"If anything, the first four games of [new manager Jim] Riggleman's tenure introduced an even lower grade of achievement and fortune. At least during the typical Manny Acta homestand, the Nationals could count on the occasional rainout to spare them from a loss."

A guy riding to the stadium in the same Metro car as me to yesterday's game was wearing a Cubs jersey and carrying a broom. And if security let him into the stadium as is, he got to use the thing.

The four-game (!) reverse sweep was all but completed shortly after Nats SS Alberto Gonzales muffed an easy grounder in the 4th inning. Chicago scored 7 runs in about the next three minutes. Nats castoff Alfonso Soriano hit a monster homer to key the rally.

But the heaviest blow in the scoring binge came when Cubs starting pitcher Kevin Hart faked a bunt, then pulled his bat back while Garrett Mock was in mid-hurl and slapped a run-scoring single to left field. This ultimate show of disrespect brought giggles from the Cubs fans, and groans from the Nats'.

In other words, there were more giggles than groans from the mostly blueshirted crowd at Nationals Park.

Bottom line: The home team needs some Thunderation!

(AFTER THE JUMP: Sally Jenkins gets grounded and pounded by anti-Lance crowd? Snyder to buy up the competition AGAIN? Brock Lesnar brings the heat to MMA Nation?

***

Great dust-up in the comments section over the weekend between Sally Jenkins and Lance Armstrong's accusers. The brouhaha surrounded Frankie Andreu, the former Lance Armstrong teammate who once said in a court case that Armstrong confessed to doping and has never taken back his words. Jenkins stopped by Cheap Seats Daily in the comments section to mistakenly say Andreu had never accused Armstrong of doping. And before she could confess and correct her error — Andreu sure had made the accusation — the anti-Armstrong crowd had taken the opening Jenkins gave them and rip, rip, ripped her.

The amazing upshot amid the flames: According to Betsy Andreu, wife of Frankie and another Armstrong accuser, Jenkins has never called either of them to talk about the doping allegations they've leveled under oath against Armstrong.

Jenkins has reasons to protect Armstrong beyond what she's disclosed here. The L.A. Times recently reported that Sony has been working up a movie of Armstrong's 2000 memoir, "It's Not About the Bike: My Journey Back to Life," a book written with Jenkins.

If that movie gets made, the book's authors would could be in for a big payday, though Jenkins herself says she has "zero expectation of even being invited to consult." If Armstrong's name gets sullied, that movie's not being made.

***

The Sports Business Journal (subscription required) is saying MLS attendance is way down this year, and that DC United's crowds are off nearly 29 percent from last year's.

But Saturday's game at RFK drew an announced crowd of 18,248. That's huge, all things considered.

Yes, there was the added attraction of a Washington Freedom preliminary game. But United kicked off at the same time that the USA national squad was on TV playing in a CONCACAF Gold Cup quarterfinal, a much higher credibility contest.

So if Saturday's official numbers from RFK are on the level, that's means there are a lot of United fans, and not just soccer fans, in this market.

***

Rumor of the week: DCRTV is hearing that Dan Snyder's now trying to buy WJFK. That's the station that launched its all-sports format this morning to compete against WTEM, the station Snyder bought last year to, of course: Control the Message!

What would it do to Snyder's reputation if he really tried to buy up the competition AGAIN? Well, obviously, there's nothing Snyder can do to his reputation around here that he hasn't already done.

But I still say there's no way he pulls the trigger. (But, Dan, if you're really looking for more media properties: I read here that City Paper's up for auction. What about us? We're all gonna work for you someday anyway, right?)

***

Brock Lesnar's great for MMA. Luke Thomas on "MMA Nation" at WJFK on Saturday kept repeating that his ultimate fighting show got a record number of calls, and that the MMA website he runs, "The Bloody Elbow," set record after record for page views last week after MMA 100.

"Thank you Brock Lesnar," Thomas told his presumably record audience.

***

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After decades a couple weeks of rumors, this afternoon at the Verizon Center WJFK-FM brass will officially announce the station's flip from man talk to sports talk.

All the highlights of the new lineup — eight hours a day of Mike Wise and LaVar Arrington –  and the date of the switch, July 20, have already been leaked.

***

On the team's downest day of the season, the Wall Street Journal kicked the poor Nats in the nads. Here's the lede of the paper's coverage of the Sonia Sotomayor coverage, a story titled "Hearings Reflect Broader Struggle":

Much like the Washington Nationals baseball team, which has known since springtime that it has no realistic chance of winning a pennant this year, Republicans in the Senate knew before they took the field Monday that they had no realistic hope of defeating Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor.

So GOP senators, like the Nationals, are left to ask themselves: What are we playing for here anyway?

"What are we playing for here anyway?"

They're really asking themselves that? Well, if the GOP Senators are at all like the Nats, specifically .196 hitter Austin Kearns, then they could answer themselves: "We're playing here for $8 million a year!"

(After the jump: Six Flags goes with mayo substitute? Jim Riggleman's high school cheer? DC Divas back on top?)

And, for crissakes, given how tough a day it was for the franchise, couldn't the Journal have made it easier and kinder and gentler just gone with some WASHINGTON SENATORS simile?

***

In case you missed it: Manny Acta's replacement Jim Riggleman was a "soul sensation" during his days at Richard Montgomery High in Rockville.

Here's his old baseball team's cheer: “Thunder, Thunder, Thunderation, we’re the Rockets Delegation/When we fight with determination, we create a soul sensation!”

Damn, that's funny.

I remember playing in a softball tournament years ago and just before our game started the opponents got together and screamed the theme to "Rawhide" to get fired up. We knew they were going to whup our ass. We were right.

Why don't teams have cheers anymore?

***

The D.C. Divas surrendered a touchdown and the lead to the Boston Militia with less than a minute left in Saturday's IWFL Eastern Conference Championship game. But Diva Tara Stephenson returned the ensuing kickoff for a touchdown, giving D.C. a berth in the July 25 league title tilt in Austin, Texas.

The Divas, now 10-0, were forced to play in Boston after getting screwed and losing their #1 ranking to the Militia in the Massey Ratings, the ranking system used by the IWFL to determine playoff seeding.

After this win, the Divas head into the league championship with the top spot in the ratings.

***

Speaking of screwed: Dan Snyder's nothing-left-to-lose theme park chain, Six Flags, has signed an endorsement deal with Miracle Whip.

Yes, the mayonnaise substitute. Under the deal, Six Flags will now begin selling a "specially-themed and branded sandwich" at its parks called the "Miracle Whip Roller Roaster" and will put discount coupons on "20 million" tubs of the goo at stores nationwide.

This comes just after Six Flags agreed to make Anatomic Global the “Official Mattress” of the parks, and started actually selling the beds through the  parks ($1,299 in queen size).

Here's the official explanation given by Six Flags for the condiment alliance: "The companies will collaborate on a co-branded marketing initiative designed to reach consumers through multiple platforms and marketing touch points including grocers' shelves, digital media and targeted in-park signage at key rides and attractions."

One word: Huh?

I mean, sure, that quote, coming from the company's PR staff, makes Six Flags' bankruptcy understandable.

But I'm still going to have to ask Dan Savage what sort of things folks at a theme park could do with a tub of Miracle Whip and a queen-size mattress.

***

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Pop Cesspool is mighty impressed with a letter from the Nationals which explained the firing of Manny Acta and gave a blunt assessment of the team's failings. After running down the season's few highlights, the Nats letter states:

"Much of the season, however, has been defined by weak relief pitching, poor defense, and youthful inconsistency. We have tried to work through this period with patience and focus but now we are faced with mounting losses which are beginning to take a toll on our entire roster. Clearly, some changes are required as we prepare for the second half of the 2009 season and, more importantly, build for a competitive future."

The Heights Life notes that the recent Mount Pleasant Farmers Market got a boost from a local chef serving up advice and Italian food.

Frozen Tropics reports that H Street Country Club is set to open its doors to families during the day this weekend.

Life in Mount Vernon Square offers a take on a recent meeting on the development re: the Bundy School:

"2 things bothered me:  the first is these words from OPM Director Robin Eve Jasper regarding the Bundy School: "In this budget environment, it's highly unlikely that the landscaping plan will be fully implemented." (Oh really? not to sound like a broken record but that $h!#@^!t would never fly in georgetown and should not fly in Shaw.  besides, this is a facility for abused children! leaving the yard bare & funky contibutes to it looking like a forbidding fortress.  this is supposed to be a welcoming place, plant some nice flowers and trees.  I'm sure many neighbors would be happy to help dig.)  The other thing was that ANC 2C03 Commissioner Doris Brooks went on about having a park for children being more important that dogs, a valid sentiment echoed by others (but as a certain neighbor said not mutually exclusive).  But she adamantly opposed the renovation of a park in her own backyard on the 600 block of N St NW and indeed officially voted in 2006 for DC to give it to UHOP for 'housing or parking.'"

Anti-Real World DC notes that one cast member has an affinity for some kind of Panda hat.

Intangible Arts does a little architectural deathwatch on Bruce Monroe Elementary.

*photo by Darrow Montgomery.

Mere hours after the Washington Nationals named a new manager, local genius and longtime City Paper person Dave Nuttycombe sent me some photos from an old Richard Montgomery High School yearbook of the small, tough kid known around Rockville as "Little Jimmy Riggleman."

Apparently Riggleman, a jocky sort, grew enough right after his 1970 graduation to make everybody drop the "Little" in his nickname.

Best of all, back in Riggleman's day, the school baseball team, called the Rockets, had an awesome rally cry. The climactic couplet:

"Thunder, Thunder, Thunderation, we're the Rockets Delegation/When we fight with determination, we create a soul sensation!"

After the jump: Check out the Richard Montgomery team photo (with Little Jimmy circled) and try to tell me that "soul sensation" doesn't come to mind!

Sally Jenkins rides with Lance Armstrong again this morning. Jenkins, who has written several books with Armstrong, references the druggie rumors more here than in the scads of her previous columns on the most accused drug cheat in the history of sport.

"It's what [Armstrong's] whole comeback is all about really," writes Jenkins, "coming face to face with things, especially the doubters. 'Am I doping now?' his body language seems to say."

And the world, in all sorts of languages, seems to be answering: "Hell, yes, you're doping!" That March incident, where Armstrong stalled French drug testers who'd surprised him as he trained for the Tour de France and asked for urine samples, crushed the odds that the comeback would change anybody's mind. By now Armstrong has the same chance of clearing his name as Michael Jackson.

Dirty pee or not, Armstrong's amazing, ain't he? To paraprahase the old lady in the diner in "Sleepless in Seattle" "When Harry Met Sally": I'll have what he's having.

***

Joel Hanrahan got his first win as a National yesterday, a week after he joined the Pittsburgh Pirates.

AFTER THE JUMP: Chico Harlan lights up the Nats? The Hogettes aren't dead, just broke? Do the Baysox fear the ACLU after MattWietersCollectibleFigurineNightGate™?

This oddball occurrence came as the Nats won a game in Houston that began on May 5 at Nationals Park, but was suspended in the bottom of the 11th inning because of rain. The final score: 11-10.

Since the Astros weren't scheduled to visit DC again this season, the suspended game was completed on Houston's home field, with the Nats technically the home team. Hanrahan was the Nats pitcher of record when the game left off on May 5, and since Washington scored the winning run yesterday without having to take the field again, he was still the pitcher of record when the game ended and gets credit for the victory.

Got it? Me neither.

What I do get, however: Hanrahan clearly has no practice winning. He told reporters in Pittsburgh that he was glad to get the win and "to see the Nationals get another victory in the win column."

Alas, the Nationals are still first in the majors in victories in the loss column — in no small part because of Hanrahan's horrificness when he wore the uniform.

***

Awesome Trivia from the early game: The Nats are the first team to have a walk-off win as visitors since 1975, when the Yankees beat the Twins in a game that started in New York and ended  in Minneapolis.

***

Normalcy returned in the regularly scheduled nightcap in Houston, as the Nats were routed, 9-4. Chico Harlan's game story in the Washington Post was beautiful and brutal. Harlan reiterated Christian Guzman's and Adam Dunn's shortcomings with a glove (Dunn has "all the outfield range of an oak tree") and got Manny Acta to sound very defensive when defending his defense. "It is what it is," Acta told Harlan. "I don't know why you keep bringing that up."

Keep bringing it up, Chico!

***

As reported in this very space every hour on the hour, the Bowie Baysox have decided not to restrict civil liberties during Scott Van Pelt Bobblehead Night on July 26. To recap, again: Team management had been burned by bobblehead hoarders during Lindsay Czarniak and Pat Sajak giveaways, so they decided to go all Mussolini on their own patrons when it came time for Matt Wieters Collectible Figurine Night a few weeks ago. Folks who showed up for the Wieters event were told that they could have one figuring no matter how many tickets they purchased, and that to get that one figurine they had to come into the stadium and abide by a "No exit!" policy until all the faux Wieters were given away.

As asserted every hour on the hour, Cheap Seats Daily is totally against restrictions of civil liberties — except those that punish bobblehead hoarders. We love those! So there was considerable angst in this space when Bowie management revoked the No Exit! edict for Scott Van Pelt Bobblehead night, thereby opening the door for the grown up weirdos to load up their plastic bags with mini-Van Pelts and deprive little kids of canoodling with the hairless and club-wielding and downright creepy looking dolls fashioned after the ESPN host.

But, disappointed as we are by Bowie's backtracking, recent legal actions involving the Yankees explain the decision. Simply, the Baysox don't want the American Civil Liberties Union on their ass. I think those fears are unfounded.

Sure, the ACLU has in the past supported NAMBLA and Ollie North — but could the group in good conscious take up for....BOBBLEHEAD HOARDERS?

***

The Hogettes (yes, apparently the guys are still at it) are panhandling for sponsors. Why don't they do another Ford commercial?

***

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Let's get right to the issue of the day. The winners of the first three AT&T National events at Congressional:

2007 — KJ Choi

2008 — Anthony Kim

2009 — Tiger Woods

The liberal media doesn't want you to know: There's an Asian bias to Tiger's tournament!

***

Woods exploited this bias to beat a field that included upstart white guys Hunter Mahan and Bruce Boudreau. (What? The Capitals coach wasn't in the AT&T National? I coulda sworn I read 10 stories about him playing Congressional, saw some video even. My bad.)

AFTER THE JUMP: Another Nats fireworks snafu? Why do tennis players carry their own sweaty shit? Is Manny Acta the new Norv Turner?

***

To assist in filling digital inches, let's continue pretending it's not Post-Racial America! I spent much of my Fourth of July weekend watching two Asian Americans in the final pairing of a golf tournament in DC and two grown up black kids from Compton win another Wimbledon doubles crown, after battling each other for another singles crown.

These ain't your father's country club sports!

One of many things I love love about tennis over golf. Will MacKenzie, the dude who finished last in the AT&T National and missed the cut by 14 strokes, had somebody carrying his bags all day on the golf course. But yesterday I saw Roger Federer, just crowned the Best Player of All Time with his 15th Grand Slam win, stuffing his own sweaty shit into a bag. And Andy Roddick, seeming tragic even though he just played a match for the ages, not having time to mope or rest his bones, because he had to stuff his own sweaty shit into a bag. The Williams sisters? Yup, a day earlier they stuffed their own sweaty shit into bags and carried 'em.

In tennis, no matter who you are, or what you've been through, you stuff your own sweaty shit into a bag and carry it!

***

How good was Wimbledon to DC tennis? Let's look: Serena Williams won the women's final. She's the assigned star player of the Washington Kastles, the World Team Tennis squad that starts its 2009 season this week. Serena beat sister Venus Williams in the final. Venus is the assigned visiting female star for the Philadelphia Freedoms, and is (as of NOW, anyway) supposed to face the Kastles here tomorrow night. John McEnroe announced all the Wimbledon matches and got scads of face time. He's the featured male visiting player for the Kastles this season, and will be in the lineup when the New York Sportimes come here on July 16. Andy Roddick is the one big name that always comes to the Legg Mason, with this year's tourney beginning August 1 at Carter Barron. Hope his hip flexor, which he might have hurt while stuffing his own sweaty shit into a bag and carrying it, is better by then.

***

With two outs and the Braves having the tying run at the plate, batter  Chipper Jones took a low outside pitch. But the Nationals Park fireworks operator, probably a new guy — pushed the hot button on what he thought would be a game-ending called third strike. It was a ball. The game wasn't over. Jones stepped out of the batters box and laughed as the smoke cleared.

Then Jones walked. A hard grounder to first base later, and the game, and the button-pusher's job, was saved.

Enough with the fireworks, Nationals. They don't add a damn thing to a day at the stadium. But let Charlie Slowes keep his home run and victory call: "Bang Zoom go the fireworks!" I love that.

***

Speaking of saving jobs: A guy on Nats postgame show on WFED 1500-AM after Friday's 9-8 loss to Atlanta nailed the team's coaching situation pretty good: "Manny Acta is the new Norv Turner."

***

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Bob Feller threw 38 complete games in one season, and he played forever! And walked through five feet of snow just to get to the mound!

Butt seriously: This pitch count crap has gotten totally out of hand. Taking Scott Olsen out in his first outing back from a shoulder injury, like Acta did last night, is one thing, though Olsen was rolling and had given up one hit in his last four innings before getting yanked.

But whenever there's a question of whether or not to go to the bullpen, Acta errs on the side of a new arm, as much as those decisions have burned his team and its fans. If he wanted to protect limbs for a living, he shoulda become an arborist.

And 108 pitches is all a guy's good for anymore?

(AFTER THE JUMP: COOLEY'S DEAD MEAT, NO NATS POSTGAME SHOW? UP-TO-THE-MINUTE WATERSPORTS COVERAGE THAT THE WASHINGTON POST DOESN'T WANT YOU TO KNOW ABOUT, KOBE DOES SIX FLAGS, JUST GIVE ME A HOT DOG...)

***

Clearly I didn't get to decompress after last night's loss in Florida: There was no Nats postgame show on the flagship WTOP WFED radio broadcast! Half the fun of having a horrible baseball team comes in listening to the loonies rant on the postgame show, and agreeing with them!

***

Familiarity breeds contempt, and it's gonna happen around here with the now beloved Chris Cooley. Exhibit A, via the great Dan Steinberg: Here's Cooley boasting about burning a dead cow, just because.

Can't make a moral argument that animal desecration should be left to the folks who cut my steaks. But the glee of this blog post just seems creepy. And naive. Didn't ANYBODY think that maybe this ain't gonna go over well with the general public. Who told Cooley this post would be a good idea, Ted Nugent?

Don't be surprised to see "Cooley/Vick in '12!" signs. Cooley was on safer ground when he was just showing folks his naughty bits. This is gonna get ugly.

***

Where do the morally bankrupt celebrate? With the financially bankrupt! Here's Kobe Bryant at Six Flags.

And before you go protecting Bryant, please read the police transcripts — hers and his — from his SITUATION in Colorado a few years ago.

***

The caterer that wasn't good enough for Nats fans is still good enough for out-of-towners. Turns out Centerplate, the stadium food service giant that got bounced out of Nationals Park after just one season and amid poor reviews all around, still does the DC Convention Center foodstuffs. I only know this because the convention center folks just bragged that Centerplate has brought in French Master Chef Philippe Chin to head up its kitchen, and introduced the cook to the business community with a lunch "caviar, roasted Muscovy duck roll, red chile crusted sea scallops, beef tenderloin, herb roasted rack of lamb, smoked salmon, oysters, boiled shrimp, and sushi."

Screw the caviar and muscovy whatever. When Centerplate ruled the roost at Nats Park, you couldn't even get a hot dog and a coke without a two-inning wait and a surly server.

***

The Northern Virginia Nereids, fresh off their star turn in a PBS documentary about synchronized swimming, are competing in the 2009 Esynchro Age Group Championships in Gainesville, Fla., this week. After the semi-final round of the 13-15 year old team competition, the Nereids were in 32nd place out of 39 squads. Sounds like they're a bit out of synch. Sorry.

(And take THAT, reachforthewall.com! That site's anti-synchronized swimming bias has left a huge niche uncovered!)

***

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• Dan Froomkin canned! Intensely weird Bush-hating shut-ins mount campaign of angry comments on blogs read only by other intensely weird Bush-hating shut-ins. A neocon powerplay, or the political-commentary EQ of JazzTimes folding?

• Why I Hate D.C. has been on a streak lately. First a post on it that noticed the resemblance between a Tyson's ad and the Vietnam Memorial riled up vets groups and occasioned a PR rescue mission. Now author Dave goes Montecore on the Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission for hiring WASA GM Jerry Johnson. "WSSC doesn't even acknowledge that there is anything controversial about their selection, instead citing that they have a close working relationship with Johnson because WASA treats WSSC's sewage," writes Dave. "With this hiring decision, isn't it now the other way around?"

• TheWashCycle NAILS Loudoun County for using bike-trail funds to extend a road to the AOL campus instead. This could be really bad for AOL's subscription numbers!

• Nats crush Yankees! And Manny Acta still employed! Unlike Dan Froomkin! Life is funny that way.

• In defense of flutists.

• Finally, a touching look at the too-short life of Clark Sabine.

Photo by Flickr user Bohman

I think so. While buzzards circled over Acta yesterday, Feinstein, continuing the Washington Post's If You Get It You Don't Get It strategy of alienating all subscribers, wrote a web-only feature that included about the only defenses of the Nats' Dead Manager Walking to appear in the MSM.

"There are plenty of reasons to keep Acta, a couple of reasons to fire him," wrote Feinstein.

Then Feinstein basically says the reasons to keep him are he's a good guy and nice guy, and reasons to get rid of him are his team stinks and his team loses.

Not really a compelling case, I gotta say. But Feinstein is the Garth Brooks of sportswriting, so maybe his kudos carry more weight than the average pundit's kudos.

In any case, for now, it looks like Acta will still be around to hand in the lineups for tonight's game at the new Yankee Stadium.

Joel Hanrahan's gotta get Feinstein to write a piece on how he shouldn't be given a bus ticket.

***

In his web-only piece, Feinstein takes a break from defending Acta to slam Rob Dibble.

"If you're one of the few who watch the team's games on television with any frequency, you know, courtesy of Rob Dibble, that the Nats never get a call," Feinstein wrote.

This comes a day after the great Thom Loverro gave a whole column to bashing Dibble as a phony and a sham. And today the great Loose Lips takes a Fenty break and blasts Dibble as a "numbskull."

There's something going on here.

I gotta say, I love Dibble's work. I pretty much only watch him on Sundays, though, with the great Charlie Slowes getting my attention during the week.

If Feinstein, Loverro and Loose Lips turn on Slowes, I'll have to rethink everything.

***

Danny Hultzen of St. Albans had the big hit in UVa's win over Cal-State Fullerton in the elimination bracket of the College World Series.

Hultzen is something. He's UVa's best pitcher. He went 2-4  against Stephen Strasburg earlier in the NCAA tournament. He's a freshman. And he volunteers at Sibley Hospital when he's home.

Geez, Danny. Way to make us all feel bad.

***

Trent Green, who held a clipboard with the Skins during the Norv Turner/Heath Shuler/Gus Frerotte Era and had one good year here before escaping the franchise right before Dan Snyder's reign as owner began, has retired.

Green put up fab stats (3,441 yards and 23 touchdowns, with only 11 interceptions) during his one season as a Skins starter in 1998, even though the team started 0-7.

He was a free agent at the end of the year, and GM Charley Casserly called re-signing Green his "number one priority."

But Jack Kent Cooke's estate wouldn't let Casserly throw millions of dollars at the QB until the pending sale of the club to Howard and Edward Milstein and Snyder went through.

So Green signed with the St. Louis Rams.

Then the Milstein Bros. got booted by the NFL, and Snyder took over a couple months later, and the rest is misery.

During post-Skins stints (St. Louis, Kansas City, Miami and St. Louis again), Green took more blows the head than Leon Spinks. Last Friday, he quit the game rather than get as punch drunk as the ex-champ. He'll turn 39 this summer.

***

The DC Divas, the top-ranked ladies football team in the land, have had to deal with losing the services of their starting running back to religious faith and scheduling. But not TOTALLY losing her services.

Divas GM Rich Daniel tells me Rachelle Pekovsky-Bennett, a nine-year veteran of the squad, now rests on her Sabbath. That's from Friday at sundown until Saturday at sundown.

All Divas home games are on Saturday evenings at 7 p.m..

"We respect her beliefs and accommodate her," says Daniel.

Pekovsky-Bennett couldn't hit the field til nearly 8:30 p.m. for last weekend's game with Philadelphia.

She wasn't needed. The Divas beat Philadelphia 63-0.

The undefeated Divas will open up the playoffs at home against Pittsburgh on June 27. They're take as much of Pekovsky-Bennett as they can get.

"The sun will start setting earlier soon," Daniel says.

***

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***

The streaking Nationals captured their seventh loss in a row. The long skein was in jeopardy until Joel Hanrahan's bases loaded wild pitch in the top of the ninth.

I'm no Casey Stengel, but does anybody get why Manny Acta keeps throwing Hanrahan out there as the closer? How many dead will it take 'til he knows that too many people have died?

I, for one, miss Charlie Slowes' "Curly W!" calls on the radio.

***

DC United took a four-goal lead and didn't blow it all in beating HATED RIVAL the New York Red Bulls, 5-3, at RFK. The game was billed as a play-in for the U.S. Open Cup, a tournament that goes back to 1914, and which United won last year. I always thought the defending champion automatically qualifies in major soccer tournaments — World Cup, Champions League, etc. Only about 5,000 fans showed up for the game, so maybe United fans figured the same.

***

DeMatha's own Danny Ferry has been named NBA Executive of the Year by the Sporting News. The Cleveland Cavaliers GM, Bob Ferry, won the same award twice during his days as general manager of the Washington Bullets, despite making these first round picks over his years here: Tom Hammonds, Mugsy Bogues,

Anthony Jones, Melvin Turpin (over John Stockton), Kenny Green (over Karl Malone), Randy Wittman, Wes Matthews,and Roger Phegley.

But, as Dad found out twice, if the team wins, the GM wins awards.

(But who would draft somebody named "Roger Phegley"?)

Danny Ferry was originally drafted out of Duke in 1989 by Spingarn's own Elgin Baylor, longtime GM of the L.A. Clippers. But Ferry opted to play in Italy rather than sign with Baylor's perennial doormat.

Baylor won the Executive of the Year Award in 2006, then the Clippers fired him at the beginning of this season. His replacement, Mike Dunleavy, had the foresight to win the 2009 NBA Lottery.

Baylor, the greatest player DC ever produced, surely earned his legend status. But, as the Clippers' draft lottery win hints, good things happen to teams when he leaves. Awesome trivia about Baylor: The game after he retired as a player in the middle of the 1971 season, the Baylor-less Los Angeles Lakers began their NBA-record 33-game winning streak. The Lakers then went on to win the NBA title that season. Baylor, for all his greatness, never won a championship.

Sorta Awesome Trivia about Baylor: The R&B singer Ginuwine, a local product who grew up in PG County and had several hits a decade ago, was born Elgin Baylor Lumpkin.

***

Another local boy, Chantilly's own Brandon Snyder, might yet live up to the potential he showed in Little League .

Snyder is only 22, but folks around here have been watching him play ball for a long time. After his Little League exploits, he went on to be a superstar at Westfield High and then the Baltimore Orioles made him their first round pick in the 2005 MLB draft.

Snyder gave up scholarship offers from the best college programs in the land to sign a seven-figure deal with the pros. But things didn't go all that well for Snyder as a pro, as he went through several position changes and had serious shoulder problems.

After three years in the O's organization, he was still toiling in Single-A ball.

But just when he seemed destined for Bust-hood, Snyder is making folks take notice again. Back in the area and playing for the O's AA affiliate, the Bowie Baysox, he's currently leading the Eastern League in batting average (.373), RBIs and slugging. Having seen Snyder hit a last-inning homer to win a CYA Little League championship when he was a little kid, I'm rooting for him!

***

Things are also looking up for swimming in the Potomac River: The river will be open for business for TWO days this year! DC has just been awarded the North American stop on the Dextro Energy Triathlon tour, an Olympic qualifying series. Organizers have just released the course for the event, to be held on Sunday, June 21, and it starts out with competitors diving into the Potomac River.

Folks used to dive in the river all the time — a century or so ago. But runoff from farms and factories early in the last century turned the Potomac in the DC area into one of the dirtiest water bodies in the land. When he signed the Water Quality Act of 1965, President Lyndon Johnson said: “I pledge that we are going to reopen the Potomac for swimming by 1975.”

Obviously, that never happened. Instead, in 1971, federal and local authorities made swimming in the river a crime punishable by a $300 fine. But with the advent of the Nation's Triathlon being held here each September in recent years, it became legal to jump in the Potomac on that race day only. Nation's Triathlon and Dextro Triathlon spokesperson Jennifer Devlin says all the permits have been obtained to open the river for swimming for the new race, too.

I love the idea of swimming in the Potomac. This is a good thing.

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