Nats commentator fired for Strasburg comments

Washington Nationals color commentator Rob Dibble was fired by the Nats for some comments he made the day that (hopefully) future all star Stephen Strasburg tore his elbow up so bad that he's going to need Tommy John surgery.  Dibbles comments:

"OK, you throw a pitch, it bothers your arm, and you immediately call out the manager and the trainer? Suck it up, kid. This is your profession. You chose to be a baseball player. You can't have the cavalry come in and save your butt every time you feel a little stiff shoulder, sore elbow. ... Stop crying, go out there and pitch. Period." 

Obviously, he put his foot in his mouth.  He made these comments before he knew the extent of the injury.  


I liked Rob Dibble.  The Nats have had some pretty horrible color commentators courtesy of MASN.  The first I can remember was in 2006: Tom Paciorek.  It seemed he didn't know much about baseball, and he definitely didn't add anything to the show.  Next came greaseballer Don Sutton.  He knew a whole lot about pitching and provided good commentary, but he was an ass and completely unlikable.  Dibble on the other hand, was a likable ass and one of the few reasons to watch a Nats game.  He will be sorely missed by me.  Apparently I'm not alone.

Strasburg Amazing in Debut

Stephen Strasburg threw 14 strikeouts in the 5-2 Nats win over the Bucs.

This video shows the complete domination he brings to the game: http://mlb.mlb.com/video/play.jsp?content_id=8802881

Nationals fire Manny Acta

The Washington Nationals fired manager Manny Acta today. The team has started 26-61 and is by far the worst team in baseball. Despite being a young guy with experience on good teams like the Mets, Manny was never able to turn around the team. Possibly because he was too nice of a guy.

After Frank Robinson had left the team around .500 two seasons in a row, you'd have thought some new blood would propel the Nats to winning, but the things have only gone down hill since Frank's high water days of 2005-2006.

My take on this season: the rotation is decent but very young, the bullpen is atrocious, the offense has improved at the expense of defect.

Other Opening Days

Not everyone else had a good opening day.  And the Nats contributed to that, beating the Phillies 11-6 in front of 45,000 booing Philly fans.

And how 'bout them Royals?

Nationals Opening Day 2008

Tonight was opening day at the new Nationals Park and the National League season opener for 2008.  What a great park!  They even gave unlimited free refills with the $7.50 beer!  The new park is everything that RFK wasn't, namely: a baseball park.  Finally we have good concessions, clean facilities, TV's all over (in some cases they aren't there yet but there's a sign saying they will be there soon).  Unfortunately you can no longer smoke wherever you want and I even got yelled at for doing so (for your reference: the designated smoking area is next to the kids playground; I'm not joking).

On to better news: the Nats defeated the declining Braves 3-2 with a walkoff homer by Zimmerman.

Just for the record: the Nats got the first win in Nationals Park, Cristian Guzman got the first hit, Chipper Jones (boo!) got the first home run, and Nick Johnson got the first RBI.

And the first pitch was thrown by none other than George W. Bush.  And I have to give him credit, he threw it from the mound and threw it well, to manager Manny Acta.  W also called the first home run from the booth (this I learned while watching the replay).

Since I took the metro in I actually missed the last 2 innings but did record it on TV so I watched it when I got home.  Hopefully this first win and stadium will help propel us to the playoffs in 2008!!