In case you missed it: For the brings-home-96-to-98-percent-of-the-bacon-but-is-nevertheless-shunned print edition this week, I wrote about Will Dunham, an Arlington resident who has been hosting "Inside the Squared Circle" (ITSC), a weekly program on pro wrestling for 20 years. Dunham has had his pro bono pro wrestling program longer than Jay Leno had "The Tonight Show" or Tim Russert had "Meet the Press." There's never been any money or fame in it, but Dunham keeps at it for the noblest of reasons: Because he wants to.

I'm in awe. For real.

***

Saying the Redskins PR machine is screwed up is pointless at this point. It's operating now exactly as it has operated for 10 years. So it's likely that machine is operating just as somebody at Redskins Park wants it to operate.

But stuff still comes out of that place that boggles the mind. Any sane man would say the Redskins response to John Riggins' characterization of Dan Snyder as "a bad guy" who has "a dark heart" was just plain wacko. Riggins is a pundit. The more outlandish the things he says, the more he is rewarded.  A big boy or wise man would have just taken Riggins' slings and arrows and shut the hell up. There's no way to rebut Riggins' charges without looking dumb or guilty.

So what does Dan Snyder's organization do? It trots out Silent Greg Blache to rebut Riggins charges. Blache, who just a couple weeks ago said he would no longer talk to the media, talked to the media about how Snyder doesn't have a dark heart.

And to make everybody but Riggins look stupider, the Redskins PR office then produced a press release with Blache's silly comments transcribed. A press release! Wha?

(AFTER THE JUMP: Redskins put out how many documents saying "Dan Snyder Does Not Have a Dark Heart?" Mark Rypien comes back to DC? Can he suit up? He only got sacked how many times? DC Divas hold tryouts? The Divas GM used to be on "Inside the Squared Circle"? Is that fab or what?)

Read More "Cheap Seats Daily: Redskins PR Machine Spreads the Word: Dan Snyder Doesn’t Have a ‘Dark Heart’!" »

Great Moments in Capitalism™, Special 9/11 Edition

On this date in 2005: Get your Tragedy Hats!

None of the Redskins marketing endeavors under Dan Snyder dropped the jaw faster than the "Redskins Flag Hat" that went on sale on the team's web site and at FedExField at the beginning of the 2005 season.

For $23.99 plus shipping where applicable, Snyder would sell you a Redskin baseball cap with a red, white and blue Pentagon stitched on the side to tug the heart strings and stir more nationalism at a time when the country was already crippled by an oversupply. The hats were a great way, according to the radio ads that ran on the sports stations owned by Snyder, to "commemorate Sept. 11."

The punch line: The proceeds weren't earmarked for any charity or cause. Unless you consider the owner's wallet a charity or cause.

Genius!

***

(AFTER THE JUMP: Bankers going for Michael Vick haters? Bob McDonnell, you lie? Boswell basking in the afterglow of his Snyder bashing? DC Divas become video stars? A bump in the Nats' Road to 100 Losses?  Jaycee Dugard jokes?)

Read More "Cheap Seats Daily: It’s 9/11! Did You Pay $23.99 Plus Shipping for Dan Snyder’s Commemorative Hat?" »

Michael Vick was "conditionally reinstated" by NFL commissioner Roger Goodell yesterday. So the Vick-to-Redskins barkers got louder.

I know from dumbass arguments, and here's one of the dumbassiest on why Vick could fit in here as training camp opens this week:  Signing the free agent, says the Sporting News, "would give Vick an opportunity to play close to his home state of Virginia." Good point! The Skins play closest to where Vick did his best animal slaughtering, too!

Dan Snyder wouldn't. Would he?

I mean, sure, he tried hiring Pepper Rodgers, traded for Brandon Lloyd, and founded a chain of boutique kiddie barber shops for a theme park chain just before it went bankrupt.

But, he wouldn't.

Would he?

Gosh, I hope so!

(After the Jump: Snyder makes a good deal? Billick makes case for not signing Vick without mentioning Vick? Nats have more grand slams than your local Denny's? Divas finish on top after all? No Tasering for Scott Van Pelt giveaway?)

Read More "Cheap Seats Daily: Who’ll Let the Dog In?" »

In the end, our DC Divas were only bridesmaids.

In Saturday's IWFL Sup-Her Bowl in Austin, Texas, the Kansas City Tribe beat DC, 21-18, to win the women's tackle football national title, 21-18.

The Divas end the season at 10-1.

The sunset of Rachelle Pecovsky-Bentley's career wasn't as rapturous as it could have been. Pecovsky-Bentley, a 10th-year running back, only played after sundown this season due to her observation of the Sabbath for Seventh Day Adventists. She's set to retire now, and in her last game was available in the second half. She rushed for a touchdown with less than three minutes left in the game to bring the Divas within three points. But, the Tribe held from there.

I'm no William Morris, but I gotta say, from a public relations standpoint, the IWFL just blows. As of this morning, nobody from the league had even updated the website to say anything about the game, other than one sentence congratulating the winner. Not even a box score? I tried since pretty late Saturday to get ANY news or numbers about the championship, but there wasn't anything out there. If I owned an IWFL team and was paying one dime to be in this league, I'd be steamed about the lack of outreach. If the main office ain't publicizing the championship, odds are it ain' t doing anything.

***

The Nats have won two series in a week.

Back to me: Don't Mock the R²D²!

(AFTER THE JUMP: Is R²D² is the new Total Average? Is Mike Wise the new Sally Jenkins? Can lacrosse solve our homeless problem?)

Read More "Cheap Seats Daily: Divas Fall in the Forest…" »

Someday, the top-ranked women's football team in the land won't have to beg for cash to travel to the Sup-Her Bowl.

It ain't someday yet. So the DC Divas will hold a fundraiser tonight to help pay the tab for next weekend's trip to Austin, Texas, for the IWFL Championship.

Meet and greet players and coaches from the 10-0 Divas at Draft Pix, 2450 18th Street NW, from 6 p.m - 10 p.m. Suggested donation is $10. Free drinks and finger foods for the first hour.

,

The BCS's got nothing on women's football. Look what happened to the DC Divas.

The Divas kept their season going with a 27-17 win over the Pittsburgh Passion in the first round of the IWFL playoffs on Saturday at the PG Sports and Learning Complex. The Divas went into the game as the top-ranked team in the IWFL, after having assumed they'd secured home field advantage throughout the playoffs with an 8-0 regular season.

But despite the victory, the undefeated Divas will have to play the conference championship game on the road. The Divas knew they'd have to play the conference championship away from their usual home field, since the PG complex was already booked with junior olympics events on July 11, the date mandated by the league.

But they thought their travels would be short. After the win over Pittsburgh, Divas management had announced its matchup with the Militia would be held at the Broadneck High School stadium in Annapolis, and started selling tickets for the game.

But then the Divas learned that the Massey Ratings, the computer ranking system used by the IWFA to determine seeding, had suddenly foisted the Militia to the top spot in the league.

Apparently the New Englanders' 34-14 win over the Dallas Diamonds in their first round game wowed the digital judges a lot more than the Divas' 10-point victory.

Read More "Cheap Seats Daily: Women’s Football Rocked By First Rankings Brouhaha! DC Divas Screwed by Computer!" »

The road to the Sup-Her Bowl runs through Landover: The undefeated DC Divas host the Pittsburgh Passion in the first round of the IWFL playoffs. Kickoff is at 7 p.m. at the Prince George's Sports and Learning Complex.

The Divas, the top-ranked women's football squad in the land, beat the visiting Passion, 27-7, in a matchup of the same squads early in the season, giving #4-ranked Pitt its only loss.

Along with being quarterback and team captain, Allyson Hamlin (seen above) is the daughter of the Divas owner.

Lest you think there's some favoritism at play, however, Hamlin's dad bought the team well after she'd established herself as being among the greatest QB's in women's football history.

If you haven't been a Divas home game, go now. Tickets are cheap ($5-$20), the product is way better than you (guys) expect it to be, and the mood inside the stadium, as marching bands play and little cheerleaders cheer, is small-town in the best sense possible.

The Divas game-night package is so fab, in fact, that if you've already been out to see 'em play, you're probably already planning on going back tonight.

For ticket info and directions, see www.dcdivas.com.

Photo courtesy dcdivas.com

Did John Feinstein save Manny Acta's job?

I think so. While buzzards circled over Acta yesterday, Feinstein, continuing the Washington Post's If You Get It You Don't Get It strategy of alienating all subscribers, wrote a web-only feature that included about the only defenses of the Nats' Dead Manager Walking to appear in the MSM.

Read More "Cheap Seats Daily: Acta Alive? Feinstein Rips Dibble Another New One to Replace the Old New One? Vestige of the Turner/Shuler/Frerotte Era Quits?" »

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" »

Awesome Capitals trivia from play-by-play man Steve Kolbe: After last night's OT loss in Pittsburgh, Kolbe related that the Caps have never won a Game Three in any best-of-seven playoff series. The team's been around 35 years! How's that possible? (Apparently it's NOT possible!)

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:

Read More "Cheap Seats Daily: Third Time’s Not Charmed for the Caps" »