The latest, if you believe local press accounts, involves the Mooch, Steve Mariucci. At least he has late ’90s compentency on his CV. His more recent run with the Lions went such that no one’s bothered to ask him to coach since. Now we’re back in plausibility.

The discrepancy in paychecks notwithstanding, one wonders if WaPost’s Jason LaConfora these days pines for the integrity and veracity associated with his old Caps’ beat.

At least in the blogosphere, Snyder is on the receiving end of enough criticism that some of it borders on unfair. He is not, for instance, singularly responsible for Metro’s malfeasance. But at a time when all major college football programs are voraciously recruiting wide receivers 6 ‘2 or taller, the Redskins of recent seasons have insisted on signing smurfs. As with his coaching nostalgia, Snyder is still living in the ’80s. In an Era of the Tall, guess who thinks it’s wise to go small?

Another relic of the ’80s is Danny’s right-hand Yes Man, Vinny Cerrato. His most notable accomplishment prior to arriving in Ashburn? Coordinating the recruiting of 17- and 18-year-olds for Lou Holtz’s Fighting Irish . . . in the ’80s.  

This spring, as college juniors and seniors audition at NFL combines in front of scores of talent evaluators who’ve paid their dues, and are held accountable for their decision-making, it’s necessarily the case that Snyder and Cerrato will be perched hard by the likes of Bill Belichick. That’s a fair showdown of pigskin wits.

In this winter of mild Mid-Atlantic temps, and with his Good Shepherd returned to his NASCAR flock, Daniel Snyder is, perhaps at last, dangerously exposed. He’s the Oz in front of the Burgundy curtain. And an in-kind fraud. 

  

Filed in Bruce Boudreau, Daniel Snyder, Football, Front Office, George McPhee, Media, Morning cup-a-joe, Print, Redskins, TV, Ted Leonsis, Washington Capitals| Permalink| Comments (3)

All This City-Wide Sports Misery, Its Birthyear was 1993

By pucksandbooks
Monday, December 10, 2007

Cup'pa Joe

Early Sunday evening, keeping an eye on the New England Patriots’ further encroachment on the history books, I thought about being a sports fan in D.C. during a reign of general competent management by a majority of the area’s sports teams, accompanied by general on-field/court/rink winning. Nothing dynastic, mind you, just a generally consistent, healthy dose of winning boasted by most of the teams in town.

These were, necessarily, hypothetical thoughts I was having.

Now consider what the good folks in Boston are enjoying these days. In October the Red Sox won their second World Series in the past four years. The remarkably rebuilt Celtics are serious contenders for the NBA title this season. And the Patriots? Perhaps a perfect season, and heavy favorites to win what would be their fourth Super Bowl title this decade. The Bruins are Beantown’s weak sister, but even they’re five games above .500 this season. It’s an embarassment of sports riches in Beantown.

Meanwhile, here, we have Daniel Synder, the no-name Nats, and really bad ice.

At least we’re getting a nice new stadium next spring.

My Sunday evening thoughts, prompted by envy of New England, centered on this query: precisely when was the arrival of the present sports downturn in D.C., and is there any probable hope for better times in the foreseeable future?

Let’s first stipulate that by virture of the Unholy Trinity of the Hardwood — Abe Pollin, Susan O’Malley, and Wes Unseld — there was no competency to be achieved there, post ‘79. So unlike Boston, we in D.C. couldn’t have all the major sports teams firing on all cylinders. The Bullets-Wiz of the ’80s and ’90s remained Hechingers while the rest of the NBA went Home Depot. But D.C. in the ’80s had the Super Bowl Skins and a couple of 100-pt. Caps’ clubs (who also always made the playoffs). Title-winning Georgetown hoops, too, was quite strong then.

(Being baseball-less until recently, we Washingtonians who sought summer sport had to borrow the O’s, and they, too, won a title in the ’80s (their last), and showcased the superstar shortstop, Cal. Then Peter Angelos arrived and we all had to stop liking them.)

I thought about Joe Gibbs’ sudden, shocking retirement in March 1993, (he pulled a Vermeil) (without the incessant sobbing), and wondered if I might not mark that as the anchor for D.C.’s lodging in the Bermuda Triangle of sports hell. Turns out, 1993 was an infamous year for us here. While Gibbs departed then, leaving the ill-prepared Skins staggering in a leadership void and launching them into 15 years of lousy-to-mediocre coaches, and mostly lousy seasons, one Peter Angelos arrived (via an ambulance he chased) as majority owner of the Orioles. Likely we didn’t realize it at the time, but the descent was on.

March 9, 1998, was a particularly bleak day for D.C. sports: Washington Post Caps’ beat reporter Bob Fachet passed. A legend was lost and soon thereafter hockey, institutionally, incurred nominal — but not professional — coverage by the paper.

Nineteen ninety six was no peach of a year, either. That year the Redskins bid farewell to the NFL’s most charming stadium, RFK — also one of the most intimidating for visiting teams — and took up residence in a place called Raljon (really), an immense, aesthetic-free mausoleum breeding nightmare Beltway traffic, seat licenses, and, eventually, the arrests of spectators who’d dare try and enter Raljon without ponying up an American Express number for parking fees. It was like replacing Jackie Onasis with Britney Spears.

(It would be most interesting to poll Redskin season ticket holders today and ask which they’d have preferred seeing 12 years ago: millions spent adding 20,000 seats and luxury boxes to RFK, as part of D.C. bid for a future summer Olympics hosting, or the super-sized sinkhole in PG County.)

But as malignancies against winning go, we in D.C. were just getting started. Continue reading ›

Filed in Baseball, Basketball, Daniel Snyder, Football, Morning cup-a-joe, Other Sports, Redskins, Washington Capitals| Permalink| Comments (12)

Only God Can Save Baseball in Baltimore

By The OFB Team
Thursday, August 23, 2007

History — of the lurid, malicious, nauseating, revolting, and unfathomable kind — was made at Camden Yards Wednesday afternoon.

Photo by Nick Wass/AP

According to ESPN, Texas’ 30 runs, 27-run victory represent the great smackdown in baseball since 1897. That’s the nineteenth century — two centuries ago. To put the Rangers’ 30 runs in a single game in perspective, if you had Paris Hilton passed out in a frat house of 30 on a Saturday night immediately following mid-term exams, only 29 brothers would score (one or two on average would be gay). Lest you think we’re making up this sordid number, here’s the boxscore.

Just to be clear: it wasn’t the ‘27 Yankees who demolished O’s pitching Wednesday; it was 54-70 Texas.

This will be the Orioles’ 10th consecutive losing season under Peter the Ungreat.

Peter Angelos

Success or failure in a professional sports organization begins at the top; in this regard, Caps’ fans are quite lucky. And with this in mind, Skins’ fans shouldn’t chuckle too vociferously at the O’s mess Wednesday; their band leader is every bit as bad, and likely worse, than the Inner Harbor’s trial lawyer who should himself be on trial.

Filed in Baseball, Daniel Snyder, MLB, Other Sports, Redskins, Schadenfreude| Permalink| Comments (13)

On Microwave Rebuilds and Managing with Monopoly Money

By pucksandbooks
Tuesday, January 2, 2007

nhl.gifAs the losses mount and the Mendoza line of below-.500-hockey is breached, passionate fan reaction — and that of Capitals’ Cassandras in particular — can be expected in predictable take-to-the-skyscraper-ledge fashion. Message boards couldn’t exist without it. What’s more surprising is that one MSM beat reporter would lead the pilgrimage to the wailing wall. In typical Washington fashion, Tarik last week suggested that the Caps throw millions in money to stem the losing hemorrhaging. It was a renewal of his preseason lament, when in a WaPost online chat he claimed that the Caps roster was littered with holes and indecipherably improved upon from a year ago.

Sometimes, during postgame interviews following a loss, I can tell a player or coach just wants to say to me, “Yes, Tarik, we struggled. But there’s a very good reason. Did you look at their lineup?”

First, what kind of journalism is this? No Caps’ player suggested as much to Tarik, either on the record or on background, nor did any team official. And with his insider access he chooses instead to impute the sentiment to them? I might as well just opine “Erin Andrews is looking through the TV camera at me and thinking, ‘Meet me after the Cotton Bowl for cocktails.’” Perhaps the reason he has to resort to such lazy journalism is that he knows this group of hockey players to be too proud and too confident in their abilities to resort to such sophistry.

Tarik’s citation of the $43 million Buffalo Sabres as rationale for congressional appropriators reworking the Caps’ books conveniently overlooks the determinative role salary arbitrators played in bloating the Sabre’s payroll by $15 million this past summer. Last season’s 100-plus-point, Eastern Conference finalist Buffalo club seemed to get it done darned ok on a $28 million budget. What about the Stanley Cup champion Hurricanes? $35 million. Aberrations? Nashville and San Jose had nifty seasons in their own right last year, on $31 million payrolls. The Canucks were a top-three club in payroll last season and were among the first to the first tee in April. And how about this season’s big-spending Flyers — how are things going up on Broad Street?

If we’ve learned anything from NHL payrolls the past 10 years, it’s this: the correlation between spending and winning isn’t merely tenuous, often victory is achieved in inverse relation to owner profligacy. So much so that it bred 2004’s lockout.

But it’s more important to get past the numbers game — a fruitless distraction: another millionaire in Bauers puts not a single additional fanny in Verizon Center’s cavernous emptiness — and at long last embrace The Blueprint. On this count, Tarik is doubly damned, as he’s presumeably attended all the pressers and heard Ted et al trumpet the new company line the past three years, ad infinitum: on UFAs and high-priced outsiders, been there, done that; and it’s long past time to emulate the durable, organic roster formations that are only assembled with savvy drafting and patience.

Hockey teams are built in the offseason. They’re tinkered with in-season. Young, rebuilding teams like the Caps not only are expected to endure growing pains like the present but need them. Call it Ted’s Tough Love.

Herewith, a five-point plan for fans and beat writers to adhere to during The Rebuild, and thereby maintain their dignity. Continue reading ›

Filed in American Hockey League, Daniel Snyder, Entry Draft, Hershey Bears, Mathieu Perreault, Media, Pittsburgh Penguins, Redskins, Stanley Cup Playoffs, Tarik El-Bashir, Ted Leonsis, Washington Capitals, Washington Post| Permalink| Comments (6)

Sunday Skins Schadenfreude

By pucksandbooks
Sunday, October 15, 2006

I have a new revenue stream idea for Daniel Snyder: an express lane into FedEx Field that opens the second a Redskins’ loss at home becomes official, to be used by the region’s Caps’ fans and others who’ve been bullied and bludgeoned into hating the football team by the all-consuming media orgy engufing it. We’d park our cars, take a seat in the emptied stadium, be able to purchase grossly overpriced draft beer there for 90 minutes following the game, and simply sit there and revel in Mr. Snyder’s agony as the sun sets. It’d be even better if the JumboTron replayed key plays in the Skins’ demise that day as we sipped our beer. A win-win arrangement, no?

It’s $25 to park your car there for a Skins’ game, but for the post-game anti-Skins reveling, I’d be willing to pay $10. Given a month to organize — and in another four weeks the Skins will be mathematically eliminated from playoff contention — I might be able to recruit 1,000 such revelers. That’s $100,000 just in parking fees for He Who Reminds No One of Jack Kent Cooke.

Most of us would be outfitted in Caps’ gear; indeed, it might be a fine idea under such an arrangement for the Caps to lease souvenir space to sell clothing badges of honor to the revelers.

Filed in Daniel Snyder, Redskins, Schadenfreude, Washington Capitals| Permalink| Comments (2)