Sure, the Nats season ended a while ago. But it makes sense that the Lerners would reach out while local sports fans are planning their sports ticket budgets and deleting Dan Snyder and Redskins.

But this Nationals ad is horrible.

After an all-glowing recap of the 2009 season -- two of these three made the cut: Zimmerman/Dunn had big homer totals, Stephen Stasburg signed, and the Nats had THE WORST RECORD IN ALL OF BASEBALL -- the ad copy climaxes with "[W]e can all see why Washington, DC is truly becoming the home of the National Pastime in the Nation's Capital."

Washington, DC is the home of baseball in the Nation's Capital? Who knew?

And who wrote that?

***

WUSA is also kicking the Redskins when they're down.  Advertisements for the local CBS affiliate that ran during the Ravens game yesterday urged Skins fans to "sound off " about the team.

"We won't throw away your signs!" said the voiceover.

Ouchie wouchie! Didn't you WUSA guys used to be covert "partners" with Snyder and help him out with all his infomercials? Guess the contract's up.

(AFTER THE JUMP: Reebok boasts of its butt-enhancement powers? Shannon Sharpe goes after the Redskins? Dan Marino goes after the Redskins? 66 percent of CBS viewers go after the Redskins? Dan Marino says Bill Cowher ain't gonna go for the Redskins? Heath Shuler has MVP award taken away from him by Politico? Ethics panel still gunning for Shuler? Chest bumping on the sidelines can get you suspended?)

***

Another commercial during the Ravens broadcast that showed the decline of Western Civilization came from Reebok, which is trying now to sell shoes using the motto: "Better legs and a better butt with every step."

***

The national folks got into the Skins-kicking swing of things, too: CBS pre-game show panelist Shannon Sharpe showed up on the set wearing a bag over his head, and carrying a sign that said "Fire Dan, In Bill We Trust" with an arrow pointing at fellow panelist and likely target of Dan Snyder affection Bill Cowher.

Sharpe's get up inspired another CBS pundit, Dan Marino, to jump in that because of the disastrous managment in Washington, the Skins won't be able to sign a "big time" coach.

Marino didn't mention Cowher by name, but the implication was clear. Given the high stakes, Marino wouldn't have said that without consulting Cowher. Cowher just smiled after Marino spoke.

Guess that means The Countdown to Cowher™ won't ever make me rich.

Also, 66 percent of the respondents to a CBS poll about what ails the Redskins said the biggest problem is the owner.

***

Heath Shuler almost had a good week. On Tuesday, Shuler (D-NC) led the Congressional football team to an overtime win over the Capitol Police squad in a charity football game at the DC Armory. Shuler was 29-45 with five TDs.

"It kind of brings back old times,"  Shuler told the Asheville Citizen-Times, his hometown paper. By "old times," he means his days playing QB with the Swain County High School Maroon Devils, not the Redskins.

For his performance, the Citizen-Times reported, Shuler was named the game's MVP.

But maybe the lawmen will laugh last. While Shuler was celebrating his finest football moments in DC, the Washington Post reported that investigators with a House of Representatives ethics panel are still looking into a land deal Shuler was involved in back in Knoxville, where he was once a superstar with the University of Tennessee and later a real estate honcho.

From the Post piece:

Before he was elected to Congress in 2006, Shuler invested in a real estate development called the Cove at Blackberry Ridge near Knoxville. The investment is worth from $5 million to $25 million, according to his financial disclosure reports. In August 2008, the [Knoxville] News-Sentinel reported that the TVA gave the Cove waterfront rights to build a boat dock in exchange for other land the real estate venture owned. The swap was made while Shuler sat on a House transportation subcommittee that oversaw the operations of the TVA, an entity chartered by Congress to manage the Tennessee Valley and its resources.

Worse yet, the Post originally misspelled his name ("Schuler") in the story's headline, and closed out the story with: "A call to Schuler seeking comment was not returned."

But the harshest blow came in Politico, which reported that Rep. Anthony Wiener (D-NY), and not Shuler, was actually named the charity football game's most valuable player.

And, yes, Politico also misspelled his name. From Politico's game write-up: “Heath Schuler has the offense humming after a sluggish beginning,” an announcer at the game said.

(More bad news on the Shuler beat late last week, Benjie Shuler, Heath Shuler's brother and former business partner in Heath Shuler Real Estate, what was once a powerhouse Knoxville agency, declared bankruptcy. In court filings, Benjie Shuler, who also was a reciever at the University of Tennessee while Heath was QB, listed assets of $265,000 and liabilities of over $10 million.)

***

Sunday's Washington Post has a maddening story about a superstar running back from Broad Run High School facing a suspension from an upcoming playoff game for chest bumping teammates after touchdowns. One of the chest bumps occurred on the sideline, the Post reported. Any player who gets two personal foul calls has to sit out a game. Broad Run's next game will come in the playoffs. Broad Run coaches have appealed the suspension, and Northern Virginia athletic officials have the opportunity to reverse the call.

Perhaps some facts have been twisted as the tale made its way from the sideline to the Sunday paper.

But if that story's legit, if a chest bump on the sidelines after a touchdown will indeed ruin a player's season, whoever made that call should never be allowed to work with kids again.

***

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"Nah, it ain't enjoyable," Haynesworth said.

Which means one thing: Big Al didn't bet the Cheap Seats Daily Double™!

Because had he followed Cheap Seats Daily's Tout #1 and bet this month's mortgage on the Ravens, laying three points, he would have won. And if he'd have followed Cheap Seats Daily's Tout #2 and bet next month's mortgage on the under (31 1/2), he'd have won that, too.

Haynesworth would be rich!

***

Lindsay Czarniak showed up during the game broadcast and the post-game show wearing a licensed Redskins shirt, logo and all. That makes sense, since she was working for the Redskins Broadcasting Network, owned by Dan Snyder.

But Czarniak was carrying a WRC microphone. She took off the Redskins costume and put on a blue fluffy top for her 11 o'clock news segment from Baltimore, so clearly her superiors have some inkling about the appearance of a conflict of interest.

Why is this dual role allowed? Czarniak works for the news department of an NBC affiliate. But she works for Dan Snyder, too. For the ethics police, other than the import of the subject matter, what's the difference between Czarniak's Redskins deal and Armstrong Williams taking money from the Bush White House?

(AFTER THE JUMP: Why not have Redskins salons? Joe Theismann, musicologist? Will Ladell Bettis ever get over it? What's Cora Masters Barry trying to get away with now? Karl Swanson writes in? The Tom Boswell Curse lives on?)

If the Washington Post hosted a salon where it promised sports reporters and Redskins would be available to anybody who ponied up big money, would that bother anybody?

Ain't sports news news?

***

Jim Zorn, talking with Czarniak's co-worker Larry Michael of the Redskins Broadcasting Network about fumbles and penalties and assorted miscues after his team's shutout loss: "All these things were like bullets hitting me in the chest."

***

This morning, early in the debut of "The Joe Theismann Show" on Dan Snyder's WTEM, host Theismann came out of commercial with a song from what he called "one of my favorite bands in the world, Journey." As the music faded he advised fans, "Don't stop believing!"

Later, also coming out of a break to Elvis Presley's "Hound Dog," Theismann said, "I love music. Elvis, Michael Jackson. The next one to be in that [class] is going to be Justin Timberlake. Justin is such an amazing talent. As was Brian Orakpo last night."

Smooove...

***

Prediction: The Bettis jersey debacle will be referenced much more than any play in last night's game, and remembered much longer.

***

Redskins and Dan Snyder spokesman Karl Swanson wrote in to dispute wording I used here yesterday when describing Snyder's sneaky parking surcharge at concerts and other non-Redskins events held at FedExField, which he owns. While all other venues in the area include parking charges in the advertised price of the ticket, Snyder adds it as a line item on the invoice on top of the advertised price. This scheme can mean an extra $700,000 for Snyder for U2's show next month. I wrote: "And this is with zero overhead."

Swanson, via email, responded:

Regarding your City Desk post of today, contrary to your claim "this is with zero overhead" there is significant overhead in the form of parking attendants, security, police, and post-event cleaning.

What I wrote was not clear. I meant that adding a line-item on an invoice costs Snyder nothing, not that operating a parking service has no overhead.

***

Cora Masters Barry got an eviction notice yesterday from the Southeast Tennis and Learning Center because, according to the Washington Post, the corporate registration of her organization, the Recreation Wish List Committee, had lapsed. She's got 30 days to vacate the building, according to reports.

In a puffy WRC interview aired last night, Masters Barry, who only talks to the media when she needs 'em, acted like she was crying.

And Masters Barry, who's as good an actor as her husband and has as many lives, whined to the Washington Post, "This has been my life's work!"

That's not really true. Her life's work also includes a stint as commissioner of DC's Boxing and Wrestling Commission. At the time, she was known as Cora Wilds.

In that job, which former members of the commission say she got only because of her relationship to her future husband, then-Mayor Marion Barry, Masters Barry made the DC boxing scene a national laughingstock. Her only accomplishment came in earning a federal conviction for defrauding the city and its residents.

Masters Barry was boxing commissioner from 1980 to 1987. A 1987 investigation by the Washington Post showed that while on the job Masters Barry had taken 25 trips around the globe, to spots such as Venice and Aruba, to watch championship fights. She flew first class despite city regulations that required coach for business travel. Masters said her back hurt too much to fly coach.

But Masters Barry couldn't explain away all the receipts that showed she'd been illegally double-billing both the DC government and the boxing commission for all her travels. She was convicted in federal court in 1988 for the fraud.

In her seven years as commissioner, for all the championship bouts she flew to abroad on our dime times two, Masters Barry never brought a single title fight to DC.

The one big match that was scheduled during Masters Barry's reign, a bout between Michael Spinks and Eddie Mustafa Muhammad for Spinks’ undisputed light heavyweight crown in July 1983, was cancelled hours before the bell was to ring because of, depending on who you believe, either Muhammad's weight or a problem with the scales used at the weigh-in, which were provided by Masters Barry.

York Van Nixon, a DC boxing commissioner before and during Masters Barry's reign, told me last year: “Boxing still hasn’t come back here from what she did to it. It never will.”

***

Update on the The Tom Boswell Curse:

Nats get crushed in Cincinnati. No runs, two hits.

Nats' record with Boswell on vacation: 14-6.

Nats' record since Boswell returned from vacation: 0-3.

Good thing it's betting football season!

***

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Snyder now adds a parking surcharge to the cost of every ticket sold at non-football events at FedExField. All other venues around town put parking charges, if there are any, in the advertised price of the ticket.

Snyder doesn't. He throws it at the consumer at the point of purchase, as a line item on the invoice that can't be turned down by the buyer. For Paul McCartney, where around 60,000 folks attended and there was a $10 per ticket parking charge, whether they intended to use FedEx parking services or not, that added an additional $600,000 to Snyder's bank account.

For U2's upcoming show at FedEx, the forced charge is $8 per ticket; if that show sells out, the add-on charge will mean more than $700,000 sneaky dollars for Snyder. And this is with zero overhead, unless you count the cost to his reputation, which really can't be harmed around here at this point.

Snyder's the king of parking schemes, as outlined in the story, and a godfather of the sneaky surcharge: He's the guy, remember, who after buying the Redskins took a ticket price that had historically included state and local taxes, and then added a new charge equal to the state and local taxes onto the old ticket price, but left the old price as the face value of Skins tickets -- just so he could act like he wasn't really raising the price of tickets!

So where's the outrage?

***

Betting Football season begins tonight!

(AFTER THE JUMP: Cheap Seats Daily gives you tonight's winner? "Biggest Loser" back in play? Which pregame show are you going to listen to? What's the meanest sport? Is there a Curse of Tom Boswell?)

Albert Haynesworth and Clinton Portis won't play for the Skins. What's left of Mike "Biggest Loser" Williams, who's down more than 100 pounds from his weight of a year ago, will suit up.

On paper it looks like the Ravens defense has more scoring potential than the Skins offense. Other than maybe to root for Williams, the game's not worth watching.

Unless you bet on it! So let's bet!

Skins are 3-point underdogs to Baltimore. The Over/Under is 31 1/2.

Put this month's mortgage and then some on the Ravens and next month's on the under.*

***

New sportstalker WJFK is having its own pregame broadcast for the preseason opener. To jab the owner of competing sportstalker WTEM, the flagship of the Redskins broadcasting network, 'JFK is calling its program "the Unauthorized Pregame Show."

'TEM's owner is, of course, Dan Snyder.

***

There's a professional lacrosse team that calls DC home: The Washington Bayhawks of Major League Lacrosse. The 'Hawks finished fifth in the six-team league in the just-completed 2009 season, which wasnt good enough to make the postseason tournament.

But, this area remains the lacrosse epicenter, so the MLL has put all playoff games in our market. The semis and championship match will be played next weekend, August 22-23, at Navy Marine Corps Stadium in Annapolis.

Back to me: When I was a kid in the mid-1970s I used to go to the Capital Centre to watch the Maryland Arrows of the National Lacrosse League, the first DC pro lacrosse franchise.

These were the most violent sporting events I ever attended. The team's mascot was a cartoon thug name Crunch Crosscheck and its slogan was "You gotta be mean to play box lacrosse!" Its radio commercials featured a faux endorsement from Attila the Hun. (The Arrows marketing team included a young AU graduate named Andy Dolich, now the chief operating officer of the San Francisco 49ers.)

The games lived down billing, too. You were pretty much guaranteed a bench-clearing brawl every night, and the situation in the grandstands was even bloodier. A gang of older guys from my neighborhood went to every game dressed up in the same outfits, topped by yellow and black CAT hats, from heavy equipment maker Caterpillar. They called themselves the CAT Patrol and they'd fight any willing partner at Arrows games. They never had trouble finding willing partners, and one guy even jumped the glass to throw punches with players from the Philadelphia Wings.

The league only lasted two seasons. The memories endure...

***

Could the Nats sudden downfall be blamed on The Boswell Curse?

The Nats turnaround began on July 21, sparked, we think, by Cheap Seats Daily's proclamation of Guaranteed Win Night and declaring "Thunderation" as the team's unofficial official fight song.

But, maybe it's all about Boswell.

You can look it up: Boswell went on vacation or otherwise stopped writing after a column that ran July 20.

The Nats Great Turnaround of 2009 began the next day.

Boswell's vacation ended or he otherwise started writing on August 10, when he typed up a column with the line "The Nats aren't just winning. They're clubbing people." That night the Nats get shellacked in Atlanta. And superstar in waiting Jordan Zimmermann announced he'd be getting Tommy John surgery and would be out for A YEAR AND HALF.

Last night, Day 2 of Boswell back on the job: Another shellacking in Atlanta. Nyjer Morgan gets picked off to end the game, even with his team down by four and the meat of the lineup behind him.

How pre-Turnaround is THAT?

Go back on vacation, Boz. Or write that the Nats will lose 14 of their next 20! And insist that the Lerners won't pony up for Stephen Strasburg.

Yeah, especially the Strasburg column! Please!

Good thing it's football season!

***

*Don't really bet the mortgages, dumbass....Unless you really really need the money!

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Turns out that since Dan Snyder started calling the shots around here, letting the Redskins beat you has become a surer way to get your hands on a Lombardi Trophy than having Tom Brady as your quarterback.

Snyder took control of the team in the summer of 1999, too late to have any influence until the millennium.

The Redskins have had only two winning seasons in this century.

Yet five times since 2000, a team the Skins beat went on to win the Big Game® that season. (Brady, who came into the league the same year, only has brought Bill Belichick three Lombardis.)

Before winning Super Bowl XXXV in 2000, for example, the Baltimore Ravens were shamed by the Skins, 10-3.

The Redskins then beat future Super Bowl XVII champs Tampa Bay, 40-10, in the 2002 preseason. A year later, Brady and the New England Patriots fell to the Redskins, 20-17, at FedEx before going on to win Super Bowl XXXVIII. The Redskins topped the Pittsburgh Steelers, 17-10, in a 2005 preseason game at home; Pittsburgh used the humiliation to whup the Seattle Seahawks in Super Bowl XL. And a year ago, the Skins beat the Giants, 22-10, late in the season at the Meadowlands. The Giants used their self-disgust to shock the world by beating the undefeated Patriots in Super Bowl XLII.

Over the weekend, the Anti-Curse™ proved itself scary strong.

The Philadelphia Eagles, embarrassed twice by the Redskins this year, beat the favored and rested Giants, who had whupped the Skins twice in the 2008 regular season. And, the Arizona Cardinals, beaten by the Skins early in the season in Raljon, crushed the NFC's #2 seed, the Carolina Panthers, a team that beat Washington, 47-3, in the preseason.

The Philly and Cards wins guarantee a huge test for the Anti-Curse™ in the Big Game® : Both Baltimore and Pittsburgh destroyed the Redskins in regular season contests.

So the Big Game® is now sure to feature a matchup of Skins Vanquishers vs. Vanquished.

Anybody who followed last week's tout to put a paycheck on Florida and lay the points, and then followed City Desk's orders to put the mortgage on the Eagles and Cardinals straight up, now has two paychecks and four mortgages (parlay implied!) to play with.

This week's giveaway: No sense bothering with a bet on the Cards/Eagles matchup, since they both have Redskins defeats going for them. No, instead let it all ride on a futures bet on the NFC in the Big Game®.

You can't afford not to.

Both these squads got beat by the Redskins this year --- the Cardinals in Week 3 and the Eagles in Weeks 5 & 16.

In recent seasons, there aren't many harbingers of Super Bowl success as trusty as taking a whupping from the lowly Skins.

You can look it up.

In 2000, the Redskins beat the Baltimore Ravens, 10-3 during the regular season. The Ravens went on to beat the Giants in Super Bowl XXXV.

In 2002, the beginning of the Spurrier Era, the Redskins beat Tampa Bay, 40-10, in preseason. The Bucs went on to crush the Oakland Raiders in Super Bowl XVII.

In 2003, the Skins whupped the New England Patriots, 20-17, at FedEx. The Pats went on to win Super Bowl XXXVIII.

In 2005, the Redskins beat the Pittsburgh Steelers, 17-10, in preseason at home. The Steelers crushed the Seattle Seahawks in Super Bowl XL.

And last season, the Skins beat the Giants, 22-10, on the road in Week 15. The Giants upset the undefeated Patriots in Super Bowl XLII.

Luckily for Eagles fans, the Giants whupped the Skins in both regular season encounters this year.

And, Phoenix could be on Easy Street, since the Carolina Panthers absolutely destroyed Washington, 47-3, in August in a preseason game.

Vegas, are you listening?