Specialy Delivery From Tony Kornheiser

He's mailed it in. The hardest-working lazy sports columnist in DC has written a relatively-benign, but still annoying column about the Nats. It's definitely his grumpy old man side coming out.

Honestly, I don't know how many people around Washington feel this way. But am I the only one in town who hasn't the slightest idea who the Washington Nationals are going to put on the field? Am I the only one who thinks it's great we have a team -- but who the heck are they?

There are 40 players on a major league roster now, before the season starts. So the Nationals have at least 40 guys.

Go ahead, name 10 of them.

Okay, name five of them.

I'm a bit abnormal, but here goes nuttin': Schneider, Johnson, Vidro, Guzman, Castilla, Sledge, Wilkerson, Chavez, Guillen and Livan. See! There!

Everybody in town knows who starts for the Wizards, and probably the first three or four guys off the bench. Everybody in town can go two-deep position by position with the Redskins. It's not just pros. People will argue for hours whether Gary Williams should be starting Mike Jones.
Ummm.... umm... Gilbert Arenas. Larry Hughes. Antwan (?, I forget which varation of spelling he is) Jamison. That's about it. They've got that ghastly Dundalk-looking white kid who used to play for UMD too. Whatever his name is.

I know Gary Williams, but who the hell is Mike Jones? I've heard of that Caner-Medley and I know DJ Strawberry plays for them. But that's about it. Is Joe Smith still there? :)

...their pictures were in the paper, and it occurred to me that they didn't have to be actual Nationals players at all -- they could have been models hired to pose as players. How would we know? I mean, when was the last time you got into an elevator with Terrmel Sludge? (What a name! I'm sorry to tell you, ma'am, but you're going to have to pump out that basement. It's overloaded with terrmel sludge. Oh, it's Sledge? My bad.)
HoHoHo! That's hilarious! Sledge? Sludge? Get it? It's a gasser! I don't think someone with a last name of Kornheiser can be throwing the first stone here.

And no, I probably couldn't point Sledge out of a lineup, but does anyone know what ANY of the Redskins actually look like? Other than Arrington? If I lined up Rod Gardner, Laveraneus (sp?) Coles, and Clinton Portis, would you get all three?

The Nationals have players, I'm sure. We just don't know their names. They could be Manny, Moe and Jack for all we know.
Now... I could be mistaken here, but isn't part of the paper's job in their sports coverage to introduce the players to the public? (I think they've done a decent job in this, actually.)

But, that'd require Tony to you know actually watch a game or something. Or even to read his own freakin' paper. But, when you've got 1,000 other things going on, from your crappy sitcom, to your media-superstar talking head show, who has time for simple sports?

Eh, I could go on.. but the rest of the column is his litany of complaints: no owners, no radio, they're trying to bring a Canuck down to broadcast, their GM is a TV star (pot, kettle. kettle, pot), the stadium's old, blah blah-afreakin'-blah. (Strangely, he doesn't complain about the price of the early bird liver-'n-onions special.)

Slate ran an article a week or two ago about how Television was ruining sports columnists. It took some shots at people by name. It even used TK's beaming face as the lead picture.

It makes the contention that all these outside activities are preventing columnists from actual reporting and actually getting involved in the games theyr'e covering. TV comes first, print second, then the events.

Today's column does nothing to discredit that assertion.