It's not clear to me which is the bigger travesty: Vinny Cerrato keeping his job so long after running the Redskins into the ground, or Dan Snyder staying atop Six Flags despite making all the wrong moves since taking over the now-bankrupt theme park chain in 2005.

Six Flags' reorganization is nowhere near complete, and god only knows what's beneath the surface of this debacle. But from the sound of things, when all's said and done Snyder will still be chairman of Six Flags board of directors when that company comes out of bankruptcy.

How can this be? In Snyder's world, what do you have to do to lose your job?

One small aspect of the fiasco: Would somebody PLEASE explain to me how Snyder was allowed to pay a whopping $175 million for Dick Clark Productions using private equity money from Red Zone Capital, a fund he controls, then turn around and sell 40 percent of Dick Clark Productions to Six Flags, using public equity money, which he also controlled? And Snyder did this deal, remember, in 2007, while Six Flags was on the way to the bottom and he was already blaming the company's woes on its billions of dollars of debt.

Snyder made the Dick Clark Productions sale around the time he made a licensing deal between Johnny Rockets, another Red Zone-owned company and controlled by Snyder, and Six Flags. Again, would SOMEBODY please explain to me how that's allowed?

I mean, I make a lot of fun of Lindsay Czarniak and Dan Hellie working for Snyder's Redskins Broadcast Network and WRC News at the same time. And that really does bug me. But Czarniak and Hellie's conflict of interest ain't a hair off the ass of the conflict of interest Dan Snyder had in dealing with himself during Red Zone's sale of a huge chunk of Dick Clark Productions to Six Flags. Let alone the Johnny Rockets deals.

How hard a bargain do you think private-money Dan Snyder drove with public-money Dan Snyder in making these deals?

(AFTER THE JUMP: More on Dan Snyder, Red Zone and Dick Clark? DeMatha sends more jocks to college? Remember Harvey Grant? The DC Armor are gonna just disappear? Somebody's still kvetching about the El Al/FedExField comparison?)

Read More "Cheap Seats Daily: Hey, Dan Snyder: How’d That Dick Clark Deal Work Out for Six Flags Stockholders?" »

Another day, another update on Dan Snyder's Cheerleader Car Wash Sweepstakes. Another chance to run that fab/yucky photo from Snyder's WTEM promotion, the one that's sucked in some of the most brilliant minds in new media to our humble comments section.

Seems Snyder doesn't really care who he jumps in bed with these days. His partner in the contest, which forces Redskins cheerleaders to put down their pom poms and pick up sponges and go service his radio station's 25-54 year old male demo, was a sponge company called SpongeTech Delivery Systems, Inc.

Well, just as the cheerleader pride giveaway was heating up, Snyder's ally gets nailed for all sorts of alleged shadiness by federal regulators: The Securities and Exchange Commission suspended trading on SpongeTech stock this week because of sketchy reports and non-filings of required documents.

(AFTER THE JUMP: SpongeTech's the Six Flags of the sudsy set? SpongeTech's so messed up it makes Snyder look like a fab businessman? Are Redskins cheerleaders being punished? Is WJFK punishing WTEM in the ratings? Can Mike Wise punish Tony Kornheiser? Is Anacostia/Eastern the Good Counsel/DeMatha of crumminess?)

Read More "Cheap Seats Daily: Could Car Wash Contest Be Snyder Punishing Redskins Cheerleaders for Promoting Rival WJFK?" »

Dan Snyder's detestability rating enjoyed another spike yesterday: Reports out of FedExField for the Tampa Bay game have Snyder confiscating paper bags at the entrance to his stadium, so fans couldn't put them on their heads for the TV cameras.

Sportstalk radio station WJFK this morning put on callers who said they got bags past the gate but anybody who tried wearing one got swarmed by stadium security.

Paper bags! That's where that Sept. 11 fee Snyder tacks on to your ticket price goes? Sheeesh.

The bag gimmick is old, but funny. The ban is just creepy.

***

Death knell for Jason Campbell: Sonny Jurgensen has seen enough.

Unlike other members of the Skins broadcast crew, Jurgensen never talks without thinking about what he's going to say. And after Campbell's second interception, Jurgensen, who along with being the color commentator is a pal of Dan Snyder, said he'd seen enough. "I think it's time to warm up #16 guys," Sonny said.

(AFTER THE BREAK: Vinny and Larry get the Great Steinographer treatment? Vinny's going to bring Sally Jenkins on his radio show? Vinny's going to send Sally Jenkins his Super Bowl ring? Vinny's got a Super Bowl ring? Dan Snyder won't tell you how much your Johnny Rockets burger is? The Redskins schedule only winless teams? Brett Haber thinks the Redskins are sleeping giants? Biggest high school football game of all-time this week? Worst high school football season of all-time is imminent?)

Read More "Cheap Seats Daily: The Johnny Rockets Menu Proves Dan Snyder Is Priceless?" »

The NFL season starts tonight. The only must-read of all the pre-kickoff previews: Erik Wemple's take on Sunday's Redskins/Giants game. His post attracted a group of meatheads to the comments section the way a roach motel does roaches. It's a meathead motel, is what I'm sayin'. Don't miss it.

***

A near-miss must-read: "A Decade of Snyder the Decider," an interactive piece that came out this week on the Washington Post's site. An amazing amount of work and brainpower went into the feature. Everything you want to know about Dan Snyder's reign is right there in a few squared inches. You just have to click and click and click and click to get it.

But in the end this delivery system is totally unsatisfying to any football fan who likes to read about the game in a real sports page. It's the difference between listening to the White Album on vinyl through a tube amp while holding the double-LP's sleeve and fingering through all the sleeve-candy, or listening to the White Album through headphones and an iPod (if it were available on iTunes, that is).

(AFTER THE JUMP: Vick Chew Toy giveaway is real? Marv Throneberry trumps Cal? The Felds run Monster Trucks, too? Harvey Grant's kid follows in Adrian Dantley's footsteps? Mark Brunell's the Bill Graham of Christian rock? Nats countdown update?)

Read More "Cheap Seats Daily: Special Non-Pullout Football Preview Section!" »

FanZoneGate™ Update: Redskins spokesman Karl Swanson says WJFK, a new sportsradio station and rival to Dan Snyder's WTEM, had no business selling passes to the FanZone, a new private parking lot near FedExField that was set to compete with the Snyder-owned lots on Redskins game days.

Folks who bought FanZone parking passes on WJFK's web site and showed up to Saturday's preseason game with Pittsburgh found that Snyder had taken over the lot.

Yesterday, a marketing rep for CBS-owned WPGC, a WJFK sister station that was also promoting the parking lot, told me “some situations occurred” that led to Snyder’s takeover.

The marketing rep, however, would not go into detail over how the promotion, which positioned the FanZone lot as cheaper than Snyder's lots and without the new tailgating restrictions that so many fans are concerned about, fell apart.

Swanson says all the problems come from WJFK selling parking passes before getting the rights to use the land.

"[I]n a nutshell the Redskins, the radio stations and (I think) one other group were in separate negotiations to lease the lot as a parking site," Swanson tells me via email. "For reasons unbeknownst to us, the radio stations began advertising the lot without a contract and as negotiations were ongoing.  We entered terms and leased the lot for game day parking."

The Redskins did the fans who bought passes a solid for the Pittsburgh game, Swanson says: "[W]e decided to honor all of the passes the radio stations had already sold."

(AFTER THE JUMP: The sad tale of Bullets gaffer Dick Gibbs? Local rookie Brett Cecil makes his own blooper tape? Best of the decade time...already? AAU teammates Durant and Beasley make different sorts of news? Would only an idiot reference the Tom Boswell Curse?)

Read More "Cheap Seats Daily: Snyder Crushes Radio Rival WJFK in Redskins Parking Lot Battle" »

I wrote a column this week about one of the bizarrest happenings in local prep ball history, and a game I'd been hearing about for years: The 1970 summer league matchup between John Thompson's St. Anthony's squad and the Morgan Wootten-coached DeMatha.

They were the two best teams in the city back then, and played before a huge crowd on a little outdoor court at Jelleff.

Well, they sort of played. Thompson made the evening memorable, though for wholly unsporting reasons. He kept his star-stocked lineup, full of future NCAA Division 1 players, on the bench, and instead sent in a ringer squad of non-basketball players to face DeMatha. The Stags took no pity on the replacements, crushing the kids in St. Anthony's uniforms, 108-26.

DeMatha players and the hoop-crazy fans who believed the hype and took the trouble that hot summer night to get to Jelleff, a boys club off Wisconsin Avenue, are still peeved at Thompson for making a mockery of the matchup.

But at the time the future Georgetown legend was anything but contrite.

(AFTER THE JUMP: Thompson ducked Wootten for Ducking Thompson? Nats win a video replay battle, lose the war? Larry Weisman practices the real new journalism? Michael Vick is the new Justin Timberlake? Greyhounds have friends?)

Read More "Cheap Seats Daily: Michael Vick Is the New Justin Timberlake?" »

The roto-baseball world is talking up one of our own: Brett Cecil of the Toronto Blue Jays is the pitcher of the moment.

Cecil, a 22-year-old lefty, DeMatha grad (class of '04) and brief Maryland Terrapin reliever, was called up at the end of April and put in as a starter. He got his first win yesterday, as his Jays shut out the A's in Oakland.

He was having a lousy season at the Jays' Triple-A team in Vegas before the call-up, but he's gone the way of Roy Hobbs ever since.

Against the A's, Cecil gave up five hits and no runs in eight innings. After two starts, Cecil's 1-0 with an ERA of .64.

One from the Where Were They Then? file: Steve Napper, the embalmer who dropped the dime on a Virginia funeral home for treating dead bodies like sacks of potatoes, was a star athlete around here in a former life.

First, from the Washington Post's front-page account of sordidness witnessed by Napper while employed by National Funeral Home in Falls Church:

During his time there, Napper said, as many as 200 corpses were left on makeshift gurneys in the garage, in hallways and in a back room, unrefrigerated and leaking fluids onto the floor. Some were stored on cardboard boxes or were balanced on biohazard containers. At least half a dozen veterans destined for the hallowed ground at Arlington National Cemetery were left in their coffins on a garage rack, Napper said.

Read More "Funeral Home Whistleblower Has a Sporting Past" »

Authorities in Athens, Greece, have identified the victim of a fatal drunk-driving accident as Jeff Komlo.

Komlo grew up in Cheverly and played quarterback for DeMatha (class of ’74), the University of Delaware, and the Detroit Lions.

But life after football got pretty tough for Komlo. He has been a fugitive from the law for several years, after failing to show up for sentencing on two DWI convictions in Pennsylvania.

At the time Komlo fled, he was also being investigated for insurance fraud, arson, cocaine possession, assault, and money laundering.

Komlo's crimes got him more national exposure than his throwing arm ever did: In 2005, he was featured on an episode of Fox's America's Most Wanted.

Because of his shady past, authorities in those U.S. jurisdictions where Komlo remains a fugitive say they're not going to clear their books until they're satisfied that the deceased really is their man.

The Washington Post yesterday posted a transcript of reporter Eric Prisbell's interview with Gary Williams.

It's a fabulous conversation, and both Prisbell and Williams seem at the top of their games.

Williams comes off better here than he did in the Post's three-part, more-words-than-Chandra-Levy-got series on the Maryland coach and his recruiting tools.

Here, he's defiant throughout and never flinches during all the questions and statements from Prisbell hammering home Williams' reputation as a lackadaisical recruiter.

My favorite portion:

Read More "Gary Williams Recruits! We Now Have Proof That We Have Proof!" »

I wrote this week that Gary Williams doesn't recruit real good. (That's allegedly him in red on a recent recruiting trip to DeMatha in the fuzzy photo.)

The Washington Post ran a story today on the front of the sports section that says Gary Williams doesn't recruit real good.

Read More "Gary Williams Is Hotttttt!" »