I don't think I'd ever heard a college player booed by home fans like Vasquez was last year. It was like Juwan Howard at MCI Center right before he was run out of town. But Howard was getting paid eight-figures a year (!) to take that abuse.

Vasquez tried to get out of College Park, but yesterday he withdrew his name from the upcoming NBA draft.

Seems NBA scouts thought less of him than the Terps fans.

Seriously, do other college stars get booed at home?

***

Manny Acta lives to lose again!

The Nationals manager-for-now got to watch Elijah Dukes misplay two balls hit to the outfield by consecutive Yankees batters in the seventh inning, turning two outs into two Yankees runs and a lead into a loss in New York.

The .258 winning percentage means the Nats are now on a pace to beat the '62 Mets mark of 120 losses.

Why is Acta still around?

Well, much appreciated Cheap Seats Daily commenter Angry Al posted that Acta's going to stay no matter how much losing goes on, because the Lerners are so cheap they don't want to pay Acta and pay another manager.

I hadn't thought of that. But sounds like a plan!

***

Biggest winner in baseball yesterday: Barry Bonds.

How the hell are the feds gonna move forward  with their lame prosecution of Bonds for a couple dubious lies, now that Sammy Sosa's been outed?

Turns out Sosa's was among the 104 names on baseball's not-so-secret list of positive testers from 2003.

Sosa, Rafael Palmeiro and Roger Clemens all swore before Congress and country that they never ever never ever took anything. And The Man is going to let them walk, even though there's at least as much proof that they're PED-ophiles as we've seen against Bonds? No way. (A-Rod just lied to Katie Couric. That's fine.)

***

Biggest loser in baseball yesterday: Mike Lupica. The enthusiastic New York sportswriter's book "Summer of '98," sanctified that season's home run duel between Sosa and fellow chemical Popeye, Mark McGwire. "Summer" now stands alongside the Washington Post's 2003 editorial about Colin Powell's U.N. speech about all the WMDs in Iraq, a piece headlined "Irrefutable!," as the most ridiculable documents ever published.

(According to a review on Amazon, "Lupica gives both McGwire and Sosa their proper due.")

Please, Cal Ripken. Admit you used steroids! Baseball will never get past the Dead Balls Era™ until you do!

***

On the verge of the U.S. Open: Slate posts a video of what golf, a game where losers are allowed to blame camera clicks, would be like if basketball announcers called the action.

The real treat is hearing a few seconds of Johnny Most, the greatest play-by-play man in the history of history. And I'd forgotten how forced Dick Vitale's calls were.

The piece was conceived by my friend Josh Levin, Slate's sports editor and the godfather of tape-measure journalism (count the measurements!), and put together by his colleague Andy Bouve.

***

Story tips? Wanna Play the Feud? Tube amps for sale? Send to: cheapseats@washingtoncitypaper.com

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.

So who says crime doesn't pay?

And it ain't even close to over!

When Rodriguez was outed, we were told that the MLB's got a list of, what was it, 104 players who also tested positive for 'roids! And we don't yet know who they are!

Well, except for A-Rod. And now Manny.

That leaves 102 more names left to trickle out!

Wake up, people.

There's still only one way baseball can move forward: So, come on, Cal Ripken! America needs you to confess to taking steroids.

And, on a personal note, I miss the long ball.

And, oh right, the Nats came back from six down to beat the Dodgers, 11-8, giving L.A. it's first home loss of the season.

—-

Is it too early to call the Caps/Penguins series the Brawl for It All?

Well, whoever comes out of it will have an easier path to the Stanley Cup than they'd ever expected. The top seed in the West (San Jose) went out meekly in the first round to No. 8 Anaheim, and No. 2 Detroit had to win on the road last night just to knot up their series with the no-longer-Mighty Ducks.

Back on our side of the continent, meanwhile, the only team seeded above Washington and Pitt, Boston, is down a game to Carolina, who already upset New Jersey in the first round. (Awesome trivia: That's a Cheap Seats Daily record for number of teams referenced in a single paragraph without nicknames!)

But even beyond seedings, having the Bruins and Red Wings out of the way would do wonders in easing the minds of older fans.

Awesome Caps trivia: the team has only gotten past the second round of the Stanley Cup playoffs twice in the 35-year history of the franchise: In 1990, when they were swept by the Bruins in the Wales Conference finals, and in 1998, when they were swept by the Red Wings in the championship round.

Both sweepings caused a manic-to-depressive swing in the mood of all local puckheads. But this year just seems different.

Doesn't it?

—-

Speaking of dead balls and longshots winning: As the gelding Mine That Bird and other animals start shipping toward Pimlico for next weekend's 134th running of the Preakness — where another horse without testicles might be favored — let's all read about the end of the Freakness.

Tell me I'm not the only guy who mourns the demise of the Running of the Urinals.

Awesome horse racing trivia: This year's Kentucky Derby, despite having its only well-known entrant scratched on race day, brought in its biggest TV ratings since 1992.

But but but but: what about everybody telling me horse racing's dead and obsolete and totally analog!

So maybe there's hope for newspapers?

—-

Truthaboutit.net has a fabulous look back at one of many horrible trades the Bullets/Wizards have made in their history: Sending the 12th pick in the 1996 draft to Cleveland for Mark Price.

Price played seven games for the Bullets.

Awesome Trivia: The pick could have been used to draft Kobe Bryant.

—-

Update on DC United Stadium Rally:

Fans are gearing up for a "10-block march" from RFK to Lincoln Park.

But the team is providing buses to make the trip from RFK to Lincoln Park.

Uh oh. Two things I learned as a kid: rock smashes scissors, and bus fenders crush femurs.

Looks to me like the March/Ride's got a better chance of yielding a high broken leg count than a new stadium.

—-

THIS JUST IN: The Redskins yesterday made NO roster moves involving guys named Williams.

That means Vinny Cerrato and Dan Snyder are content to head into the 2009 training camp with just the Five Guys Named Williams they've already put on the roster this offseason: Jaison Williams, Mike Williams, Roydell Williams, Eddie Williams and Edwin Williams.

Cheap Seats Daily will TOTALLY keep you updated on the Williamses.

—-

Tomorrow night at the DC Armory, the Cherry Blossom Bombshells skate against the DC DemonCats for the 2009 DC Rollergirls Championship. But you real sports fans already knew that...

—-

Story tips? Wanna Play the Feud? Tube amps for sale? Send to: cheapseats@washingtoncitypaper.com

Almost. There's still one holdup: Cal Ripken hasn't been nailed yet.

Every other boy of summer that any kid of the 1990s and beyond ever looked up to has already been ruined during the federal government's bizarre 'roid raids.

Cal's the last man standing.

Ripken always said he cared deeply about the game of baseball. If you meant it, Cal, please come forward now and confess.

Make something up if you have to. Just say you watched your pal Brady Anderson grow overnight from a base-stealing, punch-and-judy hitter into a mini-McGwire, and when Anderson nailed 50 homers in 1996, you started putting things in your body.

Who wouldn't believe that? You don't even have to say what it was you took, Cal. Nobody does anymore!

Then we can all move on.

Until we exhume Babe Ruth's body. That dude HAD to be juiced.

In the sales pitch on his personal Web site, Canseco points out that "Only two players have been able to accomplish this since, Alex Rodriguez and Barry Bonds."

Quite a club. Canseco, Rodriguez and Bonds will someday be viewed as the Murderers Row of the Dead Balls Era™. (Get used to it!)

Perhaps these items have been on sale for some time, or Canseco's not a student of the game: Ex-Nat Alfonso Soriano pledged the 40/40 frat in 2006.

BTW: The asking price for Canseco's detritus is $9,995.00.