Posts Tagged ‘VINNY CERRATO’
Life Imitates Art: ‘Karl Swanson’ Had a Role in ‘Dumb and Dumber’?
courtesy of D.C. Sports Bog
Dan Snyder and Vinny Cerrato, the poster children of the Prague Spring for Redskins fans, have been dubbed "Dumb" and "Dumber" in much of the agit prop that Redskins security has worked so hard to keep out of FedExField.
Awesome trivia: In "Dumb and Dumber," 1994 movie that informs the insurgency, there's a character named "Karl Swanson."
Really. You can look it up.
And in real life, as outlined by Paul Farhi in today's Washington Post, there's a Karl Swanson who's the third wheel in the Snyder/Cerrato continuum. (Full disclosure: I'm briefly in the story.) The flesh-and-blood Swanson has been Snyder's spokesperson since before he took over the Redskins. Swanson and Cerrato are the longest-tenured Skins staffers in the Snyder regime. They ride golf carts with the boss, and Swanson drives.
Read More "Life Imitates Art: ‘Karl Swanson’ Had a Role in ‘Dumb and Dumber’?" »
Cheap Seats Daily: Hey, Dan Snyder: How’d That Dick Clark Deal Work Out for Six Flags Stockholders?
It's not clear to me which is the bigger travesty: Vinny Cerrato keeping his job so long after running the Redskins into the ground, or Dan Snyder staying atop Six Flags despite making all the wrong moves since taking over the now-bankrupt theme park chain in 2005.
Six Flags' reorganization is nowhere near complete, and god only knows what's beneath the surface of this debacle. But from the sound of things, when all's said and done Snyder will still be chairman of Six Flags board of directors when that company comes out of bankruptcy.
How can this be? In Snyder's world, what do you have to do to lose your job?
One small aspect of the fiasco: Would somebody PLEASE explain to me how Snyder was allowed to pay a whopping $175 million for Dick Clark Productions using private equity money from Red Zone Capital, a fund he controls, then turn around and sell 40 percent of Dick Clark Productions to Six Flags, using public equity money, which he also controlled? And Snyder did this deal, remember, in 2007, while Six Flags was on the way to the bottom and he was already blaming the company's woes on its billions of dollars of debt.
Snyder made the Dick Clark Productions sale around the time he made a licensing deal between Johnny Rockets, another Red Zone-owned company and controlled by Snyder, and Six Flags. Again, would SOMEBODY please explain to me how that's allowed?
I mean, I make a lot of fun of Lindsay Czarniak and Dan Hellie working for Snyder's Redskins Broadcast Network and WRC News at the same time. And that really does bug me. But Czarniak and Hellie's conflict of interest ain't a hair off the ass of the conflict of interest Dan Snyder had in dealing with himself during Red Zone's sale of a huge chunk of Dick Clark Productions to Six Flags. Let alone the Johnny Rockets deals.
How hard a bargain do you think private-money Dan Snyder drove with public-money Dan Snyder in making these deals?
(AFTER THE JUMP: More on Dan Snyder, Red Zone and Dick Clark? DeMatha sends more jocks to college? Remember Harvey Grant? The DC Armor are gonna just disappear? Somebody's still kvetching about the El Al/FedExField comparison?)
Cheap Seats Daily: David Donovan, Snyder’s Latest Newspaper Hater, Was a Paperboy?
For all his media hatred, Dan Snyder stuffs his staff with media people. Karl Swanson was in newspapers. Larry Michael was a radio executive. Even Vinny Cerrato came back to the team after a stint at ESPN, where he spent a season in exile after being banished by Marty Schottenheimer (who looks more like Vince Lombardi every season for what he accomplished here.)
Turns out the latest attack dog added to Snyder's pack, David Donovan, fits the pattern. Donovan's complete lack of respect for the media or the truth or both comes out every time he talks to a reporter these days. For but one example of Donovan's outlook: He's the guy who told the Washington Post a couple weeks ago that Redskins officials "don't see any difference" in "the way our actual fans are behaving" this season.
But, there was a time when Donovan was way into newspapering. It was all spelled out in a 2007 feature story in the Daily Times Herald of Carroll, Iowa, his hometown, to honor the local boy made good when he took the job as General Counsel with the Redskins.
Make that the local paperboy made good.
(AFTER THE JUMP: Iowa State gave DC David Donovan AND Vinny Cerrato? What did DC ever do to Iowa State to deserve that? Why did David Donovan join the dark side leave journalism? Snyder's media appearance starting to smell fishy? Ripken statue stolen by guy named Stoneburner who hangs out with a bunch of stoneburners?)
Read More "Cheap Seats Daily: David Donovan, Snyder’s Latest Newspaper Hater, Was a Paperboy?" »
Cheap Seats Daily: Jim Zorn Will Definitely Be the Head Coach, Hopefully?
Another Redskins game that ain't a sellout. Another Redskins game that won't be blacked out.
The graphic above is from the latest installment of the now regular email blasts that precede every home game.
But no matter what your head tells you, remember: Dan Snyder says the Redskins have a waiting list of "over 200,000" names of folks who want tickets but can't get them.
And remember this, as your watching the Skins/Eagles game on local TV and see a sea of empty seats: The NFL has a blackout policy!
What's going on around here is sorta amazing, ain't it? A "Monday Night Football" game against the hated Eagles -- a rematch of the Body Bag Game opponents! -- and Skins management feels it has to lie ("visiting team returns," "limited number," etc.) to try to get folks to take tickets?
How low has Snyder taken the operation? Well, if the Redskins were a dance, you could lay the limbo pole on the floor and Snyder could still sneak his franchise under it.
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Vinny Cerrato opened his radio station on Dan Snyder's sportstalker, WTEM, declaring he wanted to be "perfectly clear" about some things: Jim Zorn is the Skins head coach for the rest of the season "and hopefully into the future." Sure, "perfectly clear" is a Nixon tag line. And Cerrato sounded crazy while he delivered it.
(AFTER THE JUMP: Snyder doesn't talk to the media? Did anybody tell the New York Times? Snyder tells Brian Mitchell he's sorry? Brian Mitchell believes it? Debbie Yow wants you to call her Dr. Yow? She's a doctor? Really? Charlie Brotman can tell stories? Ron Jaworski doesn't blame Jim Zorn, either? Why do races get such scary names?)
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Cheap Seats Daily: Remember When This Was Called ‘Redskins Weather’?
Hate to stomp on the weather beat that others at City Desk are already covering with gusto. But I'll stick to forecasts, and stay away from the retrocasting favored by the boss.
So, Sunday in Landover at kickoff: 47 degrees, rainy, winds 13 miles an hour from the north and 100 percent cloud cover. That used to be called "Redskins Weather!" around here. Now, it's called "You Can Get a Redskins Ticket for 17 Cents Weather!"
On a related note...
Redskins Ticket Watch: More than a thousand ads for Skins/Chiefs tickets on Craigslist this morning. Asking prices in just the first few listings I found went from "Way below face value!" to "Half Price!" to "75 percent off!" to "Make an offer!"
Face value's a pipe dream. Come to think of it, with 47 degrees and wet on the horizon, 17 cents might look like a windfall by kickoff. In any case, folks who intend to show up at FedExField might need to bring something to cover their heads from all the precipitation.
Like, bags or plates, maybe?
(AFTER THE JUMP: Vinny Cerrato is told it's the talent, stupid? Snyderatto = Rosie Ruiz? Snyder changed the copy in the cheerleader car wash contest AGAIN? Will the Great Dan Steinberg fall for the not-actual-cheerleaders picture bait AGAIN? Ronnie Mervis and Dan Snyder use the same advertising firm?)
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Cheap Seats Daily: The Johnny Rockets Menu Proves Dan Snyder Is Priceless?
Dan Snyder's detestability rating enjoyed another spike yesterday: Reports out of FedExField for the Tampa Bay game have Snyder confiscating paper bags at the entrance to his stadium, so fans couldn't put them on their heads for the TV cameras.
Sportstalk radio station WJFK this morning put on callers who said they got bags past the gate but anybody who tried wearing one got swarmed by stadium security.
Paper bags! That's where that Sept. 11 fee Snyder tacks on to your ticket price goes? Sheeesh.
The bag gimmick is old, but funny. The ban is just creepy.
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Death knell for Jason Campbell: Sonny Jurgensen has seen enough.
Unlike other members of the Skins broadcast crew, Jurgensen never talks without thinking about what he's going to say. And after Campbell's second interception, Jurgensen, who along with being the color commentator is a pal of Dan Snyder, said he'd seen enough. "I think it's time to warm up #16 guys," Sonny said.
(AFTER THE BREAK: Vinny and Larry get the Great Steinographer treatment? Vinny's going to bring Sally Jenkins on his radio show? Vinny's going to send Sally Jenkins his Super Bowl ring? Vinny's got a Super Bowl ring? Dan Snyder won't tell you how much your Johnny Rockets burger is? The Redskins schedule only winless teams? Brett Haber thinks the Redskins are sleeping giants? Biggest high school football game of all-time this week? Worst high school football season of all-time is imminent?)
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Cheap Seats Daily: Leonsis Says Caps Bigger Than Jesus?
Sally Jenkins goes after Dan Snyder like she'd invested in Six Flags. Her latest column reviews Snyder's historic star-struckitude and avoidance of personal accountability, and every paragraph is great and dead-on and brutal.
A sampling:
This is Snyder's team; he was intimately involved in assembling it. He keeps his favorite players on speed dial, watches practices on the sidelines and demands face time and explanations from the coaches he personally hired. Whatever you think of Zorn, he is Snyder's own selection. It was Snyder who told Joe Gibbs, "He would make a great head coach." He is personally responsible for naming Vinny Cerrato, a proven failure, executive vice president of football operations, for the Redskins' lack of core strength, for their inability to power the ball in the red zone, which is thanks to his decade of neglect of the interior lines in favor of big free agent signings.
But no sampling can do the column justice. It's all wondrous.
(AFTER THE JUMP: Reading recommendations? Nats give fans an unforgettable "Bang! Zoom!" when down to last strike? Thom Loverro says forget "Bang! Zoom!" Ted Leonsis says Caps better than Jesus? When's the wake for Hoop Dreams? Say it ain't so, Susie Kay?)
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Cheap Seats Daily: Are the Redskins Using Robert Henson to Protect Zorn, Campbell, Snyder, FedEx, Etc…?
Dim WitsGate™ makes it to the front page of the Washington Post! That means the story of Robert Henson's Twittered insults of Redskins fans -- calling them "dim wits" and saying they "work 9 to 5 at Mcdonalds" -- occupies the same real estate where Watergate became the original -Gate!
Bottom line: Cheap Seats Daily's hype of Dim WitsGate™ is validated!
From all the hate going Henson's way on Sunday's postgame shows on local sportstalk stations, I was certain this was going to develop into the biggest Redskins controversy ever generated by an inactive linebacker using new media. Or at least one of the biggest Redskins controversies ever generated by an inactive linebacker using new media.
And now it's on the front page!
Also, it's always nice to see former longtime DC resident the Great Dan Steinberg, the Woodward & Bernstein of Dim WitsGate™, on A1.
(Full disclosure: I still have my 35-year-old "Nixon Resigns" issue of the Washington Post in my paperboy bag in the basement. I'll get 'em out for Halloween. Hence the "-Gate" fetish...)
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There they go again. Dan Snyder is using his web site to go to war with the Washington Post.
(AFTER THE JUMP: Is Henson being used to take heat off the real Redskins villains? Pravda's Ashburn bureau strikes again? How would you copy-edit multiple Twitters? Leonard Shapiro now using out-of-town newspapers to blast Dan Snyder? The NFL's blackout policy is as big a sham as the Skins waiting list?)
Cheap Seats Daily: Nats to Hire Rizzo? Lerners to Save Themselves from Themselves?
The fans' will be done: Looks like Mike Rizzo, the anti-Vinny Cerrato in that his team's followers really, really like him, will get the Nationals general manager's job after all.
Yesterday, rumors broke that the team was going to boot Rizzo and hire the Diamondbacks' Jerry DiPoto. Nats fan boards lit up with pleas for management to keep Rizzo, who'd only just completed the Stephen Strasburg signing.
The Lerners are known for never giving a hoot about public opinion, but, coincidentally or not, it appears their decision and the fans' wishes will mesh here.
Then again, it could just be that Rizzo, already on staff as an assistant, comes cheaper than DiPoto would have.
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In case you missed it: I wrote my own special Groundhog Column, about Spingarn football's newest new football coach, a piece I've written again and again over the years. The newest new guy to run the long-troubled program, Charlie McKie, takes over with clear eyes and a full heart. He's been coaching youth football in the city for nearly three decades, the last several years at Brown Middle School, so McKie knows Spingarn hasn't competed for the Turkey Bowl in a generation.
But someday, that's going to happen.
(AFTER THE JUMP: Madden dumps the Great Hoyas Hope? Are the Olympics ready for gender-non-specific track and field? Yandamonium™ returns already? Erin Andrews gets muddy?)
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Mike Rizzo: The Anti-Cerrato?
Nats de facto general manager Mike Rizzo just made a deal giving an unproven talent the biggest contract a player in his position has ever been given in the history of his sport.
In other words, a deal just like those Redskins de facto GM Vinny Cerrato makes every offseason.
And now it looks like Rizzo's about to be kicked out of his job.
If it were Cerrato who was getting knocked off, Redskins fans would be celebrating his departure the way Italians rallied around Mussolini's swinging carcass.
But in Rizzo's case, Nats followers are upset.
Will that be enough to save his job?
Update: SIX Flagging
Dan Snyder's Six Flags debacle has taken a turn toward the contentious.
We couldn't be happier!
The bankrupt company's creditors are asking the courts to hold up proceedings until they can investigate the relationship between Six Flags and Red Zone LLC, an investment group Snyder formed with a lot of Redskins Park, including team bigwigs Vincent "Vinny" Cerrato and Karl Swanson. Snyder used the group's Six Flags stock holdings take over the amusement park chain via a stockholder coup in 2005. Snyder anointed Mark Shapiro, also a Red Zone member, as made CEO of Six Flags.
The Wall Street Journal is now reporting that in recent filings with the court, attorneys for the firms holding notes for Six Flags, which is now more than $2 billion-plus in debt, singled out as questionable several actions made under Snyder's tenure that involve Red Zone.
Among the dubiousest: Red Zone's sale of a chunk of Dick Clark Productions to Six Flags, a deal that took place shortly after Snyder acquired the production company.
Back to us: SIX Flagging pegged that sale as fishy long ago. In a July 2008 post in this space, we called it "a bizarre transaction that essentially amounted to one of Snyder’s private equity outfits (Red Zone) making a $40 million sale to one of Snyder’s public equity outfits (Six Flags)."
Think the Private Snyder, playing with his own money, would strike a fair bargain with the Public Snyder, who was spending stockholders' loot?
Sure he would....IN OPPOSITE LAND!
Cheap Seats Daily: Michael Vick Inspired ‘Whale Wars’?
Brett Favre's gone, so Michael Vick talk dominates.
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?)
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Cheap Seats Daily: La Canfora Replacement from RavensLand? Mike ‘Biggest Loser’ Williams Not Big Enough for Madden? Brunell’s Band to Play Six Flags?
The typists' gathering spot sportsjournalists.com has been rumoring that the Washington Post will hire a former Baltimore Sun columnist, Rick Maese, to replace Vinny Cerrato nemesis Jason La Canfora on the Redskins beat.
As predicted in this space, the beat wasn't big enough for the Skins' GM/racquetball partner/DJ and the Post's writer/blogger/agitator.
La Canfora left the paper to work the NFL Network.
Cheap Seats Daily:Will Dan Snyder Sign La Canfora’s Paychecks? Is Joe Biden the Anti-Arnold?
Jason La Canfora goes to work for Dan Snyder?
That's essentially what Pro Football Talk is saying. According to the site, La Canfora has been hired away from the Washington Post by the NFL Network, the future cable powerhouse owned by the NFL, which is run by the NFL owners, none brasher than Snyder.
On some levels, the departure was inevitable. La Canfora was good enough at his job, as the Post's Skins beat writer and the force behind Redskins Insider, the paper's most popular sports blog, to cause the Skins organization to launch a campaign against him. Snyder's message board, extremeskins.com, his media mouthpiece, Larry Michael, and his, well, everything else, Vinny Cerrato, all went crazy trying to attack La Canfora.
Michael had "The Sourcerer," a silly feature used on a Skins cable TV show to belittle everything La Canfora wrote. And then things got really ugly when Snyder gave Cerrato, who would "no comment" every question from La Canfora for his Post stories, a radio show on the sports station he owns, WTEM. Cerrato railed against the beat writer as soon as he got on the air.
The lowpoint of the feud came with Cerrato and Michael accusing La Canfora of tattling to the NFL in hopes of getting the league to launch a tampering investigation of the Redskins. (Tampering? Snyder?)
La Canfora fought ugliness with ugliness, calling Cerrato a liar and mocking the organization in emails to detractors. As predicted in this space many times, the beat wasn't big enough for both Cerrato and La Canfora to stay on another season.
Cerrato kept his football job, though the radio gig was such a disaster it can't come back. So it's La Canfora heading off, leaving writing for talking, as all typists aspire to do.
But, working for Snyder?
Cheap Seats Daily: Third Time’s Not Charmed for the Caps
Awesome Capitals trivia from play-by-play man Steve Kolbe: After last night's OT loss in Pittsburgh, Kolbe related that the Caps have never won a Game Three in any best-of-seven playoff series. The team's been around 35 years! How's that possible? (Apparently it's NOT possible!)
Awesome Capitals trivia about play-by-play man Steve Kolbe: The franchise has had only two play-by-play announcers in its long history, Ron Weber (1974-1997) and Kolbe (1997-).
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Speaking of consistency: Awesome trivia about the Redskins: During the offseason, the Skins have now signed Jaison Williams, Mike Williams, Roydell Williams, Eddie Williams and Edwin Williams.
After reading yesterday's Washington Post opus on local-product Edwin "Don't Call Me Eddie" Williams's family's drug problems (we're told his folks "traveled up and down the East Coast in search of cocaine." Really? Why? Did DC run out?), I'm pretty sure everybody named Williams has a hard-luck tale.
Me, I'm rooting hardest for Mike Williams, who used to weigh 400 pounds. He's on a biggest-loser style weight loss plan, I learned in a previous installment from the paper's series, Opuses on Guys Named Williams and Their Hard-Luck Tales.
Too bad, cuz if Big Mike wasn't watching his waist he and his new teammates could open a burger joint and name it, um, how 'bout Five Guys Named Williams? (Mark Moseley wouldn't dare sue fellow Skins!) The team also has four Smiths, three Thomases and two Montgomerys.
But just one Vinny!
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Awesome trivia about the new Detroit mayor, Dave Bing:
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