Dashboard, 1988

Click image to enlarge

A sampling:

This is Snyder's team; he was intimately involved in assembling it. He keeps his favorite players on speed dial, watches practices on the sidelines and demands face time and explanations from the coaches he personally hired. Whatever you think of Zorn, he is Snyder's own selection. It was Snyder who told Joe Gibbs, "He would make a great head coach." He is personally responsible for naming Vinny Cerrato, a proven failure, executive vice president of football operations, for the Redskins' lack of core strength, for their inability to power the ball in the red zone, which is thanks to his decade of neglect of the interior lines in favor of big free agent signings.

But no sampling can do the column justice. It's all wondrous.

(AFTER THE JUMP: Reading recommendations? Nats give fans an unforgettable "Bang! Zoom!" when down to last strike? Thom Loverro says forget "Bang! Zoom!" Ted Leonsis says Caps better than Jesus? When's the wake for Hoop Dreams? Say it ain't so, Susie Kay?)

My only problem with Jenkins' article is that nowhere in the piece is there a disclosure that she has written books with Lance Armstrong, or any mention of all the allegations that Armstrong doped while winning all those Tour de Frances.

(Whoa! Where'd that come from? Enough with the Lance Armstrong! Innocent til proven guilty! Heard of it? Geezus Chrysler! Let Sally do God's work!)

OK, OK! Go read Sally Jenkins' column again!

***

Sure, it's early in the football season, but I'm certain that nothing the Redskins do this year will wow their fans as much as last night's Nats' win over the Mets wowed those spectating or otherwise watching or (in my case) listening.

Justin Maxwell's grand slam with his team down a run in the bottom of the last inning of the last home game of the year---Maxwell was down to his last strike, in fact---gave me the sort of thrill chills I hadn't gotten since Boise State beat Oklahoma in the Fiesta Bowl a few years ago.

Sure, the game meant nothing in the big scheme---the Mets are huge losers, and the Nats have already wrapped up not only last place in the division for 2009, but the worst record in the majors. But the rest of the season meant less than nothing while Charlie Slowes called Maxwell's HR with the fans going crazy crazy crazy in the background. Sports magic, it was.

No matter how lousy this team is, the ending was enough to make you think: Wait 'til next year!

***

Thom Loverro, alas, says don't wait 'til next year.

Loverro predicts very dire times for the Washington Nationals, at least at the turnstiles. By the end of next season, Loverro says, Nats management will look back wistfully at the 2009 debacle.

This organization is not on the brink of turning around the Jim Bowden culture that buried D.C. baseball in a deep, dark hole that will take years to dig out of. Let's say the Nationals wind up with 57 wins to show for 2009. A 10-win improvement would be a dramatic jump. That means about 67 wins next season. Think that will cause a spike in attention and attendance?

Sometime before the start of the season, Kasten has traditionally shared the season-ticket sales for the season. This year he did not, but we got a pretty good idea from some of the sparse crowds at Nationals Park that it is somewhere around 12,000 - down from the high of 22,000 during the inaugural 2005 season at RFK Stadium. There's no reason not to believe that next year it could fall below 10,000.

Loverro's always right. I just wish he'd've waited a day or two before killing my post-Justin Maxwell buzz with reality.

***

As the Washington Capitals open their regular season tonight, the Washington Times previews the season with a story headlined "Leonsis: Capitals set for dynasty."

Considering how smart and humble Ted Leonsis had been with the media in recent years, and with Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin, the superstar leaders of the defending Stanley Cup champion Pittsburgh Penguins, both being younger than Alex Ovechkin, I found that headline startling.

Ted would call his team a dynasty?

Well, I've read the story once and scanned it a bunch of times, but I can't find any quote where the Caps owner uses the word "dynasty" or claims that the team is "set for dynasty." I see him sorta bragging that he likes the way his organization is set up, but no "dynasty" claims. Maybe I'm just missing something. The Times' Web site does godawful things to my browser, no foolin'.

But if I'm not missing anything: It's like those "John Lennon: Beatles More Popular Than Jesus" headlines that helped take the Fabs off the road in 1966.

Only, Lennon actually said that.

***

Tonight's the goodbye party for the Hoop Dreams Scholarship Fund at the Historical Society of Washington, D.C.

The charity was founded more than a decade ago by then-H.D. Woodson teacher Susie Kay.

Kay decided to dissolve the fund earlier this year because of dwindling charity dollars going to group's like hers. From the start, she worked the schedule of a dairy farmer. In the end, Hoop Dreams subsidized the college educations of more than 1,000 kids from D.C. public high schools.

She made the city a better place.

***

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

Good Friday, 1996

Bus, 2000

I wasn't familiar with the phrase, but ran to Google to confirm that "G Moment" is a trademark of a sponsor.

Turns out it's from Gatorade.

Kenseth's plug was seamlessly delivered with the rest of his victory speech. He wiped away the tears and took a pull from a bottle of orange Gatorade.

It was brilliant and douchebaggy, all at once.

And, besides, Kenseth's pitch wasn't nearly the hardest to watch speech of the day. That award goes to the pre-race prayer delivered by some clown named Dr. David Uth, a preacher from Orlando.

Anybody who wants to work up some anti-Christian fervor should check out Uth's work, while remembering this is a sporting event that calls itself "The Great American Race."

Talk about a pulpit bully.

Uth was only brought in because longtime race chaplain Rev. Hal Marchman, 90, was too ill to deliver the invocation. Marchman used to end his prayer with "shalom and amen."

The heavens must not have liked Uth's drivel too much.

In one of the few non-offensive portions of his speech, Uth thanked God for the sunshine.

And then the clouds opened up.

"You can call me Ted. I sell life insurance, if you need some." That's Ted Haggard, the former evangelical preacher who was fired and/or resigned from his posts after having an affair with a male prostitute and buying meth, talking to TV critics Friday here in Los Angeles.

Haggard and his family were promoting Alexandra Pelosi's 45-minute HBO documentary "The Trials of Ted Haggard," which debuts Jan. 29. "Now that we've got the freedom to answer questions, we want to answer questions," he said. Pelosi, daughter of Speaker Nancy Pelosi, revealed that "Ted had an agreement with the church that he would not tell his story, and he was recently released from that."

As to his "trials," the life insurance salesman and former National Association of Evangelicals president said, "I now know more about hatred than I've ever dreamed. And I know it doesn't help. And I know about judgment, and I know it doesn't help."

Haggard said "I made the wrong decision" and that "my hope was always that I could deal with my issue on my own," he's "grateful now for [gay escort] Mike [Jones]'s decision to expose that, and I'm grateful for my family's decision to be faithful to me when I wasn't faithful to them." His wife, Gayle, told critics that "our marriage was strong and is stronger now because of the honesty and the transparency and our ability to communicate about these things."

As to the drugs, Haggard said, "I'm not sure what I bought. And it conflicted me. It was, I love it; I hate it. I don't really know what to do with this." But he said he's convinced that "without this scandal, I had the potential of becoming dependent and increasingly compulsive, and probably really ruining my life. I certainly lost my career and my reputation."

While Ted called his behavior "hypocrisy," he sidestepped repeated questions about sexual orientation, including his own. "I think sexuality is confusing and complex," he said, vaguely referencing the "very positive, constructive process" he's going through, adding later, "I am thoroughly and completely satisfied with my relationship with my wife." He also insisted that "all people are in equally desperate need of redemption, love, inspiration, kindness, compassion, forgiveness, those things. We are in a world that's short on love and high on hatred and judgment, and I've gotten it from every side. I get it from the religious side as well as the unreligious side, and I just think we can all improve."

Haggard's daughter Christy -- who appeared in front of critics along with her brother, Marcus --was more direct. While she said "there was a lot of misrepresentation which resulted in a lot of confusion, a lot of unnecessary hatred towards our family," she said later, "We were more judgmental than we are now, and people were hurt by us. And I know that a lot of people deserve a very sincere apology from our family because we are all the way we are for a reason."

To paraphrase President-elect Obama: "When people get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward candidates who actually have a hope in hell."

But to assume these two were the only major write-in players would be to underestimate the imagination and pluck of the American people. As Matt Dunn of the New Jersey Star-Ledger sagely observes:

Voters in Cumberland County unsatisfied with the choices given to them on Election Day chose to vote on their own terms in this year's election. The write-in candidates stood little chance of defeating those candidates whose names were listed on the ballot, but that didn't stop voters from exercising their right to vote for whomever they saw fit.

Below the jump, some of my favorite write-ins from Ohio, New Jersey, New Hampshire, Florida, and D.C.

Stark County, OH: Hello Kitty; Captain Morgan; Alfred E. Neuman; Ted Nugent; Jesus Christ the Lord; Jesus of Nazareth; Bengals wide receiver Chad Ocho-Cinco (1 vote apiece).

Cumberland County, NJ: Mitt Romney (3); Paris Hilton (1); Newt Gingrich (?)

New Hampshire: Bill Clinton (13); Chuck Baldwin (226); Sarah Palin (18).

Duval County, FL (via Ben Smith): Chuck Norris (2); Mickey Mouse (3); Rudy Giulliani [sic] (4); God (6); Weird Al Yancovic [sic] (1); "They Both Suck '08" (1); "none of the above" (23)*.

Washington, D.C.: Ted Scheinman (at least 1).

If you require further proof that hope springs eternal, I can't really help you out.

*Tied with Jesus.