CD Exchange Update

I just received my March CD from my (other) CD Klub (so you shouldn't feel bad, Steve), which made me remember our recent discussion about pushing back our calendar. I think this makes sense. That means the rest of the exchange will be as follows, unless anyone wants to switch months, which is fine by me:

Debby - May
Inbal - June
Gershon - July
Justin - August

As much as I have been enjoying our CDs, I have to say that the Klub (which has been in existance longer) is really setting the bar high. This month I received 3 typed pages detailing why each song was chosen, often with an amusing anecdote or explanation. This follows the PowerPoint presentation that accompanied another CD, explaining the correlation between recent life events and chosen songs. Both of these masterpieces are available upon request. Now, let's be clear, I only provide a list of artists and songs and feel pretty good about myself for even managing that. So I'm not chiding. I'm just saying there is something greater out there to aspire to.

Jerome Williams

Jerome Williams is showing he is a true Washington National....

1) Pitch poorly as oftens as possible.
2) When you do give up only 1 hit in 6 innings, make sure the team loses anyway.
3) Go on the disabled list the next day.

Jason Bergmann showed his commitment to the Nationals yesterday as well, giving up two hits in seven innings and losing the game. However, he hasn't been pitching poorly enough in general and is yet to get injured this year, so I question his true commitment to the team.

Drafting for Need

From today's Norm Chad column in the Post, a fan asks, "Since NFL teams are always drafting for their biggest needs, why didn't the Bengals select a criminal law attorney?"

Look who was drafted in the Israeli Baseball League...

71-year old Hall of Famer Sandy Koufax! And it's not an old timers league...

Mark Prior

Remember this Onion headline from last year? In retrospect, it's not too far from the truth.

Poor Dan. It's gotta be hard to root for the Cubs and the Nats.

Sockgate

Remember Curt Schilling's bloody sock from the 2004 World Series? According to Orioles' tv announcer, Gary Thorne, it was a fake. Thorne said during last night's Orioles-Red Sox telecast that Red Sox catcher Doug Mirabelli told him recently that the blood wasn't real and that they'd used red paint to imitate blood. Now Mirabelli and Schilling vehemently deny this. So who's lying?

Donkey Appears as Witness in Court

A donkey appeared as the chief witness in a Dallas lawsuit.

To Err(or) is Human

The Baltimore Orioles committed 3 errors last night against the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. On one play. First time since 1998 (Houston Astros) that's happened. But the O's still came back from being down 6 runs to win.

It's not just the Nats, all DC pro sports teams suck

This article shows that it's not just the Nats that suck lately in DC... Are this year's collection of DC pro sports teams the worst collection for a city ever?

Nationals to "Stay the Course"

This is the subject line of an email that I (and some of you I'm sure) just got from the Nationals:

Nationals Insider: Acta, Bowden stay the course; Braves, Phillies up next

You know the Nationals are in trouble when they're borrowing phrases from Bush's foreign policy speeches.

At least we're not Mariners fans....

As rough as it is being a Nats fan these days, at least the games were played this week.

In addition to the four consecutive snow-outs in Cleveland, their game in Boston was rained out tonight.

The Mariners just finished a seven game road trip in which two games were played.

Do any of the Virginia grads...

Know who this guy is?

Check out his email.

More like our regular nonsense

The violin story that Dan posted is very interesting, but last month, Gene Weingarten addressed a topic that's of significantly more import to this blog: Stupid sports bets -- in particular Gene's bet to Dave Barry that if he took a year off and practiced all day, every day, he could defeat the NBA's best free-throw shooter.

Another Nats Loss...

From MLB.com's description of tonight's 8-0 loss to the Braves...

Errors loom large in loss
By Bill Ladson / MLB.com
Matt Chico may have taken the loss after Tuesday's shutout at the hands of the Braves, but the defeat may be attributed more to the Nationals' defense than to their starter. Chico was changed with four runs, but only one of them was earned, after Dmitri Young and Ronnie Belliard committed errors.

Ummmm.....

I'm going to go out on a limb here, but I'm going to say that the fact that the Nats DIDN'T SCORE A RUN was a bigger reason for the loss than defense OR pitching. It's possible to win when your pitching and defense are bad, but it's a little more difficult when the team doesn't score a single run.

I should really get paid for this kind of analysis.

My civic duty as a musician

... is to tell you to read this story.

About those Nationals ...

Today's merciful day off provides a chance to reflect on the first week of the season. So far their record is holding: the Nationals are 1-0 in games in which no one could use our tickets, and 0-6 in games we attended. Clearly we should stop going, except when the Cubs are in town.

There are a couple of bright spots: At no point this season will the Nationals lose to the Yankees on a game-ending grand slam. And, as Andy said after the game yesterday, the Nationals now have 6 straight games where they will not trail going into the bottom of the 1st inning. (They've trailed after half an inning in 5 of the 7 games so far.)

Andy and I decided that because the team is so bad, we are going to keep a separate, "shadow" record for them: any time they lose by fewer than 3 runs, we're calling it a win. Sadly, they still might finish under .500; right now they're 3-4.

Quote of the Day

I was at the Nats' loss to Arizona on Saturday night in frigid temperatures. In the 5th or 6th inning, a guy hits a foul popup to first that Nats' first baseman Dmitri Young chases to the dugout area, but he only makes a half-hearted attempt to reach it and can't catch it. A fan near me yells, "If that was a buffet, you would've caught it!"

My Travel Tale of Woe

Just got back from spending my Passover seders in Chicago. Let's run down a checklist of how my travel went:

• Nearly bumped from my plane despite having confirmed seats 2 months in advance... check
• American Airlines lost my luggage and couldn't find it for 2 days... check
• Stuck in O'Hare Airport for several hours on way home due to flight delays... check
• Finally arrived in DC too late to take metro or get ride, had to take $$$ cab home... check
• Arrived home after midnight just to find out my room had flooded for the 3rd time in the past few months and stank of mold, forcing me to sleep on the living room floor... check

On the bright side, the seders were wonderful and the time in Chicago was refreshing (despite not having any luggage for 2 days). And I did convince American to throw in a $50 voucher for my luggage issues.

Happy Passover to all!

Which of these is not like the others?

From my weekly deals e-mail from Northwest Airlines:

Ready for some family-sized savings on family-fun vacations? For a limited time, you can save as much as $300 on trips to Orlando and the Tampa area, South Dakota, Hawaii, Mexico, and Jamaica with NWA WorldVacations.

Hmm ... Hawaii vs. South Dakota ... hmmmmm.

And after the celebration....

West Virgina's coach, John Beilein, has bolted the program for the Michigan head coaching position.

Wise move on his part, if you ask me. While he did take his team to NIT glory, it was kind of a fluke. West Virgina isn't going to get chances like this every year. Michigan, on the other hand, is a legitimate contender for the NIT championship every year.

Final NCAA Tournament Update

So Aaron won. And Andy lost. But we knew that.

What we didn't know then was that Steve -- thanks to Ohio State's win over Georgetown -- was able to hold off Dan's challenge for second place.

Here are the final standings:



There are prizes for first and last -- and they're really funny. Of course, they're intended to be legacies and to be passed on to next year's winner/loser.