Fouled-Off Bunts: Bowden's Narcissism Edition

The beloved beat writer for the league-run, internet-only news service shows off his reportin' chops and gets a story the once-beloved St. Barry misses: Frank ripped the hell out of the team. Sez one anonymous source:

"Frank told them that in his 50 years in baseball, he had never seen a game played the way they played it [on Tuesday]. He was very upset."

The league-run, internet-only news source guy does get the goods on our fair (and I don't mean that in an endearing sense) GM:

"I [1] don't want to be embarrassed. I [2] don't have any criticism about effort. I [3] don't have any criticism about the work ethic. I [4] don't want to be embarrassed," Bowden said. "Pitching and defense is extremely important, and those are the things you could be embarrassed on, and I [5] don't want to be embarrassed. I [6] don't have to be embarrassed.

Someone's worried about the new owner coming in, huh?

"I know the team sucks, but these aren't the players I'm counting on. Some of them are even Minaya's guys, dog!" (At least that's what it seems like he's saying.

Pathetic.

Yes, getting the bejeesus beaten out of you by the expansion-quality Florida Marlins sucks. Yes, playing like crap in the process sucks, too. But Bowden can't wipe his hands clean. He has as much blood on them as anyone else associated with the franchise.

Those quotes are all about him. About how he'll be perceived. About his chances for hanging on to this job past the times the new owners come in. About his chance of landing a new job when the new owner rightly shitcans him. Just as he waives, and trades, and signs player after player while spinning his wheels with no actual improvement to the team, these quotes show what's most important to Jim Bowden: why, it's Jim Bowden himself!

I'm sure that the PAX network will be debuting a schmaltzy gameshow soon that Bowden would be the perfect host of. God willing, at least.

One person enjoyed the thrashing: former Expo-turned-Nat-turned Marlin, Matt Cepicky.

"It was nice. I had one goal in mind today, and it was to come and kick their butts. I don't have very good feelings for that team over there. I wanted to bury them today. It was nice to do that. I've always been up and down, up and down. I've never been given a fair opportunity over there. Today felt really good."

Great news for those of you with Cox. They've picked up MASN, and will now be airing it on channel 102! Congrats! I, like roughly 2 million other people in the region, am served by the scum-sucking pukebag monopoly named Comcast. It's ComFARKINGcastic!

I don't want to steal Federal Baseball's thunder (you'll see why in a few days), but Comcast/MASN is basically a turf war over Orioles rights, and has nothing to do with the Nats, per se. If you're interested, you can read what I wrote over the summer, and realize that you and I both have a sickness.

Brandon Watson is working hard to not earn the Inning-Endy 2.0 moniker. Frank Robinson seems impressed so far.

Travis Nelson, the Boy of Summer, says that Alf Soriano isn't selfish enough.

I guess there's some symbolism in Tony Williams switching to a red home cap. Other than that, it's an article which doesn't add anything. (Why am I linking it then? I don't really know!)

I don't really want to get into the whole Barry Bonds crap. Nothing good can come from any sort of discussion on it. I will, however, point you to this interesting piece from the Baseball Crank. It tries to put his late-career surge in perspective. While he was a homerun hitter for the first two-thirds of his career, on an OPS basis, no other hitter was able to hold on to an established level of performance for as long and as old as he was. How much is attributable to the steroids? I don't know. But you've gotta think that at least some of it was.

Just A Nats Fan is distressed that the Lerners (whom Boz says is in the lead) would be the group most likely to retain Jim Bowden.

Minor League sicko? Nationals Farm Authority notes that AAA games will now get the full Gamecast treatment, allowing you to follow every pitch that Ed Yarnall throws out of the strike zone.

SI.com gives Ryan Zimmerman, whom I REFUSE to call Zimmmmmmm, some love.

[Player X] knows his No. 1 job as a leadoff hitter is to get on base....

"You don't have many guys capable of hitting leadoff or hitting third or fifth, but he and [a teammate] are capable of that," [player X's manager] said.

Who is that masked player? Yep. Brad Wilkerson. That's the difference between a good team and a bad one. Rather than focusing on what a player does well (GETTING ON BASE!) they dwell on the negative (not enough power, too many strikeouts). And that's not to mention that they actually seem to understand that a leadoff hitters job is to be on base for the cleanup hitter ABOVE ALL ELSE.

But that milk spilled so long ago, it's turned to cottage cheese.