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"Can I take your bags, Adam?" Washington Nationals' OF Josh Willingham, 3B Ryan Zimmerman and 1B Adam Dunn wearing what Rolling Stones' Matt Taibbi describes as, "...bright-red uniforms that appeared to have been stolen off the backs of two-and-a-half-star-hotel bell captains." (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

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Oh no! I'm turning the pages of the latest edition (RS 1091) of Rolling Stone magazine (the one with Shakira on the cover), and I get to the Sports column Matt Taibbi's been penning since the start of the football season as he takes a well-earned break from exposing Wall Street swindles, researching the sordid histories of companies like Goldman Sachs, Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers and attempting to explain terms like "credit-default swap" "naked short selling" and "collateralized debt obligations" to the masses, to let loose on America's Sunday institution, the National Football League, and in particular, in this column entitled, "How to Wreck a Team", the Washington Redskins and their owner Dan Snyder. "There's no way," I say to myself (and yes I talk to myself in complete sentences), "...that he's going to get through a column on DC sports without taking a shot at the Nationals." And sure enough, in the second paragraph, Mr. Taibbi goes for his own "Natinals" moment: 

"You have a responsibility to deliver as a football owner when you live in a city whose only other diversions are a basketball team that used to be called the Bullets and a once-good baseball team that used to be called the Montreal Expos (before someone decided to douse its players in suck juice, dress them in bright-red uniforms that appeared to have been stolen off the backs of two-and-a-half-star-hotel bell captains and bus them to Washington)."

Huh? Not so bad...Taibbi even said the team was "once good", though, sorry DC fans, I think he means the Expos- version, I don't think his argument is as nuanced as to include the first-half-of-'05-Nationals under the heading of "once good" (seeing as how he also ignores the Capitals' existence since they don't fit his narrative), and as for the Nationals "dousing [their] players in suck juice" and outfitting them in the "bright-red uniforms" of "two-and-a-half-star-hotel bell captains", well, at least the Nationals aren't going to be saddled with a description like that which Mr. Taibbi forever attached to Goldman Sachs when he described "...the world's most powerful investment bank,"  as a, "...great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money." 

The Nationals got off relatively easily, though the "suck juice" part hurts...Redskins' owner Dan Snyder...well he doesn't get off as easily as the Nationals...

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• Storen Saves!

• Strasburg Monday!

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• Storen Saves!

We'll skip the first eight innings of this afternoon's Phoenix Desert Dogs/Mesa Solar Sox AFL matchup since no DC prospects were involved until the Washington Nationals' second '09 1st Round pick Drew Storen took the mound in the ninth with Phoenix ahead 4-3 and the 9,1,2 batters in Mesa's order due up. Marlins' OF prospect Greg Burns sent a fly ball out to left for the first out of the inning, but then Storen surrendered a one-out single to another future Florida outfielder Bryan Petersen, who took second after Cubs' infield prospect Starlin Castro K'd and the #1 Prospect in Chicago's organization (according to Baseball America's '09 Rankings), third baseman Josh Vitters, hit a two-out single to put the tying run in scoring position. Two on, two out, 4-3 Phoenix lead. Storen vs David Cooper, the 5th best prospect in the Blue Jays' system (again acc to Baseball America), and Drew Storen gets a grounder and a force at second to end the D-Dogs' 11th AFL win and earn his second save.  

Storen's Line: 1.0 IP, 2 H, 0 ER, 1 K, 20 pitches, 12 strikes, 5 BF. '09 AFL Stats:  (1-0, 1.17 ERA), 2 SV, 7.2 IP, 10 H, 3 R, 1 ER, 1 BB, 7 K's. 

Final Score - Desert Dogs 4, Solar Sox 3. MLB.com GameDay.

Desert Dogs now 11-6.

• Strasburg Monday!

The AFL released their weekend update entitled, "AFL Game Notes: Oct. 31 (PDF)", and in it they report that Stephen Strasburg will start for the Desert Dogs on Monday when they travel to Surprise, Arizona to take on the Surprise Rafters in a 12:35 pm MST start.

Matchup:

Stephen Strasburg (2-1, 6.97 ERA) vs Matt Harrison (1-1, 6.00 ERA). 

(ed. note - "I was really hoping for a Strasburg/Crow matchup...")