Nationals Fire Manager To Cap Most Ridiculous First-Half Ever

In the least surprising firing of ever, Manny Acta is done as the Washington Nationals manager—but will they continue to fail in even more remarkable and outlandish ways in the second half? Or will they just merely suck?

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 . 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]