Okay, not literal money. But on this, the morning after an ugly loss (that I didn't see) occasioned by apparent misplays by the Golden Boy (that I didn't observe), I'm just going to go ahead and pimp something I wrote. Don't worry; it's nothing on this site. Instead, it's a retrospective on the whole television rights/Darth Angelos/MASN v. Comcast, eighteen-month saga that is near its conclusion, sort of. As I mentioned previously, the article is for a very nice site called Baseball Digest Daily, for which I will be submitting about an article per week.
This particular article took forever, for several reasons, some of which were personal (about which I will not bore you) but also because I went back and read dozens upon dozens of old Post and Times articles from March 2005 to the present. Especially helpful in this endeavor was my old blog, Nationals Inquirer, but also, and to a greater extent, Capitol Punishment, which linked to about everything that proved helpful for this article.
An example: Remember the whole Nationals.tv brouhaha? No? The thing that the MLB.tv people were about to offer whereby Nats fans could bypass (for a fee, of course) the local blackout curtain? That thing that Tony Tavares chastised, saying it "definitely didn't have [permission] from us?" Yeah, I vaguely remembered it, too. But, just for old times . . .
Anyway, here's a link to my article. Check it out, if you wish.
* * * *
In non-Basil news, Frank Robinson sat down with Nats.com for an interview, which he seems to be doing with increased frequency. There's not much to say about this interview---discussion of injuries and disappointments and taking a large degree of responsibility for failure---but it would appear that Robinson recognizes his fate is not to manage the Nats in 2006. He appears to be preparing himself for this likelihood:
Robinson: I can always go home. Maybe for the first time in my career, there is peace in that answer. In the past, I so wanted to stay in the game that I wasn't ready to accept not being involved. Now, at this stage of my career, it doesn't frighten me that I might not be involved in the game on the field. Would I like to stay in baseball? Yeah, if the right situation came up and the right offer came along. I would be open to listening to something off the field.
Interestingly, Robinson adds that his family pushes him to continue managing more than he pushes himself, though he seems to suspect that they do so because they think it's what he wants to do.
I can't speak to any of that, of course, but Robinson has been active in the game for a long, long time---perhaps too long. People live longer these days, blessedly, but I don't imagine that watching Ryan Wagner botch comebackers is the way to transition into the Golden Years.