Another Redskins game that ain't a sellout. Another Redskins game that won't be blacked out.

The graphic above is from the latest installment of the now regular email blasts that precede every home game.

But no matter what your head tells you, remember: Dan Snyder says the Redskins have a waiting list of "over 200,000" names of folks who want tickets but can't get them.

And remember this, as your watching the Skins/Eagles game on local TV and see a sea of empty seats: The NFL has a blackout policy!

What's going on around here is sorta amazing, ain't it? A "Monday Night Football" game against the hated Eagles — a rematch of the Body Bag Game opponents! — and Skins management feels it has to lie ("visiting team returns," "limited number," etc.) to try to get folks to take tickets?

How low has Snyder taken the operation? Well, if the Redskins were a dance, you could lay the limbo pole on the floor and Snyder could still sneak his franchise under it.

***

Vinny Cerrato opened his radio station on Dan Snyder's sportstalker, WTEM, declaring he wanted to be "perfectly clear" about some things: Jim Zorn is the Skins head coach for the rest of the season "and hopefully into the future." Sure, "perfectly clear" is a Nixon tag line. And Cerrato sounded crazy while he delivered it.

(AFTER THE JUMP: Snyder doesn't talk to the media? Did anybody tell the New York Times? Snyder tells Brian Mitchell he's sorry? Brian Mitchell believes it? Debbie Yow wants you to call her Dr. Yow? She's a doctor? Really? Charlie Brotman can tell stories? Ron Jaworski doesn't blame Jim Zorn, either? Why do races get such scary names?)

Cerrato also was manic when he said Snyder doesn't have to come out and address the mess he's made of what was once among the top shelf of NFL franchises but is now among the most despised. "Dan has never spoken to the media for a decade now," Cerrato says.

Huh. I thought Snyder posed for photos and talked to the New York Times a few weeks ago.

***

Brian Mitchell has been declawed. In an interview during the "John Thompson Show" on Dan Snyder's sportstalker, WTEM, Mitchell said he'd just had a conversation with Snyder, and that the owner apologized for cutting Mitchell in 2000 to make room for Deion Sanders.

Mitchell, who ripped Snyder brutally on WTEM for a couple years before Snyder bought the station and fired him, sounded genuinely touched by the words of contrition.

Then again, Snyder needs Mitchell right now a lot more than Mitchell needs Snyder. So during the Eagles game this Monday, Snyder is installing Mitchell into the FedExField "ring of fame" or "hall of stars," or whatever the hell that list of names at the stadium is called now,

Mitchell's appearance on the field should be, like so much about the "Monday Night Football" outing, very odd. Until recently, hardcore Skins fans thought of Mitchell as a turncoat because he was so tough on his former team after Snyder cut him.

But the way the Skins have played this season, what once seemed like hate now just sounds like the truth.  And the fans are so united in despising Snyder, any enemy of the owner is a friend of theirs. So cheering Mitchell is the same as booing Snyder.

That means Mitchell's appearance might provide the only cheers from Skins fans all night.

***

Before Cerrato's desperate announcement, Rick Snider of the Examiner wrote what everybody's feeling: Jim Zorn ain't gonna make it through the season. Snider's piece is mean and fun, like so much of the Redskins coverage these days.

***

Ron Jaworski went on "The Tony Kornheiser Show" to talk about the upcoming telecast of "Monday Night Football," where Jaworski still works.

Asked about the home team's bizarre off-field behaviors in recent weeks, Jaworski said that he'd "gone through every single play" of Redskins games this season, and came to the conclusion that everybody knows:  "It's not about the play-calling."

But: Jaworski picked the Skins to cover the spread.

(If I quote one more radio interview, I'm going to have to pay royalties to the Great Steinographer...)

***

Debbie Yow's official University of Maryland bio refers to her as "Dr. Yow." I didn't know she was a doctor. And, after reading the bio, I still don't. It says she's got a masters degree from Liberty University and "a doctorate (honorus causa) from the United States Sports Academy and an honorary doctorate for professional achievement from Elon University."

Sounds here like Yow just showed up and sat on a stage to get her ceremonial sheepskin. So why would she use "Dr. Yow" as a title? Any psychologists out there explain these behaviors?

***

Charlie Brotman's PR firm, Brotman-Winter-Fried Communications, held its 40th anniversary party last night. I've stolen a bunch of stories from them over the years, with a drag racer with a colostomy bag and a family that makes its living pulling each other's hair coming to mind first.

At the party, I got Brotman to start talking about the old days, which ain't hard, and in no time flat he told tales about picking up Ted Williams at a local hotel and taking him to a real estate extravaganza in 1969 and working with Ray Leonard before the Thomas Hearns rematch and getting Nixon to sign a ball at RFK (which Brotman still has in his office) and bringing in Tiger Woods when he was 16 years old for a charity function and so on and so on. What a life. I could have listened all night, but Charlie had other duties. He's a DC treasure.

***

I got a press release from Brotman's firm today about something called the Gynecologic Cancer Half-Marathon, scheduled for DC on Nov. 8. I gotta say, as noble as the cause is, the race's name is jarring. When's the Scurvy Run-Walk? Or the Crushed By a Metrobus 10K? Or the Trust Me This Is Really the Worst Way to Die Tri?

'Course, I wouldn't have noticed the press release if the event were called the Life Is Great Race. And no matter the name, I ain't entering. No pain, no pain!

***

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As if vending beside urinals at Redskins games wasn't viral enough: Jennifer Donelan of WJLA put BeerInTheBathroomsGate™ on her station's evening news, and even took a few seconds to give Washington City Paper kudos for blowing the lid off Snyder's newest revenue stream.

Here's Donelan's WJLA piece. Wait til the 50-second mark. Don't take a pee break or beer break or both, or you'll miss my work. And remember: TV puts on 10 pounds, and I've been watching a lot of TV lately.

Otherwise, I think I nailed my line. Thinking ahead: "I'd like to thank-thank...both my readers-readers...and the Academy-Academy..."

Reading between the lines of Donelan's copy, it looks like the Redskins fired the beer man caught on tape dispensing beer in an environment teeming with second-hand poop. A commenter on City Desk yesterday wrote that he was a vendor at FedExField, and he found the bathroom vending "disgusting." But he warned Redskins patrons who are "worried about sanitation" that they should really "stay far away from the lemonade."

Yucky!

***

Sticking with local media, via DCRTV: Two more guys fired by Dan Snyder will have a radio show to bash their former boss. WTOP will give John Riggins and Frank Herzog at least a tryout for a weekly show called "Ask Riggo." (The first installment of Riggins/Herzog is going off the air as we type. "We should do this again," Riggins said to Herzog at sign-off.)

(AFTER THE JUMP: Does everybody who despises Dan Snyder get a radio show? Will Laveranues Coles get a program? Timmy Smith's out of jail? Dan Snyder benched Jason Campbell? Jeff George who? Dan Snyder will put Jason Campbell back on the field Monday night?  Night of Quarterbacks what?)

Herzog lost his 25-year gig as Redskins announcer a few years ago to make room in the booth for Dan Snyder's sidekick, Larry Michael. Riggins had a radio show on Snyder's embarrassing Triple-X sportstalk network, but got canned by Snyder last year when he bought WTEM-AM, a station that could actually be heard in DC.

Riggins, meanwhile, has been brutal on Snyder and Vinny Cerrato in recent Youtube monologues.

Riggins and Herzog join an army of folks who've been grinding their axes with Snyder over the public airwaves. Brian Mitchell, who crushes Skins management on Comcast and during Sunday night spots on WUSA-9 TV, has been fired not once but twice by Snyder: The first firing came in 2000, when Mitchell, the NFL's all-time leader in kickoff and punt return yards, got booted off the Redskins to make space for one of the owner's early jock sniffees, Deion Sanders.

Then Mitchell got canned by Snyder yet again last year when his former boss bought the sportstalk station WTEM, where Mitchell had been a co-host of the "John Thompson Show."

And there's LaVar Arrington, the afternoon drive-time star at WJFK, a rival to Snyder's sportstalker, WTEM. Arrington was once an owner's pet, but has been blasting Snyder since the end of the 2003 season, when he went through a contract negotiation with the Redskins owner. Arrington claims that Snyder pulled a bait-and-switch during negotiations, in the process eliminating a huge bonus that Arrington says he was promised.

The turning point in the player/owner talks, Arrington said a year later, came when Snyder asked him to sign a contract that had "666" written somewhere on it.

“[M]e and my agent, we are Christian people and we were alluding to the fact that there were three sixes in the total of the contract,” Arrington told FoxSports interviewer James Brown. “Three sixes, I think if you are a Christian you know what three sixes means. It is the mark of the devil.”

Arrington then asked Snyder to crunch the numbers in his contract a little bit to “get those three sixes off.”  The team did so, and Arrington say he signed the contract without re-reading the re-worked contract. He later discovered that the way Snyder got rid of the "666" was by removing the $6.5 million signing bonus Arrington says he was promised.

Arrington has had a lot to say about Snyder, all of it brutal, ever since.

The FCC would have to open up some more frequencies if everybody screwed by Snyder were to get a radio show, of course. But if I could pick, I'd like to see Laveranues Coles get a forum where he can tell that story about Snyder threatening to ruin his career and turn him "into Terry Glenn" during a nasty contract negotiation. Recap: After Snyder threatened to send a "flat-screen" television to Coles' house so he could watch football at home, since he'd make sure that Coles wouldn't be playing the game anywhere if he didn't play along with Redskins management, Coles got his wish and was traded to the New York Jets.

***

Timmy Smith talks about the Super Bowl, not about prison. Yes, Skins fans, the team used to be in the Super Bowl pretty regular.

***

A moderator at Extremeskins.com reports that Dan Snyder and Vinny Cerrato left the owner's booth at halftime and didn't come back. Jason Campbell got benched at that time.

Did Jurgensen's cigar smoking buddy, Snyder, personally put JC on the bench? Snyder wouldn't personally get involved in lineup changes, and force a coach to to accommodate Jurgensen's whimsy, would he?
Oh, right! Jeff George who?

But now reports are that Jason Campbell will be back in the starting lineup for Monday's game with the Philadelphia Eagles. Zorn, however, wouldn't confirm that, as if he's not making that decision, either. So maybe Snyder is calling this shot, too? He wouldn't want Campbell back in the lineup, would he?

Oh, right! Snyder's still trying to sell his Night of Quarterbacks!

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.

The plaintiffs have had some victories on the merits of their case so far — in 1999 the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office ruled that the handle was indeed too offensive and canceled the Redskins marks.

But the team appealed, saying that the Native Americans, who began their litigation in the early 1990s, didn't file their trademark challenges in time. So even if the team's name is too offensive, it's irrelevant because the legal shot clock already went off.

And the Redskins technical argument has now been upheld. Clearly, that's the right decision. Because one thing everybody should agree on is: America is a nation of laws. Well, if you ignore all that land stealing and those human-roundups and attempted genocide of native peoples, we're a nation of laws. Kinda sorta...

(Whenever these stories pop up I seek out the best rock song ever written about the offensiveness of the Redskins name: "If You Own the Washington Redskins, You're a Cock," by the great Atom and His Package. The message predates Dan Snyder.)

***

On a happier football note: Women's football has arrived!

But not because of the launch of the Lingerie League. No, women's football has arrived because there's now a ranking system just for the football ladies, put together by something called the Massey Ratings.

And our DC Divas are atop the poll of 49 teams with the IWFL

The undefeated Divas had the No. 2 rated offense and the top rated defense in the land heading into Saturday's game in New York.

DC beat the No. 8 ranked NY Sharks, 21-7, so the No. 1 overall ranking should live another week.

Get on the Divas' bandwagon now!

***

So women have rankings...What's the next step for acceptance?

Betting lines!

Why not? The state of Delaware very quietly passed laws allowing sports betting.

Major sports leagues, mostly the NFL and NCAA, have for decades bullied jurisdictions into not allowing sports books, so Las Vegas has been the only town in the game.

But Delaware didn't have much of anything to lose — no pro franchises, only a couple major college teams — so they put it through. The University of Delaware apparently won't be hosting any lower-tier NCAA playoff games from now on.

There's still some legal issues to work through, but if Vegas-style sports books show up in Delaware, the WHOLE WORLD could change.

All the states that waited too long to get into slots — Maryland, anybody? — should try to get in early on sports betting and balance their budgets with the bucks of all those dumbasses who think they can beat a betting line.

They can't. But why not have sports books everywhere? The pursuit of happiness should include the chance to make a futures bet on the Capitals or Redskins.

And the Divas!

***

Speaking of betting on women in sports: The Preakness!

Nobody showed up to the infield, thanks to those anti-running-of-the-urinals fascists who banned BYOB at the track.

But what a race! Let's hope for a Rachel Alexandra/Mine That Bird rematch in three weeks!

(Alas, the educated picks John Scheinman gave Cheap Seats Daily readers FOR FREE on Friday didn't come in. But anybody who boxed the Purely Sentimental Rachel/Bird combo passed along in the same space cashed an exacta ticket worth $39.20.)

***

I went to Pimlico on Friday, for the running of the Black Eyed Susan Stakes and to get a look at the contenders for the big race a day later.

Mine That Bird looked very small in his stall, noticeably smaller than filly Rachel Alexandra and all the other horses he was sharing a barn with. So I was rooting for the little guy against the big girl. Not just because he's small, but because he's a gelding; that means there's no stud career in his future, so he could be racing for a while.

If Rachel Alexandra was an ungelded boy, the horse would surely be retired right after the Belmont. But he's a she, and there's not as much value for her in retirement, since top stallions can make babies day after day — Maryland stud hero Allen's Prospect once fertilized 120 mares in a single year –  while Rachel can have just one child at a time.

The big buzz on the backstretch was that former Pimlico owner Joe DeFrancis, who grew up in Maryland racing — his father Frank is a legend — might buy back the track from current owner Magna Entertainment, which is now in Chapter 11 reorganization and looks like a goner, at an upcoming bankruptcy auction.

Sell high, buy back low. In the '00s, that's the formula for success.

***

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That means Mitchell's now ex-employer was Dan Snyder.

The same guy has fired the same guy before.

In 2000, Snyder's first offseason of running the Redskins, Mitchell, the team's all-time punt return and kickoff return leader, was let go.

In Thom Loverro's 2007 book, Hail Victory: An Oral History of the Washington Redskins, Mitchell insinuated he got run out of town because he was disliked by Snyder's favorite Redskin, Darrell Green.

That's sorta interesting again, because the owner's pet these days, Clinton Portis, got in a big to-do over the airwaves with Mitchell last year over things the host said about his attitude and play.

Portis and Snyder were recently spotted dining together at N9NE Steakhouse in Vegas.

Vegas!

And now Snyder banishes Mitchell again!

Hmmm.

***

Speaking of the underworld: Pittsburgh Penguins winger Miroslav Satan assisted on Games 4's winning goal versus the Capitals on Friday, and helped out on Pitt's first score a day later.

I only bring this up so I can also relate some Awesome Trivia about Satan: His player number in Yahoo sports is... 666!

You can look it up!

Sure, the guy's been around the NHL for 13 years and every beelzebubby joke's been made. (Even the copy editors of the Washington Times, a sectarian paper if there ever was, couldn't resist while headlining this morning's wire story about the Caps/Pens series.)

But hell if the name's not still funny!

And check out his official photo! Tell me Satan's not central casting for Satan!

So when I was reading the wire stories about Friday's game and saw that "Satan feathered the puck through Erskine's legs," of course I giggled. (Hilarious as "Satan" surely is in print, he's "Shuh-tan" on radio and TV. Not so funny.)

"Satan"'s one of those names you can't not giggle at if you went to seventh grade. Like J.J. Putz of the Mets, or D'Cody Fagg of the Florida State Seminoles, or Jimmy Douchebag of the Oklahoma City Thunder. (OK, there is no Jimmy Douchebag on OK City. But if there were, I could at least name one player on that team.)

Now back to Fagg: It seemed to me that when he was at FSU no announcer ever called him just "Fagg." Instead of, say, using Cosell's famousest verbiage, "Watch that little Fagg run!" the play-by-play was always something like "Catch by D'Cody Fagg!" or "Dropped by D'Cody Fagg!" or "Touchdown, Florida State!"

The guy had a fine college career, providing me and every other former seventh-grader with all sorts of giggles. But he went undrafted last month, probably a combination of injuries and his surname.

The Buffalo Bills, clearly the most open-minded NFL squad, have signed Fagg as a free-agent.

Now back to Satan's work: Caps fans are mad at defenseman Tom Poti knocking a pass from the Penguins' Evgeni Malkin past his own goalie in overtime to give the Pittsburgh Game 5.

But look at the replay: If Poti doesn't go horizontal, Malkin's pass gets banged in by Sidney Crosby, standing solo in front of a half-open net.

Imagine the depression here if Crosby got the winner.

***

Barack Obama never announced who's going to win the Stanley Cup.

But the President's March Madness pool pick came in, and today the NCAA champions fromthe University of North Carolina will get a meet-and-greet with the Tout-in-Chief at the White House.

***

Speaking of post-racial: I don't know if I thought I'd live long enough to see a black president. But I'm sure I never thought I'd live long enough to see the top eight heavyweights be white guys.

You can look it up!

'Course, seven of the eight whiteys atop the world rankings are Eastern Europeans.

And next month, the highest rated black heavyweight, current No. 9 David Haye, fights Wladimir Klitschko in Germany for the IBF and WBO titles. Haye is also a Euro, a Brit who trains in the Turkish Republic of North Cyprus.

Where have you gone, Joe Louis?

I mulled the racial state of boxing while watching Manny Pacquiao destroy Ricky Hatton last week from Vegas on pay-per-view.

I didn't think I'd ever seen a PPV with no black fighter in the main event.

And here were Jay-Z and Denzel and a ton of mostly black celebs at ringside, having paid silly money to watch grown men pound each other.

We've come a long way, baby!

(And, my god, what a fight! Boxing's been written off like horse racing and newspapers, but PacMan/Mayweather will be among the biggest prize fights of all time.)

***

Ryan Zimmerman's streak is now 28 games.

As with any such skein, Zimmerman's mostly makes us remember how incredible Joe DiMaggio's 1941 streak was.

We're rightly enthralled with Zimmerman's franchise-record run...and he's only halfway there!

***

Another local boy made good turns out to be not so local and not so good: Tomorrow night ESPN will air a report on troubles with Binghamton University's basketball program.

The piece will focus on Miladin Kovacevic, who allegedly beat a fellow student into a coma, then fled to his native Serbia. U.S. officials are now trying to get the Serbs to extradite the suspect.

Kovacevic played his high school ball in Fairfax at Paul VI of the WCAC, which is probably both the best and the most international prep basketball conference in the country.

***

Update on the U.S. Government's War on Pickup Soccer: The red snow fences that prevented folks from playing at the park across Tilden Street from Peirce Mill have been taken down.

But the fences are still mucking things up at Piney Branch Parkway beneath 16th Street.

All the dirt spots at the Piney Branch site have been covered for a while by new grass, so the fences serve no purpose now other than to hamper the Hispanic players that have been using the site for years and years from playing the international game.

I'd love to hear another excuse for the fences.

ATTICA! ATTICA! ATTICA!

***

D.C. United had their March on Lincoln Park on Saturday to little effect. At this point, the team might have better luck marching to Linkin Park and asking for money.

***

Anybody know who won the DC Rollergirls championship on Saturday?

***

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Awesome Capitals trivia about play-by-play man Steve Kolbe: The franchise has had only two play-by-play announcers in its long history, Ron Weber (1974-1997) and Kolbe (1997-).

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Speaking of consistency: Awesome trivia about the Redskins: During the offseason, the Skins have now signed Jaison Williams, Mike Williams, Roydell Williams, Eddie Williams and Edwin Williams.

After reading yesterday's Washington Post opus on local-product Edwin "Don't Call Me Eddie" Williams's family's drug problems (we're told his folks "traveled up and down the East Coast in search of cocaine." Really? Why? Did DC run out?), I'm pretty sure everybody named Williams has a hard-luck tale.

Me, I'm rooting hardest for Mike Williams, who used to weigh 400 pounds. He's on a biggest-loser style weight loss plan, I learned in a previous installment from the paper's series, Opuses on Guys Named Williams and Their Hard-Luck Tales.

Too bad, cuz if Big Mike wasn't watching his waist he and his new teammates could open a burger joint and name it, um, how 'bout Five Guys Named Williams? (Mark Moseley wouldn't dare sue fellow Skins!) The team also has four Smiths, three Thomases and two Montgomerys.

But just one Vinny!

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Awesome trivia about the new Detroit mayor, Dave Bing:

Only one high school in the U.S., public or private, put two alums on the NBA's 50 Greatest roster when it was released in 1996: Spingarn High, which produced Elgin Baylor (Class of '54) and Bing (Class of '62).

Great as Bing was, the Detroit Pistons had to throw in a future No. 1 draft choice before Abe Pollin would take Bing and send Bullets guard Kevin Porter to Motown in 1975.

That trade, which Pollin always regretted, was part of the reason that the Bullets made EIGHT (8!) first round picks in the 1975-1978 NBA drafts.

And all but two of those first-rounders (Kevin Grevey in '75 and Greg Ballard in '77) were huge busts. Tom Kropp or Roger Phegley, anybody?

The Kwame Brown pick's Tom Brady next to those guys'!

—-

Maybe what Peter Angelos meant was: The Baltimore/Washington market isn't big enough to support the two worst teams in baseball.

The Nats (7-18-1) went into last night's worst-vs.-first battle with the Dodgers in first place in the race for the top pick in next year's MLB draft by several lengths. The O's (10-17) were only 2.5 games behind.

Consumer question: Since Tuesday's tie with the Astros will be broken in Houston, do DC fans who suffered through the sister-kisser get a rain check?

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Speaking of no-win situations: DC United tied KC, 1-1. If United had to give out refunds after every push, they'd be broke.

Err, broker: The team has organized still another rally in which fans will be following management's orders and demanding a new stadium. From anybody.

The, um, festivities will kick off Saturday at 3:30 p.m. at Lincoln Park. To ensure somebody shows up, the team will provide bus service from RFK to the rally.

Are you gonna be listening, PG County? How 'bout you, soccer-mad MoCo? Richmond? St. Louis?

No?

None of ya?

Et tu, DC?

Dangit.

Man o man o, is all that slamming of Mayor Fenty gonna haunt this team! (But anybody who was at the United game YEARS AGO when Fenty got on the RFK PA and promised everybody there he'd get 'em a new soccer stadium can show up at the rally without guilt or irony!)

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Speaking of teams that threatened to leave DC for PG but, get this, ACTUALLY PULLED IT OFF: Get on the DC Divas bandwagon now!

The Divas are 3-0 and had outscored the opposition 95-0 before giving up a TD in garbage time of last weekend's 27-7 win over visiting Pittsburgh. The Sup-Her Bowl trophy is all but in the bag.

Clearly, the input of Assistant General Manager Brian Mitchell is paying off.

After a bye this weekend, the Divas travel to NY to face the Sharks next week.

But every real sports fan in the market already knew that...

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