Good morning everybody and welcome to Deadspin, edited by me, Stev D! I hope you brought construction paper and a change of clothes, because things are going to get a little weird today. But before we get to the wackiness and stories about Marley, my lovable (and somewhat disobedient) Golden Retriever, lets do some news.

From Tiger to Octomom, it's all about the fame
As you can tell by the photo, Mitch Albom is evolving at a fantastic rate. He's becoming so advanced, he was able to write a column implying that reality TV is to blame for this Tiger mess while forcing two stranded astronauts to fight to the death in his basement sandpit.

Big 10 Conference to seek 12th member
"We're irrelevant for the last three weeks of the football season because we're not playing," Alvarez said. I am assuming the room then fell into an uncomfortable silence.

Pudge says: I will play every day.
See. The NFL Play 60 thing is working. Jerks.

****

First off, I'd like to thank AJ and the Deadspin team for letting me have this chance. This is something that I've always wanted to do, now all I have left on my list is scuba-skiing the Great Barrier Reef and eating a twice-baked potato (sooooo many carbs!).

Here's how I got here- I became a commenter on Deadspin thanks to a tip I sent Will back in 2006, which lead to this post. Then we had this e-mail exchange:

Will Leitch to me

OK, that was outstanding. THANK you.

Best,
Will

Swoon.

Me to Will

Thanks for running an awesome site. If it wouldn't be too much
trouble could I have commenting access? I am good friends with Awful
Announcing and would do my best to bring the funny.

Thanks,

Steve

"If it wouldn't be too much trouble," Cripes. Also, yeah...I name drop.

Will Leitch to me

Consider it done. Lots of fun with this story yesterday. Invite is on its way ... and thanks!

The End...

And from that day on, I became obsessed with one thing and one thing only...Gettin' those +1's son! Deadspin is the greatest site the Internet ever birthed (not counting sites that sell HDMI cables for $3) so lets get out there and make some LOLs and OMGZ.

Send me tips: tips@deadspin.com

Now who's ready to get going? Who's excited? I AM!!!!! LETTTTTTTTTS GO!!!

•Tony Gonzalez (and a strategically placed Mrs. Gonzalez) go naked for a PETA ad. Think it's ironic someone on the Falcons, of all teams, to do an anti-fur ad? Well, it's not; Michael Vick never wore fur.

•The Raiders are actively cooperating with the NFL of Tom Cable's Punch-Out!! because they hope to be able to fire Cable "with cause," and not have to pay him. Or they could keep him on staff, and not have to pay any assistants whose careers he ends.

•A Notre Dame assistant called out Navy's head coach for his postgame comments and repeated chop blocks. Never mind the fact that it was Veterans Day; any team who tries to cripple the Fighting Irish will always have the public's sympathy.

•Jimmy Rollins and Shane Victorino win Gold Gloves. They're obviously not talking about batting gloves.

•In a battle of teams named after primary colors, the Red Wings demolish the Blue Jackets 9-1. But if they could somehow combine forces, they would blend into the Purple Parrots, the absolute best team on Legends Of The Hidden Temple.

•Jim Riggleman "wins" the hotly contested Nationals manager sweepstakes, and will sign a one-year contract. Second prize, obviously, was a two-year deal.

•Finally, we've got Duke recruit Kyrie Irving starring in his high school production of High School Musical:

The unlucky fan also had the good sense to ask one of his number-crunching buddies to formulate the odds on such a dubious feat. The odds of him going 0-19 this year at Nats Park were 1 in 131,204. Staggering.

Here's more math from his egghead friend:

It took into account that they were 33-48 at home this year, made up of 0-19 when you were there and 33-29 when you were not there. The odds that you would select 19 games out of 81, of which 33 would have been wins, and you picked none, that was the shocker. The other discussion is whether it was just 1 in 20,000, which would be the odds of going to 19 games of a team that wins 33/81 of their games in general, and seeing no wins. But we eventually decided that what was more impressive was that the team actually went 33-29 when you weren't there, and you just picked the wrong games

.

I'd actually go with "you picked the wrong team" but why split hairs?

The Nats Unluckiest Fan [SportsBog]

Since Pierre L'Enfant is no longer around to accurately convey the majesty of their ineptitude, this humble blog will attempt to do it with pretty pictures. It's more than what's needed, but less than they deserve and it will hopefully make Mets and Pirates fans feel a little bit better about themselves.

[Photo via. Special Thanks to Dan Steinberg and the rest of the Washington Post crew for their thankless coverage of this team.]

February 17: Sports Illustrated reports that Esmailyn Gonzalez—a highly-touted 19-year-old Washington Nationals prospect from the Dominican Republic—is actually 23-year-old Carlos Alvarez Daniel Lugo, a not-quite-as good baseball player from the Dominican Republic who forged his identity. "Gonzalez" had received a $1.4 million signing bonus in 2006, nearly double his next closest offer.

February 26: The Nationals fire Jose Rijo, a "special assistant" to General Manager Jim Bowden. Since July 2008, Rijo, Bowden and others within the organization had been under investigation by Major League Baseball and the FBI for allegedly skimming money designated for prospect signing bonuses in Latin America. Rijo, a former Major League pitcher, also owns the Dominican baseball academy where "Esmailyn Gonzalez" was discovered, but denied any involvement or knowledge of the fraud. [Washington Post]

March 1: Just days after spring training begins and faced with the growing scandal over the team's operations in Latin America, GM Jim Bowden resigns. The team's record over his four-year tenure is 284-362.

March 2: The Nationals unveil the new "Screech," a modified version of their previous eagle mascot that is both less adorable and less bird-like.

March 16: The Nationals sign journeyman RP Julian Tavarez, who describes his decision to join the team thusly: "When you go to a club at 4 in the morning, and you're just waiting, waiting, a 600-pounder looks like J-Lo. And to me this is Jennifer Lopez right here. It's 4 in the morning. Too much to drink. So, Nationals: Jennifer Lopez to me." Tavarez is designated for assignment in July.

April 6: On Opening Day, The Nationals are beaten by Florida, 12-6. The team loses its first seven games and falls 5.5 games back after just one week of the season. They are never closer than five games behind the division leader the rest of the season. [Photo: AP]

April 18: Elijah Dukes is scratched from the starting lineup and fined $500 after he arrives five minutes late for pre-game stretching. Dukes was tardy because he was giving a speech to children at a Little League ceremony. The league solicits donations from parents and pays the fine on his behalf.

April 18: Several Nationals players take the field with the letter "O" missing from their uniforms.

May 15: Rookie P Jordan Zimmermann receives his first personalized bats after being called up to the majors three weeks earlier. His name is misspelled on the bats. On August 19, Zimmermann undergoes Tommy John surgery and will miss all of 2010. [Just A Nats Fan]

May 16: A mechanical failure with the mascot's "sausage cannon" causes exploding hot dogs to rain down upon fans during an in-game promotion. One traumatized onlooker says: "It's just funny to watch hot dog rolls explode and come down on people." [WaPo]

May 16: Also, this happened.

June 7: Off-duty District of Columbia Fire Chief Dennis Rubin attends an afternoon game at Nationals Park against the New York Mets. Rubin immediately suspends all pyrotechnics at the stadium after he is hit by "debris" during a fireworks display that accompanies the National Anthem. [Wash. City Paper]

June 10: After a two-and-a-half hour rain delay in the bottom of the ninth inning, the Nationals rally from two runs down to force extra innings. They lose, 4-2, in the twelfth with fewer than 100 fans still left in the ball park.

July 13: After finishing the first half of the season with 26-61 record, manager Manny Acta is fired. [Photo: AP]

August 2009: A congressional aide returning from a trip to Middle East is detained by Israeli airport security when his green Nationals cap is mistaken for "Hamas headgear."

August 2: The Nationals begin an 8-game winning streak—their longest of the season—with victories over Pittsburgh, Florida, and Arizona. At the end of the streak, the team is 22.5 games back. [Photo: AP]

August 18: Two months after the MLB Amateur Draft, the Nationals sign No. 1 overall pick SP Stephen Strasburg to a four-year, $15 million contract, including a record signing bonus of $7.5 million. (He does not pitch in the majors in 2009.) Some experts believe they got off easy. [Photo: AP]

September 4: The Nationals are mathematically eliminated from the playoffs. [Photo: AP]

September 9: Interim manager Jim Riggleman is quoted as stating that baseball is "not a physically taxing sport." The Nationals are 24-33 under his watch. [Photo: AP]

Somewhere In Time, 2009: The Nationals thank their fans for their "patients" as they try to build a winning team. The End.

Tyler Allard, an aide to Rep. Jim Cooper (D-Tenn.), made the mistake of wearing that green Nationals cap on a trip through Israel. Well, on a more basic level, wearing a Nationals cap anywhere isn't the best idea. But Allard's timing was especially bad.

An Israeli airport security guard pointed to the hat with the curly W team logo and demanded with a tone of disgust, "Why do you wear that?"

"Good question," his father, former longtime Senate aide Nick Allard, replied. "They are hopeless. They desperately need relief. You never know when they will hit, and because their defense is so bad, they suffer more than they can dish out. It's not rational and I can't explain why, but we are loyal and we love them." The more he talked, the more upset the security folks became, Nick Allard reports. Their luggage was checked and rechecked, and they were quizzed by security.

When they were finally cleared to board, Allard wrote in an e-mail, the head of the security detail said: "We do not appreciate your Hamas headgear." Green apparently is a Palestinian "color," Allard speculated, and the vaguely Arabic Nats logo might have been mistaken for an extremist emblem.

Forsaken young men with no future, living in a black hole of poverty who turn to the local organization out of despair? Gaza fits the bill as well as DC.

GOP Dilemma: Who's on First? [WaPo]

Now that rosters have expanded, Riggleman was recently asked about his use of Triple-A players and whether his regulars have lost a step after five months of the everyday grind. That makes no sense, of course, because striking out four times a day and standing in the outfield as home runs fly over your head isn't that difficult. If you're exhausted, take a nap!

My feeling is you ought to be ashamed of yourself if you get physically tired of playing baseball because it shouldn't be that physically taxing. I could point to Lou Gehrig and Cal Ripken, Jr. and I think they would be on my side in that argument, but I don't expect everybody to be like that. I think guys need off days so that the other players can also stay sharp, so I won't concede to the fatigue factor."

Let that be a lesson to you kids out there. If you get tired playing baseball, you're obviously doing it wrong! Now run to the concession stand and get Coach another hot dog.

"It's a baseball game; it's not a physically taxing sport." [MASN Sports]
Riggleman Says Baseball Isn't Taxing [DC Sports Bog]

•Joe Maddon goes the Just For Men route, dyeing his hair jet black to turn around the Rays' fortunes. It worked for Wicked Lester, didn't it?

•Nationals GM says it's "unlikely" Stephen Strasburg will pitch for the team this year. You should probably read that as: it's "likely" the Nationals would like to avoid having his four-year deal kick in until 2010.

•Another day, another Brandon-Marshall-pissed-off-at-the-Broncos story. This time it's because a team flack told players not to express too much joy at Marshall's acquittal on domestic violence charges last week. No word on how much joy they would have been allowed to express had he been found guilty.

•Old folks who should probably be retired keep coming back. This time it's John Smoltz, who's close to a deal with the Cardinals. Not a bad move: they're a little short on starting pitching, and he'll automatically become the third best hitter in that lineup.

•Pedro Martinez and Jamie Moyer combine for nine innings, four hits, one run, eight strikeouts, and thirty thousand, eight hundred and eighty nine days on earth. And one win.

•The NCAA is investigating the eligibility of Tennessee freshman RB Bryce Brown, and some alleged recruiting violations involving cash for college visits. But here's the shocking part: Lane Kiffin had nothing to do with it!

•Look, just because Kevin Gregg has blown a fifth of his save opportunities, and just because he's got a double-digit ERA this month, and just because you can hear the collective sphincter of Cubs fans tightening every time he comes in, is no reason to take him out of the closer's role. Actually, those are all pretty good reasons.

Washington swings through PNC Park next weekend, and ticket sales are, shall we say, not brisk. So the Pirates launched something called "You Score As The Bucs Score." For every run they scored in this past weekend's series against the Diamondbacks, the team would take a dollar off the price of their $24 seats against the Nats.

Making free baseball tickets look like a possibility, the Pirates lit up the D-Backs for 10 runs Friday night. They didn't score again the rest of the weekend.

A $10 discount sounds pretty good, until you phrase it as paying $14 for bad seats to watch the Pirates and the Nationals. Then it sounds like the tenth circle of hell.

So who's the big loser here? Is it Pittsburgh fans, promised essentially free money, and getting stuck with a thanks-but-no-thanks discount? Or is it the Pirates, who only had to put up a few runs to make their fans love them for the first time this season, and failed miserably. Obviously, the real loser is the Washington Nationals, the fat kid picked last for kickball.

Pirates To Offer "You Score As The Bucs Score" Promotion For Three Games of Diamondbacks Series, July 24-26 [MLB]

Yesterday, we brought you the story of an amorous married ballplayer who gave his digits to an unnamed female intern from a media outlet. This was all a very serious business, according to the Houston Chronicle's very serious Jose de Jesus Ortiz, because, as you know, married athletes who hand out their phone numbers to single ladies inevitably wind up with two bullets in their head. (Seriously. That's what he was implying. The headline: "McNair's death not a lesson to one idiot." Which is simply insane.)

Pearlman took his Rolodex for a spin and got a baseball source to spill. He writes:

Jesus was classy enough not to "out" the intern or the ballplayer-and I'll follow his lead. But, as with many things in life, there is a disconcerting aftermath. According to a baseball source, the ballplayer was a member of the Washington Nationals. Furthermore, because of the incident, the Nationals are now considering a permanent, all-encompassing ban of interns from the team's clubhouse.

Well, that last bit will never happen; if it did, among other things, MLB.com would never file another story from Nationals Park. And so, awesomely, the hapless Nationals once again find themselves at the heart of something stupid in baseball. They can't do anything right. Spell. Pitch. Hit. Score. Score runs. These are men who, as the saying goes, could fuck up a wet dream.

Photoshop by Moe Sussman

Foolish intern, meet slime ballplayer [JeffPearlman.com]
EARLIER: Oddly Enough, Married Athletes Are Still Foolin' Around

The fined a player for helping kids. They kill people with sausages. They lose at rain delays. They misspelled their players' names. They misspelled a President's name. They misspelled their own name. We're not even counting the fact that their former GM stole millions of dollars from prospects that didn't exist. Manny Acta is the one being held responsible for it—which is too bad. Because if he is responsible then we've just witnessed the end of one of the most impressive eras of failure in the history of sports.

Now how are we supposed to entertain ourselves? They did charge into the All-Star Break in style. Tyler Clippard gave up the last run of the first-half with a pathetic balk, while their stadium hosted an Elton John-Billy Joel concert where Elton's piano broke (of course) midway through the third song of the night. But can Jim Riggleman keep it going? Sure, he knows how to fail—lifetime .445 winning percentage; only finished higher than third-place once—but can he keep the Nationals losing at such a high level? The world doesn't need more San Diego Padres.

At least keep it up until the Redskins' season starts, so we have something funny to write about.

Nationals dismiss Acta as manager [MLB.com]

The Astros' May 5th game at Washington was called on account of rain, with the teams tied 10-10 in the eleventh. When the game resumed yesterday—in Houston this time, before their regularly scheduled game—Elijah Dukes was on first base and Joel Hanrahan was the pitcher of record for the Nationals. There were just a couple of snags. Dukes is in the minors and Hanrahan plays for Pittsburgh now.

Hanrahan, who pitched a scoreless top of the 11th inning for the Nationals back on May 5, was traded to the Pirates for Nyjer Morgan last month. Morgan pinch ran for Dukes in this game and promptly scored the winning run in the bottom of the 11th inning. That means Hanrahan got the win—his only one of the season—even though he's not on the team anymore and the man who scored the decisive run was playing for Pittsburgh when the game started. Interleague play is so confusing!

So if two of the worst teams in the National League combine their rosters, they're just good enough to beat Houston. I think I see a plan here ... or at least a hilarious sitcom.

Hanrahan earns victory on day off [MLB.com]

Blustery Ken Rosenthal also reported Acta's inevitable dismissal and will be replaced by bench coach Jim Riggleman. (It would be a little ironic if Rosenthal's report was a erroneous.Probably not, though)

It's kind of a shame for Acta, who's been praised for his niceness and patience throughout the last three seasons of sustained awfulness. This is how it works, though, and someone has to be executed for the losing record, the uniform typos, the botched bobbleheads, the fireworks hitting the fire chief, Lastings Milledge, and everything else that's embarrassed this franchise the past three months.

Acta Still Manager — For Now [Washington Post]

Such were the cornerstones of nearly every article that went beyond the staples of the rudimentary Strasburg caricature. After that, there was little variation: There were news stories about the battle between Scott Boras and the Nationals and columns about whether any college pitcher deserves $50 million, which ultimately funneled into two arguments:

• Strasburg is a plus-plus-plus-squared pitcher worth every penny, regardless of how many pennies it requires.

• Too many can't-miss prospects have whiffed to enshrine Strasburg already. He's good — really, really good — but plenty of amateur pitchers have been pretty damn good, too, and now they're stuck reminiscing about their high school glory days.

With most stories quoting hardened scouts, mid-level executives, college coaches and washed-up former No. 1 picks, it's easy to forget that Strasburg is still just a baseball player, not a commodity. And that brings us to perhaps the most salacious detail in the Strasburg lovefest — one that, for once, concerns Strasburg's skills — courtesy of ESPN's Tim Keown:

San Diego State pitching coach Rusty Filter, the man who created the monster, says Strasburg's "plus-plus" changeup couldn't be used in college because the hitters weren't good enough to be fooled by it.

PHOTO: Flickr's jpangan3.

Strasburg Is The Pick, If The Price Is Right [Washington Post]
Strasburg vs. Nats Shaping Up To Be Biggest Battle [SI.com]
Strasburg no sure thing [ESPN]
Strasburg worth every penny [ESPN]
Pitcher's Bright Stars Sometimes Flame Out [NY Times]

Fireworks are fun. They're also dangerous. Sometimes, they result in floating debris. And sometimes said debris lands on the city's fire chief.

On Sunday, Washington D.C. Fire Chief Dennis Rubin was allegedly brushed with fireworks detritus, and in turn, he shut down the wonderfully celebratory pyrorific exhibition of goodness. One source told Washington City Paper, though, that Rubin was only hit by paper debris and that he allegedly overruled the on-site fire inspector to eliminate the last pinch of fun in an otherwise lifeless ballpark — all because of some errant paper planes.

Rubin was not exactly diplomatic when he argued for the fireworks to be shutdown. According to the source, Rubin at one point told authorities: "Do you know who I am?"

As of tomorrow, he can try that stand with Stephen Strasburg, the not-yet-National who will hold out until Washington blows all its money on him. But he'll be The Chosen One to bring the fireworks back to Nationals Park — yeah!

D.C. Fire Chief Shuts Down Fireworks [Washington City Paper]