You may recall from the much-heralded relaunch of Distinguished Senators my commitment to bringing you the very best of all the press releases that landed in my inbox. I thought it went well for a post, but then my source at Formula PR stopped sending me releases. I figured we had a "you scratch my back I'll scratch yours" relationship, but I guess I was wrong. Perhaps it was unwise of me to steal that line from Superbad about the unusual location of my back.

So with that avenue closed, I was forced to devise a new format. The new Distinguished Senators will consist of two things:
1) My attempts to get to the bottom of the Venezuelan proclivity for Carthaginian names and
B) Helpful directions to things on the Internet that you should read.

As for the Venezuelans, it's very puzzling. Asdrubal Cabrera? Anibal Sanchez? Even Omar Infante's dead brother has one. Hours of research turned up nothing. Clearly, someone -- someone powerful -- didn't want me to find the truth. My current theory, therefore, is that Venezuela was flooded with Carthaginian war criminals after the Third Punic War, and that their descendants are busily planning a fourth.

Meanwhile, I looked far and wide for features on the internet landscape that you, my beloved and closely-knit community of readers, fans, and cultists should make a point of seeing.

I could find only one, and it's right here. The author is someone whose jokes I've been laughing at for years. What I need is for all of you to click on that link -- or, if that link displeases you, this one -- as many times as you possibly can and from as many computers as you can manage to sit in front of.

And I don't know if you've heard of this Digg thing, but let me tell you: I just found out that there is no time like the present to sign up and start digging away. The only flaw I can see is that they won't let me "digg" the only thing I think anyone should be reading more than once. So that's where you come in.

How Long Must The Truth Go Unrecognized?

Alex Christopher, telling us what we're not ready to hear about the reptilian aliens under Denver International Airport.

AC: If Phil is right, and all this hooks up to the deep underground base that he was offered the plans to build back in 1979, and that what this other man told me in private that there is a lot of human slave labor in these deep underground bases being used by these aliens, and that a lot of this slave labor is children. He said that when the children reach the point that they are unable to work any more, they are slaughtered on the spot and consumed.

DA: Consumed by who?

AC: Aliens. Again, this is not from me, but from a man that gave his life to get this information out. He worked down there for close to 20 years, and he knew everything that was going on.

DA: Hmmm. Who do these aliens eat?

AC: They specifically like young human children, that haven't been contaminated like adults. Well, there is a gentleman out giving a lot of information from a source he gets it from, and he says that there is an incredible number of children snatched in this country.

DA: Over 200,000 each year.

AC: And that these children are the main entree for dinner.

DA: How many Draconians are down there?

AC: I have heard the figure of 150,000 just in the New York area.

Unendable inbox presence Lee Sinins, telling us what we're not ready to hear about the sham that is the playoffs:

Some of you may recall that, several years ago, I announced that was withdrawing my recognition of the postseason and of the World Series winners due to the meaningless of small sample sizes in baseball. . . And to those who consider this to be insanity, well, I consider recognizing a team as a champion because of small sample garbage to be insanity.

Lee, surely there is no one who would dare question you, right?

Since I'm getting so many messages from people who say they found "errors" in my list of champions, I need to send this to everyone.

There are no errors in the lists.

Those lists of champions are the champions recognized by me.

He's like a Martin Luther for our time, ready to bring down the Establishment in the interest of Truth!

And Sinins has a point too.

Open Letter

Dear Internet Baseball Community,

I'm sorry that I was right. It's not like I didn't warn you.

Your Pal,
Ryan

P.S. "Mark" says hi.

P.P.S. More Will. And the damn gyroball.

The Formula

Right. So I don't have anything to say, which was bound to happen sooner or later. Probably sooner. But lately I've been immersed in the marketing potential of blogs. I mean, I don't think there is much -- at least not with anything I'm involved in -- but going by the only emails I get these days, somebody must think there's potential. So in the spirit of the time I quoted an email from MASN as a transparent excuse to post a YouTube of that awesome Nike commercial with Bootsy Collins, I am for the time being dedicating Distinguished Senators to bringing you, the reader who probably either knows me personally or clicked over here because Needham was nice enough to put me in his reader thingy, the latest developments in Nationals-related PR.

Our first update comes from my close, personal friend Ashley Hanley of Formula PR, who sends along the news that they're going to let kids talk into microphones at the ESPN Zone. Who's now? Your 12-year-old!

ESPN Zone and the Washington Nationals have teamed up to host the Junior Broadcaster competition, a search for the next generation of sports announcers. Children 12 and under will compete for the opportunity to work in the broadcast booth on September 2 during Nationals’ Kids Run the Show Day at RFK Stadium. On August 20, entrants are invited to ESPN Zone, located at 555 12^th Street NW, where each will have the opportunity to showcase their sports-announcing chops. Two Junior Broadcasters will be selected at the end of the competition.

“Junior Broadcaster is about having fun and getting talented young sports fans onsite to give announcing a try,” said Leigh Friedman, ESPN Zone’s regional marketing manager. “However, for some ambitious individuals it’s more than that. It’s a competition and they come out to win. We’ll get entrants from all over the area and even outside the state, so we’re excited to see what kind of talent emerges as a result of this contest. Deciding on a winner will not be an easy task.”

Wow, a quote from ESPN Zone's infamously hard-to-reach regional marketing manager. Very impressive, Ashley, and we all look forward to hearing from you about the next event Formula PR has the honor of promoting by mass email. Or, more likely, the last event Formula had the honor of promoting, because I've got a bit of a backlog in my inbox.

Mets!

In an unbelievable turn of events, one that should but almost certainly won't serve as a wakeup call to the shiftless proprietor of this site, those wishing to read my thoughts on the Nationals must direct themselves to a Mets blog. Mets Today was rad enough to solicit my thoughts on the team, and what follows is certain to be the most insightful ten questions and answers you'll read about the Nats on a Mets site this month. Guaranteed. So get over there, don't embarrass me in front of the Mets fans, and make it seem like you're accidentally bringing up Jesus Flores every chance you get.

As for this place, well, I figure as long I have an outlet to whine about my favorite team once or twice a year, and I can go ahead and turn Distinguished Senators into a full time Chris Hansen fan page.

Above: Our generation's Eliot Ness. He has your chat logs.

Dmitripalooza: Final

Dmitripalooza has to be dying down soon, right? Once the Nationals start playing again, alternative storylines will develop, like the one where Dmitri Young gets traded and the one where all remaining Nats fans shake their tiny fists at the cold, merciless Plan and the soulless men who serve it. So one last Meathook post, then I'm done for a while.

The Examiner's Phil Wood has added his voice to the off-key chorus calling for Meathook retention. There's no point in engaging his case. He says nothing Boswell didn't already try to say in his chat, and his arguments are nothing more than window dressing to his actual motivation, which is pure puppy love.

I understand the temptation among Nats fans to love the one you're with. The team is not very good and pretty colorless, and fans need to attach themselves to something. But this Dmitri Young thing is so obviously borne of desparation -- it wouldn't be happening if Zimmerman had done anything of note -- that it's just undignified. I'm not saying you have to wait until marriage, Nats fans, but it's only been a few months. Don't give up your hearts that easy.

Meanwhile, and I really don't like harping on this, two more profiles of Young appeared before the All Star Game. The Times and the official organ both chimed in with efforts that would have looked like puff pieces even without the existence of Barry Svrluga's piece. Coming as they did after it made a certain shared omission all the more pronounced.

These are not rhetorical questions; I can be convinced on this issue, and I am looking for feedback: Am I expecting too much? Should I look at these pieces like they're glad handing celebrity rag material rather than real journalism? Is it unreasonable to expect a mention of Dmitri Young's beating the hell out of his girlfriend in the retelling of his story of redemption? The answer seemed pretty clear to me a week ago, but it seems that the journalistic consensus is trying to change my mind.

All Star Game Observation

Ichiro is RAD.

The List Is Incomplete

Problems with the home run derby:

• Chris Berman
• Too many people talking
• Too many of those people are idiots
  
• Chris Berman had obviously never heard of Alex Rios until today
• Chris Berman trying to get himself over with his dumbass nicknames during player introductions
• Whichever moron decided to let Berman do player introductions
• Counting Crows
• Too many commercials
• Where's Rickey?
• Harper's NEGATIVE ATTITUDE, which makes it IMPOSSIBLE for me to ENJOY THIS THING

I may have more later.

• Berman's still talking
• Those kids in the outfield can't catch a damn thing
• Is Jon Miller on the PA? He's there and were stuck with these doofs? Here's a little math for you, ESPN: Jon Miller > 10 babbling idiots. Nice job on getting rid of Dan Patrick, though.
• Almost an hour and 45 minutes for the first round.

And the biggest problem of all:

• I have to go to work tomorrow and can't stay up to watch this thing
  

Out of Their Minds

Of course the Nationals should trade Dmitri Young. I can't believe there's even an argument about this. He's as much a part of the Nats' future as flying cars. Early indications are that Jim Bowden wants too much for him, which indicates that he thinks about the other 29 GMs the same way they think about him. Or maybe he just loves Da Meathook the way Tom Boswell loves Da Meathook.

The Nats are out of their minds if they trade Dmitri.

No, and that's a stupid thing to say. Even if you could do enough heavy lifting to mount a reasonable argument for hanging on to Dmitri (and don't think for a minute that Boswell is going to), an honest arguer would have to admit that there's some merit to the idea of trading him. This is Boswell at his worst: not just wrong, but unwilling to allow dissent. BLAH BLAH BLAH, as the man himself is wont to say.

1) He's good,

He's playing over his head, and everyone not wearing homer goggles knows it.

his teammates love him

And how exactly does that fit into the Plan?

and he wants to stay.

So did Soriano. The difference is that Soriano had options.

2) Throughout his career, he hasn't gotten injured much despite being the captain of the Bad Body Team. He throws himself __well, sort of__ at ground balls. He runs out a triple and bounces back up. You might even see him in leftfield sometime. Then, perhaps, he could be the most comical leftfielder I have ever seen as well as the funniest first baseman. (He may NOT be the worst. But he's close. There are high school first basemen __probably 1000+ of them__ who scoop low throws better.

I got eyestrain looking for a point here. I think he's making two observations: 1) it's funny to watch fat guys run! and B) Dmitri Young is bad at everything but hitting. Can't argue with either one of those.

So maybe Boswell isn't making very good arguments, but at least he's been staying on point. Right?

3) Will Nick Johnson come back at all this year? Will he come back next year? If he does, how good will he be? Once Bo Jackson started having "hip problems," how did that work out? When has any Johnson injury NOT turned out to be significantly worse than THE WORST available medical analysis. Nick and John Patterson don't look the same and they don't have the same reputation. Nick (maybe because he looks the part) is seen as a tough guy. But both have one thing in common. They only play when they feel 100%. And they don't feel 100% too often, do they? Patterson is a more extreme case. He's only had one 9-win season. Johnson has had productive seasons. But I see no reason the Nats should be wedded to Johnson as their "1st baseman of the future" for the 2010 time frame when they want to contend. Maybe he can be part of that Plan. Or maybe you should use him as a tradeable piece when he's healthy so you can develop or sign a 35-homer bat to put at 1st base. Wait, what were we talking about? Caller? Hello?

Wow. I have to admit that I wasn't expecting Boz to go into his tarditional "tough guys play hurt" routine -- he didn't even mention Ryan Church. When I mentioned earlier that this chat was Boswell at his worst, I hadn't even read this part. The only thing worse than snotty BLAH BLAH BLAH Boz is Dr. Boswell, MD, an experienced practitioner who diagnoses all baseball injuries as vaginitis.

The only part of this I'm going to bother to argue with is the Johnson/Young dilemma that Boswell's invented. There isn't one. Neither one of these dudes is going to be around 2010, and keeping Dmitri Young for the last few months of the season because Nick Johnson gets hurt all the time is the kind of logic parody you only find in Boswell chats.

In other Post/Meathook news, Barry Svrluga has a very much worth reading profile of Young. There's a lot of interesting stuff there, including quite a bit I didn't know. I didn't know he went into the stands after a fan, for instance. I also don't particularly blame him.

Once again, though, Young's assault on a female acquaintance is glossed over. Svrluga goes deeper into it than most -- we hear about his guilty plea and community service -- but it's treated essentially as a victimless crime, one more obstacle for this great but troubled man to overcome.

Enjoy the All Star Game, everybody!

Soriano Reaction

Too many boos. I'm disappointed. What, you wanted him to turn down $8 million (or whatever) annually for you people? Yeesh.

UPDATE: All the cheering for Ramirez' double indicates that there are plenty of Cubs fans there tonight. I know they weren't booing Soriano, so I can only assume that almost all the Nats fans were. I reiterate and amplify my earlier Yeesh.

Token

I sort of re-learned two things today from watching the Braves game. One is that TBS, once home to little more than the Braves and Andy Griffith reruns, is about to show the All-Star Game, some of the playoffs, and eventually a whole pile of regular season games. I'm in favor of this. I've always found Turner's sports programming, both baseball on TBS and the NBA on TNT, to be about as good as it gets. More Joe Simpson and Ernie Johnson? Less Joe Buck and Tim McCarver? Imagine my eyes lighting up like Jim Bowden watching a really fast centerfielder ground out to second base three times a game.

The other thing I re-learned was that the All Star Game is imminent, and that's bringing me down. The Nationals' only All Star is Dmitri Young, and it's hard to argue with the selection. And that's the problem: our token, only-there-because-everyone-gets-one player is a scrap pile gamble no one else wanted who's not even going to be around next year. I mean, yeah, good for Dmitri and keep it up, but it's disappointing that he's the best we could come up with to represent the curly W. Looking at the rest of the NL roster makes it sting even worse. There's 24 year old Russell Martin. There's 23 year old Prince Fielder and teammates David Wright (24) and Jose Reyes (24).

We don't have one of those. Who's our Jose Reyes? We're leaning pretty heavily on Ryan Zimmerman to give us something to brag about to fans of other teams, but he has yet to prove that he's not the fourth-best third baseman in a five-team division. The All Star Game is an exhibition for the world's very best baseball players. All I can think of is that we don't have any of them.

Fat Guys Dropping Jaws

So the Nationals -- you probably knew this -- are non-embarrassingly bad. I know the day after a 13-run loss isn't the best time to bring it up, but it's true. Worst record in the league? Not us! Now, if you look at our expected record based on our runs scored vs. runs allowed, you should probably keep it to yourself, because that's almost as pointless as it is boring. I subject myself and you it just this once because it backs up my theory: while the Nats' record in real life is 32-46, it should -- in the theoretical world of sabermetrics where carts inevitably precede their horses -- is 28-50, which is more what I was expecting.

What explains the discrepancy? Grit and gamerosity? Luck? Cheating? The Kabbalah? No. Clearly, the answer is fat guys. Back at the start of the season, I noticed that our fat guys contingent -- then limited to Dmitri Young and Ronnie Belliard -- was losing games all by themselves. They were dropping balls, wasting at-bats, and embarrassing me in front of Orioles fans.

But no longer! Starting with Ronnie Belliard: he's fine, I guess. He didn't make fun of Manny Acta in public even after being stationed at first base, so that says a lot for his character. And he hasn't dropped any balls that I've seen.

Dmitri Young has become the story of the season. And while the praise is perhaps too effusive at times, I'll concede that it's difficult for a sportswriter to weigh the relative merits of a great batting average on the one hand and a history of domestic violence on the other.* Young has rebounded quite nicely from his early-season woes, batting-wise if not physique-wise.

The best fat guy of them all came out of nowhere. Once our fat guy of the future, the fat guy we were going to build the team around, Cristian Guzman had become an afterthought fat guy. But after coming back from an opening day injury, Guzman was on fire. He put up an unprecedented and nearly impossible 850 OPS. Then he did the right thing: knowing he wasn't going to be able to keep from sucking for the duration of the season, he messed up his thumb and took himself out of commission for the rest of the year. He gives his fellow Nationals an inspirationally incapacitated teammate to win for, and he gives Jim Bowden something to crow about. And don't think he won't.

*Wait a minute, no it's not. Seriously, Kurkjian, what the hell? "That legal thing" my ass.

Breaking News

I just received a completely inexplicable email from MASN. It says it's for immediate release, so I'm releasing it. IMMEDIATELY!

MASN to Add “Super Slo Mo” Video Replay to Orioles and Nationals Home Games(WASHINGTON, D.C.) – Providing fans even more access to Nationals and Orioles baseball, the Mid-Atlantic Sports Network will add “Super Slo Mo” video replays to its production of home games, starting with Tuesday’s Beltway Battle at Camden Yards.

Wow, "Super Slo Mo"! I can't believe I didn't notice that they didn't have this before. And I can't believe they're bragging about it. This whole thing -- the technology and especially the terminology -- makes me feel like it's 1975 and MASN's keeping the funk alive.

Above: There is no chance that when the Sun absorbs the Earth this won't have been the greatest commercial in the history of sporting goods. Glory be, the funk's on me.

I've gotten a flood of emails about how Levale Speigner's adequate performance against the Twins on Saturday refutes my theory that 1) he's a golem and B) a golem that I destroyed by revealing the kabbalistic power behind his name, for which I am very sorry. I respond thusly: he's totally a golem. As the instructions clearly indicate, creating such a creature requires, among other things, purity of purpose. If it requires purity of purpose to create a golem, it follows that the lack of such a purity would enrage the monster. The Twins, of course, are cheaters. Dirty, filthy, lying cheaters. They have two World Series titles, both of which they won by cheating. In a just world, they'd be wiped from the face of the earth, their fields plowed with salt and their players and trophies returned to Washington to make up for Calvin Griffith. The world's not just -- as proven by the fact that the Sports Turf Managers Association gives out an award named after the Twins' now retired cheater in chief -- but that didn't stop the Nats' own golem from exacting a little bit of justice from those almost-Canadian-accent-having bastards.

A bit of friendly advice: dude, settle down. This kind of cri de coeur -- and it's not the first one we've seen over at teh 320 -- is ultimately pointless. Screech's Best Friend (if that is his real name) takes criticism of his favorite team very seriously; far more seriously than it could possibly deserve. Is his point that negativity (the kind of negativity that can only be detected in legions of venomous strawmen) is damaging to the Nationals as a franchise? When Needham says they're cheap, or I say that they're exploiting rabbinic wisdom to win some ball games, does life imitate art? Can our criticisms actually affect the business in a negative way? No, of course not. That's silly -- both factually impossible and indicative of a seductive kind of bloggy arrogance. The idea that anything any of us says has any bearing on anything is preposterous.

So if it's not arrogance, we're left with a fan who's just generally annoyed that everyone's not on the bandwagon along with him. And that's exactly the kind of sentiment that holds up so poorly to scrutiny that one must be careful not to mention of the offenders by name, lest one get called on it.

It's Still A Pretty Impressive Managerial Feat

This is hard. I'm really trying here, but everything's working against me. The Nationals are bad but not so bad that it bears constant repeating. My new editorial stance is that maybe the people running things aren't hopeless buffoons, and I'm regretting it every time I sit down to write and find the tank where I keep my righteous indignation empty.

I've always tried to use the crappiness of our favorite team as a way to explain the mysteries and tragedies of the human condition -- I'm sure you were already aware of that. But I think I ran out. I watched that game on Sunday. David Wells jokes are always fun, and that sure was a big ol' dinger Dutch hit, but the most profound thing I could think of was, "Huh. Sure is wet."

I had this whole thing worked out where I was going to explain that Levale Speigner was a golem whipped up by a master rabbi in the front office (instructions here). Check this out: just as the golem is animated by the word of power inscribed on its forehead, so Speigner's pitching ability came from the kabbalistic power of his made-up name. It's got something to do with the Tetragrammaton, I think. I'm kind of out of my league here, to be frank.

Levale Speigner fields questions from reporters.

A golem is undone when he loses his word of power. For example, if it has "truth" on its forehead, erasing the first letter spells "dead," and that's it for the golem. That whole truth/dead thing works a lot better in Hebrew than it does in English, by the way. In the same way, my actual reporting or at least fact-checking that revealed the mystical power behind Speigner's name ruined the poor automaton's ability to pitch.

Speigner is beloved throughout the area for his community service.

The facts back this up. My post coincided with "Levale's" first disaster start, and he hasn't had anything but since then. I had unwittingly erased his word of power.

Speigner confers with pitching coach Randy St. Claire.

But ultimately I decided not to do the golem thing because it was pretty stupid.

Bells

Looks like the Nats are as happy to be back home as I am. But hey, there's no shame in losing to Brad Penny. And it was only Simontacchi -- all you want from him is innings. Just wait until we get to our real starters . . . oh. Wait.

So today marks the first time I've ever learned something useful for interesting from the Washington Post Express. It wasn't something I couldn't have learned elsewhere, but you get what you pay for: Trevor Hoffman is a mere three saves from 500, and the Padres are in town this weekend. As records go, it's not the most impressive. I don't see anyone spraying spittle arguing about whether or not Bud Selig should be there for it, for instance. But it is both unprecedented and a nice round number, and that makes it something that it will have been nifty to have been in the stands for.

The Padres lost tonight, so we have to hope for that they win two close games to close out their current series with Pittsburgh. That way, there will be something pleasant and memorable for us when the Nationals get their asses handed to them.

Hot Brown!

So I went to Kentucky, and I felt like I was home. Everyone loved grits. Wherever there wasn't bourbon, there was at least the talk of bourbon or candies filled with it. Larry Glover, the play-by-play man for the Lexington Legends, did pretty much what I would do if I had such a position: complain about the Reds and mock the Yankees. It was like listening to a more mellifluous me coming out the speakers of my rental car.

What would be considered here at home to be hillbilly gluttony, alcoholism, and boundless jackassery blended beautifully in with the scenery down in the Bluegrass State. The Nationals certainly enjoyed a similar feeling during their recent jaunt through the bombed-out remains of the National League Central.

You think the Nats came up with that whole "Hey, we're out of starting pitchers -- we have any journeyman in the pen?" thing? The Cardinals started that game. Mike Bacsik is nothing but a Braden-Looper-come-lately. The Nats are something of a novelty in the NL East. Perfect example: sucking. Not all that much sucking in our division. In the Central, it's the tie that binds this six-team band of misfits together. The Brewers have lost six in a row and still command -- with all the mastery of a late-career Hitler over his imaginary divisions -- a healthy five game lead.

Naturally, an organism placed into a perfect environment will thrive, and the Nationals did just that, winning five of seven. This period of winningosity may well end when the NL West sends its representatives to meet us starting tomorrow. Whatever the result, we can take heart from the last week. We may be the worst team in the division, but, as Larry Glover and I certainly agree, that's better than being the worst team in the worst division.