The Art Of Picayune Importuning

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The sweetest moment was watching his lips move
as he read the note, after pulling it from under the wiper blade.

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Tyres

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We've been contemplating putting new tires on The Nationals Postmobile. The Ef One Fitty came new with Pirelli tires. They went 63,000 miles and never gave me any trouble, but still I'm concerned about sticking new ones on there. See, Pirelli is an Italian tire company. Those guys are notorious for promising to put on new rubber before mounting, but then not putting on anything at all.





Boom de boom, baby.




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Pre-bowling Chillout

BoSox Cockblocked By Nats As Yankees Swoop In Wearing Jazz Shoes And Coax Teixeira To Get On The Dance Floor And Dance The FORBIDDEN DANCE

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Mark Teixeira reportedly set to sign with Yankees

By Mike James, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
12:40 PM PST, December 23, 2008

Various news organizations are reporting that Mark Teixeira is about to sign a long-term deal with the New York Yankees. Jon Heyman of SI.com is reporting they have agreed on an eight-year deal worth $180 million.

The Angels had offered an eight-year deal worth about $160 million, but took that off the table when they got no specific counteroffers from Teixeira's agent, Scott Boras.


**********

You see what's happened to the press here? I'm copping the LA Times' story, which is citing Sports Illustrated and "various news organizations". Where's the source of this news? Was it Steve, per chance? Steve ...




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Bethesda Is Shovel Ready

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Hey I know stuff breaks when it gets cold outside. Water mains are no exception. This, however, is the kind of infrastructure failure that is shameful. We're supposed to be the most mighty country in the world. The coming administration is looking for projects that are "shovel ready" to get funded immediately and create some new j.o.b.s. This approach is already being called a handout by guys on talk radio. Here's exciting video of this morning's water main break on [irony] River Road [/irony]. When you're finished watching it, think about how many houses and businesses a 5.5 foot water main feeds. All those buildings are presently without water for who knows how long. Mad props to the swiftwater and technical rescue teams working that scene.


It was 16 degrees in Bethesda when this video was shot.

CNN Anchordork to fire dept spokesman: "I would assume that some of these folks in the cars are wet. Uhhh, are you worried about hypothermia?"




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Still Not Buying It

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Nats may have upped Teixeira offer

A report on MASN Online by Roch Kubatko has multiple sources claiming that Washington has raised its offer, spread across eight years, to somewhere in the $178 million to $184 million range.

What's more, there are indications that the Nationals might be talked into going to nine or even 10 years. A 10-year offer would fulfill agent Scott Boras' goal for Teixeira, delivered at the General Managers Meeting in Dana Point, Calif., in November.

Today is Mark Teixeira's big payday. He's looking for a ten year deal, which would take him fairly well up to his pro ball retirement. We still say there's NO WAY this superstar player is going to ink a career-length deal on a losing team. DON'T BELIEVE THE HYPE. Even if Teixeira is truly walking away from Boston's offer of 8 years and $184 million bones, or, clams or whatever you call them, he's not coming to DC. If he's really that hard headed, he'll play in his home state of Maryland. Say what you will aboout Peter Angelos, but at least he pays the rent on the stadium.



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Don't Worry ... We Have A Plan

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Three months ago, the Prez called in select Senators and Congressmen and explained that life as we know it would cease to exist unless they handed him $700,000,000,000.00 to bail out the financial industry.

"How do you intend to spend the money?" they hated to ask, because they knew it annoyed him.

"There's no time to waste answering a bunch of silly questions. If you love your country, you'll hand over the cash and promise to stay out of the way."

"Of course we love our country," they stammered, "sorry to have troubled you. The thing is, we don't have any money. Please don't yell at us again. We know where we can get half of it now and we swear we'll hand over the other half soon. Would that be ok?"

"You Congress people are pathetic. I can't believe you didn't plan for something like this. Fine ... gimme the $350,000,000,000.00 anyway. Come on, while we're frickin' young."

"You're only going to use this cash for good, right? We're giving you all of our fiscal oversight powers, so we hope you use them wisely."

"I guess you're gonna have to trust me," the president said slapping them on the back, "and why wouldn't you? Heh. I've earned your trust, right? Heh. Come back when you've figured out where you're going to get the other half of the cash that doesn't exist. Off you go."

"We're on it, sir. Harry Reid has China on his Buddy list and the US mint says they'll print a trillion more dollar bills. That's one workplace that's still paying overtime anyway!" Congress filed out laughing nervously and smiling politely.

~~TWO MONTHS LATER~~

In unrelated news, the US auto industry is dying, because it makes a product nobody wants to buy anymore. Like a kid who flies his Gulf Stream jet to his parents' suburban ranch house to ask them to take a 4th mortgage out to pay for his mistakes just one more time, BIG 3 go to Washington. After vigorous questioning and debate, BIG 3's parents say no.

Senator Dad explains to BIG 3 that he is old enough to own his mistakes and misfortunes and even though they love him, they can't solve his problems. Only he can. BIG 3 screams I HATE YOU ! YOU NEVER DO ANYTHING I LIKE! President Mom looks at the floor and fretfully twists a dampened hanky.

Fiscal conservatives walk up to the Jerry Springer audience mic and shout-out to the parents, "you GO girl! Thank God this happened while a conservative is still in the White House! Otherwise, that socialist would have sold us out like beeeeeeeee-atches!"

Senator Dad sees BIG 3 to the door, at which point President Mom slips a Financial Industries Debit Card with a $17,400,000,000.00 limit into BIG 3's kashmir sweater pocket.


"Mommy loves you most," she whispers, "Now go solve all your problems, promise?"
Smoochy smoochy.




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Happy Christmas War Is Over

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Bally

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This is how a Huntington Beach boy reacts to snow.
Photo - http://collinbalester.mlblogs.com/

Collin Balester is exactly what baseball needs. He's a 6'5", 22 year old goofy kid from SoCal with a perennial big grin on his face, a complete inability to form grammatically correct sentences, and a mega-wicked fastball. Since July, 2008, he's a big league pitcher with The Washington Nationals, but you wouldn't know it if you were talking to him in a line or giving/getting directions to the closest Best Buy. His is one of the few truly interesting and very entertaining blogs written by a player, and it clearly is neither edited nor redacted by some agent, girlfriend, or lawyer. Bally seems to inherently know that baseball and life are meant to be played, not worked. Here's what Bally says he wants to hear over the stadium system next season when he walks up to the plate to hit:







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Political Jock Sniffer

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Coleman vs. Franken ... The Brass Tacks

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Watch enthralling LIVE video of democracy in action. If it weren't to decide who gets to be a US Senator, this would be boring to the point of criminal. Here at TNP, we can't stop watching.


NOTE: We removed the embedded player, because we could not figure out how to sht off auto-play.

Watch this along with live chat comments from viewers here.





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The Iraqi Shoe Bomber

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I was going to write a post entitled

Yankees Sign Iraqi Hurler

but then I found out somebody already did. One day, I will have an original thought, and that will be a fine day indeed.




Watched it, like, a zillion times and it simply doesn't get old.







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We're Livin' La Vida Crappo

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Nats Dump Colome, Pin Their Hopes On Column B

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LAS VEGAS -- The Nationals released reliever Jesus Colome on Wednesday.
The team's roster is now at 38. Colome, who was arbitration-eligible,
appeared in 61 games and had a 4.31 ERA last year.

-Bill Ladsen




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Teixeira's Not Coming. Mark It, Dude.

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The Winter Meetings scuttlebutt is that we're in a close race with Boston and Baltimore at this moment to get superstar Mark Teixeira. It's light on scuttle on heavy on butt. MT wants $20 million a year for ten years. He's a Maryland boy, but the trains run pretty frequently to Boston. Here's what's going to actually happen: Boston was chasing hard for AJ Burnett, but seems to have cooled off on him. Late last night at the Bellagio in Vegas, the Yankees and Braves were locked in a massive Nite Fite for the pitcher.

Disengaging from Burnett frees up a lot of cash in the pockets of the Sox. They will stay in the race for MT, thus keeping his ridiculous asking price legitimate looking. In the end, Teixeira will sign a massive contract with Baltimore after Boston sobers up and realizes $200,000,000.00 is a really big number. Baltimore will outbid DC by $10 million or so. Why will Baltimore prevail over Washington? Because the Nats burned all their player credibility last year and Teixeira wants a chance to win some games.

The slighted Nationals will then sign Adam Freakin' Dunn, because we like our players like we like our chili - Cincinnati style. There will be massive spinning that this is actually a positive, and Dunn will get a news release saying that he's the cat's pajamas every other day until spring training.

There is absolutely no chance The Washington Nationals sign Mark Teixeira. We're afraid to believe anything else, because we've been hurt before.

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Dr. Freud, Call Your Office

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Alert folks over at Deadspin point out that the boys down in marketing at the new Winston-Salem Dash baseball organization may have inadvertently dug up some repressed issues during their Monday morning brainstorming sessions.

The team used to be called The Warthogs and, in hindsight, what's really wrong with that name? In the relentless trudge of progress, the team was re-branded "Dash", whatever that hell that means. Of course, uniforms, hats, and all the souvenir trinkets required a fresh look. While designing the new logo for the team, the graphics department was apparently also wrestling with their own tortured monsters from the Land of Id.

Look for them to come hard and fast ...

Wow. We might have known. All the warning signs were there. In a game that features ball boys, foul tips, sliders in the dirt, two balls and no strikes, pitchers and catchers, and sliding head-first into home, this logo was just a foregone conclusion.



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Not In Kansas Anymore

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You're my boy, Blue!




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Looks Like 1973 Fell Through A Wormhole

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I'm going into hotel lobby interior design. After taking a look at the competition, there's a pretty good shot at conquering the field.


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We Pulled Our Money Out Of The Stock Market To Put It Somewhere Safer

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I knew you wouldn't believe me so I took a picture

Greetings from the Legends Of Aviation Restaurant, high atop Long Beach and home of the healthy veggieburger called, "The Destroyer".

Sent from mobile

oh SNAP

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"We can shape our times instead of being shaped by them.
Together, we will meet the challenges of the 21st century
not with fear, but with hope."



"Dangit my ears just started burnin'
like my toes do time to time."



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i jus wan bangbangbang

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Plaxico's unique style aside, we at TNP try to send the bullets away from the thigh and leggal areas. We don't want to pile too heavy on Burress. As Jesse reminded us; he's a wide receiver, and they don't like safeties.



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