Now he wants something in return.

Daniels, who now lists his hometown as Chicago, went on the fan board yesterday with his regular handle —pd93—and started a thread called "Phillip Daniels Needs Your Help!!!"

Despite the three exclamation points, Daniels wasn't asking for anything as important as organs or dollars.

No, turns out he just wanted fans to stuff the ballot box so his kin would win the Albany (Ga.) Herald People's Choice Football Player of the Year contest.

Daniels asked folks to make sure Chris Brown, a running back from Seminole County High, finished atop the Georgia paper's poll:

I'm not getting enough votes for my cousin Chris Brown who is up for Player of the Year. I know that there are thousands for Redskins fans on here so please go and vote for him. I will put the link at the bottom so please go sign in and vote. You can vote once every hour and the deadline is tomorrow at 5pm. Coming back from a major injury with a chance of never playing again and doing what he did this year, he deserves this award. The only way he will win is for you guys to help me out. My hometown is small and we are a bit outnumbered with other cities. Thanks to all who will help him out. Good kid who will be playing D1 football somewhere next season. I always hate coming on with non Redskins things but I really do want him to win this because he deserves it and the newspaper that is doing this has feature the guy that is winning twice and none of the other guys so you know what's going on there.

And the regulars at ExtremeSkins responded massively. All day long, one poster after another who'd never heard of Daniels' cousin before this scheme commenced was posting that they'd voted again and again for Brown, just as Daniels had told them to.

As of 10:52 p.m. last night, Brown had more than 8,206 votes.

Not bad turnout in an election run by a paper which as of June 2008 had an estimated circulation of less than 20,000.

But along the way something popped up that Daniels, who is a native of Donalsonville, Ga., didn't expect: Somebody else was stuffing the Albany Herald's ballot box, too. For another kid in the race.

And doing a better job at it!

The voting bloc for Mason Worsham, quarterback of the state championship squad from Westwood School, wasn't only keeping up with the  outrigging the ExtremeSkins horde. At 10:52 pm, the big board showed Worsham with 8,437 votes.

So, Brown and Worsham got 16,643 votes between them.

The other four candidates on the ballot had 558 votes combined.

By last night, Daniels' returned to ExtremeSkins with obvious desperation.

"Are there any other Redskins sites that we can put this on to help out[?]" he posted. "Let's get everybody involved."

Albany Herald sports editor Danny Aller, reached at work late last night, says he wondered why his paper's website was so slow all day.

"I was trying to post a comment here and I couldn't get on for five minutes, because the site was so busy," Aller tells me. "I couldn't figure it out."

When I told Aller about the poll-rigging scheme launched at ExtremeSkins, he figured it out.

"Oh, OK! Somebody called me today and said a lot of people were having problems voting for Chris," says Aller. "I told him I had just voted for both Chris and Mason, just to check and make sure everything was working, and it was working for both. So he says, 'Hey, it's not me complaining! It's Phillip Daniels of the Redskins who's saying there's problems voting for Chris!' I'm saying to myself, 'Phillip Daniels? Huh? Why would somebody from the Redskins be talking about this?'"

Good questions, Mr. Aller.

There's still time to get your votes in: The Herald's poll closes at 5 p.m. today.

Stay tuned for returns!

In a column published in early June, I observed that, "Supply is kicking demand's ass at FedExField."

The ass-kicking continues, despite the Redskins' fabulous start to the 2011 season.

At the time that observation was typed, there was talk of "party decks" replacing unsold season tickets in the upper deck. Thousands and thousands of seats and row upon row of concrete have been removed from the stadium since, but no party decks have yet to materialize.

Yet all sorts of new and increasingly desperate marketing schemes subsequently came out of Redskins Park, including offers of free jerseys and even free extra tickets to the season opener for anybody willing to buy season tickets for 2011.

That first game turned out pretty good for the home team. Yet posters on the team-owned message board, Extremeskins.com, seem shocked and perhaps even a little embarrassed by the bargain-basement pricing of tickets for this weekend's Cardinals game at FedExField in the secondary market.

Tales of $10 purchases and premium tickets going for 33 percent of their face value or less abound, and posters point to the inventory on StubHub, the internet scalpers' clearinghouse, where tickets for Sunday's game are being offered for as little as $19. There's enough unsold seats floating around that if you've got blood to give, you can get tickets to the game for free from the Red Cross, also known as "The Official blood donation partner of the Washington Redskins!"

One concerned party asked Mark the Homer, a board moderator and Redskins Nation's longtime guru of all ticket-related matters, if in all his years of gurudom he'd ever seen a softer market for Skins tickets.

"I would have to say no," MTH posted.

Why aren't people going back to FedEx? Is it hi-def TVs in rec rooms?

The Cult of Colt was a message board thread dedicated to Colt Brennan, the way the Manson Family was a few folks who enjoyed each other's company.

True, it really was a thread on the Dan Snyder-owned fan forum, Extremeskins, but it was so much more. It was a microcosm of Redskins fanaticism, a place where burgundy and gold obsessives blind to their obsessions would flock to post stuff that the unconverted would rate as senseless crap.

Irony and shame rarely made an appearance in the Cult of Colt. Their places were filled by crazy hope, for the home team and a 27-year-old backbencher who never has and likely never will play a real down in an NFL game. Comments, and at last count there were 1,128 pages of 'em, almost never rose above the level of  "Who Would You Take: Unitas or Colt?"

When the Cult of Colt was highlighted in Washington City Paper's most recent Best Of issue (named "Best Place to Observe Redskins Mania") last spring, the thread had logged half a million hits. That's an astounding number of hits for a hyper-provincial spot such as Extremeskins.

Last week, the million man mark in total hits was passed at the Cult of Colt.

Again, all this for a player who logged no more minutes on the field than any of the posters.

It was awesome while it lasted.

But yesterday afternoon, everything came crashing down on the player and his Cultists, when tweets abounded that Colt Brennan, the human being, was telling fans as he walked off the field after Redskins practice that he'd been cut.

Hours later, at 8:02 P.M. EST to be specific, moderators at Snyder's site put a stake through the Cult's heart and closed the thread forever with a simple message: "Time to move forward..."

Easier said than done. The thread, I miss already. The player? Nah.

This morning, members of Dan Snyder's message board, ExtremeSkins, did as they were instructed to do in this space yesterday and began asking folks who run Snyder's board why the poster going by "Horatio" had been purged from the site.

Horatio's messages were quickly restored.

Chalk that up as a win for all that's good. And a win for Cheap Seats Daily!

A recap: A comprehensive, caffeine-fueled and Google-cache-assisted investigation by Cheap Seats Daily's I-Team proved, using a high-tech app called "screen shots," that moderators at Snyder's site had purged years of contributions from a poster named "Horatio." The purge came after Horatio posted a quote that the Redskins owner made in 2000, during an interview that was recently re-released on DVD. Snyder was asked by PBS host Jeff Greenfield how he targeted markets when he was with Snyder Communications. Snyder's response to Greenfield was as shocking as it was honest:

"We were looking at trend lines," Snyder says. "We saw that the aging baby boomer demographics were coming on strong. That meant there's going to be a lot more diabetic patients, a lot more cancer patients, etc. How do we capture those market segments?"

He called these market segments "$5 million niches." Bluntly: He exploited the ill.

Ewwww!

Putting that quote up got Horatio booted from the message board, which was an independent gathering place for Redskins fans before Snyder, in his neverending quest to control reality, bought it from Extremeskins' founders several years ago.

Yesterday, during a comments section war on City Desk waged between me and Extremeskins regulars that often hit levels of intellectuality found in the Lincoln/Douglas debates, or maybe the Palin/Couric interview, I requested that the true believer message board members ask their moderators to explain why, after years of claiming they don't censor Snyder bashers, they'd purged poor Horatio.

And so somebody did. But rather than answer that question, Snyder's moderators instead attempted to put back the posts they'd removed and act like it never happened. Alas, their first attempt failed to fool all the minions. But, by mid-morning, Horatio existed again. His posting of Snyder's cancer quote is clickable again. Whole threads Horatio had started about Cheap Seats Daily's posts that had vanished just days ago are now back up.

The world is spinning again.

Will Snyder's moderators go the purge route again to try to stifle dissent against the boss? Sure they will! But we'll be watching!

And now, once more, here's the quote from Dan Snyder that Dan Snyder's moderators didn't want you to see:

"We were looking at trend lines," Snyder says. "We saw that the aging baby boomer demographics were coming on strong. That meant there's going to be a lot more diabetic patients, a lot more cancer patients, etc. How do we capture those market segments?"

Ewwwwww!

Last night, I was getting my normal load of giggles from the burgundy and gold obsessives that patronize Dan Snyder's message board, Extremeskins, when I came across a reference to a City Desk item I'd posted on Monday. My post here was about the recent re-release of a decade-old PBS program called "CEO Exchange," in which Snyder admits, boasts even, that his pre-Redskins firm, Snyder Communications, targeted the infirm to make money.

"We saw that the aging baby boomer demographics were coming on strong," Snyder says on the program. "That meant there's going to be a lot more diabetic patients, a lot more cancer patients, etc. How do we capture those market segments?" He says he looked at these "market segments" as "$5 million niches."

Ewww! Anyway, an Extremeskins poster going by the name of "Horatio" posted the link to my item on Snyder's site, and called Snyder a meanie name while doing it.

Here's what Horatio wrote:

There's a lot of proof that Synder is a Class A Doofus. This one shows that Synder made lots of money by targeting people dying of cancer and diabetes:

"We were looking at trend lines," Snyder says. "We saw that the aging baby boomer demographics were coming on strong. That meant there's going to be a lot more diabetic patients, a lot more cancer patients, etc. How do we capture those market segments?"

http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/b...ancer-victims/

But Horatio's original post disappeared from the thread shortly after he made it — only a cut and paste version from a poster named "Authentic," responding to Horatio's post, remained on the site.

I am not a member of extremeskins, and have no idea who Horatio is. I've had a hate-hate relationship with extremeskins moderators over the years — all via email or the City Desk comments section — but I've never been unentertained by the site, and they always denied censoring anybody's posts about Snyder, and I believed them.

Until now!

Unhealthily intrigued by finding the City Paper link removed, I just started Googling. And Google Cache'ing. For waaaay too long. And, sure enough, somebody's been playing games at Snyder's site since Snyder's cancer quote was posted.

Horatio's been purged!

From all my cache-surfing, I found that old threads that Horatio started about Washington City Paper items are now unclickable. Typical is what happened to the thread called "Snyder Dusts Off 200,000 Name Waiting List Claim": It still exists in Google cache form, But, the  original thread is gone.

Threads get moved all the time on message boards, so disappearing threads alone are hardly evidence of censorship. But searching for other Horatio posts, the attempted whitewash of this obviously loyal City Desk reader became clear.

Take, for example, the differences that now exist in the Google standard and cache versions of an Extremeskins thread called "Response to redskins.com survey: how to stop TO."

Using the cache function, I saw that Horatio posted in the thread on November 14th, 2007, at 10:26 AM. Posts are listed chronologically on Extremeskins. That means Horatio's post should be stuck between SkinsWizCubsDukes' post in the same thread at 10:25 a.m., and Dick Edds' post at 10:28. But it's not there any more.

(After the jump: Visual evidence of censorship on Snyder's board, and proof that Cheap Seats Daily spent way too much time trying to prove it...)

So, the Google cache version of the Extremeskins page looks like this (click image to enlarge):

However: The page as it now appears on extremeskins, while still containing prose from SkinsWizCubsDukes and DickEdds, no longer has Horatio's. Here 'tis (click image to enlarge and see that Horatio's been scrubbed out):

Horatio's been purged from Extremeskins! What about all those censorship denials, Mr. Moderators?

And who's the bigger tool: Dan Snyder, for purging everything a guy had written on his site just for posting a quote about exploiting cancer victims to make his fortune? Or me, for trying to prove Snyder purged everything a guy had written on his site just for posting a quote about exploiting cancer victims to make his fortune?

In any case, the moral here should be: Censorship of Cheap Seats Daily readers doesn't pay. So I'll leave by posting Snyder's quote about exploiting cancer victims to make his fortune. In bold:

"We saw that the aging baby boomer demographics were coming on strong. That meant there's going to be a lot more diabetic patients, a lot more cancer patients, etc. How do we capture those market segments?"

As you were...

via ExtremeSkins.com

Fabulous thread from the entertaining putzes at Dan Snyder's fan forum, ExtremeSkins.com. What started out as yet another rant against Larry Michael, the team's play-by-play announcer, turned into message board magic.

The member known as MWCRedskins got things going by posting "Larry Michael Must Go!" a tirade against Michael, who has long been Public Enemy No. 3 — behind Dan Snyder and Vinny Cerrato — among Skins fans.

MWC wrote:

The guy is an embarrassment to this franchise. He's is the sleeziest person you will ever meet and treats fans like . I'm tired of his act. Plus he's a terrible announcer. He's the one with the"dark heart"" I want him replaced. Rumors about Mike Patrick last year, that would be so awesome because I can't stand the sight or sound of Larry Michael. Fire Vinny but also Fire Larry Michael"

As always, that opened the doors to a bunch of Larry Michael Sucks! type posts. But amid all the usual grounding and pounding of Michael, another poster, Teddy833, came to Michael's rescue by disclosing some opposition research about the OP:

The only reason MWCREDSKINS is saying this stuff about Larry is because he came to Redskins Late Night [a Dan Snyder-produced TV infomercial that Michael emcees] last night with numerous things to get signed and Albert haynesworth had to go so he couldn't get them all signed. MWC then proceeded to kick a 3ft x 2ft hole in a pillar out side the restaurant and then he ran away. We found him later in the parking lot and security and the police handled the rest of it.

The plot sickens!

(AFTER THE JUMP: The pillar deserved it? Is there an age-limit for use of the poopie icon? Len Bias' NBA career woulda sucked? Dan Steinberg, Dave Donovan, and Louis Farrakhan? What's wrong with Kansas City?)

The ExtremeSkins mob then turned all its hate on autograph hounds in general and specifically MWCRedskins, who lists himself as a 36-year-old from Sterling, Va. Members came forward to say, yeah, this MWC dude's a freaky douche who brings shopping bags of souvenirs to every Redskins event and makes a scene if they don't all get autographed.

The fantastical part came when somebody posted a photo (shown above) taken the night earlier of the damage MWC caused during his latest tirade, after Michael shut down autograph signing to call it a night.

When MWCRedskins reappeared in the thread to defend himself, going so far as to blame the pillar for the damage he inflicted on it, the unintentional comedy was overbearing:

I'm a fan who loves this team and I was just frustrated I spent $25 on a mini helmet bought at the show to get signed as a Christmas present for my brother and I waited for an hour for Larry basically to lowball me. I shouldn't have done what I did and I realize that. If that pillar is cement none of this even happens.

Again, this is from a 36-year-old guy. (A poopie icon, MWC?) His brain could fit in that minihelmet with room to spare. But as these fan boards go, the reading really doesn't get any better.

***

Via WSJ's The Fix: Len Bias remains a hot topic, 23 years and some change after his fatal drug overdose. Last week Bill Paine of basketball-reference.com, kinda the Baseball Prospectus for hoop-stats obsessives, dug deep into Bias' college numbers to see if anything there would predict how his NBA career would have gone.

After crunching all the numbers, Paine's conclusion? Death did wonders for Bias' legacy.

I'm not saying he would be a bust or even that it would have been impossible for him to be a star, but I am saying that we might have allowed Bias' tragic and untimely passing to distort the way we viewed his potential. Just like anyone who died before their time, there's the tendency to idealize the person and put them up on a pedestal, projecting onto them everything we wished and hoped they could someday be. In Bias' case, what my dad and so many other Celtics fans wanted was for him to become Larry Bird's heir at the helm of the Boston dynasty. Unfortunately, given his important performance indicators in college, that probably wasn't the most realistic expectation in basketball history.

But but but but but!!!!!!

Paine put a ton of work into his Bias study. I just rooted for him for four years at Maryland. My guess now is the same, and just as facts-proof, as it was the day he died: Bias woulda been awesome!

***

Speaking of using numbers to twist reality: Remind me to get the Great Dan Steinberg a calculator this holiday season. He's carrying the one in very unusual ways lately.

In a post yesterday, TGDS threw out all sorts of digits and stats while asking readers to conclude that one of Skins COO David "Yeah, That's the Ticket" Donovan's whoppers, the one about Redskins Nation being same as it ever was this season, was really true. Wow. TGDS relied on data from the Harris Interactive poll on the popularity of NFL teams to make his point.

My fave graf:

So disregarding Kansas City, the top 10 ratings were drawn by Dallas, Indianapolis, the Giants, Chicago, New England, Philadelphia, Green Bay, Pittsburgh, Washington and Miami. Which of these teams have the longest Super Bowl droughts? Yup, it's Washington and Miami again.

Well, TGDS, I learned long ago that if you have to disregard Kansas City to make your point, you don't have a point.

Steinberg's been on a digits jag lately, the extremest example being his fixation with how "26" factored into the Redskins 2009 season.

But this outta-left-field defense of Donovan's drivel has gotta be the bizarrest use of numbers this town has seen since Louis Farrakhan's Million Man March babble-on.

Let's revisit Farrakhan's speech for a sec:

"There, in the middle of this mall is the Washington Monument, 555 feet high. But if we put a one in front of that 555 feet, we get 1555, the year that our first fathers landed on the shores of Jamestown, Virginia as slaves.In the background is the Jefferson and Lincoln Memorial, each one of these monuments is 19 feet high. Abraham Lincoln, the sixteenth president. Thomas Jefferson, the third president, and 16 and three make 19 again. What is so deep about this number 19? Why are we standing on the Capitol steps today? That number 19 — when you have a nine you have a womb that is pregnant. And when you have a one standing by the nine, it means that there's something secret that has to be unfolded."

Wowie. Farrakhan never really took enough shit for that speech. Must be because he didn't disregard Kansas City.

***

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

For years, messages about the wheres and whens of the pep rallies/wakes were posted each week on Dan Snyder's message board, extremeskins.com, so fans could celebrate with or lift the spirits of Skins players and coaches as they returned from the road. The gatherings have long been put together by the renowned husband-and-wife superfan tandem known as Pez and Huly.

But, starting with yesterday's game in Atlanta, the couple's announcements will no longer be made public. Turns out that there's just too much hate in the community to let everybody in on the soirees without inspiring fan-on-fan ridicule.

A memo about the shift was posted on the Redskins official message board yesterday:

"Extremeskins Members: Huly and I and other members will continue to hold the Send Off and Welcome Home events at Redskins park. For the rest of this season, we are (tentatively) NOT going to post a thread for it, because we believe that the fans who still want to sincerely attend and support their team should not be attacked within the thread for doing so. We will contact the typical members who normally attend with meet-up times. However, if you would like to attend, please contact Huly or myself.Thanks,Pez

(Pez and Huly happen to be the couple also behind the all-points bulletin for Stephette Hogette, the bogus Hogette, a few weeks ago.)

(AFTER THE JUMP: Skins fans flock to FedUpField South, take advantage of First Amendmentish freedoms denied by Dan Snyder? Will Dan Snyder have the brains to reverse the signs ban at FedEx this week? Will Ron Nolan, an early victim of Dan Snyder's dickishness, return the disfavor? Sam Huff spews the painful truth, and Larry Michael surrenders? Brett Haber has crisis PR advice for Dan Snyder?)

***

The Georgia Dome turned into FedUpField South for the Redskins/Falcons game, as a lot of visitors fans showed up just to vent about Dan Snyder in ways that the owner has banned from his stadium.

The Great Dan Steinberg once again traveled with the insurgency and got a lot of photos of folks with their posters.

***

The animosity thrown at Dan Snyder has waned a bit since John Riggins went from offbeat to ugly with his "dark heart" riff.

Snyder could stem the hemorrhaging even more by pulling the disastrous Redskins sign ban this week, as Denver comes to town, and going back to the old allowances for home games.

What would it cost him? Snyder should have learned by now that the networks limit shots of the Snyder-bashing signs on national broadcasts, since the NFL doesn't want any more harm to come to one of its cornerstone franchises. (How else to explain how few shots of Redskins fans' discontent showed up on "Monday Night Football" two weeks ago or during the FOX network broadcast from Atlanta yesterday? One of the few that made the airwaves from the Georgia Dome: "Skins need a stimulus plan!")

My sense is even the local media is just about burned out on the sign-ban story. From a competition standpoint, Redskins games are already worthless, with half a season to go.

If Snyder doesn't loosen up, the rest of the year will turn into a "How can we humiliate Dan Snyder and get away with it?" contest in the grandstand, both on the road and, especially, at home.

I'm no Eric Dezenhall, but from a crisis PR standpoint, lifting the FedExField sign ban would be the easy and smart thing to do. Snyder's put a world of hurt on his business this season through one tone-deaf move after another.

We've been told since 1999 that Snyder's a marketing genius, with zero proof to back up that reputation. Let's see how he handles this.

***

Not all those who've been screwed over by Dan Snyder will be in the stands this weekend: Denver defensive coordinator Ron Mike Nolan, who held that same position with the Redskins from 1997 to 1999, was among the first guys to whom Snyder revealed his prick side.

During the 1999 season, shortly after taking over the team, Snyder repeatedly delivered vanilla ice cream to Nolan’s office at Redskins Park as a supremely dickish way to say he thought the defensive scheme was too bland. Though involved parties kept that story hushed for years, by now it has become among the most infamous examples of Snyder's mean and horribly unsuccessful managing style.

Nolan's Broncos are 6-1. Snyder's Skins are 2-6. Denver's defense has given up an NFL-low 96 points this season.

If this were pro wrestling, Nolan would ship a pallate of Rocky Road to Snyder's box before the game.

***

Hints of the horribleness from yesterday's various Redskins broadcasts:

*Repartee between Sam Huff and Larry Michael, very early in the second quarter during the official broadcast of the Skins/Falcons game on the Redskins Broadcast Network:

Huff: "I think we're in a heap of trouble."

Michael: "Yeah, we are."

(When Larry Michael lets even the most honest slam of the team go unchallenged, things are bad all over.)

*Al Galdi on the team's postgame show he hosts on Dan Snyder's sportstalker, WTEM: "This season is a necessary evil. There are basic things about this franchise that need to change."

Galdi then quickly added "I'm not breaking any news by saying that."

*WUSA's Brett Haber offered some basic crisis PR advice for Dan Snyder during last night's 11 o'clock news telecast: "Dan: Smile, like once a year!"

It's ugly out there.

***

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

Author's note: The Redskins lost. The rest of today's Cheap Seats Daily will be devoted to what is at once the bizarrest and the most pathetic episode to come out of this sorry season.

Be scared,  people: A fake Hogette is on the loose.

As if things weren't bad enough in Redskins Land, a dire APB went out to hardcore fans over the weekend: The man calling himself "Stephette Hogette" is not a real Hogette.

Sure, the guy's rubber snout and his ladies garb, to the untrained eye, make Stephette Hogette look exactly like the authentic Hogettes, who've been dressing in drag since 1983 but won't give up their gimmick all these years after it outlived its cuteness. But don't be fooled: Not just anybody can align themselves with these douchebags.

(AFTER THE JUMP: The bogus Hogette is "dangerous to women and possibly children"? Cheap Seats Daily tracks down the fugitive Hogette? The fugitive Hogette says "This means war!"? The fugitive Hogette also raps? We need Hogettes, bogus or not, now more than ever?)

"It has come to our attention that an individual is representing himself to be a Hogette," read the warning, which was posted late last week on Skins message boards and fan sites, including Dan Snyder's ExtremeSkins.com. "Please be aware that 'HOGETTES' is a Registered Trademark and the Hogette likeness is COPYWRITED. He is currently in violation of both federal and state statutes.

"We have a very stringent set of rules and guidelines on who can become a Hogette and we monitor all of our members to insure that inappropriate action does not occur. We are very disturbed that someone would portray us in a negative manner and try to insure that this does not happen. However, from time to time we find it necessary to protect our Trademark and Copyright. If you feel that you have been approached by an impostor or become aware of a potential impostor, please contact us immediately at:hogettes.org or hogettes.net."

Fans can spot the fake Hogette because Stephette Hogette usually travels alone, said the warnings. Real Hogettes only roam in packs.

As if being called a bogus Hogette isn't a scary enough charge, the Hogette police also claimed Stephette Hogette is a menace to society.

Redskins blogger Rich Tandler posted on his own blog that "a friend" had spotted the imposter Hogette at a FedEx tailgate before the Rams game and that he had "obviously had been drinking and he made inappropriate comments to some of the ladies."

When some folks on Snyder's board questioned why there's so much interest in taking down a guy for wearing a hog nose, the poster known as Huly, a superfan who organizes welcome home gatherings for the team at Redskins Park, upped the ante: "It is not that he is just dressing like them, claiming to be one of them etc," Huly wrote, "but that he is harming fans under their name. He is dangerous to women and possibly children."

Stephette Hogette, Huly said, "tries to give young women tickets to attend a game with him and [what] I have heard from other fans is he tries to inappropriately touch women and makes sexual advances and inappropriate comments."

Dan Hines, calling himself a real Hogette, came on ExtremeSkins.com to plead for fans' help in un-snouting the bogus Hogette. Stephette's reign of terror, Hines said, jeopardizes the authentic Hogettes' "charity work with children's charities."

Redskins fans are angry these days. So even though the charges against poor Stephette were as vague as they were actionable, some folks were ready to form a posse and go the vigilante route to get him. Fans posted photos of the wanted man (Stephette's the one wearing the snout in the photo up top) to help with the search.

On ExtremeSkins, Capt Kaos promised "to keep an eye out for the scumbag." Sideshow24 said he'd "drop this fat clown" if Stephette brings his fake Hogette routine to a tailgate.

(Huly announced later in the ExtremeSkins thread that a store to sell licensed Hogettes merchandise is currently being set up. Guess somebody doesn't want to cut Stephette Hogette in.)

Nowhere in these warnings or postings do they give any information about the real man charged with being a fake Hogette. Cheap Seats Daily has discovered that the fugitive in the dress and hog nose is actually a guy from Brooklyn named Steve Rasnikov.

Rasnikov, contacted last night in New York—he answers his phone "Hail," as in "Hail to the Redskins!"—says he's aware of the hub-bub about him, but vows to keep wearing his snout.

"This is war now," Rasnikov says. "I used to respect those guys. I sat with them in the Pigpen at games. They accepted me. But then they started hanging out with Bird Man [an Eagles mascot]. This shows how corporate those guys have gotten. They don't like that Stephette Hogette is getting attention. I'm going to tailgates, they're nowhere to be found. Stephette is a Hogette for the people, like Jesus. I've been dressing up for about 20 years. I'm not going to let these guys scare me off."

Though some might quibble with the Stephette Hogette/Jesus comparisons, Rasnikov's length-of-service claim rings true: The New York Times archives has a story from the 1992 NFL draft, held in NYC, featuring a trio of crazy Redskins fans in silly clothing, including "Steve Rasnikov." The Times story has him in the role of "Stephanie Hogette," and he's described as "wearing a cowboy hat, blazer, skirt and pumps." The story indicates that the Skins backers, including Stephanie Hogette/Steve Rasnikov, were taking heat from the fans of the NY teams for showing such loyalty to the then-defending Super Bowl champs from D.C.

From the Times story:

"We take necessary precautions," [Stephanie Hogette] said when asked about dealing with Giant and Jet fans. "They know we are secure in our beliefs. They know we are people not to be trifled."

Asked about all the accusations of bad behavior that the Hogette police are now leveling, Rasnikov, who would not give his age, allows that he does "have fun" at Redskins tailgates, including the Dead Tree Crew's regular debaucherrific get-togethers at FedExField. Rasnikov says Stephette Hogette always "brings a bottle" along on the drive to Raljon from Brooklyn. He's no threat to women and children, Rasnikov says. But he concedes that his standard pickup line, delivered at the tailgates by another of his alter egos, the rapper Snow Rap G, might put off some targeted females.

I ask him to let me hear his line. Rasnikov, with too much gusto and no irony, raps it for me.

Yo yo yo
My tag is Snow Rap G
I'm an OG
That be Lewis and Clarkin' for the right shorty
You can ride for free
I don't charge a fee
All you got to do is rsvp

"They say that's inappropriate?" Rasnikov/Stephette Hogette/Snow Rap G huffs when he's/they're done. "Come on!"

But, again, Rasnikov says, he's not giving up any part of his gameday routine. Anybody who wants his snout will have to take it from his cold dead nose. Rasnikov swears he'll be in full drag as he walks from tailgate to tailgate before the upcoming Kansas City game.

And, bogus or not, perhaps he'll be OK. By the end of the weekend, the campaign to apprehend the fugitive Hogette had lost most of its steam. After the Carolina debacle, Fuse, a poster on ExtremeSkins.com, explained why Stephette Hogette is both anachronistic and viable: "Cross dressing pigs are kind of embarassing now," he wrote on Dan Snyder's message board. "But then again, so is the entire organization."

The thread was then closed by moderators.

Bruce Smith, whose 2000 signing is symbolic of everything wrong with the Washington Redskins in the Snyder Era, was convicted of DUI yesterday in Virginia Beach. Smith failed the field sobriety tests administered by police, but his lawyer had argued in court that his client walked unstably because of old knee injuries from his football days.

That argument didn't fly with the judge, so the defense attorney tried some other Hail Marys. From the AP story:

Smith also had trouble following Womble's hand movements with both eyes, but [Smith's lawyer Larry] Cardon said that could have been caused by his client's multiple concussions or the glare of lights from traffic in the opposite lanes of the interstate.

Cardon also noted that while Womble reported a strong smell of alcohol, the officer testified that Smith's speech was not slurred and that he was cooperative. Cardon said there was insufficient evidence to convict.

But prosecutor Kristin L. Paulding said Smith's problems with the sobriety tests were not just physical — he also had trouble following instructions. For example, Smith was told to walk nine steps and turn around, but he walked 14 and had to be told to stop.

With the May arrest, Smith's now been busted three times in the last 12 years. That is believed to be an all-time record for DUI charges for a Redskins defensive end.

And Pac Man Jones gives the NFL a bad name?

Smith will be inducted into the NFL Hall of Fame this summer. Take a cab, Bruce.

Heading into the weekend, the entertaining putzes over at Dan Snyder's message board, extremeskins.com, were in a tizzy like never before. Things have only gotten tizzier since.

They've uncovered a story bigger than Mike "Biggest Loser" Williams' pre-fast waistline: Dan Snyder might launch a war on tailgating!

After rumors surfaced that new anti-tailgating edicts would be put in place next season, a fan posted contents of an email that was allegedly sent out by the team to its richest suite lessees containing new game day parking rules for 2009.

Two of the new rules are:

These new rules mean that only groups that show up at the stadium lots very early and very together will be able to throw a joint tailgate. The only point would be to discourage tailgating.

Trust me, this is going to be big. Even the diehardest Skins fan agrees tailgating is the only part of the game-day experience that makes a trip to FedExField palatable. (I love tailgating at Snyder's stadium! I've been to FedExField on four Redskins game days in the last two seasons, but I haven't seen a single play live. I've tailgated with my high school buddies and then left before kickoff each time to watch the game at home. I recommend the routine.)

If the email to suiteholders is legitimate and the new rules are enforced — and, given the shoddiness of everything about the operation, that latter one's a real big "if" — these rules will be deal breakers for a lot of Skins season ticket holders.

Many extremeskins.com posters, however, think this parking rules package is a one-season deal that Snyder is throwing out there so he can add a tailgate-fee next season.

What sort of Bubble Boy thinks such an idea would fly?

Stay with Cheap Seats Daily for all the breaking news in Snyder's TailgateGate!

In the NBA, being the second biggest loser in the 2008-2009 season means Blake Griffin's brother Taylor might still be available when you get to pick.

The draft lottery is ridiculous!

***

Michael Vick's almost out.

Would He? Could He?

Will He?

The Redskins have in the past been rewarded for aggressively pursuing QBs while they're still in The System in Virginia.

During the 1987 NFL players strike, the team got former Tennessee Volunteer Tony Robinson out on work release from a Richmond prison, where he was serving time for a federal drug conviction, so he could play against the Cowboys on "Monday Night Football."

Though the Cowboys had regulars such as Danny and Randy White dressed out for the game, Robinson and the Skins won, 13-7, and their underdog tale was sorta the backbone of the Keanu Reeves' feature film, "The Replacements."

It'd be tough to make an, um, underdog movie about Vick.

But would anybody really be shocked if He pulled the trigger here?

If He works fast, maybe Vick can be here in time for the FREE FAN APPRECIATION DAY party at Six Flags!

***

The streaking Nationals dropped their sixth straight last night vs. Pittsburgh.

The Nats scored a run in the bottom of the ninth to send the game into OT, and, more importantly, to keep shelled starter Shairon Martis' record blemishless and his All-Star dreams alive.

Based on the AP's game write-up, the Nats rally also left baseball geeks wooden: "Washington became the fourth team in major league history to score at least five runs in a six-game losing streak, according to STATS, LLC."

I'm not sure what that means, but it sounds big.

***

The great Dan Steinberg (full disclosure: friend, neighbor) has been following The Great Hot Dog Massacre of '09, where mascot Screech has been shooting weiners into the Nationals Stadium grandstand.

Problem is, the food is getting obliterated during transport.

"It's just funny to watch hot dog rolls explode and come down on people," one fan told Steinberg.

Sounds like the Nationals need to call Todd Scheel. He's the genius who gave the world the T-Shirt Gatling Gun, the weapon that the Georgetown Hoyas have been using to rapid-fire gaggles of shirts into the upper deck at Verizon Center during home games.

Scheel, a Milwaukee-area inventor who works in the "dead ball entertainment" field, told me he devised the T-Shirt Gatling Gun sort of by accident, while engineering a "multi-chamber hot dog launcher."

Scheel's rapid-fire hot dog cannon, which shoots a dozen dogs at a time, uses plastic capsules (“Like the ones at a drive-in teller, sort of,” he says) to keep the bun/sausage combo intact, and to allow mustard and catsup packages to go along for the ride. He really wants somebody to give it a shot.

C'mon, Nats! Be the first team in baseball the Hot Dog Gatling Gun!

And lawyer up!

***

Speaking of lawyering up, the fight over the Redskins name really brings out the dregs in the team's fan base.

"No living Indian has ever had this name used in description of them," wrote Art Mills, Dan Snyder's longtime media attack dog and the longest running moderator at Extremeskins, the Snyder-owned message board.

Mills, who used to be entertaining, used his laughable lie — Google for five seconds and get back to me, Art — while rallying the troops to deny that the name of the team is offensive. As the debate was heating up, the moderators moved the thread off the main forum of Snyder's board.

Then there is the Get Over It! crowd.

Such as "J," who posted his annoying thoughts on an ESPN chat with Suzan Shown Harjo, one of the Native American plaintiffs in the Redskins trademark litigation. Harjo's response is just plain killer.

J: Ever think that instead of promoting equality, this fight of yours will sour people about Indians. People may think that Indians are kind of stupid for tying to change a mascot's name.

Suzan Shown Harjo: The thoughts of those who could be soured over a bid for justice are of little interest to me — what are they going to do? Get mad and take away the western hemisphere?

***

Robin Ficker Update: He took it on the chin in yesterday's race for Montgomery County Council.

The Gazette reports that board of election figures have FIcker, who ran as a Republican, him losing by a nearly 2-1 margin to Democrat Nancy Navarro.

He'll run again.

***

Update on the Federal Government's War on Pickup Soccer: the red snow fence remains in place on two spots along Piney Branch Parkway. The grass is thick and green all over. Perfect for soccer1

Because of the fence, the mostly Latin players that have been recreating at the site for decades are now using the plot of grass on the east side of the 16th Street bridge. Last night, there were a couple dozen players there, even though that means they're playing on a hill.

There is no reason to have that fence there except to keep folks from playing soccer.

Mr. Gorbachev, tear down that fence!

We at City Desk ARE NOT GONNA LET THIS GO!

***

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

We've had our share of battles with extremeskins.com. We have definitely won our share of those battles. The controversial Redskins fan site, run and monitored by Snyder's secret police, is still a decent enough gathering spot especially pre-and-post game. The fans on the site are certainly devoted to the team and express themselves in often sweet ways. The current ownership has always been a different story. That is until now!

I got this special, personal message in my inbox today:

"Hello Jcherkis,

We at EXTREMESKINS.com would like to wish you a happy birthday today!"

The site beat out my mom in wishing me a happy birthday. She works at a school and can not send automated messages. She doesn't even know how to open attachments. So mom is off the hook.