Sam Huff is the best reason to listen to Redskins radio broadcasts. The Hall of Fame linebacker and Redskins/Giant legend, who has been handling Skins games for about 30 years, has seemed wobbly in the booth for a while.

But by now that wobbliness has reached a level of consistency that makes the audience stay tuned so as not to miss whatever wackiness will come next.

He's thrown so much crazy stuff out there this year,  partners Larry Michael and Sonny Jurgensen have to be on clean-up alert whenever their beloved cohort's microphone is on. During an exhibition game against Baltimore, for example, the refs dropped a penalty flag as the Ravens offense was approaching the line of scrimmage.

"Its gotta be holding!" said Huff. Michael and Jurgensen pointed out the ball hadn't been snapped.

That's carried over to the real games. After Houston Texans' punter Matt Turk booted the ball into the end zone in overtime of yesterday's game, Huff offered: "Matt Turk....I think he used to play for the Giants."

"He played for the Redskins!" yelled Michael and Jurgensen.

"I knew the name from somewhere," said Huff.

And as placekicker Graham Gano lined up to attempt a long field goal to win in overtime, Huff took the opportunity to ask, "If he misses, do they call the game?"

Michael and Jurgensen told him: No, they keep playing.

Huff, who turns 76 next week, was made iconic by a 1960 CBS documentary called "The Violent World of Sam Huff," and played in just one overtime game during his career. But it's the most famous OT in NFL history: The 1958 championship game between the Baltimore Colts and his New York Giants.

He still thinks those rules are in place.

Because when Gano missed, Huff huffed: "Double overtime!"

A producer could be heard in the background explaining to Huff that there's no such thing as double overtime in the regular season. Bottom line: Awesome radio.

Photo by Darrow Montgomery

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.

***

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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.

***

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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?)

Other members of the radio crew took Sonny's cue. "If this were a baseball game, the bullpen would have activity in it," said Doc Walker, another ex-Redskin and Snyder employee.

"Yes!" said Sonny.

Then, with two minutes left in the first half and Tampa Bay pitching a shutout,  play-by-play man Larry Michael said, "Wonder what the Redskins will do at halftime to make some adjustments."

Sonny jumped right in: "Start another quarterback!"

Campbell's in a contract year. If Jurgensen's done with him, management will follow.

***

Do Vinny Cerrato and Larry Michael look at Washington City Paper as a How To? manual or what?

I wrote a column for the current isse about wonderfully unsuccessful media strategy the Redskins have utilized since Dan Snyder took over: When the going gets tough, attack the Washington Post.

So last week, as the team was wracked with crisis and preparing for its still another Must Win game, Cerrato and Michael went after Sally Jenkins.

Jenkins wrote an instant classic piece last week about the loser culture that has developed under Snyder, and used the presence of Cerrato, who she called "a proven loser," as Exhibit A of the dumbassitude.

Jenkins, and not the lack of a pass rush, running game, game clock strategy, etc., thus became the focus of the team's nightly infomercial hosted by Michael, called "Redskins Nation."

The best part came when Vinny decided he's going to show Jenkins how successful he is. The Great Steinographer, Dan Steinberg, typed up the convo as Vinny and Larry discuss how wrong Sally was. From Steinberg's transcription:

"I'm gonna send all my Super Bowl rings and national championship rings and conference championship stuff and I'm gonna e-mail it," Cerrato promised. "You know, I'm gonna send her pictures of all those, you know, because she probably doesn't know what they look like."

"Oh, no doubt about that," Michael said approvingly. "And I guess the fact that you HAVE had some success proves that you're a failure. I mean, it makes no sense to me. It makes no sense to me. But anyway Vinny, thank you so much for stopping by."

"Maybe she wants to come on the radio show and talk about it?" Cerrato wondered.

"Well Vinny's radio show, coming up Friday, I'm sure you would welcome a phone call," Michael said.

"Oh-oh, would I," Cerrato agreed.

We're all ears, Vinny!

***

Awesome trivia about the Skins' schedule: Washington hasn't played a game yet against a team with a win. That streak will continue this weekend when Washington goes to 0-3 Carolina.

***

WUSA's Brett Haber, describing the Redskins second-half comeback against Tampa Bay: "The sleeping giants awoke."

Ironic? Homerific?

You make the call!

***

Speaking of Snyder: I was walking in DuPont Circle over the weekend and stopped into the Johnny Rockets. That's  a burger chain bought by Dan Snyder in 2007.

The only obvious Snyder touch to the place: The carry out menu has no prices!

A menu without prices? For a fast food joint? It probably isn't part of the "If you have to ask, you can't afford it!" logic behind top shelf joints; at Johnny Rockets, the menu reflects management's realization that you'll lose your appetite if you see how much Snyder has jacked up the prices.

I ended up at City Lights of China across the street. Try the crispy fried shredded beef for $15.95.

Snyder, like the menu, is priceless.

***
The local prep equivalent of Redskins/Cowboys: DeMatha plays Good Counsel this Friday. They're the top two football programs in the area in recent seasons, and this year both are nationally ranked. And, most important, DeMatha and Good Counsel just plain don't like each other.

Ok. I made that up. I have no idea if DeMatha and Good Counsel like each other or not. But I love high school rivalries!

***
Update on the Road to 11 Losses: Traditional high school seasons are 10 games. As far as I can tell, no local school has ever lost 11 games in the same year. Anacostia has 11 games scheduled this year. The Indians are now 0-6, after getting pasted 68-6 by Coolidge on Friday.

But the biggest obstacle to the Indians' season of infamy comes now. They face Eastern, an 0-3 team that has been outscored 114-13. Then Spingarn. After three games, the Green Wave is winless and was losing the point differential battle, 160-6. Neither Spingarn nor Eastern has even 10 games scheduled for 2009.

If only Anacostia can find some way to snatch defeat from what should be two sure wins, it's smooth sailing into the record books.

***

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So over that on WRC, Lindsay Czarniak did her sports report Sunday night without ANY visible Skins logos on her person. (Fact.)

So over that Sonny Jurgensen didn't tussle with Jim Zorn in his postgame interview. (Fact.)

So over that starting this week, the Virginia Lottery has changed first prize for its $20 Redskins scratch tickets to two (2) Redskins season tickets, and second prize to four (4) Redskins season tickets. (Fiction!)

Butt seriously:  What kind of buffoon is going to pay $20, the most heinous sum in the history of lotteries, for a chance to win Skins season tickets that pretty soon won't be worth $20? Commercials for the scratch tickets ran throughout the Redskins radio broadcast yesterday, and the uglier the game got, the more absurd the prizes  seemed. Who wants ANYTHING associated with the Redskins right now?

Coming soon to a courthouse near you: Dan Snyder sues lottery winners who turn down their Skins season tickets. (Fiction.)

But, good god, are the 2009 Skins over. (Fact.)

(AFTER THE JUMP: Skins' suckage is the lead local story? The national newspeople take break into Tiger Woods coverage to dump on the Skins? Jurgensen takes it easy on Zorn? Sam Huff can't stomach Albert Haynesworth? Will Haynesworth make everybody forget Dana Stubblefield? Bad news is good news for extremeskins.com? Who is this "Synder" fella? Nats get swept again? The Nats Tragic Number is down to what? It's hockey season?)

"There's no way to overstate just how bad this is," said anchorman Craig Melvin to open the evening news broadcast at WRC, a place where news employees actually work for Dan Snyder and are known to wear their fealty to the Skins owner on their shirtsleeves. (Czarniak told the Tony Kornheiser Show last week that somebody above her, either station management or Dan Snyder, forced her to wear Redskins clothing on the air.) Several minutes of doom and doomer about the loss in Detroit followed on WRC.

Fox 5 also led off its 10 o clock news with the Skins: "Disappointment, anger frustation..." said anchor Will Thomas. "Keep going!" co-anchor Maureen Umeh chimed in.

Earlier in the day, Jurgensen also seemed at a loss for words during his post-game locker-room interview with Zorn. The Hall of Fame QB dropped the attack-dog style he'd used on the Redskins coach in recent weeks. There was no fight left in Zorn.

"We must change," Zorn told Jurgy.

At the exact moment that Zorn and Sonny were moping it up on Dan Snyder's radio station, WTEM, the Detroit Lions players were being shown on national TV walking around the perimeter of Ford Field accepting fans' congratulations like they'd all just broken Cal Ripken's streak.

***

The Redskins are a national cause for concern, too: NBC interrupted its FedEx Cup golf tournament broadcast to alert viewers that the Lions had won for the first time since 2007.

"It'll be a long week for the Redskins," said the NBC anchorwoman.

***

There were some fantastic radio moments between Skins play-by-play man Larry Michael and color commentator Sam Huff during yesterday's WTEM game broadcast when the neo-Stubblefield, Albert Haynesworth, made his first sack of the season and stayed on the Detroit turf. Huff is tired of the $100 million man's slothful demeanor on gamedays.

Michael: Haynesworth is down!

Huff: He's tired...

Michael: And he has not moved!

Huff: Tired

Haynesworth was eventually taken off the field by medical personnel on a cart.

***

Drama can be good for business: Dan Snyder's message board, extremeskins.com, is claiming its all time record for traffic was broken after the game by a factor of 1 and a half.

As soon as a thread expressing all the bad feelings was closed, another one was started. Typical was one titled: If You Shared an Elevator With Dan Snyder Tomorrow...........What would you say to him?

"I'd fart," said the poster Arkawi, the only guy to get in before moderators shut down the thread.

The traffic flow at Snyder's web site was no doubt helped by the traffic tie-up at Snyder's sports talker, WTEM-AM. For whatever reason, host Al Galdi took a paltry amount of callers in his two-hour or so post-game show, despite running out of ways to say that the Redskins had lost early into the program. One of the few listeners who managed to override WTEM's filibuster and get on the air railed against the owner and tagged Vinny Cerrato as Snyder's "personal sock puppet."

WJFK, meanwhile, didn't even have a postgame show to let fans decompress. Instead, the area's newest sportstalker aired a live broadcast of the Pittsburgh Steelers/Cincinnati Bengals game.

Via email, WJFK boss Chris Kinard explained his station's programming choice: "By contract with Westwood [One, an NFL syndicator], we have to carry their late afternoon game. It's part of the deal to carry Sunday and Monday Night Football. We had a postgame last week when the Ravens game was blacked out locally, and will do expanded pre and post coverage whenever possible."

Kinard, who says he also noticed how few callers were allowed on WTEM after the game, promises to let fans vent to their heart's content today.

"We're going to open the phone lines all day," he says. "Should be interesting."

***

The Washington Post dealt the Redskins owner the lowest of blows yesterday. From an introduction to Michael Wilbon's Sunday column in support of not firing the coach: "Jim Zorn is Daniel M. Synder's sixth coach."

"Synder!"

Somewhere along the way, for reasons I'm not sure of, "Synder" became the go-to nickname for hardcore Redskins fans when mocking the team's owner.

"Schottenheimer" was spelled correctly in Wilbon's piece.

***

Nats lose! Nats lose!

Swept away...again. This time by the Atlanta Braves. At 52-103, the Road to 100 Losses is but a memory.  If I'm carrying the one correctly, the Nats' Tragic Number, guaranteeing the team the worst record in the Majors, is down to two — any combination of Washington losses or Pittsburgh Pirates wins, and our team's got the top draft pick all over again.

Good thing it's hockey season!

***

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"Nah, it ain't enjoyable," Haynesworth said.

Which means one thing: Big Al didn't bet the Cheap Seats Daily Double™!

Because had he followed Cheap Seats Daily's Tout #1 and bet this month's mortgage on the Ravens, laying three points, he would have won. And if he'd have followed Cheap Seats Daily's Tout #2 and bet next month's mortgage on the under (31 1/2), he'd have won that, too.

Haynesworth would be rich!

***

Lindsay Czarniak showed up during the game broadcast and the post-game show wearing a licensed Redskins shirt, logo and all. That makes sense, since she was working for the Redskins Broadcasting Network, owned by Dan Snyder.

But Czarniak was carrying a WRC microphone. She took off the Redskins costume and put on a blue fluffy top for her 11 o'clock news segment from Baltimore, so clearly her superiors have some inkling about the appearance of a conflict of interest.

Why is this dual role allowed? Czarniak works for the news department of an NBC affiliate. But she works for Dan Snyder, too. For the ethics police, other than the import of the subject matter, what's the difference between Czarniak's Redskins deal and Armstrong Williams taking money from the Bush White House?

(AFTER THE JUMP: Why not have Redskins salons? Joe Theismann, musicologist? Will Ladell Bettis ever get over it? What's Cora Masters Barry trying to get away with now? Karl Swanson writes in? The Tom Boswell Curse lives on?)

If the Washington Post hosted a salon where it promised sports reporters and Redskins would be available to anybody who ponied up big money, would that bother anybody?

Ain't sports news news?

***

Jim Zorn, talking with Czarniak's co-worker Larry Michael of the Redskins Broadcasting Network about fumbles and penalties and assorted miscues after his team's shutout loss: "All these things were like bullets hitting me in the chest."

***

This morning, early in the debut of "The Joe Theismann Show" on Dan Snyder's WTEM, host Theismann came out of commercial with a song from what he called "one of my favorite bands in the world, Journey." As the music faded he advised fans, "Don't stop believing!"

Later, also coming out of a break to Elvis Presley's "Hound Dog," Theismann said, "I love music. Elvis, Michael Jackson. The next one to be in that [class] is going to be Justin Timberlake. Justin is such an amazing talent. As was Brian Orakpo last night."

Smooove...

***

Prediction: The Bettis jersey debacle will be referenced much more than any play in last night's game, and remembered much longer.

***

Redskins and Dan Snyder spokesman Karl Swanson wrote in to dispute wording I used here yesterday when describing Snyder's sneaky parking surcharge at concerts and other non-Redskins events held at FedExField, which he owns. While all other venues in the area include parking charges in the advertised price of the ticket, Snyder adds it as a line item on the invoice on top of the advertised price. This scheme can mean an extra $700,000 for Snyder for U2's show next month. I wrote: "And this is with zero overhead."

Swanson, via email, responded:

Regarding your City Desk post of today, contrary to your claim "this is with zero overhead" there is significant overhead in the form of parking attendants, security, police, and post-event cleaning.

What I wrote was not clear. I meant that adding a line-item on an invoice costs Snyder nothing, not that operating a parking service has no overhead.

***

Cora Masters Barry got an eviction notice yesterday from the Southeast Tennis and Learning Center because, according to the Washington Post, the corporate registration of her organization, the Recreation Wish List Committee, had lapsed. She's got 30 days to vacate the building, according to reports.

In a puffy WRC interview aired last night, Masters Barry, who only talks to the media when she needs 'em, acted like she was crying.

And Masters Barry, who's as good an actor as her husband and has as many lives, whined to the Washington Post, "This has been my life's work!"

That's not really true. Her life's work also includes a stint as commissioner of DC's Boxing and Wrestling Commission. At the time, she was known as Cora Wilds.

In that job, which former members of the commission say she got only because of her relationship to her future husband, then-Mayor Marion Barry, Masters Barry made the DC boxing scene a national laughingstock. Her only accomplishment came in earning a federal conviction for defrauding the city and its residents.

Masters Barry was boxing commissioner from 1980 to 1987. A 1987 investigation by the Washington Post showed that while on the job Masters Barry had taken 25 trips around the globe, to spots such as Venice and Aruba, to watch championship fights. She flew first class despite city regulations that required coach for business travel. Masters said her back hurt too much to fly coach.

But Masters Barry couldn't explain away all the receipts that showed she'd been illegally double-billing both the DC government and the boxing commission for all her travels. She was convicted in federal court in 1988 for the fraud.

In her seven years as commissioner, for all the championship bouts she flew to abroad on our dime times two, Masters Barry never brought a single title fight to DC.

The one big match that was scheduled during Masters Barry's reign, a bout between Michael Spinks and Eddie Mustafa Muhammad for Spinks’ undisputed light heavyweight crown in July 1983, was cancelled hours before the bell was to ring because of, depending on who you believe, either Muhammad's weight or a problem with the scales used at the weigh-in, which were provided by Masters Barry.

York Van Nixon, a DC boxing commissioner before and during Masters Barry's reign, told me last year: “Boxing still hasn’t come back here from what she did to it. It never will.”

***

Update on the The Tom Boswell Curse:

Nats get crushed in Cincinnati. No runs, two hits.

Nats' record with Boswell on vacation: 14-6.

Nats' record since Boswell returned from vacation: 0-3.

Good thing it's betting football season!

***

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