Dan Snyder came out of hiding or France or wherever he went while Rome burned to say he's sorry. Well, to say "we" are sorry.

"We feel frustration and we feel sorry for our fans," Snyder told a crowd at an event the Redskins organized. He was standing at a podium in front of a gang of players in jerseys and behind a placard that said "Children Come First." As I noticed during a shot of the owner's box in last week's Monday Night Football broadcast, Snyder looks smaller these days than he ever did. (Seriously: Check out this video from WUSA.) Reminds me of what happened to Rev. Dimmesdale in the Cliff's Notes version of The Scarlet Letter.

(AFTER THE JUMP: 2% of WRC viewers are "Thrilled!" by Dan Snyder's mini-contrition? The Bathroom Diaries are looking for a few good places to squat? Have they considered FedExField's beer-friendly head? The EagleBank Bowl adds a conference? Wes Unseld gets a street named after him? Will it be clogged in the middle at all times?)

Read More "Cheap Seats Daily: Why Is Dan Snyder Shrinking?" »

In case you missed it: "Art Monk and Charles Mann Sell Former City Property for Millions, Bail On Anacostia Job Training Center."

Over the years, there aren't many things I've written about more than Monk and Mann's training center.

For a decade, the beloved former Redskins said the Carver Theatre building was going to be rebuilt by their non-profit organization, called the Good Samaritan Foundation, and promised that the building would become an epicenter of goodwill in a neighborhood historically lacking in it.

It never happened. But every time I wrote that the training center still wasn't open -- almost like "Saturday Night Live"'s repeating that Francisco Franco was "still dead" in every fake newscast -- officials of the organization continued insisting that their actions would soon back up Monk and Mann's words.

It's not like they didn't use Good Samaritan Foundation to make themselves look good. Monk's son even spoke of the organization in the speech he gave during Dad's Hall of Fame induction in August 2008.

(AFTER THE JUMP: Still more on the neverending story? Karl Swanson holds no grudge against the Washington Post? Roger Phegley DIDN'T mess up the Bullets forever and ever? Clearing on the Road to 100 Losses?)

Read More "Cheap Seats Daily: An Awful Ending to Monk and Mann’s Neverending Story?" »

Today's Washington Post has a special pro football insert headlined "NFL '09."

The most interesting reading in the 14-page pullout comes in one of its few advertisements. Main Line Animal Rescue, a Philadelphia group that apparently specializes in saving "Bully Breeds" of dogs, bought space in the section.

The ad copy, placed alongside a photo of what I assume is a pit bull:

Attention Football Fans: Philadelphia is playing Washington on October 26.

Every time Michael Vick is tackled during the game, Main Line Animal Rescue will donate 5 bags of dog food to your local animal shelter.

"Because there are no second chances on an empty stomach."

Consider volunteering at your local shelter on the day of the game. Spend some time walking, or brushing, or bathing, or hugging a homeless Pit Bull.

Not exactly the bounty on players' heads that led to the famous "Body Bag Game" between the Skins and Eagles in 1990, but, still.

My sense is the outrage against Vick has waned so much and so fast that by the time the Eagles get to DC, there'll be a lot more talk about the wildcat offense than dog killing.

(By the way: The other ads in the Post's football section are: four small spots for imported car dealers, one for a job fair, and a half-pager, the biggest in the section) announcing a blowout chain saw sale. Men! Men! Men!)

***

(AFTER THE JUMP: Wilbon already blames Snyder for lousy season? Kornheiser speaks no Snyder? Unseld whupped Yao's dad? The Asian Bias™ in golf affects White House visit? The Nats Countdown to 100 Losses starts now? Pedro Martinez already has more wins than most Nats?)

Read More "Cheap Seats Daily: And If You Break Michael Vick’s Leg, We’ll Throw in a Chew Toy!" »

Rob Dixon has at least one thing in common with Gandhi: Gandhi never played for the Bullets, either.

There's one difference between 'em, also: Gandhi never claimed he did.

Now, according to Dixon's charity, he'll stop making such claims.

Dixon was one of the good people featured during pre-game ceremonies at the All Star game. He runs Project Rise, a charity in the Boston area that for years has tried to get kids who otherwise might not go to college into college.

His tale was enough that he was voted via a People Magazine national contest as being among the do-goodingest folks in the country. Dixon and the other winners stood on the field in St. Louis last night as President Obama and all the living ex-presidents talked them up via videotape. Dixon was among a small group that got a personal presidential tribute: George W. Bush talked about Dixon's charity to the stadium crowd and a national TV audience. Bush didn't mention Dixon's basketball experience.

But while successfully campaigning for this People honor, Dixon claimed to have played for the Washington Bullets. That NBA experience was repeated in pretty much every news story about the People awards; he was identified as a "former Washington Bullets guard who left the NBA in 1983" by a publication near his hometown of Dorchester, Mass.

One problem: Dixon's name, according to Abe Pollin's franchise, doesn't appear on any Bullets rosters. The organization has no record that he ever did play for the team. Neither does any other NBA squad.

Read More "Update: Charity Says All-Star Honoree’s Bogus Bullets Boast Has Been ‘Addressed’" »

For the first time since the Natinals scandal, the natinal media paid attention to our baseball team yesterday.

Folks only took notice, alas, because our boys were in L.A. while the Dodgers learned they'd be an odd Manny out. For a long time.

Looks like Manny Ramirez took some sort of estrogen. So Manny was just being Womanny?

In any case, it's gonna cost him...50 games and $7 million!!! (That's a lot for baseball: The most heinous on-field act in baseball history came in 1965, when SF Giant Juan Marichal pounded on Dodger catcher Johnny Roseboro's helmetless head with a baseball bat -- though I guess in this context simply "with a bat" would work -- and Marichal only got a nine-day suspension and a fine of $1,750.)

So for now, it looks like the Mount Rushmore of baseball's Dead Balls Era™ would be Manny, A-Rod, Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds.

Between 'em, there's 49 All-Star game appearances, 11 MVP awards and over half-a-billion in salaries.

Read More "Cheap Seats Daily: Nats Take Advantage of Odd Manny Out!" »

The Caps have been getting all the attention lately.

So at least one bit of last night's game report from Chinatown by Fox-5's 10 o'clock news gatherer Bob Barnard came as a shock.

The shocking portion:

"Wednesday was Rock the Red towel night at the Verizon Center, but it wasn't a sell out. That said, the tickets that were available weren't cheap, and those coming from the box office would set you back more than $100." (Italics added.)

What? Not a sellout? Every other news organization used some form or "sold-out Verizon Center" in their game stories.

Yet Barnard led viewers to believe he actually walked up to the ticket window.

Have we been duped? Are all the hockey-buzz stories bogus?

Tickets were available at the box office at game time for Game 1?

Good golly. I just went to the Caps website and tried ordering for Game 2.

It ain't sold out, either.

Sounds to me like it's time for another "Save the Caps" telethon!

For my column this week I traveled back to the darkest and funniest era in the history of the Washington Capitals: The Summer of '82.

Given how everything's coming up cherry blossoms for the Caps this season, it's hard to imagine the franchise being in the near-death state it was back then.

But the team headed into the 1982 offseason having not made the playoffs for the eighth straight year -- meaning the Capitals had yet to play a single postseason game in their history -- at a time when 16 of 21 NHL teams qualified for the playoffs each season.

And then Abe Pollin sort of lost his mind.

Read More "When the Washington Capitals Needed to Be Saved…" »

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...