Stand up and tune in

What are they doing in Kansas City? This was the toughest place in the world for an opposing team to come in and play football. Apparently, you can't stand up there anymore. This has to be some kind of cruel joke. Larry Johnson pops by the pulling right guard, stiff arms the corner, and out-sprints the safety down the sideline sixty yards for the TD and Chiefs fans can't stand up and cheer for it? Or maybe even see it if you have the occasional watermelon-head that every sports fan seems to sit behind a little more often than they would like in front of you? I really don't care about the average KC fan. The only time I watch them is if they are playing the Raiders and that is if the Skins aren't on and the lawn doesn't need raked. I'm worried about the average fan. If they can do this in Arrowhead, which is supposed to be the toughest stadium in the league, they can do this anywhere.

The way Snyder manages this team, the Skins are the most likely to be second in line to pick up the "no standing" rule. If that happens, you might as well stay at home and watch it on TV. I don't think that a football game is an ideal place to bring a kid under ten, and that is a shame.I remember being lucky enough at 7 or 8 to have my dad come across some tickets to go see the Skins at the impossible to see RFK a couple of times. It was awesome; I was a fan before but being able to see the burgandy and gold in person that young is probably what gets me through the Snyder era. I was even lucky enough to see us beat the Vikings in the NFC championship game to go face and eventually beat the Broncos in Super Bowl XXII. On the way out we watched a car burn in flames simply because it had Minnesota plates and a Vikings bumpersticker. There was no better way to demonstrate the absolute worst in sportsmanship. Not letting people stand up and cheer their team is not going to stop horseasses like the ones that burned that car. Stopping the overconsumption of alchohol will. I won't go so far as to say that beer should stop being sold at the games, but should we really open up the parking lots at 9 AM so the drunks can get started? How about the reasonable fans saying something when a guy gets a little out of line. How about the ushers at Fedex not waiting for the last possible moment to stop a problem when it could have been avoided? How about introducing family sections before not letting fans stand up? Even before family sections I got by being hoisted up on my dad's shoulders when the crowd got up for a big third and one. Family sections work at different ballparks and hockey arenas around the country and seem like a simpler solution to fan misbehavior. Let the true fans, the average joe blue collar, still be able to stand up when Moss hauls in a long bomb for the TD. I may be overreacting, but from sky-high ticket prices, to obstructed view seats, to the field-side nightmare seats, to even trying to shut down the Metro, Snyder has done everything to screw over the average Skins fan. I just don't put doing something as crazy as the folks out in KC are doing now past Danny boy either.

Perhaps because the aforementioned Snyder bought up all the sports radio stations around the area and bombards us with Skins coverage, suprise, no one wants to watch the Nationals. You can't get any good Caps or Nats coverage on the radio, but apparently the Nats coverage on TV doesn't quite cut it either. MASN stinks, but I didn't know it was this bad. Nationals Park averages 30,000 fans a game on average, about 9,000 tune in to MASN. That is mind-boggling, I don't know how that is possible. Not being able to see it in HD doesn't help. It isn't that MASN doesn't have HD capability, it is that they use all of it on the Orioles. Oh yeah, the Orioles also own MASN. Or if you are sitting in front of a bartender kind enough to change the channel over to the Nats for you, you better hope they have the same cable provider as you. If you have Comcast, do you know what channels MASN2 is on Cox or Direct TV? How about vice versa? After these numbers came out in the Post this week Stan Kasten, President of the Nats, said he could care less about MASN's numbers. He gets a check from them regardless of numbers, and then he spends it on players. (Or maybe doesn't at all as evidenced by the last few years.) Maybe Selig should have taken his last chance to stand up for DC baseball and given them the right to decide who was going to broadcast their games, not some guy in Baltimore.

The Nats do need a marquee player to get people excited to watch baseball. Zimmerman can't do it all, especially when he is banged up and riding pine. There is nothing we can do about it this year. So in the meantime, lets pull up the young guys. We can't do any worse than worst in the league and that's where we are right now. Let the young guys do it for us, or heck, maybe they might even succeed and we don't have to finish dead last. Last night's 5-0 win was great. Who were the heroes? Lannan, who wasn't even supposed to be up here this year but is by far and away our best starting pitcher and pitched 6 innings of shutout ball. Jesus Flowers, also not supposed to see the bigs this year, who came up to pinch hit and blasted a 3 run homer to clinch the game. I know that Nieves has played a huge part in Lannan's developement, but Flores will be a long-term Nat along with Lannan. Why is he pinch-hitting when he is hovering around .270 and has the knack for clutch hitting. Bring the young guys who are going to be Nats for a while up and lets see what they can do. Maybe they fall flat on their faces. The franchise is last in the league because of injuries, we have mud up to our ears. Even if we sink further at least it will be less money for the Lerners to buy the TV rights to their own team and thus more to get a decent free agent for a couple of years. Or maybe we just let that SOB Angelos sleep in the bed he made for a little longer. Either way, can't wait to see the game tonight!