Earlier this week, the Washington Redskins and Red Zebra Broadcasting jointly trumpeted a new deal that will keep the team's game broadcasts on WTEM-AM "through the 2015 season."

In announcing the alliance, Chuck Sapienza, director of programming for WTEM's parent company Red Zebra, said, "We are very excited to continue our partnership with the Washington Redskins and look forward to an exciting five years with Coach Shanahan."

Oh, to be a fly on the wall during the negotiations that led to this extension!

Or not. Not mentioned anywhere in the press release touting the pact, but confirmed by Dan Snyder's spokesperson Tony Wyllie, is the fact that the broadcasting company and the radio station are still both owned by Snyder. And, of course, so is the team.

Snyder got a chance to master the art of the self-deal during his days as chairman of the board of Six Flags, days marked by various transactions between the theme park chain he controlled and private companies he owned, namely Dick Clark Productions and Johnny Rockets.

The arrangements would seem to mitigate the give-and-take that goes with less conflicted negotiations, a point some Six Flags investors raised in federal bankruptcy court—noting their disapproval of the tactics during the company's Chapter 11 reorganization hearings.

Ted Leonsis, a fabulous sports owner turned blogger, went after sportstalk station WTEM-AM in a recent blog post after Thom Loverro, a fabulous newspaper columnist turned blogger (and WTEM host), called the Leonsis-owned Washington Wizards an "invisible franchise."

Leonsis flamed Loverro's medium as much as he did his message.

"I find it ironic that an AM radio station – which I can’t hear at night because of static – calls a fast growing NBA team 'invisible,'" Leonsis wrote. "That is funny."

Well, I listened to the playoff game between the New York Rangers and the Washington Capitals on the flagship station of Leonsis hockey team: WFED, 1500-AM.

That's when the humor of Leonsis' crack hit me: The flagship station of the Caps, a team the whole region and my household has pinned their sports hopes and dreams to, is an AM signal, too.

I couldn't find the biggest game in town anywhere on the FM dial.

Invisible? Nah. But you could say Caps are inaudible.

That is funny.

(Turns out Ted's having some blog problems today, too.)

Snyder's Q&A's thus far have been loaded with lame Q's — Larry Weisman, who with the collapse of journalism as a profession went from a fun-to-read sportswriter to a Snyder PR hack, has reduced himself to asking the boss planted queries like "Is there anything in the works or any plans for an indoor practice facility, practice bubble or upgrades to this building?" Good god. And most of Snyder's A's have a familiar ring: "I'm still a fan, a lifelong fan," Snyder told the operators of the fan site Hogs Haven.

But at least Snyder's talking now. That's a step. And of everything to come out of this interview spurt, what interested me most was when Snyder discussed the prospects for setting up a Redskins Museum on the grounds of his practice facility. "The Redskins museum to me would be really important," he said. "I’ve been collecting now, since I’ve bought the team, a tremendous archive. It’s in storage. We have some great stuff that would really be fantastic."

I was aware Snyder had indeed been collecting stuff. In 2005, I'd done a story about a guy named Lawrence Smith who lived in Southern California. Smith was trying to cure himself of a compulsive disorder that compelled him to buy every Redskins souvenir imaginable. Really. The first step in his recovery was to sell off all the burgundy and gold memorabilia he'd been hoarding since childhood. Few tales I've ever come across fascinated me more than Smith's.

From the story:

Among the hundreds of items now being cast away: An entire set of D.C. Law Enforcement Redskins trading cards from 1982; an official Redskins marble; a six-pack of Redskins Coke bottles from Super Bowl XXVI; each of the three Redskins Wheaties boxes; a complete set of 1976 Redskins RC Cola bottles; a complete set of Redskins Super Bowl Beanie Babies; a complete set of Fleer Truck Haulers in Redskins colors; a complete set of Redskins Matchbox Truck Haulers; Redskins-themed bobblehead dolls in the likenesses of LaVar Arrington, Clinton Portis, and Mickey Mouse; helmets autographed by Darrell Green, Mark Moseley, Joe Theismann, John Riggins, Chris Hanburger, Larry Brown, Dexter Manley, and the entire 2004 Redskins squad; an autographed 8-by-10 of Dan Snyder; and, alas, an official Redskins fishing lure and Trung Canidate's rookie card.

Smith traced his disease to an unsatisfying relationship with his father, who had taken him to his first Redskins game as a 9-year old. It wasn't any ordinary game.

More from the 2005 story:

He got his first Redskins item in January 1983, at Super Bowl XVII in Pasadena, Calif. He went to the game, between Washington and Miami, with his father as guests of family friend Merlin Olsen, who broadcast the event on NBC. At the time, Smith says, he didn’t even know who the Redskins were.

He didn’t know his father real well, either.

“I was never close to my father,” Smith says matter-of-factly of his relationship with Mike Smith, a traveling golf pro and tournament organizer. “He was never around. And I didn’t even care about football. I was a little kid. But that was a big day for me, going there with my dad. Before the game, he said, ‘Pick a team, son. You want the red team or the green team?’ I said, ‘Red.’ ”

Mike Smith then went to the concession stand and bought his son a hat for the “red team.” And with the youngster wearing the gift from his father, they saw the Redskins, behind a climactic 43-yard, fourth-down John Riggins touchdown run, beat the Dolphins, 27-17.

When the little Smith got home from the big game, he put the Redskins hat on a shelf in his bedroom. And, for a long time after that, he says, the hat became almost a surrogate parent. Whenever his dad was away on a golfing outing or a business trip, Smith would stare at the hat and remember their shared Super Bowl outing, just to remind himself that he had a father.

“Just looking at the hat made me feel good,” he says. “That’s what got me and my whole Redskins thing started.”

When I found Smith, he was 32 years old, and the Redskins collection was taking up too much emotional and physical space, and he was trying to get rid of it all. He put the whole lot up for sale on eBay and in classified ads, including one in Washington City Paper, with an asking price of $7,000.

After my story came out, Smith got a phone call and a certified check from the Redskins, and shipped everything to Ashburn.  Well, not everything. He kept the first Redskins souvenir he ever got: The hat his dad bought him at the Super Bowl.

So if you see a complete set of Redskins R.C. Cola bottles from 1976 and an official Redskins Fishing Lure in the Redskins museum Snyder's going to open up, you'll know where they came from.

Czaban's proof? WTEM-AM.

"If people ask why can't Snyder just hire really good people and let them do what they do, well, that's exactly what he's doing on the radio front," says Czaban, co-host of "The Sports Reporters," the drive-time show and jewel in the schedule of Snyder's WTEM, also called ESPN980.

Czaban's got an ego, and he really is really good at what he does, but the "really good people" he's referring to here is Bruce Gilbert, CEO of Red Zebra Broadcasting and the guy who Snyder put in charge of WTEM last year when he bought what was then the only sports station in the market. Gilbert canned on-air personalities Brian Mitchell and Al Koken, but kept Czaban and his longtime partner, Andy Pollin, in the WTEM stable.

Can we trust Czaban's kind words for Snyder? On paper, Czaban's conflicted out the wazoo. He works for Snyder, and needs the WTEM job more than ever now: the bosses at FoxSports Radio, where Czaban had his own syndicated morning show for the last five years, just gave him his walking papers as a Christmas present. Stephen A. Smith takes over Czaban's old time slot there.

Czaban had been tougher on the Redskins than anybody in the market before Snyder became his boss. One example: Czaban lost a moonlighting gig with the Redskins post-game show on Comcast sports three years ago after a testy interview with Mark Brunell, during which he asked the QB how comfortable he was about his job status. Brunell was visibly peeved, and Redskins management quickly complained to Comcast about Czaban. He was immediately suspended by Comcast, and did not return to the postgame show the following season.

Yet, despite the conflicts, any reduction in the harshness of Czaban's Skins critiques under Snyder's ownership has been too subtle to notice.

(AFTER THE JUMP: Who coined "Clinton Tortoise"? Will NFL go for the Clooney Rule? Hire the OTHER Mike: Forget Shanahan, go for Leach! Will next year's EagleBank Bowl be held in a telephone booth?)

For but one of the hundreds of examples of the fun they've had at the Redskins' expense amid the team's debacle of a season: In October, Czaban and Pollin coined the nickname "Clinton Tortoise" for quickly aging running back Clinton Portis.

Just doing his job, Czaban says. "I don't think I've said anything about the Redskins this year that hasn't been said by other people more directly and more harshly," he says.

And Snyder has let him say it all. Czaban says he hasn't even met Snyder since the ownership change. And the ratings of the Sports Reporters in their target demographic — males 25-54 — have never been higher.

The biggest test of Snyder's laissez faire-ness will come a year from now, when Czaban's and Pollin's contracts with Red Zebra come up for renewal. Will Snyder continue to pay Czaban and let him be Czaban?

Or will Czaban's entertaining honesty earn Stephen A. Smith ANOTHER call?

***

The Rooney Rule, at least as applied in the Redskins latest coach search, has turned into a joke, making liars and traitors out of co-workers.

I say the NFL should take its phony foot-in-the-door program several steps further, to add more giggles. Why not institute, say, the Clooney Rule? In honor of George Clooney, nobody gets hired until a team interviews a cheerleader. And the Looney Rule, where at least one certifiable wacko gets a shot (Greg Blache could fill that quota with the Skins). Or maybe the Soon-Yi Rule, in which at least one daughter and/or wife of Woody Allen is considered before anybody's signed?

It's just a joke! Right?

Butt seriously: If, after all the charades, Mike Shanahan is indeed at the end of the Redskins rainbow, nobody's going to be excited by the hire. He won't sell one club seat.

But there is an exciting coach who should be available soon. In fact, as I type this, Texas Tech's Mike Leach, the most exciting football coach in the land might already be up for grabs. Forget the West Coast Offense; he's got the West Texas Offense! Leach is Steve Spurrier, with discipline!

If the papers got things right, Leach is Buford Pusser in a pair of sweat pants. He's going to lose his job at Texas Tech because he locked a player with a concussion in a dark room for an entire practice. Imagine what he'd do to Albert Haynesworth! When Haynesworth comes out of the game on a cart, would Leach allow him to put himself back in the game a few plays later? Hell no! Leach would leave him strapped to the cart all game long! That's just what these Redskins need!

Actually, I'm with Leach in this debacle. The player who Leach allegedly wasn't nice to is the son of Craig James, a lead ESPN football analyst. Leach was suspended yesterday not for having made the kid stand in a dark room, but for refusing to apologize to the player's dad! Craig James got the media's ear early on, but the worm is starting to turn. Leach has asserted that Craig James was constantly phoning him and complaining and acting "like a Little League father." Even if Leach is exonerated, he's a goner with the Red Raiders. Texas Tech's my alma mater, and damn if that place ever misses a chance to screw things up. Lubbock just ain't big enough for Leach.

(Texas Tech is the school that brought in Bobby Knight, the godfather of player abuse, after he was fired for assaulting a kid and lying about it.)

***

Kendall Marshall, an O'Connell guard who was starting for his high school varsity team when he was in sixth grade (somehow, that was seven years ago), is not as highly prized as he once was by the ranking services. But his future coach, North Carolina's Roy Williams, says Marshall's going to be just fine.

***

The Examiner ran a rosy preview of the EagleBank Bowl yesterday.

The second EagleBank Bowl takes on greater prominence than the inaugural 2008 game — a matchup of Wake Forest and Navy that was buried in the bowl mix with an 11 a.m. Dec. 20 start.

That game drew fewer than 29,000 fans, far short of the average bowl attendance of 55,183. Many, including the Navy squad, came from a short distance. Only 22 sponsors signed on.

But this year's game has a forecast for partly sunny skies and a more fan-friendly 4:30 p.m. kickoff, and bowl organizers hope to seat 40,000 for the nationally televised battle. There are more than 60 sponsors and an intriguing first-ever matchup between UCLA and Temple, a marquee program from the Pacific-10 Conference versus a team from the Mid-American Conference that hasn't been to a bowl game in 30 years.

"This is a dead time of year in D.C.," said Steve Beck, EagleBank Bowl executive director. "It's creating a lot of activity."

The Washington Post, also yesterday, said that organizers "were hoping for an attendance of around 25,000."

The Post came closest. In today's Washington Times, in the middle of Dick Heller's gloomy and doomy review of the contest, he put the crowd at 23,000 and change. Even that number might be inflated. The stadium looked much emptier than that in photos.

And, as pointed out by SB Nation, the attendance slot on the official EagleBank Bowl box score was filled with "NA."

***

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But he's still a winner with me! I wonder if that makes him feel better.

***

The Watkins Hornets took a Pop Warner Pee Wee national title over the weekend with a 22-8 win over a Miami Club, the Florida City Razorbacks, in Orlando. Watkins becomes the first DC team to win a championship since the Department of Parks and Recreation melded its youth football operation with the Boys and Girls Clubs leagues.

In a press release, Mayor Fenty called Watkins' win "an inspiration to youth around the nation." He continued, "This win is truly a testament to the fact that discipline in athletics and education leads to victory."

Hear hear, Mr. Mayor! Imagine the setbacks America's youth would have suffered had those uninspiring, undisciplined truant Pee Wees from Florida City taken the crown!

(AFTER THE JUMP: Redskins beat another horrendous QB? The NFL should go to yellow card system? Another Open Letter to Tiger Woods update? Even Joe Theismann's a better punt returner slams Randle El? The Redskins confess there is no waiting list? Dan Snyder speaks the truth?)

***

The big kids came home winners, too. Now three of the Redskins four wins have come against teams quarterbacked by Josh Johnson, Chris Simms and JaMarcus Russell, possibly the worst trio of QBs in the NFL in this decade. (Marc Bulger of the Rams is the only real starter to lose to the Skins this year.)

***

The absurdity of the NFL's personal foul rule was made plain in the first half of yesterday's game. When Fred Davis got a 15-yard penalty for waving a hand in front of his face after a touchdown, the Skins had to kick off from their own 15, and the Raiders took the kickoff to near midfield and scored a TD a few plays later. No way did Davis' crime earn that punishment. The refs were at it again at the end of the first half, flagging the Raiders bench for yelling about a horrible interference call, and the refs made everything worse by giving the Skins another 15 yards, and placing the ball near midfield. So instead of taking a knee and running out the clock, Jason Campbell led a quick TD drive, and Washington never looked back.

This has probably been proposed a billion times before, but: If getting rid of shenanigans was really the goal, why wouldn't the NFL go to the yellow card system used in soccer, especially for offenses that have nothing to do with the action? After a player gets one mulligan, he has no excuse if he gets another one that game, or accumulates enough to get a suspension. The shenanigans would disappear, and the outcomes of games wouldn't be so affected. But, as ex-NBA ref Tim Donaghy would point out, that's the whole point of sticking with the status quo.

***

There is no Waiting List (Cont.): The Redskins are offering fans a chance to buy Cowboys tickets for christmas gifts .

But but but but but! What happened to, "The games have been sold out since 1966!?" Didn't Dan Snyder tell me there's a waiting list of "over 200,000!?"

And now the Redskins are selling pairs of tickets, and not even bothering with that "These were returned from the opposing team" drivel? Dang! Next we're gonna find out there is no Santa! Or that there really is no NFL blackout rule, anyway.

***

Open Letter to Tiger Woods Update! Today's entry comes courtesy of the Sri Lanka Guardian, from a member of the Sri Lankan military:

Sadly a lot of men fail to understand that most of women lose their beauty, shape and curves or supermodel like figures after child births. We men need to accept equal responsibility for our women’s losing shape, figure and attractiveness. It is for the most part for our needing to have children, or else for failure to wear a condom! It seems most want children rather than need children.

If a realistic man observes the daily work or chores of his loving wife he would realize and appreciate that though they say, which I doubt, that men think about sex every seven seconds. But I think a woman with kids to care and provide for does not think on the average at least once a day! Because our wives are preoccupied with cooking, home work, extracurricular activities of the children etc. Our wives get sexual urges from time to time because they are human beings too. Sometimes unfortunately not when are in the mood! As men we need to be in good communication with her and seize the moment when it presented itself.

We should have ‘experimented’ all we want before marriage, and after marriage it is sacrifice, give and take when it is possible!

I think Tiger Woods is adapt his lifestyle to your writings, Mr. Sri Lankan Military Man!

***

Say it's so,  Joe!

Joe Theismann spoke the truth on his radio show this morning. Talking about Antwaan Randle El's punt return ability, the Redskins former QB and (briefly) punt returner, announced: I would never say that I can do something better than someone. But I can."

While on the subject of truth speaking: I slam Dan Snyder whenever I come across something he says that simply isn't true — like when he says the Redskins waiting list for season tickets is 200,000, for example.

So when he says something that rings true, I should also point that out. Well, over the weekend I found a 2005 article from the Washington Post that has Snyder saying something as true as true gets. The piece, about Snyder's non-football business dealings, says that Snyder and co-hort Mark Shapiro both "say they will do for Six Flags what they did for... the Redskins."

I take Snyder et al at their word.

***

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Listeners are urged, "Bring your best 'Beat Dallas!' sign and you can win a six pack of club seats!"

I can't wait to see how high the "Worst Owner Ever!" banner will place.

***

Moderators at Dan Snyder's message board, extremeskins.com, no doubt emboldened by the see-no-evil clause their boss invoked while banning signs from FedExField, have a type-no-insult policy in place.

Posters on the site have been warned not to say anything negative about the team in a thread announcing a send-off that's being organized from Redskins Park for the Dallas game.

The warning:

"Be advised: This is not an opinion or debate thread. Please do not use this thread to verbally attack, make fun of, laugh at, or otherwise belittle any of the participating members or Redskins players/coaches/staff or owner. To do so will result in a mandatory ban."

(AFTER THE JUMP: Why would Dan Snyder sanction such censorship? Why is Slate so mean to Sandra Bullock? Why didn't the Redskins draft Michael Oher? Why did John Riggins jump on Joe Theismann when Joe Theismann's leg was broken? Did you just say John Riggins jumped on Joe Theismann when Joe Theismann's leg was broken?)

Before this season, these send-off announcements were posted regularly on Snyder's site. But, the gathering memos were stopped because they only inspired fans to tell the owner just how much they loathe him in follow-up posts.

The situation Snyder has created in this market is unlike anything in all of professional sports.

I've said it before, and I believe it: Even if the Redskins go on a miracle streak and win the Super Bowl this season, when Snyder holds up the Lombardi Trophy at the victory rally, he will be booed.

***

In his Slate review of "The Blind Side," the feature film based on the life of Baltimore Ravens' rookie Michael Oher, friend and hero Josh Levin treats Sandra Bullock as Lawrence Taylor did Joe Theismann.

I only used that simile so I'd have an easy segue into this: I haven't seen "The Blind Side," but I'm told it opens with a clip of one of the most famous plays in Redskins history — Taylor playing wishbone with Theismann's leg in that 1986 "Monday Night Football" game.

Looking at the gruesome clip this morning, I noticed for the first time that John Riggins for some reason jumps on top of the pile with Theismann and his newly restructured leg at the bottom. Riggins had tossed the ball back to Theismann just before Taylor hit him during the flea-flicker gone wrong.

Perhaps that's why Theismann went after Riggins so hard last week after Riggo piled on Dan Snyder. Or maybe it's because Theismann is employed by Snyder.

In any case, Theismann never played another down of football. But, he lived to talk about it and everything else...a lot. If he was a horse, Theismann would have had a curtain around him within a minute and there'd be one less sportstalk host in the DC market.

***

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Kornheiser, of course, really didn't give a rip about Wise's column. He just wanted to rip Wise.

Full disclosure: I think Kornheiser's a bad guy with a dark heart.

'Course, I only met him once, for about 10 minutes about 10 years ago at a Washington Post holiday party. It's one of my favorite party stories, right up there with having Alan Greenspan wonder if he'd shown up at the wrong event after encountering me and my thrift-store wardrobe at a book party, and getting attacked by Buddy Holly's shop teacher during a night out in Lubbock.

Tell the Kornheiser-and-me one again? Sure!

Kornheiser had gotten a Post editor who now makes appearances on his radio show to invite me to the party, so he could attack me for something I'd written that he didn't like. When I arrived he cornered me and pulled an old column of mine out of his coat pocket that he'd been carrying around for a while and waved it in the air while yelling that I'd "never write for a real newspaper." I could tell from the way his co-workers acted after he finished yelling that they'd seen his bizarre act before.

And not long after that party Kornheiser got me fired from a $75-a-week freelance job with the Washington Post's sports section because of something else I wrote for Washington City Paper.

Kornheiser got me canned for writing about a February 1981 story he wrote for the Style section of the Washington Post called "Ken Beatrice: Facts and Fears on the Airwaves."

Beatrice was a beloved oddball back then, with a popular nightly sportstalk radio show. Kornheiser was much newer to D.C. than Mike Wise is now, and, to use the angle Kornheiser used during his rants against Wise, didn't understand what Beatrice meant to this town.

But Kornheiser had learned that Beatrice had fibbed about his college football career, and that Beatrice's PhD was from an unaccredited university, and used those tidbits to write 4,000 of the meanest words to ever appear in the Post. Beatrice weighed less then Karen Carpenter, and on good days looked more frail than the average intensive care ward patient, yet Kornheiser spent much of the story reveling in how much distress he caused Beatrice during "at least eight hours" of interviews. Even if he'd never gotten weird on me at a holiday party or gotten me fired, his Beatrice story was enough by itself to leave me believing Kornheiser's a bad guy with a dark heart.

One passage of Kornheiser's piece:

[Beatrice] was not looking well.

Pale. So pale and waxy that he could have been on exhibit at Madame Tussaud's.

And gaunt, like he hadn't eaten in weeks.

Nervously, he wiped his right hand hard across his forehead and through his dark hair, matting it. There were white flecks at the corners of his mouth. When he went to light his pipe his hands trembled. He took in great gulps of air. It seemed like he was drowning.

In fact, he seemed terrified.

About the prospect of this story.

Kornheiser was trying to hurt Beatrice, and he succeeded. Beatrice had a nervous breakdown after Kornheiser's story ran and had to leave the airwaves for a while to convalesce.

Listeners begged Beatrice to come back to his radio show, and he eventually did.

Despite knowing he'd caused Beatrice physical harm, Kornheiser never backed off Beatrice. When Kornheiser got a show of his own on WTEM a decade later, he used it to continue to bully Beatrice.

I listened to Kornheiser's radio show on Monday, and he sounded pretty frail himself. He sure seemed hurt while talking about Jon Gruden, his replacement on "Monday Night Football," being re-signed to a long ESPN contract, the deal Kornheiser was never offered. So he tried to work out his wounds by going after Mike Wise, who he's been saying mean, unfunny things about for years. Just like he did Beatrice back in the day. But now Kornheiser sounds too weak to even be a good bully anymore. He just comes off as sad.

Back to me: Over the years, because of his multi-media successes, I've probably been asked more about getting fired because of Tony Kornheiser than about anything I've ever written.

So I don't like seeing him falling like this. Pretty soon nobody's going to want me to retell the story of me and Tony Kornheiser.

Oh, well. The one about me and Buddy Holly's shop teacher's more fun, anyway.

Come on, pervs: Get your name in before it's too late!

('Course, this also means time is running out on Cheap Seats Daily's ability to run everybody's fave photo.)

(AFTER THE JUMP: Does Dan Snyder's vacation choice mean he's met his Waterloo? Elba is nice this time of year? Somebody wrote something nice about Dan Snyder? Really? Was it accurate? Not really? Where'd David Donovan learn to fib? Dan Snyder's poster confiscating binge was all a prank? Will anybody get a "Goofus and Gallant" reference?)

I read in the Washington Times yesterday that Dan Snyder is in France. How Freudian a vacation choice, considering the sort of slurs thrown his way these days. (Writer David Covucci got me chuckling with a piece posted at the hit-or-miss site Bleacher Report, saying Snyder' failings have been so epic that "scholars now refer to Napoleon as having 'Snyder Complex.”')

If Snyder stops at Elba, would he be allowed to leave?

***

Nothing nice has been written about Dan Snyder for years. Three years, to be pretty exact. That's when "The Dan Snyder You Don't Know," Harry Jaffe's profile of Snyder, showed up in Washingtonian magazine. Jaffe's story has over the years been regularly posted on Snyder's message board, ExtremeSkins.com, when the Skins owner's getting the crap beat out of him. It was posted again there yesterday.

Snyder was talking only slightly less to the press then than he does now, so Jaffe must have worked incredibly hard to get a sit-down. But the story, which came out in the September 2006 edition was an Instant Classic — for all the wrong reasons. Reading it now, you wonder what date-rape drug Snyder snuck into Jaffe's tea before he started typing.

Jaffe's Dan Snyder was a Dan Snyder we didn't know, all right. His Dan Snyder is "not even close" to being a "spoiled, greedy, power-hungry rich" guy like other NFL owners.  He's "playful, and shockingly normal," a guy who goes to "Ben’s Chili Bowl in DC at 1 am with his buddies."

And, ethical? Read on!

No one has questioned Snyder’s corporate dealings. He likes to say he has never been in court.

“I am a goody two-shoes,” he says. “Business ethics are important to me.”

Jaffe had somehow missed or forgotten about the FCC's reports about Snyder's pre-Redskins business, Snyder Communications, and all the million-dollar shenanigans it pulled through "slamming," or switching consumers' phone companies without their consent. In one of the investigations into his company's shenanigans, investigators for the State of Florida found that Snyder "forged the signatures of hundreds of customers on letters of authorizations purporting to authorize a change of customer's resubscribed interxchange carrier." (The Washington Post's investigation into the Redskins relationship with scalpers, remember, included charges that Snyder's employees were forging folks signatures on season ticket contracts.)

The hits just keep coming from Jaffe. Snyder, we learn, was actually patient with Norv Turner after buying the team in the summer of 1999.

"Snyder stuck with Norv Turner through the 1999 season, which was lackluster," Jaffe wrote.

"Lackluster"?

Well, actually, 1999 was the best season that the Skins have had under Snyder. That team won the NFC East and hosted the only playoff game ever played at FedExField. Yet Snyder somehow stuck by Turner throughout the year! Bravo!

Snyder, were also told in Jaffe's piece, began charging admission to training camp "in 2003."

Well, actually Snyder charged $10 admission and $10 parking fees in 2000 — the very first training camp he hosted. The date change is important, because it shows that as soon as Snyder could gouge the fan base, he did gouge the fan base.

To be fair, there are some enlightening parts of Jaffe's tale. As Jaffe relates an anecdote that's meant to show how much fun Snyder is, we learn where David Donovan, now the Redskins Chief Operating Officer and Fibber-in-Chief learned that honesty ain't a policy with Skins management.

Take the time Redskins general counsel Dave Donovan went to his first away game at the St. Louis Rams’ domed stadium. Snyder and [minority Skins owner Dwight] Schar saw him calling his wife and family on his cell phone to say how cool it was to be in the stadium before the game. They called the head of security and asked him to send two cops and “arrest” Donovan, saying it was illegal to use a cell phone in the stadium.

Donovan was escorted across the field. It wasn’t until he got to the other sideline that they told him it was a joke.

“We were laughing so hard we almost peed in our pants,” says Snyder.

Well, we can only hope Snyder was wearing Depends when Donovan went on WJFK earlier this week to say that there weren't many Philly fans at FedEx for the Eagles game, that the Redskins don't sue their fans, that only a few posters were confiscated by security at FedEx on Monday, etc. Though, come to think of it, Donovan says he's in charge of game-day operations now, so maybe when the Redskins had their security guards escort all those people out for wearing anti-Snyder t-shirts or anti-Snyder bags or carrying anti-Snyder posters, it was all a practical joke! Donovan was just funnin' with everybody! You got Punk'd, Skins fans!

And, Jaffe quotes Snyder associate named Mark Jennings describing Snyder as somebody who won't do anything "to get the next great article written about himself.”

Ain't that the truth.

I wonder if Jaffe would write anything differently if he could.

***

By now, all that's left is for Highlights to crush Snyder, and then every magazine on the rack, and every magazine off the rack, will have crushed him. Everybody who never wrote about the Skins owner has pounded him these last couple weeks.

After the New Yorker, you'd figure most publications would figure: Why bother?

But this morning, the Huffington Post still bothered. The online pub gives Bob Franken digital column inches to come at Snyder like he took Franken's money — which, in a disclosure contained in the piece, Franken says Snyder did (as a ticketholder).

Franken goes mega macro, comparing Snyder and the Redskins to Wall Street and the U.S. economy. At least that's what I think Franken did.

You be the judge:

So consider Dan Snyder and his Redskins a metaphor...a metaphor for heartlessness and incompetence that has brought things to ruin with little hope that next season will be much better since the same people will still be running things. No wonder so many are angry. A few have played the game terribly, but it's everyone else who has lost.

So I'm not the only one screaming that this is bigger than football to the point of foolishness? Cool!

Actually, I'd like to hear Highlights take on Snyder. He's providing teachable moments for all the children. And if Art Rooney was put forth as Gallant, you-know-who would make a great Goofus.

***

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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.

***

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?)

Cerrato also was manic when he said Snyder doesn't have to come out and address the mess he's made of what was once among the top shelf of NFL franchises but is now among the most despised. "Dan has never spoken to the media for a decade now," Cerrato says.

Huh. I thought Snyder posed for photos and talked to the New York Times a few weeks ago.

***

Brian Mitchell has been declawed. In an interview during the "John Thompson Show" on Dan Snyder's sportstalker, WTEM, Mitchell said he'd just had a conversation with Snyder, and that the owner apologized for cutting Mitchell in 2000 to make room for Deion Sanders.

Mitchell, who ripped Snyder brutally on WTEM for a couple years before Snyder bought the station and fired him, sounded genuinely touched by the words of contrition.

Then again, Snyder needs Mitchell right now a lot more than Mitchell needs Snyder. So during the Eagles game this Monday, Snyder is installing Mitchell into the FedExField "ring of fame" or "hall of stars," or whatever the hell that list of names at the stadium is called now,

Mitchell's appearance on the field should be, like so much about the "Monday Night Football" outing, very odd. Until recently, hardcore Skins fans thought of Mitchell as a turncoat because he was so tough on his former team after Snyder cut him.

But the way the Skins have played this season, what once seemed like hate now just sounds like the truth.  And the fans are so united in despising Snyder, any enemy of the owner is a friend of theirs. So cheering Mitchell is the same as booing Snyder.

That means Mitchell's appearance might provide the only cheers from Skins fans all night.

***

Before Cerrato's desperate announcement, Rick Snider of the Examiner wrote what everybody's feeling: Jim Zorn ain't gonna make it through the season. Snider's piece is mean and fun, like so much of the Redskins coverage these days.

***

Ron Jaworski went on "The Tony Kornheiser Show" to talk about the upcoming telecast of "Monday Night Football," where Jaworski still works.

Asked about the home team's bizarre off-field behaviors in recent weeks, Jaworski said that he'd "gone through every single play" of Redskins games this season, and came to the conclusion that everybody knows:  "It's not about the play-calling."

But: Jaworski picked the Skins to cover the spread.

(If I quote one more radio interview, I'm going to have to pay royalties to the Great Steinographer...)

***

Debbie Yow's official University of Maryland bio refers to her as "Dr. Yow." I didn't know she was a doctor. And, after reading the bio, I still don't. It says she's got a masters degree from Liberty University and "a doctorate (honorus causa) from the United States Sports Academy and an honorary doctorate for professional achievement from Elon University."

Sounds here like Yow just showed up and sat on a stage to get her ceremonial sheepskin. So why would she use "Dr. Yow" as a title? Any psychologists out there explain these behaviors?

***

Charlie Brotman's PR firm, Brotman-Winter-Fried Communications, held its 40th anniversary party last night. I've stolen a bunch of stories from them over the years, with a drag racer with a colostomy bag and a family that makes its living pulling each other's hair coming to mind first.

At the party, I got Brotman to start talking about the old days, which ain't hard, and in no time flat he told tales about picking up Ted Williams at a local hotel and taking him to a real estate extravaganza in 1969 and working with Ray Leonard before the Thomas Hearns rematch and getting Nixon to sign a ball at RFK (which Brotman still has in his office) and bringing in Tiger Woods when he was 16 years old for a charity function and so on and so on. What a life. I could have listened all night, but Charlie had other duties. He's a DC treasure.

***

I got a press release from Brotman's firm today about something called the Gynecologic Cancer Half-Marathon, scheduled for DC on Nov. 8. I gotta say, as noble as the cause is, the race's name is jarring. When's the Scurvy Run-Walk? Or the Crushed By a Metrobus 10K? Or the Trust Me This Is Really the Worst Way to Die Tri?

'Course, I wouldn't have noticed the press release if the event were called the Life Is Great Race. And no matter the name, I ain't entering. No pain, no pain!

***

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***

All day yesterday, Dan Snyder's radio station, WTEM-AM, was pushing an event called "ESPN-980 Night of Quarterbacks: Three Quarterbacks. Three Generations." That's a dinner produced by Snyder's sportstalker that is, at least for now, scheduled for Nov. 3 at Union Jack's in Ballston. The featured guests, according to the radio and web advertisements, are Sonny Jurgensen, Joe Theismann, and Jason Campbell.

Quite a haters triangle there, eh?

(AFTER THE JUMP: How many people showed up at FedEx yesterday? The waiting list guy's now estimating Redskins crowds? Vinny Cerrato looks like Balloon Boy's dad? Even Barno bails on the Redskins? Jim Zorn mines for a silver lining?A lot more about Led Zeppelin at the Capital Centre?)

Let's review: When Theismann came to the Redskins in 1974, he cockily announced he would win the starting quarterback job here and “put the old men on the bench.” The "old men" Theismann referenced were Jurgensen and Head Coach George Allen's pet, Billy Kilmer. Theismann's attitude turned rivals—Jurgensen and Kilmer—into best buddies, united in hating the kid.

Jurgensen, for his part, has apparently not gotten over his disdain: Last season, during Redskins radio broadcasts, Jurgensen repeatedly referred to ol' No. 7 as "Theese-man." Lore has it that when he was in college at Notre Dame, Theismann changed the pronunciation of his name from “theese-man” to “thyze-man” for one big reason: It rhymed with "Heisman," as in Heisman Trophy. (Almost worked: Theismann finished behind Stanford’s Jim Plunkett in the 1970 Heisman voting. Lore also has it that Theismann blamed his loss of the big prize on voters’ sympathy for Plunkett, whose parents were blind.)

Then we have Campbell. Jurgensen has made it clear during game broadcasts this season that he wants Campbell on the bench. And out of the booth, Jurgensen declared last week that the Redskins would be 4-0 if Campbell were sitting and backup Todd Collins was allowed to play. Well, Jurgensen got his wish yesterday, with Campbell benched for Collins as the second half of the Kansas City Chiefs debacle started. Campbell's reaction? He stopped talking to the press, and left the locker room without making any statements about what transpired.

So, heading into can now be billed as the Night of the Former Quarterbacks, the questions are: Will Jurgensen call him "Theese-man"? Will Theismann call No. 9 a geezer? Will Campbell pull the no-talkee act when he hits the podium?

Tickets are $106.50. "Space is limited!" Sure it is.

(I once paid $9.50 to hear Led Zeppelin*. I won't be paying $106.50 to hear this.)

***

Skins fans who've only known the disasters at FedExField always say they wonder what it was like going to a game at RFK Stadium. Yesterday's game had one thing in common with the good ol' days: The crowd looked to be about 55,000.

The announced attendance was 79,572. Please.

This from the folks with the 200,000 people on the waiting list.

***

Watch this video, as Balloon Boy spills the beans on his family, and tell me Balloon Daddy doesn't look like Vinny Cerrato. I dare you!

***

Highlight of yesterday's locker-room interview between Snyder's main broadcaster, Larry Michael, and head coach Jim Zorn:

Michael: How down is this football team?

Zorn: The silver lining is we're playing pretty good defense...

Geez. Just walk away, JZ.

***

The end of the Washington Redskins season came at 4:05 p.m. EST. That's when BARNO1, the last man standing in the Skins corner on local blogs, posted the following message on the Great Dan Steinberg's D.C. Sports Bog:

I want to apologize to everyone on the WaPo blogs for my insanely optimistic predictions for the 2009 Redskins. I could not have been any more wrong. I will be taking some time off from the blogs except to continue to apologize and occasionally respond to comments that are addressed to me.I still love the Redskins with all my heart, but needless to say I'm not okay right now.Take care.

For weeks, Barno1 has been the lone holdout against the Skins and/or Snyder bashing that has taken over the Sports Bog. Him giving up on the team is like Pete Rose giving up on parimutuel wagering.

***

* I just found out a bootleg exists of the Led Zeppelin show I attended, on May 28, 1977. I was a little dirtball heavily under the influence of gin and orange Kool Aid—the Falls Church Margarita—so I don't remember much other than the dance Robert Plant and Jimmy Page did across the stage during the opening number, "The Song Remains the Same," the lasers and Jimmy Page's bow, which make me chuckle now but left me all goosebumpy back then, during the intro to "Whole Lotta Love," and Robert Plant announcing that John Bonham's drum solo during "Moby Dick" was 35 minutes long. That last one can't be true. Must have been the Falls Church Margarita talkin'. But I want to test my memory, so I'm gonna buy the bootleg, using some of the money I'll save from not paying $106.50 to hear Jason Campbell at SportsTalk 980 Night of Quarterbacks.

***

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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?)

***

Great Moments in Uncomfortable Radio: Randy Covitz, a beat writer for the Kansas City Star covering the Kansas City Chiefs, came on this morning's "Inside the Red Zone," the mystifying show hosted by Redskins personnel wizard/Six Flags investor Vinny Cerrato.

Cerrato was going over the problems that young head coach Todd Haley was having with his 0-5 Chiefs when Covitz blurted out: "We know it's not the coaching. It's the talent!"

We know that, Vinny? Right? A guy can't win without talent, for crissakes! We know that, Vinny? Right? So how come Jim Zorn's on the hottest seat?

On a related note: Washingtonpost.com's Dave Goldberg rates the Skins front office as the worst in the NFL.

***

Vinny Cerrato no longer takes phone calls from listeners on his show, as he did when then-new WTEM owner Dan Snyder gave the longtime sidekick the program early last season. 'Course, the Skins briefly had a winning record at that time.

Times have changed, alas. So Vinny has more airtime to fill all by himself.* He used much of it to today to counsel Redskins fans repeatedly that a football season "isn't a sprint, it's a marathon."

And Snyderatto's got just the role model for marathoning: Rosie Ruiz.

*I just discovered that The Great Steinographer transcribed almost every portion of Cerrato's show other than the KC interview and the marathon references. I mean, Cerrato's show goes off the air at 10:00 a.m. This latest load of Steinography was posted at 9:24 a.m. How big is Steinberg's staff? How many fingers does he have? How great is he?

***

Dan Snyder's Cheerleader Fetish Update: More toning down going on at the Washington Redskins cheerleader car wash.

For the unfamiliar: Dan Snyder's sportstalker WTEM recently launched a Redskins Cheerleader Car Wash contest, where cheerleader's will pick up a sponge and hand over their pride to somebody in the 25-54 year old male demographic that the station covets.

Cheap Seats Daily has written about the car wash as critically and as often as the Washington Post editorial board does Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. And Snyder has heard our roar. Or, well, he's tweaked the language in the ad campaign to make it less pervy.

First he removed the dudes and their pre-masturbation conversation that were featured in the original radio commercial for the contest. Now, he's also de-perved the copy in the online advertisements.

Original: “How would you like to see the Redskins take on the Cowboys? — AND have the Washington Redskins Cheerleaders soap up and scrub down your car???”

Tweaked: "How would you like to see the Redskins take on the Cowboys? – AND have the Washington Redskins Cheerleaders give your car a great SpongeTech wash???"

(Spongetech, a sudsy sponge manufacturer, is a sponsor of the contest, and a company that was recently kicked off the trading board by the Securities and Exchange Commission for allegedly shady accounting and disclosure practices. But that's not the yucky part.)

So cheerleaders no longer are on "soap up" and "scrub down" duties. They just have to "give your car" a wash. Different, yes, but still humiliating.

But how come Snyder won't let go of the picture of the cheerleaders all sudsy and rubbing down a car — though "not actual cheerleaders" were used for the photo shoot, according to a small-print caveat — that has been featured in the campaign?

Until he does, Cheap Seats Daily has no choice but to run that photo again! (Take that, TGDS!)

***

Something's fishy about the ongoing guerilla marketing campaign from Mervis Diamond Importers.

Ronnie Mervis has put himself out to unhappy football fans as the guy who can replace Dan Snyder as owner of the Washington Redskins.

There's so much rancor toward Snyder in this area, just by offering himself up, Mervis has brought an incredible amount of attention to himself and his jewelry firm. But it's sorta odd that Both Mervis and the Washington Redskins are listed as clients of the same advertising firm: ROI Advertising of Northern Virginia. Mervis is also a big advertiser on Snyder's sports station, WTEM.

Snyder's probably in on it.

***

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David Alprin had his anti-Dan Snyder artwork, or whatever you want to call the above paper plate thingee, confiscated at the gates of FedExField two weeks ago.

Alprin's a longtime Skins season ticketholder and was one of many fans who wanted to make a statement about the state of the franchise.

He'd stayed up late the night before the Tampa Bay game crafting dozens and dozens of his statement-makers. But then Snyder's jack-booted thugs, in the form of the yellow-jacketed FedExField security staff, threw Alprin's civil-disobedient plates in the garbage before letting him in the stadium.

But while Snyder killed the message, he didn't kill the messenger. And Alprin's going back for more of the same this weekend.

"I'm thinking about going stealth and bringing in pens, markers, etc.,  and making signs in the stadium either on paper we bring or the back of the drink caddies," he says.

He won't be alone.

More on the Prague Spring of Redskins fans to come.

***

(AFTER THE JUMP: Another installment of BogusHogetteGate? Really? Michelle Rhee thinks she's god? Really? Coat-tailing on Mike DeBonis' genius? Really? Melanie Oudin's coming to town with her mom, dad AND coach? Really? Snyder comes out on top in something? No way! Way?)

In case you missed any of the several dozen installments of BogusHogetteGate™ that have appeared in Cheap Seats Daily lately, here's a reprise, just to throw a bone to the inferiority complex ravaged print version.

The keeper for me is that along with being an unsanctioned Hogette who goes by Stephette Hogette, Brooklynite Steve Rasnikov is also a rapper who relies on his, um, flow to land the ladies at Redskins tailgates. The guy's a hoot, whether he knows it or not.

All the clowns in this circus will be at FedExField on Sunday.

Here's hoping it gets uglier!

***

Back to real news: In case you missed it: Amazin' Mike DeBonis' latest and greatest find proves that Michelle Rhee not only runs the city, she runs the media, too.

We all already suspected she ran everything, right? The megalomania in the email DeBonis uncovered from the schools Chancellor — yeah, even Rhee's title is obnoxious — meshes with her behavior throughout my limited and 100-percent-frustrating dealings with DC Public Schools.

Several weeks ago I was trying to deal with Rhee's office about her handling of last year's Dunbar/Fort Hill racial incident.

It had been about a year since Dunbar coach Craig Jefferies pulled his team off the field immediately after Dunbar was hit with three consecutive unsportsmanlike conduct penalties, which, based on visual evidence, all seem justified.

Afterwards, Jefferies said he took the drastic action not because of the ref's calls, but because players from host Fort Hill were using racial taunts, including the "N-word," on his team.

Suddenly, Dunbar/Fort Hill became a national story.

But while officials from Fort Hill and Allegany County, Md., cooperated in investigations from local, state and even federal agencies, Rhee's office impeded all investigations into Jefferies charges. Rhee ignored a request from the Maryland Public Secondary Schools Athletic Association, the group which governs high school sports in the state, to assist in its investigation of Jefferies’ allegations. MPSSAA had no choice but to award the game to Fort Hill as a forfeit.

Rhee also ignored a request from the U.S. Department of Justice for a written report on Dunbar's side of the story.

Rhee's refusal to cooperate with anybody in any way crushed the investigation: Because only one side, the Fort Hill side, was telling its story, the Department of Justice never released a written report that it told all parties it would be releasing.

With no report, everybody looks bad: The Fort Hill kids are left officially unexonerated, and Jefferies and the Dunbar coaches were left hanging with nobody and nothing to back up their side.

Rhee refused all recent requests from Washington City Paper to discuss any aspect of the Dunbar/Fort Hill situation, including her complete lack of cooperation with the federal government in what was, again, a national story.

She does talk to the press occasionally, of course. A cover story about Rhee from some journal called "Education Next" was linked on City Desk after DeBonis' gem. The story had a quote from Rhee as she was asked "to name her most significant achievement in her two years in Washington."

“We have begun—begun—begun—to establish a culture of accountability,” Rhee said.

The kids from Dunbar and Fort Hill know otherwise, Chancellor.

***

A little run in a major, and she's a star: Melanie Oudin, the macho/cute Georgian teen who upset three seeds in the latest U.S. Open, has just been announced as a headliner at this year's BCF Tennis Challenge, a long-running charity event founded more than 20 years ago by local girl made good Pam Shriver. The tourney is Dec. 9 at the First Mariner Arena in Baltimore.

Wonder if Melanie will bring her mom? Dad? Coach?

I feel dirty. But, heck, she's a star now. This is what we write about stars.

Tickets are now on sale.

***

Via DCRTV: A new round of numbers in the feud between WTEM and WJFK comes out, and for the first time Dan Snyder's sportstalker is on top: The latest Portable People Meter ratings, which counts the entire audience over 12 years old, have WTEM in 18th place in the market, and rival WJFK in 19th. WJFK would say, "Hey, we only count 25-54 year old males and we're doing fabulously with those guys!" To which I'd counter: "Absolutely! But can you let Dan Snyder win just one teensy little thing while the papers are saying everything else the guy's touched has gone to hell?"

Above is an ad e-mailed out by the Redskins ticket office this week. As you read this, remember, for chuckles, that just a couple months ago Redskins executive Mitch Gershman was claiming in press releases that the team had a waiting list of "over 200,000."

Sure, the Skins waiting list has long been bogus. But this year it's also become apparent that the NFL's blackout rule is enforced as stringently as its steroids policy.

(AFTER THE BREAK: Where's Chris Cooley in that photo? Clinton Tortoise? Lord Farquaad? Lindsay Czarniak cheers on teams that don't pay her? Is the NY Times reporter on Dan Snyder's payroll, too? Another Have-Nots bowl this week?)

FedExField this Sunday would be a good place and time to test my theory that Dan Snyder has mucked up the Redskins every bit as much as he mucked up Six Flags.

Tickets to Skins games have been overpriced, based on demand, since FedExField opened. I've never been to a game there when tickets couldn't be had for far less than face value. I used to half-joke, based on experience, that if you simply held a $20 bill in the air in the stadium parking lot on game day you'd get mauled by folks trying to unload spare tickets.

But, the bottom is about to fall out of the Skins ticket market, and that could happen this weekend with KC in town: Craigslist had 908 separate ads hawking Skins/Chiefs tickets posted when I checked late last night.

So: Six Flags stock, which sold for $11.92 shortly after Snyder took over the theme park chain in 2005, now goes for 17.2 cents.

I wonder if Skins tickets will be worth any more than that this weekend.

Anybody willing to sell Redskins tickets for 17.2 cents, please e-mail cheapseats@washcp.com.

***

Interesting thing about that photo the Redskins marketing department is using to move excess tickets this week: Two tight ends are up front, Todd Yoder and Fred Davis. But no Chris Cooley. Sort of like the box score to last weekend's game in Carolina.

Seriously, after spending the summer yelling "Look at me! Look at me!" and hoping to become the face of the franchise through any number of off-field stunts, Cooley's disappeared. Cooley had no catches on Sunday, and only showed up in the highlights because he had mimicked Santana Moss's silly first-down routine after a play.

Cooley's used up most of his attention-getting tricks by now, too. The guy's going to have to burn two cows or show two penises to get noticed.

Or, you know, catch some passes.

***

The Skins' lousy season has produced some giggle-friendly new nicknames. Among them:

"Clinton Tortoise," attributed to WTEM hosts Andy Pollin and Steve Czaban; "Albert Buttersworth," all over sports radio; and, the clubhouse leader by several strokes, "Lord Farquaad," for Dan Snyder, which I first saw two weeks ago on Snyder's own message board, ExtremeSkins.com, and has since caught fire.

Damn, that's funny.

***

The New York Times has been writing a lot about the Redskins these days. The Times' coverage of the Dan Snyder administration is very different from the Washington Post coverage.

While the Post and Snyder go at it behind the scenes and in print, the Times' Skins stories, all from reporter Judy Battista, have sometimes been fawning.

Sometimes, they're just plain fictional. (Double-dare you to match the headline with anything in the story!) Battista referenced that latter story, which insinuated for no apparent reason and with no evidence to support the insinuation that ex-Skins GM Charley Casserly was impressed by Dan Snyder's coolness this season, in one of her pieces this week, saying "Snyder was still feeling patient" a little more than two weeks ago."

Says who?

What is it with Times reporters named Judy getting snowed when they cover D.C. matters?

***

Lindsay Czarniak led off her sports report on WRC-TV's 11 o'clock newscast last night with an incredibly enthusiastic segment on the Wizards three-point win over Detroit, pumping up Gilbert Arenas' stats and Flip Saunders revenge. I'd never seen such fervor for a preseason NBA game.

The excitement was catchy, and seemed totally genuine: Czarniak works for Dan Snyder, but not Abe Pollin, and so she wasn't wearing any Wizards' gear as she gushed.

If you follow sports in Washington, I guess preseason is the best time to get excited, before hopes and dreams get crushed.

***

Update on the Road to 11 Losses: We now know there will be no 0-11 season in local high school football.

Anacostia's chance at having the losingest year in D.C. high school football history got waylaid last Friday, as the Indians beat Eastern 36-0 in a matchup of really down programs.

Anacostia, which went into the game 0-6, has scheduled 11 games this year, one more than the standard 10-game season, and far as I can tell, no D.C. school has ever had an 0-11 record. But Anacostia just couldn't find a way to lose to Eastern, which didn't have a football team at all last year because of a lack of players, and so far is 0-4 in the 2009 season.

Eastern, which only has 8 games listed on its schedule, now has its biggest game of the year this Friday when it hosts Spingarn in the latest Have-Nots Bowl: Together, Eastern and Spingarn have been outscored 397-19 and have an 0-9 record.

Somebody's gotta win!

***

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I heard again last night from Stephette Hogette. He's the guy who stands accused of being a bogus Hogette.

He sent along a photograph, shown above, which he says was taken years ago at a Redskins game and, he says, proves that Stephette Hogette used to be accepted by the same folks who are now calling him a counterfeit.

While Stephette Hogette's disheveled drag ensemble—he's the one in the middle—does indeed blend with the garb of the folks he's with in that photo, he couldn't name the other Hogettes he's hanging with in the shot.

Perhaps they're unsanctioned Hogettes also! I don't know which Hogette to trust anymore!

(AFTER THE JUMP:Where will the real Hogettes be tailgating come Sunday? WTEM tones down its Redskins Cheerleader pride giveaway? D'Anthony Batiste ain't worth a D'amn? D'Anthony D'Ances with D'An D'Aly? Nobody told the Washington Post that "Remember the Titans" was a load of crap?)

The biggest news from his latest Exclusive Interview™ with Cheap Seats Daily, however, came when Stephette Hogette, a Brooklynite who along with his Hogette name also goes by Steve Rasnikov (real name!) and Snow Rap G (rap name!), told me that because of the vigilante mood among Redskins fans created by evidence-free accusations from other Hogettes of untoward behavior toward women and children, he now wants to be known as "Carmine Fischetti."

By whatever name, he promises, however, that Stephette Hogette's going to show up at FedExField on Sunday for the Kansas City game in his regular gameday costume, and that he'll work the tailgates with his standard bottle of booze and rapped pickup lines.

Meanwhile, the folks claiming ownership of the Hogettes brand are still out to get Stephette to shed his snout.

"We don't want a turkey like this guy running around and accosting people and claiming that he's one of us," Hogettes founder Michael Torbert told me last night. "You can tell by his hat that he's not a real Hogette." (Well, to be honest, Mikey, while Stephette Hogette's hat tells me a lot, it doesn't tell me whether or not he's a real Hogette.)

Torbert says that he and the other real Hogettes will also be tailgating before the KC game in their normal spot in the Green Lot, by the A-65 pole.

***

Dan Snyder's cheerleader pride giveaway has gotten a little less demeaning. Snyder's sportstalk station, WTEM, is now running a sleazy contest for listeners in which winners will get their cars washed by Redskins cheerleaders. Original radio ads for the contest featured two pervy dudes and all sorts of talk about getting Redskins cheerleaders to come rub them down.

The new spots, however, have one guy just asking listeners if they want a car wash, without any of the masturbatory innuendo.

Wonder why the commercials changed. Hmm.

***

AP writer Joseph White verbally nutshelled the mess in Ashburn:

"But here's one more fact," White wrote in a column yesterday, "that pretty much sums up the current state of the Washington Redskins: On Sunday, they had a guard playing tackle, and a tackle playing guard."

And The Great Dan Steinberg™ visually nutshelled the 2009 Redskins with a photo he took from his lo-def TV of D'Anthony Batiste, the guard playing tackle, not only missing his assignment, but turned around 180 degrees looking for the guy he's supposed to block.

D'Ang, D'Anthony!

***

TGDS's co-worker and fellow multimedia maven Mike Wise told his WJFK audience yesterday about being an earwitness to a postgame locker room scuffle of some sort between D'Anthony Batiste and D'An D'Aly of the Washington Times, that ended with the lineman telling the reporter that the requested interview "Ain't happenin'!"

The reporter was then heard telling the lineman, "You ain't happening!"

(Things are gettin' D'Angerous!)

***

Sherm Lewis isn't good for nuthin'. He's already been good for giggles.

The Mr. Irrelevant clothing store offers simply brilliant "Another Set of Eyes" t-shirts. And over at the Washington Post, there's the headline to today's Tracee Hamilton column: "Another Set Of Black Eyes."

***

Greg Paspatis continues fighting the myth of Remember the Titans. Paspatis is an alum of T.C. Williams, the Alexandria school featured in the Denzel Washington movie about a how the desegregation of a high school inspires its football team to win the 1971 Virginia state championship.

T.C. Williams really did win the 1971 state championship, but pretty much everything else in the movie, save the players' and coaches' names, is made up.

Because of the film's box office success, however, the celluloid fiction now supersedes the school's reality. A lot of folks around town have given up their real biography and instead promote the life stories of the scripted characters, and some people whose names were used in the movie, including former T.C. Williams head coach Herman Boone, have profited incredibly from the acceptance of the fairytale version.

Paspatis, who played for Boone in the late 1970s and is not a fan of the real-world coach, has been on a one-man campaign to correct the record for several years now. His latest target is the Washington Post, for a story last month about new Alexandria sheriff Earl Cook. In the piece, Cook, the first black police chief in the city's history, is described as a player on the Remember the Titans football team from 1971 who had started out as a student at George Washington High School but "transferred to T.C. Williams High School after it was integrated." As Paspatis knows, the racial integration of T.C. Williams only happened in the movie.

In reality, T.C. Williams was racially integrated when it opened in 1965.

The only integration T.C. Williams enjoyed in 1971 was an influx of a couple thousand more students, black and white, after the closing of the city's other similarly desegregated high schools, George Washington and Hammond High.

That enrollment boom made T.C. the biggest school in the entire state, which is why its football team was everybody's preseason pick to be a powerhouse.

So when Paspatis saw the Post's Earl Cook piece, he did what he always does in these situations: "I wrote to the editors and asked for a correction," Paspatis says. "I wrote to a lot of people there."

And?

"Nothing," he says. "No response. No correction. They don't want the truth."

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Seems Snyder doesn't really care who he jumps in bed with these days. His partner in the contest, which forces Redskins cheerleaders to put down their pom poms and pick up sponges and go service his radio station's 25-54 year old male demo, was a sponge company called SpongeTech Delivery Systems, Inc.

Well, just as the cheerleader pride giveaway was heating up, Snyder's ally gets nailed for all sorts of alleged shadiness by federal regulators: The Securities and Exchange Commission suspended trading on SpongeTech stock this week because of sketchy reports and non-filings of required documents.

(AFTER THE JUMP: SpongeTech's the Six Flags of the sudsy set? SpongeTech's so messed up it makes Snyder look like a fab businessman? Are Redskins cheerleaders being punished? Is WJFK punishing WTEM in the ratings? Can Mike Wise punish Tony Kornheiser? Is Anacostia/Eastern the Good Counsel/DeMatha of crumminess?)

Here's a release from the Securities and Exchange Commission dated Monday, October 5, 2009:

It appears to the Securities and Exchange Commission that there is a lack of current and accurate information concerning the securities of SpongeTech Delivery Systems, Inc. ("SpongeTech") because questions have arisen regarding the accuracy of assertions in press releases to investors and in periodic reports filed with the Commission concerning, among other things: (1) The amount of sales and customer orders received by the company; (2) the company's investment agreements; and (3) the company's revenues as reported in its financial statements. In addition, SpongeTech has not filed any periodic reports with the Commission since the period ended February 28, 2009.

The Commission is of the opinion that the public interest and the protection of investors require a suspension of trading in the securities of the above-listed company.

Therefore, it is ordered, pursuant to Section 12(k) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, that trading in the securities of the above-listed company is suspended for the period from 9:30 a.m. EDT, on October 5, 2009 through 11:59 p.m. EDT, on October 16, 2009.

By the Commission.

Elizabeth M. Murphy,
Secretary.
Citation: "74 FR 51626"
Document Number: "File No. 500-1"
Federal Register Page Number: "51626"
"Notices"

Investors were apparently already clued into SpongeTech's difficulties. The stock (SPNGE) was trading at $.06 a share when the SEC booted it off the board.

Now that I think about it, it makes sense that Snyder would be attracted to SpongeTech. It ain't easy for Snyder to find a company that's as much a laughingstock on Wall Street as is his Six Flags. For all the mess Snyder has made while running that theme park giant into bankruptcy, perhaps SpongeTech makes him feel like Warren Buffett! (Thanks to Destino for the SEC tipoff.)

***

The director of the Redskins Cheerleaders told me earlier this week she wasn't aware that members of her crew had agreed to wash cars for WTEM. Redskins spokesman Karl Swanson hasn't responded to my query about the contest. But I now have a theory why Snyder would give the Redskins Cheerleaders such a degrading and subservient job as washing cars for sportstalk radio listeners: He's still peeved at the First Ladies of Football for working the launch party for rival radio station WJFK in July.

That episode was a total embarrassment for the cheerleader obsessed Snyder, but with this contest he can show his WTEM listeners that he's back in control of the troupe.

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Speaking of the radio rivalry: The news ain't much better for Snyder in sportstalk land.

WJFK boss Chris Kinard, the brains behind hiring the Redskins Cheerleaders for the coming out party of Snyder's competition, put out a statement yesterday saying that his station is walloping the bejeezus outta Snyder's.

Portions of Kinard's release:

"According to Arbitron ratings released today, Sportsradio 106.7 The Fan is the No.1-ranked sports radio station in Washington, D.C.  The station signed on July 20 and has eclipsed sports radio rival WTEM with listeners 12+, and in its target demographic of Men 25-54.

In the September ratings period (Aug. 20-Sept. 16), The Fan showed growth across the board.  Its overall share of listeners 12+ was up 38% from the prior ratings period. During the same time period, the station increased its share among Men 18+ and 18-34 by 24% and 35%.

Additionally, The Fan was the No. 1 choice for Men 18-34 sports radio listeners in the coveted morning and afternoon timeslots, as well as in midday and evenings."

These numbers only include about one week of the Mike Wise v. Tony Kornheiser late-morning battle, which provides the most intrigue of all the WJFK/WTEM subplots.

Wise is a radio newcomer; Kornheiser, despite being damaged goods after the extended "Monday Night Football" debacle, is the biggest name and probably highest paid guy in Snyder's deejay stable.

Kinard didn't provide specific numbers about the 10 a.m. to 12 noon portion of the midday slot. If WJFK can win that against Kornheiser and during the NFL season, WTEM's future's bleak.

God knows what Snyder'll force the cheerleaders to do if this keeps up.

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Reminder: Haves and Have Nots Bowls are both being played on area high school gridirons tonight.

The Haves Bowl: DeMatha hosts Good Counsel at the Prince George's Sports and Learning Complex.

In recent years, DeMatha v. Good Counsel gets people as fired up as Roe v. Wade.

These are the top two football teams around town. DeMatha has an athletic program second to none not only locally but anywhere. Good Counsel has tried to model itself after the Hyattsville powerhouse, hiring several DeMatha alums and coaches.

But though Good Counsel has been able to crack the national prep football rankings in recent years, it has been nothing more than a bridesmaid to DeMatha in the powerful WCAC Conference for Catholic schools. It'll take a win tonight and a win in the WCAC championship game to change the local landscape.

The Have Nots Bowl:  Eastern at Anacostia

Both programs are the vying for the worst of the worst right now. Anacostia is 0-6 and has given up 50 points in four of those losses. Anacostia has a chance to become the first DC high school program ever to go 0-11 in a season.

But Eastern is at least as godawful. The school didn't even field a team last season and probably won't field one next year, and thus far in 2009 has put up an 0-3 record and has been outscored 114-13.

Eastern's best chance for victory here would come if Anacostia is looking past today's game to the upcoming matchup with Spingarn.

Spingarn, another perennial Have-Notter, is currently 0-4 and is losing the points battle 200-6.

Good golly.

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