On May 25, 1999, Dan Snyder won unanimous approval from the National Football League to buy the Washington Redskins from the estate of Jack Kent Cooke. The purchase cost $800 million.

"Persistence pays off," Snyder told WUSA-TV after the sale was approved. "We're going to be that persistent when it comes to winning on the field."

The team's regular-season record in the 12 years since then? 86 wins, 106 losses, with just three trips to the playoffs. It's enough to make a Redskins fan cranky.

Watch the Channel 9 interview here:

Photo by Darrow Montgomery

That's left the fans here and everywhere time to dwell on basketball, and hockey, and bitterness.

Here's a representative example of the latter, taken from a poster named Hail to Da Skins 21 on the Dan Snyder-owned Extremeskins, responding over the weekend to a thread that asked for comment on NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell's post-lockout open letter to the players/propaganda for the masses:

Both sides r dumb....Just get the damn CBA done !!!!! I already hate the players cause 98 percent have either beatin the redskins...sucked for the redskins ....or have played for dallas .....I hate the owners cause of Snyder......so no matter who says wut they wont win over this fan just get the CBA done.....

Reading between the ellipses of Hail to Da Skins 21's tirade, there's a message that should scare all the football folks no longer hanging out downtown and anybody who makes a buck off the local NFL franchise.

The NCAA Tournament's been a pretty good one so far, after all. D.C. United drew 18,000-plus and won big. And, damn, did the Caps look good on Friday in New Jersey...

Video Killed the Radio Star: The bad news continues for National Public Radio, as another hidden-camera tape by right-wing provocateur James O'Keefe shows executives were aware of the phony gift O'Keefe's stunt was pretending to pass along to the network. With the federal budget what it is (which is to say, bad, if not quite as bad as D.C.'s), this scandal probably means Congress will try even harder to cut funding to public radio. Which means more fundraising drives on WAMU. On the other hand, that means more chances for tote bags for listeners. -1

Maryland, Why, Maryland: Gay marriage will remain an only-in-D.C. feature of life in the region—Maryland lawmakers killed a bill to allow same-sex marriages in the Old Line State. Maryland courts may recognize same-sex unions performed in the handful of states that allow them, thanks to an opinion issued a few years ago, but supporters had hoped to get a law passed to allow them in the state. That'll have to wait until next year. Feel free to come visit the District, though! -3

Vigilante Parking Justice: Since the new administration took over, some former city officials have moved on to new projects; ex-Mayor Adrian Fenty, for instance, is keeping busy giving speeches, working for an accounting firm, and advocating union busting. Former transportation boss Gabe Klein, however, is busy enforcing traffic regulations. Alerted to cars parked illegally in the 15th Street NW bike lane, Klein went down, snapped a photo, and tweeted it at the agency he used to run. In response, the Department of Transportation issued 15 tickets. +2

Are You Ready for Some Football Lockout?: Maybe a stultifyingly boring mid-century federal office building wasn't the ideal place to try to salvage the next NFL season. Talks at the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service between football owners and the NFL Players Association broke down this afternoon; the union plans to decertify, the first step in what could now become very lengthy legal proceedings before any pro football is played. The bad news: You may have to find something else to do on Sundays this fall. The good news: The Redskins can't lose any games if they're canceled first. -2

Yesterday's Needle rating: 50 Today's score: -4 Friday bonus: +2 Today's Needle rating: 48

Clearly, our nation's power brokers were moved by last week's Cheap Seats column on the history of the NFL's blackout rule: Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) is now urging Commissioner Roger Goodell to suspend enforcement of his league's rule, which prevents (wink wink) games not sold out 72 hours before kickoff from being broadcast on TV in the host city.

Brown feels the blackouts should be lifted during the recession.

“Football has been a long source of pride for communities across Ohio," Brown wrote in a letter to the commish that was snail-mailed from D.C. yesterday. "It is deeply troubling that increasing blackouts could deprive families and friends the tradition of watching their beloved Cleveland Browns or Cincinnati Bengals on Sunday afternoons. I ask the NFL to examine its current television blackout policies and develop solutions that allow for franchises to remain viable businesses, while allowing fans to enjoy the game they love, both in person at the stadium or on television at home.”

“NFL blackout policies should be revisited as our nation faces the worst economic crisis in generations. During these difficult times, working families are struggling to make ends meet.  Although appealing, attending a football game is simply cost prohibitive for too many Ohioans.  The average price for an NFL game ticket is $77 – nearly ten times the hourly minimum wage.  The problem will only become worse, as 18 teams have increased ticket prices for the upcoming 2010 season.”

Brown spokesperson Lauren Kulik tells me her boss was moved to write the letter because he'd heard "a lot of talk about blackouts in Cincinnati" over the offseason.

Brown isn't the first Congressman to get involved in the NFL's broadcast policies, of course: The current blackout rule, after all, was originally put in place by Public Law 93-107, a bill passed on Capitol Hill and signed into law by President Richard Nixon just before the 1973 season began. Before then, NFL owners blacked out even sold out games, fearing that local TV broadcasts would kill the market to watch the live product. That law expired on Dec. 31, 1975, but the 72-hour rule has been enforced (wink wink) by the league voluntarily ever since.

Brown probably needn't worry about anything. Now, all the serious revenues owners get come from television, not the ticket buyers, so they want as much TV exposure as possible. NFL officials argue otherwise— "A game has to be sold out to be on TV, no exceptions," an NFL spokesman told me —but to these untrained eyes the blackouts rule appears mostly cosmetic these days. There are a bazillion loopholes in the NFL's blackouts policy that keep games on air.

There's all sorts of anecdotal evidence that the Redskins game against Dallas was not sold out in time to meet the letter of the league law, for example. But even without any intervention from Sen. Brown or Roger Goodell, Vegas is convinced that the game's gonna be on anyway.

Full letter to Commissioner Goodell after the jump.

September 9, 2010

Mr. Roger Goodell

Commissioner

National Football League

280 Park Avenue

New York, NY 10017

Dear Commissioner Goodell:

Beginning this week, the Cleveland Browns and Cincinnati Bengals will play their first game of the 2010 NFL regular season.  While fans cannot wait for the start of the season, I am concerned that supporters spanning Ohio’s small towns and urban cities will be deprived of the chance to watch the Browns and Bengals compete on television.  The NFL’s blackout policies – which require home games to be blacked out in local television markets if it is not sold out 72 hours prior to kickoff – could deny Ohioans the opportunity to watch these games.

While I understand the need for the league to sell tickets and maintain an attractive television product, NFL blackout policies should be revisited as our nation faces the worst economic crisis in generations.  During these difficult times, working families are struggling to make ends meet.  Although appealing, attending a football game is simply cost prohibitive for too many Ohioans.  The average price for an NFL game ticket is $77 – nearly ten times the hourly minimum wage.  The problem will only become worse, as 18 teams have increased ticket prices for the upcoming 2010 season.

Current economic conditions, coupled with rising ticket prices, have led to a predictable rise in the number of blackouts.  Last season, the NFL blacked out 22 games, which represents a 144 percent increase from the previous season.  With overall attendance expected to decline further this year, some experts believe the NFL will black out even more games this season, and thus make it even harder for fans to watch their favorite teams.

Football has been a long source of pride for communities across Ohio.  It is deeply troubling that increasing blackouts could deprive families and friends the tradition of watching their beloved Cleveland Browns or Cincinnati Bengals on Sunday afternoons.  I ask the NFL to examine its current television blackout policies and develop solutions that allow for franchises to remain viable businesses, while allowing fans to enjoy the game they love, both in person at the stadium or on television at home.

Thank you in advance for your consideration of this matter.  I look forward to hearing from you in the near future.

Sincerely,

Sherrod Brown

United States Senator

Michael Vaughn

Well, nobody can accuse Vaughn of under-digging lately. The hole he's dug for himself gets deeper every day.

Yesterday, in his continued crusade against a Cheap Seats column that showed the bogusness of his Dallas Cowboys claim, Vaughn told the Baltimore Sun that he also had "a short run with the New Jersey Generals."

The Generals were the flagship franchise of the USFL. That team, which was owned by Donald Trump, and the whole league went out of business after the 1985 season.

Unfortunately for Vaughn, a few obsessive fans kept a lot of data about what went on in the league's three-year existence, including who actually played in the USFL.

And, based on what's out there, Vaughn's run with the Generals was as short as his playing career with the Dallas Cowboys: So short that nobody but him remembers it.

The amazing website usfl.info has a list of 127 players who wore the Generals uniform between 1983-1985. The roster is in alphabetical order, so "Michael Vaughn" should be sandwiched between an unknown, "Walter Tullis," and a legend, "Herschel Walker."

Get this: It ain't there!

Of course, USFL record-keeping was never an exact science. But Vaughn has by now also claimed to have played for, first, the Dallas Cowboys, and later, the New Orleans Saints, and the NFL says he never played for either of those teams.

So, knowing that "Michael Vaughn" isn't among the 127 folks who get credit for playing for the New Jersey Generals, Vegas is currently leaning toward: Michael Vaughn never played for the New Jersey Generals.

But, Vegas is flighty. Show us what you got, Del. Vaughn! Keep digging!

By the way: After the USFL and the New Jersey Generals went out of business, Herschel Walker went on to play for the Dallas Cowboys. No, really! You can look it up!

Sure, the league is flying higher than ever now — TV coverage of the NFL draft drew a bigger audience than the NBA playoffs this spring. But mark down July 28, 2010 as the day everything started rolling downhill.

That's the day the reports surfaced that the NFL has brought in Dan Snyder protege/partner-in-debacles Mark Shapiro.

Yesterday, the web site Sports By Brooks told us that Shapiro "is now consulting for the league on television matters – including NFL Network games and studio shows."

Good news for the NFL: The reliability of the Sports By Brooks' report is suspect. When giving Shapiro's bio, we're told, "Shapiro is currently running Six Flags after being lured away from Bristol by Redskins Owner Dan Snyder."

Well, now....As both my readers know well, Shapiro WAS running Six Flags — until he and Snyder ran it straight into the ground. With CEO Shapiro and Chairman of the Board Snyder calling the shots, Six Flags filed for Chapter 11 more than a year ago.

When he was hired by Snyder in 2005, Shapiro said his salary would be tied to the value of Six Flags stock. He and Snyder then took Six Flags stock price from $11.93 per share down to nothingness. So during bankruptcy proceedings, Snyder and Shapiro wrote up an unbelievable golden parachute that gave Shapiro millions upon millions of dollars — one $3 million payment was labeled a "success bonus," though Shapiro and Snyder's only success in four-plus years at the helm of Six Flags came in bankrupting the company –  while stockholders lost everything.

Snyder was bounced brutally from his chairmanship during the reorganization proceedings, while Shapiro got his comeuppance from the newly installed Six Flags board shortly after the company emerged from bankruptcy.

So while, sorry Sports by Brooks, Shapiro isn't running Six Flags, he is still Snyder's partner, and is now president of Dick Clark Productions. That's the company that Snyder bought for $175 million with money from his Red Zebra investment fund, then used the cash of Six Flags stockholders to defray the purchase price by 40 percent.

Like Snyder, Shapiro was conflicted out the wazoo while Six Flags and Dick Clark hammered out deals. Shapiro was Six Flags CEO and president of Dick Clark Productions, which is also a major vendor for Six Flags, at the same time.

That arrangement's shaky enough to register on the Richter Scale, ain't it?

Six Flags isn't the only place that Shapiro showed he's got the Midas Touch...in Opposite Land! On May 9, 2008, Shapiro was elected to the board of directors of the Tribune Company. On the following Dec. 9, that corporation also filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

Great move, NFL!

The team hasn't sold out its games since moving to Raljon in 1997, actually: The premium seats have never sold out since FedExField opened. But the team and the NFL invoke a common-senseless technicality that holds that since the more than 20,000 club, loge, dream and suite seats — which make up about 25 percent of the stadium's total capacity — aren't counted as part of the league's socialistic revenue sharing system, their availability can be ignored. So, as long as the cheaper general admission seats have been sold, a team can claim a sellout.

But, this season should be special, because all indications are that the seats that aren't supposed to be ignored by the NFL when deciding whether to invoke the "blackout rule" (which holds that games that aren't sellouts aren't televised in the home team's market) are going to be up for grabs, too.

Over the weekend, the Redskins held still another ticket-unloading party at FedEx.

The event, which allowed fans a chance to come look at some of the general admission seats that remain unsold in the stadium. I have never heard of any such open sale in the history of the team. After all, Dan Snyder has been quoted as saying he's sitting on a waiting list for season tickets that has more than "200,000 names" on it.

But, those 200,000, if they ever really existed, must have found another hobby by now. The open house was supposed to last from 10 a.m. to noon. According to a poster at Snyder's message board, ExtremeSkins.com, when the gates opened, the place was essentially empty.

"There was honestly no more than two dozen people in line," said the ExtremeSkins poster going by Club Seat Player. Photos of the soiree uploaded to Snyder's site showed a lot of seats with price tags on them, but no bodies wandering around to try them out.

Longstanding NFL rules hold that no game that isn't sold out — excluding premium seats — three days before kickoff can be televised within a 75-mile radius of the stadium. More events like last weekend's open house are planned before the 2010 season opens, but, color me skeptical that all the seats will be moved.

If I'm right, and Roger Goodell follows the letter of his law, does this mean: We're the new Jacksonville?

In the battle for celebrity endorsements, Mayor Adrian M. Fenty struck first, with a go-go concert celebrating his campaign. And now Council Chairman Vincent Gray is getting into the act, too.

Tonight, at Ozio, Gray will mingle with "young professionals" and NFL tight end Vernon Davis—a Dunbar graduate who also played basketball and competed in track and field, then went on to play three years at the University of Maryland—to raise money for his campaign. You, too, can talk about the San Francisco (and ask Davis if you should draft him this year in fantasy football) for a suggested donation of $25 or $50.

On this date in 2005: Get your Tragedy Hats!

None of the Redskins marketing endeavors under Dan Snyder dropped the jaw faster than the "Redskins Flag Hat" that went on sale on the team's web site and at FedExField at the beginning of the 2005 season.

For $23.99 plus shipping where applicable, Snyder would sell you a Redskin baseball cap with a red, white and blue Pentagon stitched on the side to tug the heart strings and stir more nationalism at a time when the country was already crippled by an oversupply. The hats were a great way, according to the radio ads that ran on the sports stations owned by Snyder, to "commemorate Sept. 11."

The punch line: The proceeds weren't earmarked for any charity or cause. Unless you consider the owner's wallet a charity or cause.

Genius!

***

(AFTER THE JUMP: Bankers going for Michael Vick haters? Bob McDonnell, you lie? Boswell basking in the afterglow of his Snyder bashing? DC Divas become video stars? A bump in the Nats' Road to 100 Losses?  Jaycee Dugard jokes?)

It didn't take long for signs of the Michael Vick influence on the football season to show up. The first commercial coming out of the first pregame show on NBC this season was for Wachovia. It featured a woman and her car full of dogs, and had her talking about how she needs to save money at the bank so she can make sure her dogs are cared for.

Coincidence? Heck no!

***

Sticking with notable commercials: Virginia governor wannabe Bob McDonnell ran his new campaign spot again and again on WRC after the Steelers/Titans broadcast.

In the commercial, McDonnell is seen walking down a suburban street while being followed by a cameraman as he lists a litany of political goals for the Commonwealth. To capture the football crowd that would be watching the spots, at one point in the ad McDonnell's son interrupts the boilerplatitudes by throwing the candidate a football and asking with a big smile and an excited shriek, "Dad, how 'bout a game?"

McDonnell answers, "You're on!"

But then he keeps walking down the street and talking politics! The commercial ends with McDonnell and his family standing together at the end of the street for no good reason.

Bottom line: There is no game!

If you tell your son, Game on!, and then there is no game, how can you expect Virginia voters to trust anything you say, Mr. McDonnell? How?

Answer the question!

Butt seriously: You've never seen a lower-aiming, dumbassier ad than this one.

***

Tom Boswell came off the top rope and landed on Snyder earlier this week. In his washingtonpost.com chat yesterday, Boswell told readers, "I've never had such near-universal positive reaction to a tough column."

Pretty soon, you could hold a convention of Snyder's supporters on a golf cart. Oh, wait. Maybe you already can.

***

Albert Haynesworth seems like a real funny tough guy. In an interview that aired yesterday on WTEM, the Redskins' only major offseason acquisition was asked if the size of Giants' running back Brandon Jacobs worries him. It doesn't.

“What is he, 250 [lbs.]?" Haynesworth said. "I weighed 250 when I was in the 10th grade.”

But here's Jacobs dominating Skins' safety Laron Landry last year. "That's getting run over!"  yells John Madden about the hit, which is far more brutal than when Bo Jackson's famously gelded Brian Bosworth in a "Monday Night Football" game. Jacobs' hit was enough to get writers of the NBC TV show "Friday Night Lights" to reference it in a script last season. In a scene where some characters are watching the highlight tape Dillon High fullback Tim Riggins sent to U of Oklahoma scouts, the guys all agree he looks like "Brandon Jacobs running over Laron Landry." (God, I miss that show! Come back soon!)

***

In case you missed it: The most viral sports column of the year, on so many levels, comes from Mark Whicker of the OC Register, perhaps the only employed writer on the planet who found inspiration for giggles in the Jaycee Dugard kidnap/rape/impregnancy/enslavement.

Read his non-apology, too. And the comments! It'll take all day, but it's worth the time.

Funny is hard, and damn if I don't hear a time bomb ticking every time I try to get chuckles here, what with New Media's typing demands and aversion to paying gatekeepers. But how many folks had to sign off on Whicker's words before they actually showed up in print?

***

I was in Delaware for vacation recently.

Few states like gambling the way Delaware likes gambling. There are casinos at the fairgrounds in Harrington and at Dover Downs, where there's also horse racing.

All the talk while I was there was about the feds siding with the NFL to crush Delaware's attempt to bring in single-game football betting.

Scads of evidence of the local love for wagering were available at Kupchick's, a nice, low-key restaurant in Lewes, Del. On the bulletin board, the results of the recent Travers Stakes from Saratoga were written in magic marker above the daily dining specials. There were stacks of fliers on the counter with instructions on how to enter the deli's Suicide Pool for this NFL season, entry fee and all.

So I asked the guy behind the counter what he thought of the appeals court's ruling that stopped the state's gambling pursuits. I guessed he would.

"Somebody made a phone call," he says. "They had to help Vegas."

I'm with him. No other explanation makes sense.

***

The DC Divas lost the Sup-Her Bowl, but the First Ladies of Women's Football* are featured in a new video I discovered on youtube. It ain't ever gonna be Soulja Girls — I was the only one to have seen the video according to the Youtube counter last night, and as of this morning the count was up to just six views — but, I gotta say, the song's catchy. Sing with me: "I like football..I like it a lot...I like girls that play...and even when they're not."

This thing deserves double figures in views!

***

Nats win! Countdown to 100 Losses™ stalled at 8!

***

*Dan Snyder really did trademark "First Ladies of Football" for his cheerleaders, a clear affront not only to women's football players, but also to the guy cheerleaders in his troupe. But not surprising. Snyder's amusement park chain, Six Flags, has also tried trademarking "Daycation" and "You Are Here." He likes claiming ownership of things™.

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

***

A near-miss must-read: "A Decade of Snyder the Decider," an interactive piece that came out this week on the Washington Post's site. An amazing amount of work and brainpower went into the feature. Everything you want to know about Dan Snyder's reign is right there in a few squared inches. You just have to click and click and click and click to get it.

But in the end this delivery system is totally unsatisfying to any football fan who likes to read about the game in a real sports page. It's the difference between listening to the White Album on vinyl through a tube amp while holding the double-LP's sleeve and fingering through all the sleeve-candy, or listening to the White Album through headphones and an iPod (if it were available on iTunes, that is).

(AFTER THE JUMP: Vick Chew Toy giveaway is real? Marv Throneberry trumps Cal? The Felds run Monster Trucks, too? Harvey Grant's kid follows in Adrian Dantley's footsteps? Mark Brunell's the Bill Graham of Christian rock? Nats countdown update?)

Another thing I'll never get past: You can't take a dump with it.

***

After reading an advertisement in yesterday's real Washington Post in which a dog rescue group offered to donate bags of food for every tackle of Michael Vick, I tried making a joke about an animal rights group's putting a bounty on the recovering dogfighter in the headline of my post: "And If You Break Michael Vick’s Leg, We’ll Throw in a Chew Toy!"

Well, as pointed out by a reader, turns out life imitates bad humor. The chew toy offer has already been made, minus the broken bones.

A group called Bark for Awareness will give away an Official Vick Dog Chew Toy™ to any dog-saving group for every touchdown the Eagles score this year. Go here to register for the freebies.

***

A DC sporting tradition is about to be restored: Jerian Grant, a son of ex-Bullet Harvey Grant, is going to play basketball at Notre Dame.

The DeMatha senior just gave a verbal commitment to the Notre Dame staff. And that puts Grant at the front of a long line of locals to make the same pledge.

From DeMatha alone, there's Bob Whitmore (Class of 1965), Sid Catlett ('67), and future NCAA player of the year and NBA Hall of Famer Adrian Dantley ('73). Other DC stars at Notre Dame over the years have included Austin Carr of Mackin, Tracy Jackson of Paint Branch, Gonzaga's Tom Sluby and Potomac of Oxon Hill's Monty Williams.

The Notre Dame bench, of course, also features head coach Mike Brey (DeMatha Class of '77) and his assistant, Rod Balanis (Class of '88).

***

Thom Loverro shows his Greatness with "Marv Throneberry's Number Stolen," a blog post inspired by the theft of the #8 monument earlier this week from Camden Yards.

Other writers have focused on another Oriole who had that number. To Loverro, it belongs to Marvelous Marv, the first famous, or infamous, O's player to sport it.

"Throneberry came to the Orioles in a trade with the Kansas City Athletics for Gene Stephens in the middle of the 1961 season," Loverro writes. "He would go on to play first base and hit five home runs and 11 RBI over 65 games in two half seasons. He was traded to the New York Mets in May 1962 for cash and a player to be named later, which turned out to be catcher Hobie Landrith."

And, oh, right: "Other Orioles who have worn number 8 include Andy Etchebarren and Cal Ripken," Loverro writes.

***

The Felds, who have been sort of the First Family of Fun for fifty years or so, have quietly become a force in big-league motorsports.

The now-Northern Virginia-based corporation was founded by Izzy and Irvin Feld, a pair of snake oil selling (really!) siblings from Hagerstown who got their DC empire started at Super Cut Rate Drugs, a pharmacy on 7th St. NW in Shaw. The Felds' production company went on to own Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus, Disney on Ice and High School Musical.

But in recent years the Felds have taken over control of big chunks of the motocross and monster trucks and drag racing realms. The corporation pulls strings for the International Hot Rod Association, among the world's premier sanctioning bodies for dragging. have just announced they have brought Virginia Motorsports Park, a drag strip in Petersburg, Va., back as a big league IHRA venue.

Of course, some folks are still a little peeved at the Felds for putting Buddy Holly on a tour of the Midwest in the winter of 1959 in a bus with no working heater, causing the young genius to lease an airplane and crash and die in an Iowa field, and then the Felds made the surviving rockers continue the tour rather than take a break to go to Buddy's funeral.

What would the world look like if only Buddy's bus had heat?

***

Mark Brunell and Dan Snyder are still doing some business: Over Labor Day, the Newsboys, a Christian rock group, played Six Flags America in Largo.

The Newsboys record for inPop Records, a Nashville label for godly groups co-owned by Brunell and other major figures in the controversial Every Nation Church.

Countdown to 100 Losses: Nats lose, 6-5, in Philadelphia. That puts the team's 2009 record at 47-92, just eight defeats away from the Century mark.

***

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

Snyder now adds a parking surcharge to the cost of every ticket sold at non-football events at FedExField. All other venues around town put parking charges, if there are any, in the advertised price of the ticket.

Snyder doesn't. He throws it at the consumer at the point of purchase, as a line item on the invoice that can't be turned down by the buyer. For Paul McCartney, where around 60,000 folks attended and there was a $10 per ticket parking charge, whether they intended to use FedEx parking services or not, that added an additional $600,000 to Snyder's bank account.

For U2's upcoming show at FedEx, the forced charge is $8 per ticket; if that show sells out, the add-on charge will mean more than $700,000 sneaky dollars for Snyder. And this is with zero overhead, unless you count the cost to his reputation, which really can't be harmed around here at this point.

Snyder's the king of parking schemes, as outlined in the story, and a godfather of the sneaky surcharge: He's the guy, remember, who after buying the Redskins took a ticket price that had historically included state and local taxes, and then added a new charge equal to the state and local taxes onto the old ticket price, but left the old price as the face value of Skins tickets — just so he could act like he wasn't really raising the price of tickets!

So where's the outrage?

***

Betting Football season begins tonight!

(AFTER THE JUMP: Cheap Seats Daily gives you tonight's winner? "Biggest Loser" back in play? Which pregame show are you going to listen to? What's the meanest sport? Is there a Curse of Tom Boswell?)

Albert Haynesworth and Clinton Portis won't play for the Skins. What's left of Mike "Biggest Loser" Williams, who's down more than 100 pounds from his weight of a year ago, will suit up.

On paper it looks like the Ravens defense has more scoring potential than the Skins offense. Other than maybe to root for Williams, the game's not worth watching.

Unless you bet on it! So let's bet!

Skins are 3-point underdogs to Baltimore. The Over/Under is 31 1/2.

Put this month's mortgage and then some on the Ravens and next month's on the under.*

***

New sportstalker WJFK is having its own pregame broadcast for the preseason opener. To jab the owner of competing sportstalker WTEM, the flagship of the Redskins broadcasting network, 'JFK is calling its program "the Unauthorized Pregame Show."

'TEM's owner is, of course, Dan Snyder.

***

There's a professional lacrosse team that calls DC home: The Washington Bayhawks of Major League Lacrosse. The 'Hawks finished fifth in the six-team league in the just-completed 2009 season, which wasnt good enough to make the postseason tournament.

But, this area remains the lacrosse epicenter, so the MLL has put all playoff games in our market. The semis and championship match will be played next weekend, August 22-23, at Navy Marine Corps Stadium in Annapolis.

Back to me: When I was a kid in the mid-1970s I used to go to the Capital Centre to watch the Maryland Arrows of the National Lacrosse League, the first DC pro lacrosse franchise.

These were the most violent sporting events I ever attended. The team's mascot was a cartoon thug name Crunch Crosscheck and its slogan was "You gotta be mean to play box lacrosse!" Its radio commercials featured a faux endorsement from Attila the Hun. (The Arrows marketing team included a young AU graduate named Andy Dolich, now the chief operating officer of the San Francisco 49ers.)

The games lived down billing, too. You were pretty much guaranteed a bench-clearing brawl every night, and the situation in the grandstands was even bloodier. A gang of older guys from my neighborhood went to every game dressed up in the same outfits, topped by yellow and black CAT hats, from heavy equipment maker Caterpillar. They called themselves the CAT Patrol and they'd fight any willing partner at Arrows games. They never had trouble finding willing partners, and one guy even jumped the glass to throw punches with players from the Philadelphia Wings.

The league only lasted two seasons. The memories endure...

***

Could the Nats sudden downfall be blamed on The Boswell Curse?

The Nats turnaround began on July 21, sparked, we think, by Cheap Seats Daily's proclamation of Guaranteed Win Night and declaring "Thunderation" as the team's unofficial official fight song.

But, maybe it's all about Boswell.

You can look it up: Boswell went on vacation or otherwise stopped writing after a column that ran July 20.

The Nats Great Turnaround of 2009 began the next day.

Boswell's vacation ended or he otherwise started writing on August 10, when he typed up a column with the line "The Nats aren't just winning. They're clubbing people." That night the Nats get shellacked in Atlanta. And superstar in waiting Jordan Zimmermann announced he'd be getting Tommy John surgery and would be out for A YEAR AND HALF.

Last night, Day 2 of Boswell back on the job: Another shellacking in Atlanta. Nyjer Morgan gets picked off to end the game, even with his team down by four and the meat of the lineup behind him.

How pre-Turnaround is THAT?

Go back on vacation, Boz. Or write that the Nats will lose 14 of their next 20! And insist that the Lerners won't pony up for Stephen Strasburg.

Yeah, especially the Strasburg column! Please!

Good thing it's football season!

***

*Don't really bet the mortgages, dumbass....Unless you really really need the money!

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

Sports leagues, like romantic relationships, can't survive taking a break. Last year AFL owners thought they were different, announcing that while they'd be spending the 2009 season apart, they weren't breaking up.

Again: Just need some space. Just taking some time off from each other before getting back together.

Well, this week, several AFL owners leaked to the press the date that they'll be getting back together: The 12th....OF NEVER!

The AFL is dead.

The disbanding means, alas, Dan Snyder won't ever bring us the AFL team he promised back in 1999.

(AFTER THE JUMP: MMA is the next arena football? How many Redskins blogs are out there? Dan Steinberg marvels at whose muscles? The Washington Times toasts Bruce Smith? Michael Vick is partying where? The Nats are still playing?)

Snyder bought the DC franchise rights for the AFL shortly after taking over the Redskins. He said back then that he was going to name the indoor team the Warriors, and registered trademarks for that name and for an arrow-and-feather logo and helmet design.

Then Snyder never made any move toward putting that team together.

At the time, I figured Snyder only registered the marks because it looked like he could lose federal trademark protections on "Redskins" for being racist, and he wanted a fall-back name ready.

All these years later, I still agree with myself. Guess we'll never know what his real intentions were.

No official announcement of the league's disbanding has yet appeared on the AFL's web site.

However, the league's "Mission Statement" is still prominently placed:

“To serve our community with pride and passion as a quality example of individual and team excellence on the field, in the office, at the arena and within the community by consistently exceeding our customers’ expectations by demonstrating the highest character, appreciation and respect for our game, customers, teammates and partners as a cost-effective and visionary organization providing a total entertainment experience.”

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.....Among the few things I can think of more boring than reading the AFL Mission Statement is watching an arena football game.

Columnist Ray Ratto takes the indoor football and runs with it. Ratto links indoor football with Twitter, and says UFC is the next AFL.

I agree.

***

In case you missed it: Dan Snyder's SIX Flags lost another $121 million-plus change this spring. Who's to blame? God, government, Mother Nature, Swine Flu, Jesus' death, and minimum wage employees, say Dan Snyder and Six Flags co-captain Mark Shapiro.

And so what if Six Flags is in the toilet? Dan Snyder just wants to win, dammit!

***

The Great Dan Steinberg marvels at the big muscles the Redskins have. Thank goodness the NFL has been so out-front in the drug testing realm, so that I and other media types, not to mention all football fans, don't have to waste a single second wondering whether ANY of these behemoths achieved this unnatural looking state through any means other than just eating real good and throwing lots of steel!

Way to keep it clean, NFL! Just say no, kids!

***

The Michael Vick Watch goes on off the football field, too. An event called the "Michael Vick Community Celebration" scheduled for this weekend in his hometown of Newport News, Va., was cancelled because, organizers said, Vick had to be in Atlanta for a Humane Society event.

But then no animal rights types in Atlanta would confirm that Vick is supposed to be there, either.

The big questions: What sort of creeps would organize a Vick "celebration" now? Who can even be near the guy and look at him without thinking, "Yucky!"?

***

Speaking of troubled Tidewater athletes: Real odd story in the Washington Times with longtime football writer Dave Elfin working mightily to try to rehab Bruce Smith's image just after the Hokie/Bill/Redskin's conviction on a third DUI arrest in 12 years.

The city of Virginia Beach cancelled a party that was going to celebrate Smith's induction to the Hall of Fame because of his drinking and driving problems.

Elfin argues that for a guy with three DUI arrests he's great with kids, and a great businessman, too, for a guy with three DUI arrests.

"If I hadn't done what I did on the football field," Smith  says of his buying things for an old football coach in his hometown, "I wouldn't have been afforded the opportunity to give back in such a fashion."

Well, there's that, Bruce, plus: you'd be in jail now.

***

The blog DC Pro Sports Report has a compendium of all the Redskins sites out there. Good god, you won't believe how many there are.

***

Nats have a six-run eighth and beat Florida, 6-4. Greatest comeback win of the season! Three-game winning streak!

Uh, oh! This just in: Until further notice, it's still football season! Just as things were getting exciting! Darn!

***

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They were the two best teams in the city back then, and played before a huge crowd on a little outdoor court at Jelleff.

Well, they sort of played. Thompson made the evening memorable, though for wholly unsporting reasons. He kept his star-stocked lineup, full of future NCAA Division 1 players, on the bench, and instead sent in a ringer squad of non-basketball players to face DeMatha. The Stags took no pity on the replacements, crushing the kids in St. Anthony's uniforms, 108-26.

DeMatha players and the hoop-crazy fans who believed the hype and took the trouble that hot summer night to get to Jelleff, a boys club off Wisconsin Avenue, are still peeved at Thompson for making a mockery of the matchup.

But at the time the future Georgetown legend was anything but contrite.

(AFTER THE JUMP: Thompson ducked Wootten for Ducking Thompson? Nats win a video replay battle, lose the war? Larry Weisman practices the real new journalism? Michael Vick is the new Justin Timberlake? Greyhounds have friends?)

Thompson said his prank was to get back at Wootten for ducking his team in a year earlier in a postseason tournament: "I hope everyone who was there the other night and everyone who was interested was disappointed," Thompson told the Washington Post. "Then they'll know how my kids felt last year."

They don't have high school rivalries like that anymore. Or, if there are, they don't get written up on the front page of the sports section. Also, how many times do you have a high school matchup that can boast three future Hall of Famers — Thompson, Wootten, and DeMatha's Adrian Dantley? Basketball was indeed king around here back then.

The whole thing would make a good documentary.

***

Nats lose, 7-5. Starting pitching doesn't hold up, bullpen doesn't hold up, and immediately after a video replay turned a homer from Brewers Ryan Braun into a triple, Garrett Mock wild pitches the dude home from third. Few hints of Thunderation, is all I'm sayin'...

***

Training camp opens today. I get more excited about the start of football season every year. I don't know if it's me or the NFL publicity machine.

Speaking of: Larry Weisman practices the real new journalism. The longtime USA Today writer and football savant left the newspaper biz a couple months ago to work for Dan Snyder's PR staff.

Weisman's duties will include writing faux news stories for the Redskins website, such as today's piece on Jim Zorn's status. (Weisman's real stories are still appearing in real newspapers.)

It's a good thing Zorn wasn't fired after his team sunk to 8-8 last season, Weisman's hired hands type: "Lessons were learned last year, Zorn said. Hard lessons, some of them. Now more teaching commences, more building takes place and, executed properly, sets the stage for further development. That’s the hope. That’s the plan."

Readers could mistake Weisman's work for a newspaper story. And, I'm sure Snyder would admit: That's the hope. That's the plan.

I'm surprised Snyder hasn't given Weisman a faux radio show yet, too.

***

The Great Dan Steinberg showcases a pack of fans who came to Redskins Park to lobby for the signing of Michael Vick. When asked how he'd feel if Vick were actually brought to DC, one says: "Have you ever seen a girl at an 'N Sync concert?" I sorta get it, but would have been more convinced if the answer was something like: "Have you ever seen Michael Vick when his brown pit bull rips the throat off another guy's pit bull wide open, and collects on his $40 bet?"

Now THAT's excitement!

***

Not everybody is mean to dogs. This weekend, folks who care about the conditions of the greyhound breed are holding a convention in Massachusetts. The worries come from the decline of greyhound racing in this country, and the lack of concern the rest of the world has about the welfare of the racing dogs. A huge greyhound adoption network has sprung up in the U.S. in recent years with the help of animal rights groups and the racing industry, but apparently the dogs have a less rosy post-racing future elsewhere.

***

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I am sure that such a short-term deal wouldn't jibe with the contract that the NFL has negotiated with the NFLPA, but there should be a clause for a guy like Terrell Owens: If you've acted like a jackass for your entire career yet still have the talent to help a team, you get a weekly deal. The determination as to whether you've been a jackass your entire career could be left up to a panel of media experts plus reps from the players and coaches, as well. Throw in a fan from each team, and you got a regular football parliament. You'd need a two-thirds vote to attach the jackass tag on someone, and the player in question would get a chance to plead his case before a plenary meeting of the jock parliament.

That's how things should work.