Cherries Blooming: The news out of Japan gets bleaker and bleaker, between nuclear reactors (in worse shape than originally believed) and the death toll from Friday's 9.0 magnitude earthquake and ensuing tsunami (likely much higher than estimates so far). Word that the National Park Service is sending back cuttings from the original cherry blossoms Japan gave the United States in 1912, to help preserve the genetic line of the trees, isn't likely to do much to salve the pain there; it's a small gesture, after all, and it seems to have been planned since before the disaster at any rate. But at least it's not more bad news. +1

Walk This Way: Transferring between Farragut North, on Metro's Red Line, and Farragut West, on the Blue and Orange lines, now involves a detour through Metro Center and McPherson Square, plus who knows how long waiting for trains on each line. By this fall, that transfer will simply involve walking across Farragut Square. Metro officials say they'll finally implement "virtual transfers" later this year, after reprogramming and testing SmarTrip readers at each station so they don't charge riders for switching between the two. Which is a lot cheaper than actually digging a tunnel would have been, and should help alleviate crowding throughout downtown stops. +2

Ex Post Facto: Things look a little... different today at another D.C. media website beginning with "Washington." The Post unveiled a top-to-bottom redesign, complete with new commenting features, new RSS feeds for every blog (none of which, alas, include the full text of posts), new fonts, and a new layout that's reminiscent of the look of the Post's iPad app. (The PostLocal page looks like it's mostly the same as it had been.) As with any redesign, there's been some grumbling; one friend of ours said it made him pick up the print edition for the first time in years. Maybe that's the secret agenda! -1

District of College Basketball: The best thing about the NCAA tournament selection show on CBS last night? It didn't feature Dick Vitale, who was busy shrieking on ESPN. The second best thing? Some potentially excellent games will be played at the Verizon Center this week, starting with Old Dominion vs. Butler starting shortly after noon on Thursday. Local teams didn't do quite as well as local fans. With point guard Chris Wright back from a broken hand, Georgetown got a 6 seed and will play the winner of a play-in game, possibly helping them salvage a season that seemed to be crumbling; George Mason made it in, and gets to play Villanova, who also seems to be collapsing. But Maryland didn't get a bid—even to the NIT. So look for Gary Williams sitting in the stands Thursday? +3

Friday's Needle rating: 48 Today's score: +5 Today's Needle rating: 53

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?

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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!

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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.)

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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!

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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.

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