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On Fri, 4 Sep 2009 05:08:40 -0700 (PDT), spicpussy <...@yahoo.com
You benighted Redscunts fans worshipped "Little Snydie" from the day
he purchased the team. And if truth be known, you still do, despite
his congenital propensity to sue any person who can no longer afford
his or her tickets.
"I don't give a shit about somebody's job," Sean Taylor's top fan is
undoubtedly thinking. "My stinginess is in my blood."
So -- enjoy another non-playoff season, "fans."
After all, you deserve it. All of it.
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"Once Again, A Public Trust In Jeopardy"
By Thomas Boswell
Friday, September 4, 2009
What have we done to deserve this?
For 100 years, Washington has been blighted with some of the worst
owners of pro sports teams that the United States has produced. Daniel
Snyder of the Redskins is just the latest, though he is rapidly
working his way up a list of ignominy that includes racists and rip-
off artists, the vindictive and the vain, cheap town-jumpers as well
as the merely meddlesome and incompetent.
This week, as detailed in James V. Grimaldi's stories in The Post on
Redskins tickets, the team has taken the bad faith prize for mean and
greedy business practices toward its own fans. If ticket buyers with
multiyear contracts suffer from economic hard times, the Redskins do
not emulate at least nine other NFL teams, as well as local franchises
such as the Capitals, and simply cancel the tickets and sell them to
someone else. Nope. Despite a "waiting list" they claim is 160,000
long, the Redskins sue some of their own fans for the money and, at
times, even resell the tickets.
To whom would they do such a thing? A 72-year-old grandmother who has
loved the team all her life has lost a $66,364 judgment to the team
even as she says she's close to bankruptcy. That might take the cake
for meanness. But for stupid moves, my choice was the Redskins suing
an unemployed paranoid schizophrenic. Now that's crazy. Another
fellow, sent to jail, told the Redskins and Nats he'd like to cancel
those season tickets of his. The Nats sent him free tickets. The
Redskins, of course, sued him.
The Redskins have a right to enforce contracts. But that doesn't make
it right. No wonder there are few rebukes in this town as insulting
as, "That sounds like something Dan Snyder might do."
The recent revelations about Redskins tickets, including sales of
thousands of them to secondary-market brokers even though it is
against team policy, have brought howls of "that's the last straw."
The Redskins say they've disciplined miscreants internally. They say
there'll be no more Steelers crowds at FedEx Field. And they say the
problems involve a relatively small number of tickets.
I say I'm not surprised. Unfortunately, it's the pattern of a whole
lifetime for many of us. Embarrassing sports ownerships -- not worthy
of the town, the teams and the fans -- are our curse.
As a child, I read Shirley Povich's condemnations of the racist
practices of Redskins owner George Preston Marshall, including the
famous story that began, "Jim Brown, born ineligible to play for the
Redskins, integrated their end zone three times yesterday." No wonder,
if you were looking for a team with an offensive nickname, you would
start here.
As a kid, I wrote Senators owner Calvin Griffith, begging him not to
trade homer champ Roy Sievers. The Nats wrote back, saying they
wouldn't trade my hero and would my family be interested in season
tickets. Within a month, Sievers was traded -- with cash back to the
Nats a key to the deal.
So, I learned early how the penny-pinching Griffith made Washington
the city referred to, since the early 1900s, as, "First in war, first
in peace and last in the American League."
Like Griffifth, Bob Short also moved a Senators team. Povich
investigated: Short put up just $2,000 of his own money to buy the
Nats, leveraging the rest with exotic financing; then, after running
on a shoestring budget and fielding terrible teams, he blamed
Washington and skipped to Arlington -- Texas. To this day, the Rangers
haven't won a pennant, much less a World Series.
Say this about our bad bosses: They get the karma they deserve.
No Washington fan needs reminding that even owners from other towns
can damage us. Peter Angelos bought a contender and mismanaged it into
a loser. "You're watching the destruction of a great franchise," an
Orioles GM told me. With his team a mess, Angelos focused on blocking
competition from the District. Once that failed? Have you ever tried
to figure out what channel the Nats are on?
Recently, D.C.'s latest baseball owners, the Lerners, have improved a
bit. But they're on double-Shirley probation. For three years they
spent too little, feuded with the city and wasted their fresh buzz by
fielding awful teams in a publicly financed ballpark.
In a competition this tough, Snyder has had a hard time making
headway. Firing coaches, buying overpriced free agent busts and
fielding mediocre teams doesn't really move you too far up such a
miserable list.
Finally, however, Snyder is getting the knack. It's not enough to hurt
your team and your fans. You have to hurt your own reputation most of
all.
How are we going to forget images as vivid as that of Randy Clarno,
who was so Redskins-nutty he flew in from Idaho for games? His real
estate business turned south. Now a court says he owes the Redskins
$80,837.25, including interest and attorney's fees. The tickets? The
Redskins already re-sold some of them last year to the Rams, Saints
and Falcons games.
In contrast, the Capitals say they can't imagine a reason to sue a
fan. Just cancel the tickets and resell them. Nine NFL teams,
including the Ravens, say that they don't sue fans over season ticket
contracts. Other teams haven't commented one way or the other. But
nine teams is nine too many to defend the Redskins.
Maybe the saddest part is that these incidents -- and the Redskins'
attempts to spin them as insignificant, rare and legally defensible --
takes you close to the heart of this franchise. This is a business
that does not appear to have a core set of respectable values. Many
who have left the organization, from a Redskin icon such as Bobby
Mitchell to a public relations director, walk out the door shaking
their heads about the place they had worked.
Many of us learned long ago that you have to separate owners from the
athletes and coaches they control, or you're going to have a mighty
short list of teams you can pull for. Our loyalties go back so far,
and run so deep, we hardly remember their origins. When I got married,
my wife said, "Your Redskin trash can has to go."
This is the kind of unconscious affection that bad owners prey upon.
To them, we're better than mere customers. We're their marks, their
suckers, branded from childhood with the team logo. And the worst of
them exploit it shamelessly, though they had nothing to do with the
creation of that loyalty.
Where do these bad owners come from? All theories welcomed. One of
mine is that bad owners, though vastly rich, buy a team because they
lack something. They buy it to fill a personal vacuum. They don't have
enough attention, praise, power, social status -- some damn thing. So,
no matter what they say, they never really see the franchise as a
quasi-public trust, as something shared and husbanded. It's about
them, their needs.
In business or in sports, dysfunction takes a thousand forms. But it
usually starts at the top then leaches down, corrosively into the core
product. Money can, to a degree, hide the problem. But every
organizational fix is temporary because the flaw runs to the core. And
you never know where it will show up next -- in an unnecessary
offseason quarterback controversy or in ticket brokers helping
Steelers fans kidnap FedEx field. It could even end up as a front-page
picture of a weeping old lady, going broke, who sits, surrounded by
Redskin memorabilia, as the team tries to collect $66,364 from her for
tickets she won't even get to use.
There's only one certainty. As long as bad ownership stays in place,
nothing important changes. In Washington, that has been the lesson of
the last 100 years.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/03/AR2009090303498 .html
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And for you Vinnie-lovers ...
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" 'Vinny's Guys' Have Work to Do"
By Mike Wise
Friday, September 4, 2009
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. He's Vinny's guy.
You know how many times I've heard that the past couple of weeks?
Twenty? No, 30 times?
He's Vinny's guy. Loose translation: If a player is vouched for by
Vinny Cerrato, who is in his second full season as lead architect of
the Washington Redskins, he automatically makes the team. Case closed.
By this logic, Anthony Alridge can fumble away a kickoff return that
leads to six points for the other team in the last preseason game, as
he did Thursday night. He can put his team in an awful hole, and it
doesn't matter. He gets a mulligan. He makes the team.
Why? According to the "he's Vinny's guy" crowd, it's because Cerrato
had the foresight to pick up Alridge on waivers from Denver, because
anything Alridge does would make Cerrato look prescient, he gets a
pass.
The same goes for Mike Williams, the right tackle trying to worm his
way on to the 53-man roster before Saturday's cut-down day.
Williams, who went from blubbery to beefy this summer in a comeback
attempt, has been nursing a bad ankle. In his first game back after
the preseason opener, he also gave up a sack that led to a fumble and
another Jacksonville score. If he is indeed Vinny's guy, logic
dictates Mike Williams will still have a job -- irrespective of how
bad he's looked in the preseason.
For the record, I don't buy the "he's Vinny's guy" theory. When I
explained the theory to Cerrato late Thursday night in the visitor's
locker room, he had a good chuckle about it.
"When they make a play, they're definitely my guy," he said. "What I
was looking for tonight was guys that say, 'You gotta keep me' with
their play, not 'You gotta cut me.' If you were one of guys who said,
'You gotta keep me,' you're my guy."
Why don't I like "he's Vinny's guy" as a blanket term? Not only does
that kind of thinking creep disturbingly toward an ethnic slur -- as
if Cerrato had gone back to his birthplace of Flushing, N.Y., and
mapped out the roster on a red-and-white checkered tablecloth while
James Gandolfini stirred sausage and peppers -- it also doesn't give
Cerrato credit for cutting some of the kids he drafted or some of the
free agents that didn't pan out.
Yes, he kept all 10 draft picks a year ago. But he finally cut Durant
Brooks, the young punter who wishes he could have hit the scoreboard
at Cowboys Stadium; it just took Cerrato until October. And no way all
seven picks this season make the team. If the "Vinny's guy" theory
held, then Eddie Williams would be in at fullback and both Cody Glenn
and Robert Henson would stick as linebackers. (I believe only Glenn
makes the cut).
And if Alridge is a Cerrato find, doesn't he also get credit for Brian
Orakpo and a wild-card rookie who's played himself on to the roster,
wideout Marko Mitchell? What about a supplemental pick like Jeremy
Jarmon, what if he becomes a decent defensive end? He's got to be
claimed by Cerrato.
If Albert Haynesworth can stay healthy and become the fierce and
focused pass rusher this franchise has been missing for so long -- if
he can get by a double team after all the one-on-one assignments he
has seen in the preseason -- doesn't Cerrato get full credit for him
too?
The point is they're all Vinny's guys. This roster is his baby, for
better or worse.
What to take from this uneven preseason? Mostly questions.
Forget Colt or Chase -- yet bless those munchkins' hearts as they
battle for the planet of Endor -- this is about whether this team is
genuinely ready to play the New York Giants in less than 10 days.
Can Greg Blache's defense bail out an offense that hasn't shown enough
in its dress rehearsal to make the masses believe it can put up three
touchdowns per game?
Will Jason Campbell have the weapons and protection he needs to move
the chains in the Meadowlands a week from Sunday? Malcolm Kelly and
Devin Thomas showed brief flashes and Mitchell was a pleasant surprise
the past few weeks. But facing third-and-the-game-on-the-line, are
little Santana Moss and even littler Antwaan Randle El still your go-
to wide receivers in the clutch?
Will Jim Zorn have enough confidence in his offensive line to take the
kind of chances that dispel all the talk that he was too predictable
and, well, figured out at the end of last season?
Heck, can the coach ensure the Pro Bowl tight end catches a touchdown
pass from the starting quarterback? Chris Cooley needs to be a huge
part of this red-zone offense or Washington is going nowhere.
As silver linings go, no major injury ruined the preseason for the
Redskins. And though they didn't absolutely find a secondary wide
receiver after Moss, they found out enough about Mitchell to keep him.
Shaun Suisham probably won himself a job Thursday with a 48-yard field
goal, staving off a very tough challenge from Dave Rayner.
Marcus Mason? If there were such a thing, doesn't he wish he were
Vinny's guy today? (For what it's worth, I'm tabbing Mason as the last
guy on the bubble. He makes the team.)
Campbell started out abysmally and found some rhythm near the end of
the preseason, enough to believe he isn't going to be inferior next to
his Sept. 13 counterpart, Eli Manning.
But now the drudgery of training camp and preseason games is over. Cut-
down day is Saturday -- the day 75 players are trimmed to 53, all of
whom will fall under the umbrella of players Vinny Cerrato claimed as
his own. To be sure, those are Vinny's guys.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/03/AR2009090304027 .html
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