Good for him.

But these Friedgen-Lost-Weight stories are threatening to be like the Michael-Westbrook-Is-Finally-Focused articles that used to run around here every year at this time. Friedgen, remember, got just as much notice for dropping weight in 2002.

Friedgen had announced he was losing 100 pounds, and coerced Terp boosters to donate $1,000 per pound toward the building fund for the Gossett Team House, a facility for athletes. Whatever lbs. he lost while fundraising he got back real quick, with interest.

I always wondered if Friedgen gave the money back.

***

The Washington Post won't run Tank McNamara's Michael Vick story line.

Michael Cavna, on the Post's Comic Riffs blog, says Managing Editor Raju Narisetti decided the panels were "inappropriate."

The Post didn't censor McNamara during the 2000 football season, when the strip ripped Washington Redskins owner Dan Snyder repeatedly, and honored him with its annual "Sports Jerk of the Year" award.

In a 2004  Q&A on washingtonpost.com, "Tank McNamara" creator Jeff Millar explained how and why Snyder got the nod:

(AFTER THE JUMP: Why's Snyder a jerk? In local sports radio, Ed Bradley lives on? Tom Boswell jinxes the Nats, too?)

"The contest is we invite readers at the beginning of each year to nominate someone as "Sports Jerk of the Year." This is someone who has distinguised him or herself as doing something that make him/her exceedingly unpopular. For example, Dan Snyder, the owner of the Washington Redskins won one year, likely due to the participation of the Washington Post readers. He bought the Washington Redskins from the estate of a longtime, much beloved owner and, according to all accounts, starting kicking people out of windows and starting such unprecedented revenue streams as charging admission to training camp."

***

Everybody's asking if there's enough of an audience to support two sports radio stations.

The bigger question: Is there enough local talent? Last night's evening host on WJFK was Holden Kushner, who identified himself as a satellite radio jock. He spent the earlier portions of the show railing about Michael Vick's upcoming "60 Minutes" appearance.

Kushner railed that James Brown, the DeMatha grad and longtime WTOP sportscaster back in his pre-national days, will only lob softballs. We'd find out what kind of man Vick really was, Kushner railed, if "60 Minutes" gave the assignment to Ed Bradley.

Kushner came back after the next break and, not railing, apologized for not knowing Ed Bradley was dead.

Bradley died in 2006.

Then again, it all made for some great radio. And Kushner's right about James Brown.

***

The Nationals get bombed.  Yesterday, the Washington Post had a piece summarizing the turnaround. That story said that it all started on July 24, when Jim Riggleman yelled at his team, with its then-.292 winning percentage, and the Nats went on to win 12 of the next 16 games.

To which we say: Looks like a lot of revisionist history is going on! Around here we know that the turnaround started four games earlier, with the Nats winning at just a .290 clip, when Cheap Seats Daily unilaterally declared "Thunderation" as the Nats unofficial official fight song and offered up the first of two consecutive Guaranteed Win Nights. The team won 14 of its next 20!

Sorry, Washington Post and Riggleman, but: We think we launched the turnaround!

But, while historians may one day quibble about when the 2009 Nats' turnaround actually started and who started it, there will no such quibbling about when the 2009 Nats' turnaround turned around, or who started it.

The when: Last night, with the 8-1 pounding by Atlanta.

The who: Tom Boswell, the anti-Midas who returned from a vacation after missing all the baseball gayety around here, just in time to jinx it all!

But, Boswell does do Cheap Seats Daily a solid: He uses the 20-game sample we favor, not the 16-game sample used in yesterday's  Washington Post story, to prove the Nats turnaround, thereby validating Thunderation's role.

But, whatever. All the fun's over now. Thanks, Boz!

Good thing it's football season!

***

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Vinny Cerrato yesterday told the Washington Post that the Redskins will not pursue Vick, doggedly or otherwise. But Cerrato has fibbed so many times about personnel matters, most blatantly while acquiring Jason Taylor from Miami last summer, that his credibility in these situations is less than zero. So over at Dan Snyder's message board, extremeskins.com, the should-we-or-shouldn't-we talk raged on. Vick has a surprising amount of support among the Skins fan base, probably from a combination of loyalty from Virginia Tech alums and Jason Campbell's lack of a strong following.

But the anti-Vick crowd around here is much more passionate. The poster Bostic Hog spoke for a bunch of folks when he wrote: "Do you think Danny will offer us a refund on our season tickets if he signs Vick? Kind of like a breach of contract thing, or maybe a morals clause, like the players have."

I'm guessing the chances of Vick signing with the Redskins are better than the chances that Snyder will offer refunds to fans if he does. And no matter who Vick plays for, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell should make him wear jersey #K9.

(AFTER THE JUMP: Vick programs cable TV? Nats feel more thunder? Weequahic High School was a bunch of losers?)

***

Vick may not be a great role model for America's youth, but he's already had a profound influence on our grownups, or whomever's running the media.

The show biz trade bible Variety reports that Animal Planet has begun production on a series of investigative documentaries for next year as a result of the boffo ratings the channel got with last year's special about history's most famous dogfighting quarterback: "Animal Witness: The Michael Vick Case" in 2008. The show gave Animal Planet its biggest adult audience of the year.

The new series of hour-long shows will be called "Animal Planet Investigates."

Animal Planet president and general manager Marjorie Kaplan explained her channel's inspiration to Variety: "We thought the Michael Vick special would do well, but we were blown away by how well it did out of the gate," Kaplan said. "We looked at [the ratings], as well as the success of something like 'Whale Wars,' and were moved [by] the passion our audience has for these kind of things."

"Whale Wars?" Geez.

***

Nats win!

Update on Us: The Washington Times, awesomely offbase, tries to give credit for the new winning ways to manager Jim Riggleman's postgame talks to the team. Please. Riggleman, as this article points out, was giving these speeches as soon as he got the job. And the Nats lost his first four games in a row. But since Cheap Seats Daily foisted "Thunderation" on the Nats as the team's unofficial official fight song on July 21, the team, which could boast a five-game losing streak at the time and a winningless new manager, has gone 6-1 in games that went the full 9 innings.

The Nats are now on a four-game winning streak in which they’ve outscored the opposition 38-12.

As both my readers know, Riggleman’s Rockets of Richard Montgomery HS in Rockville posted more than 20 consecutive winning seasons with “Thunderation” as their cheer.

So once more with feeling, we'll SING!:

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

Now, if only the Nats can keep this "Thunderation"-inspired winning streak going for 40 games, not only will we have a Soul Sensation on our hands, but the team will be .500!

True story: My momma, a huge Nats fan who I've never burdened with my "Thunderation" fetish, was so excited after last night's win that she chimed in, unsolicited, with two of her own cheers, recalled from the football games at Weequahic High School in Newark, NJ, in the 1940s: "Our team is red hot!  Your team is all shot!" and "We play football, We play Soccer, We keep matzoh in our locker!  Yay, team!"

She admitted that her school had the worst team in the city. Sorry, Ma, but we'll stick with a proven winner. We'l stick with "Thunderation!"

***

The Washington Mystics lost in Indiana. I'm not happy about this, but: I have trouble working up interest in the WNBA unless players are brawling or fans are kissing. From a spectating standpoint, DC Divas games are a far better live product, I swear.

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.

***

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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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?)

If you don't believe [it's not Acta's fault that the Nats blow], ask yourself this simple question: What Nationals player has proven himself to be better than the average major league starter at his position?

I'd say Ryan Zimmerman, the Nationals' only all-star, is better than the average starter at third base. But who is there after that? Cristian Guzmán at shortstop or Adam Dunn in left field or Nick Johnson at first base?

Well, Guzmán almost never gets a walk (only seven bases on balls in 72 games), Dunn can't field and Johnson gets hurt nearly every season. In addition, the Nats' pitching is awful."

Got that, kids? Blame Jim Bowden!

***

Cheap Seats Daily chooses to scape another goat for the Nats' woes: The lack of a good cheer! And so we will continue making noise about adopting Jim Riggleman's old Richard Montgomery High School fight song.

For those not among the tens of people who've read CSD this week — and we know you're out there! — here's how the song went during Riggleman's (Class of '70) day:

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

And there's really only one reason we harp: The fight song works!

Take this from the baseball team's section of an RMHS's yearbook during Riggleman's stay at the Rockville school:

In the 21 years that Coach Henry Miles has been directing the baseball team at Richard Montgomery, he has never had a losing season and the 1969 season was no exception. The team finished in second place with a fine 9-5 record in league play and 9-6 overall. The leading batter, with an average of .318, was Gary Paquet, who also showed a fine glove at shortstop. Other batters who showed a fine bat at the plate were: Jimmy Riggleman at .297, Kenny Bell at .268 and Dan Groves at .256. R.M.'s pitching staff was the "meat and potatoes" of the team, led by Pat Pontius, who was the best pitcher in the county with an earned run average of 0.75 and a 6-1 pitching record. The other pitchers were: Bill Harrison (1-3); Tim Zetts (2-1); and Lee Branthover (0-1).

NOT ONE LOSING SEASON in 21 years of "Thunderation!" Heck, along with bringing back the Rockets fight song, why not bring back Coach Henry Miles? And Pat Pontius! He was the best pitcher in the county! With an earned run average of 0.75 and a 6-1 pitching record!

Get the band back together, Jimmy Riggleman!

(But, um, don't tell Bill Harrison (1-3) or Lee Branthover (0-1), please.)

And furthermore...the same Thunderation cheer, stolen as it was (FROM THE GIRL SCOUTS!), was used by the Richard Montgomery football team at the time. And how'd the gridiron squad do with it? SIX undefeated seasons from 1959 to 1969!

Six!

The cheer-less Nats rarely enjoy an undefeated evening!

Bring back "Thunderation," Jimmy Riggleman!

***

A bizarre where-are-they-now? situation that should interest Redskins fans is taking place in Northern Virginia. The story surrounds the disappearance of a Osama El-Atari. El-Atari was known around Ashburn as the young guy with tons of money who drove between all the restaurants he owned in a Lamborghini or a Hummer. Well, El-Atari and his vehicles disappeared lately, and it looks like all the gains were ill-gotten, with bogus insurance claims being among his alleged scams. When he disappeared, El-Atari owed millions to creditors. And when Fox-5 reporter and basketball stud Wisdom Martin went looking for him at an Original Steakhouse thought to be owned by El-Atari, folks there told him he was in the wrong place.

"Our owner is Marvcus Patton," restaurant employees told Martin.

I don't give a rip where El-Atari is. But it's good to see Marvcus, a former Skins linebacker, has ended up doing OK for himself. Despite having to grow up with one of the worst first names of all time and playing here during the woebegone Norv Turner Era, Marvcus always seemed like a great guy.

But seriously: Marvcus? What were his parents thinking?

***

John McEnroe came, saw and conquered the Washington Kastles last night, 20-19, in a match decided by something called a Supertiebreaker. Geez. I'm going to withhold interest until World Team Tennis schedules doubleheaders with roller derby.

***

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Cheap Seats Daily has learned...that new Washington Nationals manager Jim Riggleman's boyhood fight song was STOLEN!

From GIRLS!

As reported in this space the other day, Riggleman's baseball team at Richard Montgomery High School used a special cheer to get fired up before games:

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

Well, I'm saddened to report that the schoolboy jocks filched the tune from...the Girl Scouts?

(AFTER THE JUMP: Original lyrics to the tune Riggleman et al stole? Should the Nats steal the same fight song? Snyder's own cheerleaders used against him? RIP, Six Flags Cheerleaders? Don MacLean used steroids? Slow news day?)

Here's the lyrics to the traditional Girl Scout anthem, "Thunderation."

Thunder, Thunderation,
We are the Girl Scouts across the nation.
When we work with determination,
We create a real sensation!

Thunder, Thunderation,
We are the future of our nation.
When we work with determination,
We create a real sensation!

The Girl Scouts song is in the public domain. So no money has to change hands because of RMHS's thievery.

But it just seems wrong. And, this was 1970, after all. Couldn't Riggleman or any of his teammates have called "Cooties!"?

In defense of Riggleman's RMHS: theft of the Girl Scouts song is rampant and ongoing. The tune was even bastardized by the Obama's flock during the 2008 presidential campaign.

So why don't the Nats steal the fight song and make it their own? Something like:

Thunder, Thunder, Thunderation
We’re the worst team in the nation
But when we're more than an abomination
We'll create a soul sensation!

No matter what, "Soul Sensation!" has to stay. Look at that team photo above. Title of the bio of the 1970 Richard Montgomery baseball squad: "Not Only the Ball Was White!"

***

We all know Dan Snyder loves cheerleaders. But it now looks like a dandy brouhaha is brewing between Snyder and WJFK, and it centers on the First Ladies of Football.

According to DCRTV, for WJFK's press conference at the Verizon Center on Tuesday, where the talent lineup for D.C.'s new sports station (discussed in this week's Cheap Seats column) was unveiled, Snyder's CBS-owned rival hired Redskins cheerleaders to fire up the crowd.

When Snyder learned that his own girls were being used to pump up the competition, DCRTV Dave reports, he was "pretty pissed."

Genius idea on WJFK's part, I gotta say. Straight out of the Art of War or one of those Eastern battle philosophy tomes: "Those who understood the true nature of power could easily defeat these larger foes by leveraging their supposed strengths against them."

Snyder was already mad at WJFK for snagging the Westwood One NFL package from his WTEM for the 2009 season. So if the Skins make the playoffs, the games could be heard on Snyder's foe's frequency!

Snyder, remember, hired former Westwood One honcho Larry Michael a few years ago to strengthen his media holdings. Hasn't really worked out so far.

But radio feuds are good for all concerned.

***

Speaking of Snyder and cheerleaders: His fetish for gals and pom-pons was clearest last year when he founded the Thrilleaders for his malnourished Six Flags chain. The Thrilleaders were billed as the first cheerleading squad ever dedicated to a theme park. Somebody probably should have told Snyder there's a reason it was the first cheerleading squad dedicated to a theme park. Though no official announcement has been made that the Thrilleaders are defunct after just one season, there's no record of appearances since their inaugural rollout last summer, and no scheduled appearances are listed on their home page.

RIP, Thrilleaders. We hardly knew you.

***

The Thrilleaders was surely a dumbass idea, but not the dumbest-ass idea Snyder foisted on Six Flags.

As the company is getting its bankruptcy papers in order, Six Flags has just opened a second outlet of RollerCoaster Cuts, what is designed to be a chain of hair cutteries for rich kids. The new point, in King of Prussia, Pa., will offer the same service menu as the original RollerCoaster Cuts in Hartford, Ct: kiddie manicures and haircuts named The Glammy, Zoink, Big Kapow and Blama Jama for upwards of $50.

The more I write this stuff, the more I wonder if Snyder's really rich.

***

Ryan O'Halloran of the Washington Times pummels Snyder and his pals the Lerners in his "First Down" column this morning. O'Halloran names both the Nationals and the Redskins on his list: "TWT FIVE MOST DYSFUNCTIONAL PRO SPORTS TEAMS"

"Even before training camp, speculation as to whom The Danny hires as coach in 2010 is running wild," he writes. True and amazing.

***

Bleacherreport.com profiles Don MacLean, one of the surliest Washington Bullets of all-time. He was Jay Schroeder in shorts, a West Coast guy with great talent who folks here wanted to love but just couldn't. This piece doesn't have enough info for local fans about his sad stay in DC — not even a mention of his breaking a thumb in a Baltimore bar fight in 1995 while already on the Bullets injury list for bad knees, adding six weeks to his down time.

But the story more than makes up for it by including some awesome trivia about MacLean. First, he is UCLA's all time leading scorer, over "Kareem, Walton, and Reggie." Who knew? And, best and worst of all, MacLean was the very first NBA player ever popped for steroids.

After the bust, Charles Barkley went public with his defense of MacLean: "I've seen Don MacLean naked, and he doesn't use steroids."

***

The day after the All-Star game was always known as the slowest sports day year. It's a little different now. There's no baseball, obviously, and golf tournaments or auto races never took place on Wednesdays. But we now have the WNBA scheduling events during these doldrums, knowing they'll get coverage.

So: Mystics lose in San Antonio, 79-78.

It's still a slow sports day, is what I'm sayin'. But if you've read this far, you knew that.

***

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