John Scheinman, also known as The Last Turf Writer the Washington Post Ever Had, has passed along his picks for today’s Belmont Stakes: Chocolate Candy, Charitable Man, and Mine That Bird. And some advice: “Box ‘em and cash!”

Sure, Scheinman in this very same space tossed Rachel Alexandra out of the mix on Preakness Day.

So bless him for getting right back on the horse and handing us the triple in the Belmont. That takes guts. Because as with any real horseplayer, he’d rather be right than rich. Because rich for a degenerate gambler, er, railbird is a very temporary state. But right lasts forever! (And Scheinman’s track record shows he has been very right on racing’s biggest days. Among them: In 2005, while on assignment for the Post, he hit the Pick Three at Churchill Downs on Kentucky Derby Day for $14,972.10.)

So, run out RIGHT NOW to your nearest OTB and put the July and August mortgages* on a Triple Box of the 1-6-7 horses. Post time for the feature is 6:27 p.m. EST.

And, as usual, if our picks don’t come in…YOU GET THE REST OF THE SEASON ABSOLUTELY FREE!

*don’t really, dumbass

The Amazin’ Nats did it again, losing 6-1 to the Mets in NY.

The only Nats run came via a home run by Adam Dunn, who by now is surely being asked by other guys in the locker room for hitting tips and, um, you know, dietary advice. Dunn has gotten himself into the mix as the Nats’ Mandatory All-Star Selection.

Race worth watching: Who’s gonna be named the Worst Team’s Best Player?

Streaky Ryan Zimmerman? Shairon “5-0″ Martis? Or Dunn, who now has 15 HRs, the fourth most in the majors. And Cristian Guzman, now leading the team in hitting at .348, has to get some votes for this Tallest Midget-esque honor.

Which all leads to this: How can a team with so much talent be so bad?

Because, seriously, we’re talking bad for the ages.

The 1962 Mets, the shit standard for modern baseball, went 40-120. At 13-32, the Nats are on a pace to lose 114 or 115 games, since you can’t win .8 of a game. But that’s with three hitters having All-Star quality stats and one starter still undefeated.

Other than Joel Hanrahan, there’s nobody to feel sorry for. Manny Acta’s got no hint of Casey Stengel in him.

Again, how can this team be so bad?

Something ain’t right.

***

Time for the Washington Nationals Run Run Differential Diffential™ Update, in which we’ve come up with a statistic just to come up with a statistic and to fill digital column inches to save the print product: The Nationals have wracked up a 145-run run-differential differential with the LA Dodgers.

Read More “Cheap Seats Daily: Amazin’ Nats Lose, Extend RRDD™ Record, Snyder’s Ticket Deadline Etched in Sand” »

Could season ticket worries have played a part in the Redskins’ tampering case?

Albert Haynesworth’s former employer, the Tennessee Titans, have long been saying that Dan Snyder had a deal worked out with the star lineman too early. By NFL bylaw, it’s illegal to even begin negotiations with another team’s players until the free agent signing period begins. The Skins gave Haynesworth the biggest contract ever given a defensive player just hours after signing season opened.

Snyder was seen with Haynesworth agent, who also represents Redskin receiver Malcolm Kelly, at league functions before the opening.

The rule is well known. So why would Snyder, who always outbids everybody anyway and would have gotten Haynesworth in due time, want to rush things?

Well, conspiracy theorists might point out that since taking over the team, Snyder has moved up the date payment for season ticket renewals is due. This year, fans had to send those payments in by March 2. That’s the first business day after the Haynesworth signing. If Snyder hadn’t landed Haynesworth on Day 1 of the signing period, there would have been no publicity about the signing by due date for ticketholders.

The team’s desperate behavior this offseason indicates that Snyder may have felt he needed a bigger bang this year than ever before to move tickets.

Reports say Redskins officials will be interviewed soon by NFL investigators. The team could lose a draft pick if found guilty. Given the way drafts have gone of late, that’s not a huge hit.

Read More “Cheap Seats Daily: Did Snyder Tamper to Meet Ticket Deadline? Will Fenty Be Undone by WarmWatergate?” »

All things must pass: Adam Dunn singled (!) home Nick Johnson with the go-ahead run in the bottom of the 8th, and Joel Hanrahan closed out (!) the Pittsburgh 9th to give the Nats their first win (!) in 8 games.

Even with the win, Washington sits six-and-a-half games out of second-to-last place in the NL East, and on the season have an amazing 125-run run-differential-differential with the Los Angeles Dodgers — that’s nearly a three-run run differential differential per game.

Think anywhere on the planet there’s a baseball nerd so nerdulous that he keeps track of per game run differential differentials?

***

The Wizards have brought in Randy Wittman as an assistant to Flip Saunders. Wittman was a number one pick of the franchise, then the better-named Bullets, back in 1983. Don’t call it a comeback, however. Wittman was traded to the Atlanta Hawks right after the draft for Tom McMillen, one of many young-for-old swaps engineered by Bullets GM Bob Ferry.

Like pretty much all coaches, Wittman played for Bobby Knight. I wonder how Bobby Knight would treat the sort of player who wouldn’t come out of the locker room until the middle of the second quarter and then tell the Coach he was ready to play. Maybe now we’ll find out!

***

“Chang We Can Believe In!”

A proposed sign to bring to Saturday’s DC United game to celebrate carpetbagger developer Victor MacFarlane’s selling out ownership shares to Will Chang, taken from a commenter on the Washington Post’s soccer blog.

All the best writing is in the comment sections…

***

Crisis? What crisis?

Read More “Cheap Seats Daily: Nats Blow Late Deficit! Can Bobby Knight Protege Handle Agent Zero? What’s the Penalty for Fighting Satan?” »

D.C.’s second-best panda showed all the signs. There was the hormone in the urine. There was the lack of energy and changes to her appetite. There was the drop in the hormone in the urine, which happens just before birth. And, lastly, there was the fact that she ovulated and the zoo staff attempted to inseminate her with tubed-up semen from Tian Tian, the black-and-white reluctant stud.

But the zoo put out a release today to say it’s all a giant panda disappointment. Add it to the list. It’s not the first pseudopregnancy for Our Lady of the Fujifilm Giant Panda Habitat. Maybe next year: Yesterday the zoo put Tian Tian to sleep and extracted some more of his boys, destined for the freezer.

Photo of frightening panda toys by yours truly.

Sounds like Rob Dibble has already seen enough.

Dibble, the Nationals color commentator, spoke for every fan yesterday. He went off when second baseman Anderson Hernandez jumped out of the way of a fine throw from pitcher Jesus Colome on a routine sacrifice attempt in the eighth inning and the Nats up a run over Philly.

Hernandez’s merkel let the Nats blow yet another lead to give the Phillies a sweep of the four-game series.

“[Toronto pitcher] Roy Halladay may pass us for wins by the All Star break,” Dibble huffed. “Have you ever seen a play like THAT?”

In an age when team owners have a lot of control over who announces their games, that’s about as off the reservation as a commentator’s going to get.

Looks like fans have seen enough, too: Hell if Nationals Stadium didn’t look empty during the game telecast.

***

“It’s a great day for the Redskins,” an attorney for the team, Bob Raskopf, said on Friday.

Not a great day for redskins, however: A federal court ruled in favor of the team in a lawsuit filed years ago by a group of Native Americans alleging that the name “Redskins” is too racially offensive to be afforded trademark protections.

Read More “Cheap Seats Daily: Another Bad Day for Nats, Another ‘Great Day’ for Skins” »

A day after the crushingest defeat of his Capitals ownership, Ted Leonsis went on “The Sports Reporters” on WTEM-980.

He was awesome.

Hosts Steve Czaban and Andy Pollin brought up the rumored but unspecified injuries to Alex Ovechkin and Mike Green, giving Leonsis an opportunity to blame his team’s ouster from the Stanley Cup playoffs on mitigating factors.

He wouldn’t take it.

“All teams are banged up,” Leonsis said.

Leonsis thanked the fans and sounded sorry for letting them down. He said he’s capped the number of season tickets at 13,000 for next year so folks who have been loyal for years but can’t afford to buy for every game can still get in.

Not that the cap will hurt his wallet: He said he expects all games in the 2009-10 season will still sell out anyway.

Why do fans like him so?

Leonsis said it’s because his organization is “transparent” and “honest” with the fans.

The Leonsis interview will be repeated on WTEM on “The John Thompson Show.”

On a related note: WTEM is owned by Dan Snyder. If I’m not mistaken, Snyder has NEVER been interviewed by Pollin and Czaban, hosts of the best and top-rated show produced by the station, which runs in afternoon drive time.

Leonsis: Honest, transparent, beloved.

Snyder: Meh. Nah. Bah humbug.

Read More “Cheap Seats Daily: Swooning for Ted Leonsis, DeAngelo Hall; Free Preakness Tout Service!” »

Sports Illustrated released Top 5 best/worst owners lists for all the major sports. Our town’s fabulously represented, though only on the dark side.

First off: Ted Leonsis somehow wasn’t included among hockey’s best. If there’s ever been a more beloved sports owner in this town than Leonsis circa 2009, I can’t remember him.

Hard to believe it’s only been five years since Leonsis was brawling with home fans at Caps game, eh?

But he was. Days after he unloaded Jaromir Jagr and his $11 million salary to the Rangers in January 2004 in the midst of a talent purge, a 20-year-old season ticket holder named Jason Hammer brought a sign to the then-MCI Center that said “Caps Hockey, AOL Stock — See a Pattern?”

Hammer sat among a group of fans heckling the owner, and waved the placard at Leonsis throughout the game. Leonsis got so incited he went after the kid in the concourse after the final horn. The account of the incident in the Washington Post said Leonsis “grabbed [Hammer] by the neck and threw him to the ground.”

Read More “Cheap Seats Daily: Best Owner List Shocker: Leonsis Left Off! Worst Owner List Non-Shocker: Snyder, Lerners Left On!” »

“THERE WILL BE A GAME 7 AT VERIZON CENTER!”

That’s how Caps’ play-by-play man Steve Kolbe ended his awesome call of David Steckel’s game winner last night from Pittsburgh.

Nothing like OT playoff hockey on the radio.

The game started lousy for the eventual winners. At the end of the 1st period, with the Caps down 1-0 and trailing the Penguins in shots on goal 18-5, the Kolbe and, particularly, his booth partner Ken Sabourin, sounded resigned to a bad ending.

“The Penguins got help from the official on that one. Check’s in the mail!” said Sabourin after Kris Letang’s goal gave Pittsburgh a 3-2 lead early in the third period. His point was that a referee had deflected the puck right to Letang, and was clearly on the take.

“Check’s in the mail!” is what you want from the home crew!

The Caps scored twice over the next 88 seconds.

Steckel’s shot snapped the franchise’s long losing streak in playoff overtime games and kept ‘em alive to tighten up the 1-7 record in playoff series with Pittsburgh.

But, that’s the past. Once again: Doesn’t this year just feel different?

Read More “Cheap Seats Daily: Caps and Zimmerman Live Another Day” »

I don’t think we’ve hit full swine flu hysteria yet. But this is close. The Associated Press reported last night that two drunk dudes flying in from Cancun caused a swine flu panic by the time they landed at Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport. The AP writes:

“The commotion began when AirTran Flight 85 from Cancun, Mexico, radioed ahead to Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport that two passengers were had nausea and fever, said airport spokesman Jonathan Dean. When it landed, the airport’s fire and rescue department met it.

The two men were isolated and examined, said David Paulson, director of communications for the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Jim Peters said they simply had too much to drink.

They did not have respiratory distress that is a symptom of swine flu, Paulson said.

They refused treatment, and they and the other passengers were allowed to leave the plane after being detained less than an hour.”

Maryland, the District and Virginia have no reported swine-flu cases so far. That hasn’t stopped a lot of people from crashing local Emergency Rooms.

Last Wednesday, a family of loud white Louisianans wearing “Washington, D.C.” sweatshirts underneath clear plastic ponchos waddled out of the drizzle at Sherman Circle and up the steps of the 62 bus.

The group seemed unaware of the Unwritten Rule of the 62: No talking. (I’ve ridden the 62 at least a hundred times over the past year, and the only conversations I’ve witnessed have been between the bus drivers and their friends–who stand ahead of the yellow line and usually ride for free–and a group of young women who got into a screaming match after one of them accidentally elbowed the other’s baby in the head while the mother was counting change. Usually, we all keep quiet.)

The topic of the Louisianans’ conversation? Pineapple sweet cake and diabetes:

Read More “Pineapple Sweet Cake on the 62″ »

In an October confrontation at a Georgetown tattoo parlor, former D.C. Councilmember Harold Brazil pissed on the shop floor, according to testimony this morning in his trial on misdemeanor assault charges at D.C. Superior Court. His attorney argues that he was provoked in the most vile manner possible.

The public urination occurred in the midst of a melee at the shop, Jinx Proof (3285 1/2 M Street NW), involving Brazil, two female companions, and the shop’s employees. The incident began at about 7 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 9, when Brazil entered Jinx Proof with his secretary and another woman of undetermined relation to Brazil (more details to come later!).

One of the women then went to the back of the shop to get a tattoo. Brazil and the other woman stayed in the front of the shop, waiting.

From that point on, stories diverge. The way the defense tells the story, the non-tattoo woman waiting in the front of the store heard a noise that made her uncomfortable about the treatment of the other woman. So she drifted back to the tattoo-making area to check on the situation. In doing so, she received a reprimand from the shopkeeper. The rule is that only tattoo patients can be in the back of the shop.

Tensions racheted up as the woman persisted in trying to reach the back of the store. No, you can’t go back there, scolded the shopkeeper.

Then Brazil intervened on behalf of his companions, setting up a confrontation with the shopkeeper. In the telling of Brazil’s attorney, G. Allen Dale, Brazil was insulted in a way that could only escalate matters. The shopkeeper, says Dale, shouted the following at Brazil: “Fuck you, nigger!”

In testimony this morning, the shopkeeper, Francis Peyton, told a different version of events, one in which Brazil acted belligerently and screamed at him—”Fuck you, man!”—when he tried to enforce the rules of the parlor. After that, says Peyton, Brazil got physical, pushing him and setting off the fight that landed this entire moment in a court of law.

As to the pissing issue, Assistant U.S. Attorney Justin Dillon asked Peyton if he was certain that the former at-large councilmember had, in fact, made a puddle on the floor: Are you sure he wasn’t just emptying a water bottle? asked the prosecutor. Peyton responded that he was sure, given “from where it was coming and just the smell. For me it was easy to identify.”

Dale said that the shop employees “beat the piss” out of his client, noting that he had to seek medical treatment for his injuries.

More updates to come.

Reporting by Mike DeBonis from the courthouse.

Ringling Bros. is in the midst of its annual run of shows in our market. The circus plays Fairfax through this weekend.

The show is yet another link to an amazing and underpublicized chain in the area’s pop cultural history. It goes back to brothers Izzy and Irvin Feld, who were literally snake oil salesmen growing up in Hagerstown in the 1920s, and later started a record business in the 1940s out of their store, Super Cut Rate Drugs, a pharmacy on 7th St. NW in Shaw.

The record retailing operation, which quickly turned into a cash cow by catering to the city’s otherwise ignored black pop fans, led the Felds to form a production company that booked concerts and other large entertainment events.

The Felds took over management of Ringling Bros. in 1957, and bought the circus whole a decade later.

Musically, among the Felds claims to fame are discovering Paul Anka, promoting Buddy Holly’s last tour in 1959, and producing some shows on the Beatles U.S. tours, including a Baltimore Civic Center concert in 1964 and the DC Stadium show in August 1966, held about week before the Fab Four gave up live performances altogether.

(A case could easily be made that without the Felds, Beatlemania never would have happened on

Read More “The Greatest Show Goes On for the Felds, DC’s First Family of Entertainment” »

(Photo by Davin Tarr)

DCist reported up a U.S. Park Police involved shooting of a man at 2nd and K Streets NE. According to the Park Police’s own press blog (D.C. Police–you need this):

“On Monday April 13, 2009 at about 12:15pm, United States Park Police Officers were investigating a vehicle involved in a crime. This vehicle, with one occupant, the driver, failed to stop for the officers. A short vehicle pursuit, about two blocks, took place. The vehicle struck a fixed object on K Street at 2nd Street NE.

The officers attempted to apprehend the driver. These two officers were on foot after this crash. When they approached the suspect, the suspect drove forward and struck one officer with his car. The two officers fired their weapons. The suspect vehicle left the scene and stopped about a block away on 2nd Street south of K Street NE.”

Both the officer and the suspect were taken to area hospitals and treated for non-life threatening injuries.

Davin Tarr captured some of the stand off (but apparently not the incident that provoked the shooting). It still seems very odd. The photo above doesn’t look good. WJLA is reporting that the suspect is 54-year-old Ronald Hughes. He did not have a gun. The TV station interviewed a witness who suggested Hughes was reaching for something when the officers opened fire:

“Added fellow witness Todd Morris, ‘The officers got out and surrounded the car, telling [the driver] put his hands up, but to me, it looked like he [the driver] was reaching for something. They, like, shot through the windshield, like, 12, 13 times and they walked over to the car and looked, he pulled off again and went up the block.’”

Read More “Disturbing Images From U.S. Park Police Shooting” »

I wrote this week about DC United’s management and fans giving up on DC.

I don’t want the team to leave town. And though I grew up in the DC suburbs, the idea of building sports venues outside the city is so retro. Not good retro, like the opening riff of “Sweet Home Alabama.”* Bad retro, like the Ayds Candy Plan.

The spots that United claims to crave are both in Landover, a corner kick from where Abe Pollin’s Capital Centre* once stood. When Abe moved downtown and imploded his old building, I figured the era of the suburban sports venue was dead around here. Redskins fans already knew that they were stuck with a disaster in FedExField by then.

So I was surprised to hear so much support for a PG County site from United’s fan base, which is, from my experience, smarter and younger and more cosmopolitan (and, of course, smaller) than any other local team’s base. Their cheerleading for the soccer team bizarrely extends to management’s whims, even when it’d be hard to argue that a move to Maryland would be good for current United supporters.

But, as I think the team and its fans will find out pretty quick, nobody in PG will be building any stadium for anybody any time soon. Maybe the feud between the team and the DC government will cool by the time the recession ends. Look for several more years of United at RFK, and then it’s Poplar Point or bust.

*Skynyrd opened for the Who on Dec. 6, 1973, the week Capital Centre opened. A photo from that show was used in the poster that came with “Odds and Sods.” Don’t get me started…