Big week for Ron Weber.

First, the Hockey Hall of Fame announced that Weber, the original Washington Capitals play-by-play man, had been given something called the Foster Hewitt Memorial Award "for outstanding contributions as a hockey broadcaster."

And, then Weber makes Leonard "Saved By Lists!" Shapiro's roster of the Top 10 sportsradio personalities in this market.

Shapiro's list is pretty good: Johnny Holliday, Shapiro's No. 1, is such a fixture and so beloved he's a bulletproof selection. (Awesome trivia about Johnny Holliday: He introduced the Beatles at their last live gig, in August 1966 in San Francisco, then a couple years later moved to D.C. to be the announcer for the Washington Capitols of the ABA, a team that played in Uline Arena, the same venue where the Beatles had played their FIRST live gig in the USA in February 1964. Awesomer trivia about Holliday: While announcing the ABA games, Holliday's roommates in a Connecticut Ave. apartment were Rick Barry and future vagabond coach Larry Brown.)

But, like any good list, Shapiro gives everybody something to quibble about. His inclusion of the Sports Junkies shows he's just going for Web hits, considering he's made slamming the WJFK morning hosts a personal crusade for a decade. And, by God, he should have included Jon Miller, who before he became an ESPN superstar was the longtime announcer of DC's baseball team, the Baltimore Orioles.

There's never been an announcer here or anywhere who could match Miller's brilliance. Take this, from Sports Illustrated's 1991 account of the game he called at Memorial Stadium with Queen Elizabeth attending:

No one offered Queen Elizabeth a plug of Red Man or even a chunk of Bazooka when she attended her first major league game this May at Baltimore's Memorial Stadium. Some O's fans, ignoring her royal presence, shouted barnyard epithets at the umpire. Others, Irish Republican Army sympathizers, displayed their awareness of her presence on hand-lettered placards in the bleachers—reading, among other things, BRITS OUT OF IRELAND. So it was left to Jon Miller, the Orioles' radio announcer, to celebrate Her Majesty's attendance by invoking Shakespeare. "The queen of England  is at the game today," he told his listeners. "But that doesn't mean we're going to call it any differently."

Then, copping a couple of lines from Romeo and Juliet, he added, "It's just two baseball teams, both alike in dignity, in fair Baltimore, where we lay our scene."

When Oakland A's leadoff man Rickey Henderson let a pitch go by for a called strike, Miller paraphrased Lady Macbeth: "It was the umpire that shrieked, the fatal bellman, which gives the sternest goodnight."

When Henderson had an opportunity to steal a base, Miller quoted Malcolm in Macbeth: "Let us not be dainty of leave-taking, but shift away. There's warrant in that theft which steals itself when there's no mercy left."

The queen occasionally looked perplexed, though not because of these and other "British Monarchy Moments" Miller inserted into his play-by-play. "I was just trying to get her to come on the air with me," says Miller. "I was hoping she'd come up and read the Esskay Meats out-of-town scoreboard."

And any list that includes Sonny, Sam and Frank and Weber has to have Miller. He was huge in this market from 1983 to 1996, when Angelos dumped him the way Dan Snyder dumped Frank Herzog. Neither team has recovered from those moves.

But back to Weber: Awesome trivia about him: He's not only the original Caps announcer, but he's also the ONLY former Caps announcer. The franchise has had only two play-by-play men in their 36 seasons: Weber went from Day One in 1973 to 1997; Steve Kolbe's been there ever since. Kolbe didn't make Shapiro's list.

But how 'bout Shapiro?

The veteran Washington Post writer, who was banished to a digital-only existence by the paper a while ago, hadn't been heard from since he blamed Sean Taylor's lifestyle for getting him murdered. (Shapiro's column inspired former Washington Times basketball writer John Mitchell to go on WOL to call Shapiro both a “racist, conniving skunk” and a “racist, conniving dog of a skunk." Mitchell was suspended for the Shapiro rant.)

But now, two weeks in a row, Shapiro's inspired water-cooler conversation and made waves with his media column. Last week he went over history's Top 10 TV sportscasters in this market.

"How would you like to see the Redskins take on the Cowboys? — AND have the Washington Redskins Cheerleaders soap up and scrub down your car???"

Well? How would you like that?

Check out that ad!

It appears on the Web site for WTEM, Dan Snyder's sports talk station, to promote the latest listener contest. Top prize will bring the Redskins cheerleaders over to wash your car.

Kinda yucky?

The radio ads are just as outrageous, with panting males and all sorts of breathy talk of scrubbing and rubbing. The campaign is also just the latest evidence of Snyder's thing for cheerleaders. He took over the Washington Redskins Cheerleaders shortly after buying the team, and has increased their role in his global marketing scheme ever since.

The car wash campaign marks a new level of subservience for the Redskins Cheerleaders, and cheerleaders in general. The message is: "Put down your pom poms and grab a sponge!" That tells the world that Snyder can force his troupe to put on something skimpy and service Joe Sixpack.

Basically, Snyder's pushing a Madonna/Whore image for his cheerleaders.

Well, minus the Madonna.

(AFTER THE JUMP: More on the Redskins cheerleaders? Snyder is being called "Lord Farquaad"? PhotoGate update: Snyder really did censor Dan Steinberg? Isn't the Leonsis worship getting outta hand? Guaranteed Win Night proves AGAIN that it's a sure thing? Remember "The Sure Thing"?)

Look for more about the Redskins' owner's history with cheerleaders in a Cheap Seats column that'll come out sometime later this week.

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Update on PhotoGate: Dan Snyder DID censor Dan Steinberg's photos from the Tampa Bay game!

Steinberg had chronicled the ill-will among the home fans at FedExField, and his piece was accompanied by photos of the ill-willed wearing anti-Snyder T-shirts and garb.

Steinberg took the photos himself, while walking around the stadium. He's been taking those photos at FedExField and posting them without problems since he started doing the Sports Bog.

But hours after he put up shots of the Tampa Bay game, a game during which stadium security confiscated thousands and thousands of bags that discontented ticket buyers planned to wear on their heads, those photos disappeared from washingtonpost.com.

Steinberg, my former regular Friday lunch date, declined to comment on what went on.

But sports editor Matt Vita says the photos were pulled from Steinberg's Bog at the behest of the Redskins: "The Redskins said he was in violation of his credentials for taking the photographs. We honored that request, because at the end of the day, they control access to their facility."

Vita would not discuss the possible implications of ignoring the Redskins request to yank the photos.

Round: Snyder, 10-8.*

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Over at Dan Snyder's message board, extremeskins.com, some of the discontented have taken to calling the owner "Lord Farquaad."

That's harsh. But it beats the crap outta "Synder."

***

Leonard Shapiro, who was taking his slams of Dan Snyder to the Miami Herald recently, has brought 'em all back home to the Washington Post. Well, to washingtonpost.com, anyway.

Shapiro goes down the path of comparing Snyder to Ted Leonsis.

This Caps team is great fun, and Leonsis these days is impossible not to love, being the open, accessible owner of a winning team. Just a couple years ago, he was brawling with Caps fans in the concourse of the home arena! Yet he's still out there glad-handing and giving fans and players and George McPhee all the credit.

And, sure, Snyder remains in hiding, and after hearing a couple boos and "Lord Farquaad!"'s he's ordering his thugs to take your paper bags away.

But the Caps worship is getting out of hand. This ain't the first time the Capitals have been pretty good. The current Caps squad hasn't gotten as far, and absent #8 isn't as obviously talented, as the 1989-1990 squad, and that team's fans were as committed and crazy. Nobody put Abe Pollin on a pedestal back then.

Damn, that was 20 years ago? What a geezer post this is!

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Guaranteed Win Night comes in again!

Cheap Seats Daily spied that +52-run run differential differential (R²D²™) the Minnesota Twins enjoyed over the Detroit Tigers, and couldn't lay off the Twins in the one-game playoff to get into the standard postseason.

Some folks might have been worried when Detroit was up a run in the top of the 10th, or had the bases loaded with one out in the 11th.

But not us.

No, not us, even as we "watched" the game on ESPN.com's silly/amazing MLB GameCast and figures flashed on-screen saying that Detroit had a 72 pecent chance to win the game with a guy on second and one out in the 11th, so Minnesota intentionally walked a guy, and that gave Detroit runners on first and second and a 74 percent chance to win the game. (I'm no baseball guy, but if you increase the opponent's chance of winning by intentionally putting a runner on first in that situation, how come EVERY manager does it?)

But, again, while we were confused by the pro-Detroit percentages, we were not worried. Because here at Cheap Seats Daily, we know, to re-quote the dumbass adage we made up while begging folks to put the mortgage and then some on Minnesota, that pitching might win championships, but R²D² Wins Ballgames™!

Vegas has gotta be worried about the success of Cheap Seats Daily's free touting service. Good thing for Delaware that that state didn't get sports gambling like it wanted, or by now both my readers would own half of Wilmington.

Plainly, Guaranteed Win Night™ is the surest thing since Nicolette Sheridan. (IMDB's database lists Sheridan's character in the 1984 movie The Sure Thing as "The Sure Thing.")

Watching that movie clip now, among the things that occur to me is that Sheridan mighta been the template for Snyder's vision of a Washington Redskins cheerleader. She just needs a sponge.

***

*Full disclosure: I freelance music reviews for the Washington Post.

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Bottom line: Cheap Seats Daily's hype of Dim WitsGate™ is validated!

From all the hate going Henson's way on Sunday's postgame shows on local sportstalk stations, I was certain this was going to develop into the biggest Redskins controversy ever generated by an inactive linebacker using new media. Or at least one of the biggest Redskins controversies ever generated by an inactive linebacker using new media.

And now it's on the front page!

Also, it's always nice to see former longtime DC resident the Great Dan Steinberg, the Woodward & Bernstein of Dim WitsGate™, on A1.

(Full disclosure: I still have my 35-year-old "Nixon Resigns" issue of the Washington Post in my paperboy bag in the basement. I'll get 'em out for Halloween. Hence the "-Gate" fetish...)

***

There they go again. Dan Snyder is using his web site to go to war with the Washington Post.

(AFTER THE JUMP: Is Henson being used to take heat off the real Redskins villains? Pravda's Ashburn bureau strikes again? How would you copy-edit multiple Twitters? Leonard Shapiro now using out-of-town newspapers to blast Dan Snyder? The NFL's blackout policy is as big a sham as the Skins waiting list?)

"Robert Henson did not get on the field on Sunday," read the faux news article written by Skins PR man Gary Fitzgerald and posted yesterday on Redskins.com, "but somehow he’s the talk of the town and strangely enough he’s a big headline in The Washington Post...Henson’s apologies on Twitter and in his Monday media session–as well as Zorn's comments on the young linebacker–were not fully included in a Tuesday story in The Washington Post. The article focused more on the mistake and not the contrition."

I pity the tool who had to put a byline on that.

If the organization hadn't already proven it can't do anything right PR-wise, I'd be wondering if this whole Post-bashing exercise wasn't a ploy to deflect the media's attention away from Jim Zorn, Dan Snyder, Jason Campbell, Vinny Cerrato, and the parking and tailgating fiasco at FedExField.

They'd all be getting more play, and taking a bigger beating, if Henson wasn't all thumbs.

***

For those not obsessed with the Redskins off-field soap opera, Steinberg's A1 story had an interesting copy-editing situation, if that ain't oxymoronical. Here's how some of Robert Henson's Twitter ramblings appeared in the Post:

"No I didn't play but I still made more than you in a year and you'd [gladly] switch spots with me in a second," Henson wrote during a string of responses. "I was talking to the fans [who] said the crazy stuff, I'm use [to heckling] but I've never been booed in my own stadium. Again that was for the half hearted but if everyone wants to jump in come on. The question is who are you to say you know what's best for the team and you work 9 to 5 at Mcdonalds [sic]. You don't wanna follow me anymore then fine but we play for you and win lose or draw we represent you!! My guy on the Rams said they never got booed even when they didn't win a game."

That paragraph was made up of more than one of Henson's Twitters, yet was treated as a single quote.

I've never come across this situation before, and I'm guessing AP Style hasn't yet weighed in on how to treat multiple Twitters. So this is a time for Post copy editors to leave a lasting mark on their craft. I'm going to have to stare at my WWABD bracelet ("What Would Andrew Beaujon Do?") before I decide if this is correct copyediting or not.

***

Leonard Shapiro had to go to Miami to run this story blasting Dan Snyder as the worst owner in the NFL. I can't find it locally. Why didn't the Washington Post run it?

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Now that everybody but the crazies accepts that Dan Snyder's season tickets waiting list is bogus and has been bogus for years, I wish somebody would expose the NFL's blackout policy as a similar fraud.

All you need to know: The Skins home games ain't sold out — the team was selling general admission tickets for the Rams game through email blasts all week — yet the games are on TV.

Case closed. Shut up.

Obviously, the NFL owners have as much motivation to enforce the blackout rule as they do to enforce the steroids prohibition.

Oh, right: Only baseball players and cyclists are dopers!

***

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The punchline here is that the new site was founded by some of the very same folks who used to make extremeskins.com run, only to become disenfranchised after selling out to Snyder in 2005. (For the un-obsessed: Snyder made the Redskins the first pro sports team to acquire an existing fan site with the extremeskins move, one of many firsts during the Redskins owner's campaign to Control the Message.)

AFTER THE JUMP: Barry Sanders kid is BGObsessed? Extremeskins goes toe-to-toe with its founder's new website? The Great Dan Steinberg™ Some bozo bet on the Nats BEFORE Guaranteed Win Night? DC United crushes the Real Madrid of a Small Section of Northwestern New York? Still no mention of the Washington Kastles? Sports Radio mulls Erin Andrews AND lactation?

The main force behind BGO is Mark "Om" Steven, an extremeskins architect and longtime Snyder toadie who I've done my best to abuse for his toadiness in this very space. Gotta say, tho: A whole lot of work clearly went into the BGO launch. For Snyder obsessives, the competition between BGO and extremeskins.com will be at least as interesting as that between WJFK and WTEM.

It'll also be interesting to see how many Skins sites this market can support. Especially in July in a preseason not teeming with the blind optimism of the past preseasons.

***

Somebody likes the Redskins. Via The Big Lead: Barry Sanders Jr. says the Detroit Lions, the team that superfunded his trust fund, ain't his favorite NFL squad: "I’m a Redskins fan because I like Clinton Portis. They also have Jason Campell and that defense," the littler Sanders said.

***

Back to us: Yesterday, in this space, Cheap Seats Daily adopted and then led a group singalong of the Nats unofficial official cheer, Thunderation.

And we guaranteed a Nats win.

And the Nats won.

Do the math: WE'RE RESPONSIBLE!

And, since it was on us to end Jim Riggleman's Nats'-managerial-career-spanning four-game winless streak, as threatened promised, we're going to repeat the cheer here, again and again, and declare that tonight is another...you know it's coming...GUARANTEED WIN NIGHT!

You know the words! Sing with us:

Thunder, Thunder, Thunderation
We’re the Rockets Delegation
When we fight with determination
We create a soul sensation!

Be like REO Speedwagon and don't fight this feeling anymore! Together, we can re-create a Soul Sensation!

***

Now that the Nats are streaking, the Great Dan Steinberg™ somebody should double the money they lost in Vegas on tonight's game. Remember: It's Guaranteed Win Night! If the bet doesn't come in, the rest of the year is on us! And TGDS™ somebody can, you know, write about losing again and write off the loss again.

***

D.C. United survived the Real Madrid of Rochester, the Rochester Rhinos, 2-1, at the Wembley Stadium of Boyds, Md., the Maryland SoccerPlex, to advance to the finals of the World Cup of Irrelevant Soccer Tourneys, the U.S. Open Cup.

Now it's onto the U.S. Open Cup final for United, where they'll doubtless take on the Bad News Bears or Durham Bulls or somesuch in a high school gym or a cow pasture or somesuch.

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The dwindling influence of Big Media, or maybe just Leonard Shapiro...Yesterday, the Post's veteran sports media critic went after the Sports Junkies during his review of the new WJFK.

"This is supposed to be a sports talk station," wrote Shapiro, "so why did one junky segment in the 8 o'clock hour have to focus on one of the hosts relating how his toddler son kept pulling the hair of his little sister and how he had to be placed in time out? I don't need parenting lessons at that hour."

Shapiro has never liked the Sports Junkies. But a few years ago, when Shapiro's work appeared in the paper version of the paper, the Junks might have tweaked their topics for a couple days to keep the critic quiet. But today, the first show after Shapiro's slams, the boys talked about the difficulty of getting infants to take a bottle, and lactating wives.

At least the discussion wasn't about getting Lindsay Czarniak to take a bottle or lactating Erin Andrews.

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