In case you missed it: The pre-post-racial they-said/they-said-they-didn't situation from last year's Dunbar-Fort Hill football game will lead to a small, mostly ceremonial change in the athletes' Code of Conduct applied to all Maryland public high school sporting events.

***

The Great Dan Steinberg posts a Great Video of Ryan Zimmerman talking up D.C. United to promote next week's U.S. Open Cup championship game.

You know the U.S. Open Cup, right? That's the one where to get to the finals United had to march through neighborhood powerhouses like the Ocean City (N.J.) Barons, the Harrisburg (Pa.) City Islanders, and the Rochester (N.Y.) Rhinos, in games played at a suburban community center field.

It appears that before the promo shoot Zimmerman hit the quaalude table in the green room hard.

Either that, or like the rest of the world he can't even fake enthusiasm for the U.S. Open Cup.

AFTER THE JUMP: Keith Urban fans don't know who Ryan Zimmerman is? There is no "I" in arson? Paul Farhi goes ground-and-pound on Dan Snyder? Nats win!? Nats win!?

Read More "Cheap Seats Daily: If You Burn Down Your High School, Can You Show Up at Your High School Reunion?" »

image courtesy of ultimatecheerleaders.com

Dan Snyder talked to the Associated Press about his 10 years as an NFL owner.

We've heard most of it before: Snyder was young when he got the team, which is the only reason he made mistakes (charging for training camp, hiring Steve Spurrier) that everybody else would have made, too. But he's learned and now it's all good.

But the blah-blah-blah ends when Snyder moans that all the good deeds he's done as Skins owner have "been overlooked, absolutely." And we're told he's really a great human being, the proof being that Snyder "received the Community MVP Award at the Washington Football Legends for Charity banquet."

Hmmm. I'd never heard of that award or group before. But with a little surfing, it turns out "Washington Football Legends for Charity"does exist, and that the "Platinum Sponsor" of the organization, meaning a provider in the top tier of funding for the Football Legends' one and only function, the very one where Snyder was confirmed as a local Gandhi, was the Washington Redskins Charitable Foundation.

Wait! I know THAT group! It's headed by....Dan Snyder!

AFTER THE JUMP: Guaranteed Win Night II comes in? Will there be a Guaranteed Win Night III? Sure, Michael Vick's rotten, but would he spit on his mom? Thom Loverro crowns the King? DC Armor is looking for a few good women?

Read More "Cheap Seats Daily: Snyder-Funded Group Names Snyder ‘MVP’!" »

Ryan Zimmerman, the mandatory all-star, threw a ball into the stands for no apparent reason. Sean Burnett played hot potato with the ball on a come-backer. Nyjer Morgan got picked off first. The Nats lost.

Bottom line: The squad came out of the All-Star break in midseason form.

***

Local newspapering doesn't get any better than when KidsPost gets all sportsy and righteousy. So it was yesterday as Fred Bowen used the firing of Manny Acta as a teachable moment:

"It's always a shame when someone gets blamed for something that's not his fault," counsels KidsPost.

But after giving that sage advice to all the little boys and girls, Bowen turns into Krusty the Klown and just plain rails about the Nats as if the team owes him money:

(AFTER THE JUMP: Bowen blames Bowden? More more more on Jim Riggleman's Thunderation cheer? We now know where Marvcus Patton is, but what about the other guy? McEnroe being McEnroe?)

Read More "Cheap Seats Daily: KidsPost Tells Junior to Blame Anybody But Manny Acta?" »

George W. Bush spent his last couple years in office saying that history will show that attacking Iraq wasn't an error.

Crazy talk, you say? Well, not if the official scorekeepers working the Nats/Marlins series in Miami are historians.

Read More "A Lot of Revisionist History Going On!" »

Fortune magazine has named some folks who might try to get control of the New York Times from the Sulzberger family.

The piece has some likely suspects -- David Geffen and Google, among them.

But the most intriguing and, for us locals, scariest of the alleged Times takeoverers?

Howard Milstein.

Yes, THAT Howard Milstein.

The Howard Milstein who a decade ago tried to buy the Redskins at the Jack Kent Cooke estate sale! The Howard Milstein who brought Dan Snyder into the fold to give him the local color he thought would get him approved! The Howard Milstein who had too many enemies at NFL headquarters and got kicked out of the buying process! The Howard Milstein who then stepped aside and watched as his former partner took over the buying process!

THE HOWARD MILSTEIN WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR DAN SNYDER OWNING THE REDSKINS!

Whew.

According to the Fortune piece, Milstein, identified simply as "a New York-based financier," has been "buying shares" of NY Times stock.

Run for your lives, New York Times readers!

Or, maybe, just renew your subscription and give subscriptions to all your relatives so the Sulzbergers don't have to sell.

Just don't say we didn't warn you...

***

Those streaky Nationals are at it again!

Read More "Cheap Seats Daily: The World’s Greatest Beer Man, Milstein Resurfaces, Ficker Running Again" »

Around 6:45 p.m. EST, Ryan Zimmerman grounded into a fielders choice in his fifth and final hitless plate appearance in San Francisco. His hitting streak, the best of the few reasons to pay attention to the Nationals this season, was done at 30 games.

A little after 7:30 p.m., a shot from Pittsburgh's Sergei Gonchar goes off bodies in front of the net and Sidney Crosby pushes the loose puck in. Eight seconds of playing time later, Penguin Craig Adams scores his first career playoff goal. It's 2-0, but the game, series and season feel over.

In one rotten hour, what had been a fab month in local sports was over.

When's Redskins camp open?

***

Ted Leonsis always talks about the "10-step plan" that the Caps have been following. He means the rebuilding scheme that got them to verge of a conference final for the first time in 11 years.

But last night, an early victim of his plan came back to bite him.

Read More "Cheap Seats Daily: The End of Days" »

Sports Illustrated released Top 5 best/worst owners lists for all the major sports. Our town's fabulously represented, though only on the dark side.

First off: Ted Leonsis somehow wasn't included among hockey's best. If there's ever been a more beloved sports owner in this town than Leonsis circa 2009, I can't remember him.

Hard to believe it's only been five years since Leonsis was brawling with home fans at Caps game, eh?

But he was. Days after he unloaded Jaromir Jagr and his $11 million salary to the Rangers in January 2004 in the midst of a talent purge, a 20-year-old season ticket holder named Jason Hammer brought a sign to the then-MCI Center that said "Caps Hockey, AOL Stock -- See a Pattern?"

Hammer sat among a group of fans heckling the owner, and waved the placard at Leonsis throughout the game. Leonsis got so incited he went after the kid in the concourse after the final horn. The account of the incident in the Washington Post said Leonsis "grabbed [Hammer] by the neck and threw him to the ground."

Read More "Cheap Seats Daily: Best Owner List Shocker: Leonsis Left Off! Worst Owner List Non-Shocker: Snyder, Lerners Left On!" »

"THERE WILL BE A GAME 7 AT VERIZON CENTER!"

That's how Caps' play-by-play man Steve Kolbe ended his awesome call of David Steckel's game winner last night from Pittsburgh.

Nothing like OT playoff hockey on the radio.

The game started lousy for the eventual winners. At the end of the 1st period, with the Caps down 1-0 and trailing the Penguins in shots on goal 18-5, the Kolbe and, particularly, his booth partner Ken Sabourin, sounded resigned to a bad ending.

"The Penguins got help from the official on that one. Check's in the mail!" said Sabourin after Kris Letang's goal gave Pittsburgh a 3-2 lead early in the third period. His point was that a referee had deflected the puck right to Letang, and was clearly on the take.

"Check's in the mail!" is what you want from the home crew!

The Caps scored twice over the next 88 seconds.

Steckel's shot snapped the franchise's long losing streak in playoff overtime games and kept 'em alive to tighten up the 1-7 record in playoff series with Pittsburgh.

But, that's the past. Once again: Doesn't this year just feel different?

Read More "Cheap Seats Daily: Caps and Zimmerman Live Another Day" »

Or, rather, the Natinals are.

I still can't find any Nats-related radio or non-cable TV coverage around here.

But Saturday's national broadcast ABC's evening news took time away from reporting on the Obama/Chavez soul shake/thumb war and the heroification of those poor bozos who got pirated by teenage Somalian druggies for some real man-bites-dog material: a segment on the misspellings on the home jerseys of Ryan Zimmerman and Adam Dunn.

The usual suspects on the local scene were already all over VowelGate.

But only in a special season -- the sort of season where 3-run 9th inning leads are blown twice in a weekend - would the mainstream network folks notice this sorta stuff.

This, friends, is going to be a special season.