VIERA, Fla.
- Just when you think the Washington Nationals
might be out of comic material, baseball's whoopee cushion delivers a
side-splitting gem.
The club's highly touted, $1.4 million international prospect - the one
who now will be known as the player formerly known as Esmailyn "Smiley"
Gonzalez - is really Carlos Alvarez Daniel Lugo, according to a report
on SI.com.
And while Smiley Gonzalez - a fictional character apparently - is
supposed to be 19 years old, Carlos Alvarez Daniel Lugo really is 23
years old.
The best, though, may be yet to come: Maybe neither Smiley nor Carlos
actually got the $1.4 million the Nationals said they paid.
I'd say you can't make this stuff up, but apparently you can when it
comes to Dominican players.
NatsTown - where you can be anyone you want to be.
But there may be nothing funny about the ramifications of the SI.com
report, which claims Gonzalez is a fraud, part of a larger ongoing
federal investigation into suspicions of skimming bonus money from Latin
ballplayers.
If the report is true, this incident should cost Nationals general
manager Jim Bowden, who has enjoyed the protection of his buddy, owner
Mark Lerner, his job.
Even if Bowden had no knowledge of any scam, it happened on his watch
and marks yet another embarrassment for a franchise that already is the
laughingstock of baseball.
Too many dubious deals and incidents will have occurred during Bowden's
administration to let him continue to run this franchise.
Bowden was arrested in Florida's South Beach in 2006 for driving under
the influence. A string of wasteful, multimillion-dollar contracts
followed: Dmitri Young, $10 million; Paul Lo Duca, $5 million; Austin
Kearns, $17.5 million.
The club has struggled under the Lerner ownership with a series of
public relations blunders and in 2008 suffered a forgettable, 102-loss
season in their first year at Nationals Park.
Now this.
The SI.com report claims the Nationals paid the player formerly known as
Smiley double the offer of the next-highest sucker, the Texas Rangers.
(Please note: The former Washington Senators franchise shows that you
can take the team out of Washington, but you can't take Washington out
of the team.)
The report states that an agent named Rob Plummer handled the
negotiations with all suitors for the player formerly known as "Smiley"
- except for the Nationals. Those negotiations instead were handled by
Basilio Vizcaino, Gonzalez's buscon (a person who trains amateur youth
players in exchange for a percentage of future signing bonuses).
Vizcaino is a childhood friend of Bowden's special assistant, Jose Rijo,
and a protege of Jose Baez, the Nationals' director of operations in the
Dominican Republic, according to the report.
The falsification of ages by Latin players is hardly news. It happens,
and it usually results in little much more than a chuckle and some red
faces.
But when the player in question represents the club's signature
statement about the future of the team, it goes beyond just an awkward
mistake.
(This is a team, by the way, that last year wouldn't spend the money
necessary to sign its No. 1 pick, Aaron Crow. Or maybe he wasn't Aaron
Crow. Maybe his name really was Pincus McCoy.)
When the player in question is part of both an internal investigation by
baseball's recently formed investigative unit and a federal probe, it
goes beyond just a laugh and fleeting embarrassment.
NatsTown - where age is just a number.
Team president Stan Kasten said Wednesday in a conference call with
reporters that he is "very angry."
"We've been defrauded. And make no mistake: This wasn't a college kid
with a fake ID that came in and did this," Kasten said. "This was a
deliberate, premeditated fraud with a lot more to this story, and we are
going to get to the bottom of it. There were many, many people involved
in this premeditated fraud. ... I can assure you this is going to have
serious repercussions."
Kasten, who said Major League Baseball had approved the name and age
listed on documents from the signing in 2006, made a clear line of
demarcation for the bulk of the responsibility for this embarrassment.
Kasten pointed out that he and the Lerner family had just taken over
ownership of the franchise in July 2006 when this deal was presented to
them by the front office that had been running the baseball operation
since the team moved from Montreal in 2005.
That would be Bowden.
Kasten was asked specifically if those who were in charge of the team
when the present ownership took over were responsible for this mess.
"For today, there is nothing more I can say about that kind of stuff,"
he said. "I have an idea where you are going. I am just not ready to
talk about that just yet. There is an ongoing investigation continuing,
and I really need for that to play out first."
Bowden was in Arizona on Wednesday for arbitration hearings.
He's not far from Mexico. Maybe he can make a run for the border on his
Segway.
NatsTown - sort of like the Yankees, except nobody cares.
Was Bruce Boudreau conducting an interview on WWE's "Monday Night Raw"?
"I would be a good wrestler to interview," the Washington Capitals'
coach said.
I think of Boudreau more in the manager's role - a Bobby "The Brain"
Heenan type of character.
There wasn't much talk about hockey the day before Game 7 of the
Caps-New York Rangers Eastern Conference quarterfinal series.
The talk was more about who bit whom, who was suspended and who wasn't
in the wake of Game 6 on Sunday at Madison Square Garden, which,
according to the Rangers, was a crime scene.
An ESPN "SportsCenter" report surfaced Monday morning claiming that two
Caps players - Donald Brashear and Mike Green - would be suspended by
the NHL for Game 7 for their actions in Game 6 in New York.
Brashear was no surprise. He bumped Rangers enforcer Colton Orr in the
pregame warmups, and his hit on Blair Betts in the first period sent
Betts to the locker room.
But why would Green be suspended? Bad hair?
Turns out the report on ESPN about Green - the network mistakenly
attributed it to The Washington Post - was wrong, the result of a crank
call.
"My buddy called me this morning and asked me why I wasn't playing in
Game 7,"
Green said after practice Monday. "It scared me a little bit when I was
on my way to the rink. But I guess it was a mistake."
Meanwhile, Rangers stand-in Jim Schoenfeld - he subbed in Game 6 for
coach John Tortorella, who was suspended after striking a Caps fan with
a thrown water bottle during Game 5 at Verizon Center - called
Brashear's hit on Betts "vicious."
It is not clear whether Tortorella, who had a run-in with a New York
hockey writer during his press conference Monday, will summon the
courage to appear again behind the bench for Game 7. The Rangers
demanded beefed-up security for Tuesday's game.
Talk about home-ice advantage - Caps fans are in the Rangers' heads.
Schoenfeld also claimed Caps defenseman Shaone Morrisonn bit Brandon
Dubinsky during a skirmish in Game 6 - Schoenfeld said the Rangers
center needed a tetanus shot after the incident.
Morrisonn pleaded innocent.
"I am just getting ready to play Game 7," Morrisonn said. "I didn't do
it, so I am not really worried about it. I don't know what to say. I
didn't do that. I am just getting ready to play Game 7."
Bruce "The Brain" Boudreau didn't take kindly to the biting allegation.
"I get so ticked off when I hear that," he said. "Shaone doesn't know
what the heck they are talking about, and I don't either. I looked at it
from every different angle, and I didn't see a thing. To me, it's a moot
point, and let's move on. He steadfastly denied doing anything, and he's
angry."
Morrisonn was coming to the aid of Green when the incident supposedly
occurred.
"I am not sure what that was all about," Green said. "I've seen Shaone's
eye. There is definitely a gouge there, a poke or something. I was lying
on the ground, so I didn't see it."
Anything about hockey or how the Caps came back from a 3-1 deficit to
even the series?
"Hockey and sports is strange," Bruce "The Brain" Boudreau said.
"Sometimes great shots don't go in, and sometimes shots that shouldn't
go in, go in. I think we got lucky on a couple, Matt Bradley a couple of
games ago. Other times we made good plays. In the first four games
nothing went in, and in the last couple of games they started to go in."
And sometimes, all the biting, gouging, punching, bottle tossing and
name calling don't matter - like in a Game 7 of a Stanley Cup playoff
series. Often, it is greatness that determines the outcome of such
contests.
Wednesday morning, people will be talking about Alex Ovechkin, how he
cut through all the WWE debris and put on a performance worthy of the
best player on the planet to win Game 7.
"If we win, we go forward," Ovechkin said. "If we lose, we go back. The
opportunity that we have right now, it's huge. We just have to beat them
again.
Rob Dibble will tell you that he is just an "observer" when he does the
color analysis on Washington Nationals telecasts. He is "just a guy
sitting up [in the booth] watching it like everybody else."
Well, then, if he's just like everybody else, what the heck is MASN
paying him for? They could pull a guy out of the stands to sit up there
and watch "like everybody else."
Do you really want the guy sitting next to you as your baseball analyst?
In his outspoken criticism at various points in his first season in the
Nationals' booth, Dibble has won over a segment of Nationals fans
because he comes off like one of them - an angry guy sitting at home,
yelling at his television, wondering why the worst team in baseball
can't catch the ball, why it doesn't practice more, why it can't pitch
better.
The answers, however frustrating they are for fans, are never as simple
as they appear. And that is one of the roles of the analyst - to offer
some perspective, some insight, into the team's struggles.
That, as we know with this organization, would require some tough
criticism to be directed at the top of the organization. We haven't
heard much of that on Nationals telecasts, nor would I expect to,
frankly, on any team's telecasts.
What we have heard, though, is tough criticism on a much lower level -
toward the manager and coaches and particularly at former Nationals
pitching coach Randy St. Claire and the way he worked with the young
pitching staff. It has been uninformed criticism, if we want to be as
frank and honest as Dibble claims he is trying to be.
Dibble never spoke to St. Claire - who was fired June 2 - about anything
to do with pitching, according to the former Washington coach.
"He has never talked to me about anything about pitching," St. Claire
said in a telephone interview. "He has never asked what we do for prep
work. I've never talked to him about pitching."
In other words, Dibble never did what I did last week when I sat down
with him to talk about his work.
When I asked Dibble whether he ever spoke to St. Claire - who was Bobby
Cox's first choice in Atlanta to replace Leo Mazzone at the end of the
2005 season but couldn't make a deal with the Nationals - about the
pitching, he said yes and no. You figure out it:
"Why would I need to? ... That's not true because I had a discussion
with almost every pitcher If they were No. 1 in pitching, I don't think
I would need to have a conversation with him, either. But they weren't.
They were the worst pitching staff in baseball. I think this is a moot
point. Steve McCatty is the pitching coach now. They moved in a
different direction. He had been here seven years, and the fact that I
am even involved in this discussion is kind of ridiculous. ... Because I
have an opinion, people think that I am critical I am just stating the
obvious.
"I've gone to Mark Lerner, and I've asked him, 'Have I done anything to
offend the organization?' " he said. "From the top, they said no."
Well, as long as the owners of the team are not offended, then what's
the problem?
Dibble is not getting paid to be "stating the obvious." Anyone can do
that. The guy sitting on the bar stool next to you can do that. The
analyst should be stating what is not obvious.
For many team analysts the work to determine what is not obvious is
often done before the game, during batting practice, in casual
conversations on the field and around the batting cage. Jim Palmer is
all over the field and in both dugouts before an Orioles game he works,
talking pitching, picking up information. So was Don Sutton, the Hall of
Famer and former team broadcaster who was often seen on the field during
Nationals practice.
"Don Sutton would constantly talk about pitching with us," St. Claire
said. "Don Sutton once sat in on a meeting to see what we were talking
about. He was informed about what we were doing. Don would be out there
with us sometimes for the early work and see all the preparation we
would put in.
"[Dibble] has never been out there and seen what we do," St. Claire
said.
The problem is that Dibble has another job that requires his time while
the Nationals are taking batting practice and other pregame workouts and
meetings. He's a co-host and analyst on the XM radio program "The Show,"
which runs from 4 to 6 p.m. Dibble often will do the show from Nationals
Park, but he is high atop the ballpark in the seventh-floor press box.
Dibble said none of this is true - I think.
"I am down there a lot," he said. "In fact, if I wasn't talking to you,
I would be down there right now. That is not true, by the way. There are
not a lot of analysts that go down on the field and go in the clubhouse,
and I do it all the time. That is not true, and I know a lot of them,
and I know they don't go down on the field all the time."
If this large and tattooed man is on the field and in the clubhouse "all
the time," he should start offering disguise lessons at the Spy Museum.
None of this matters, however. As you might have heard somewhere, Dibble
used to be a major league pitcher. He made a name for himself as one of
the "Nasty Boys" in the bullpen for the 1990 World Series-champion
Cincinnati Reds, earning MVP honors of the National League Championship
Series that season. The two-time All Star will hit you over the head
with the resume fairly quickly.
This was the first blog entry he wrote for MASN shortly after being
hired: "For the many who may not know me, let me introduce myself. My
name is Rob Dibble, and I played 7 1/2 seasons in Major League Baseball,
mostly with the Cincinnati Reds, from June of 1988 to 1996. I was an
All-Star and NLCS co-MVP in 1990 while a member of The World Champion
Cincinnati Reds. As a team, we swept The AL Champion Oakland A's. As a
major league pitcher, I reached 500 K's faster than Hall of Famers Nolan
Ryan, Sandy Koufax and Bob Feller. While it took them over 500 innings
to reach that plateau, it took me only 368."
Also on his blog, he suggested the Nationals would win 92 games this
year.
"The Rays went from 66 wins to 97 in one year and won the AL East; so
why is it so hard to believe the Washington Nationals can't go from 59
wins to 92?" Dibble wrote on his MASN blog April 7. "That's how many
wins the 2008 World Champion Phillies had when they won the NL East last
season. If you still don't believe me, believe this: nearly 20 years ago
right around this time in April, I was on a team that was 400-1 odds in
Vegas to win the World Series. Anytime you want me to show you my WS
ring, let me know, I really won't mind..."
Do you think anyone in the Nationals organization thought they could win
92 games this year? Did you?
What kind of credibility can any analyst have after such a suggestion?
Credibility, shrediblity - so what? Rob Dibble isn't concerned about
such criticism
"It totally doesn't matter, as long as my employer, as long as MASN, the
Angeloses and [executive producer] Chris Glass are happy with what I am
doing," he said.
Think about that one the next time Dibble uses "we."
Fifty years ago, Wright paved way for Tiger by becoming the first black
to win a U.S. Golf Association championship
Bill Wright vividly remembers the feeling he had while he was flying to
Denver for the 1959 U.S. Amateur Public Links Championship with a group
of other golfers who were competing in the tournament at Wellshire Golf
Course.
"Here I am. I can't belong to any club, but I qualified for the
tournament," Wright said. "The players didn't really want to even go on
the same plane with me."
Wright couldn't belong to any club, because this was 1959 and he was
black.
The players didn't want to go on the same plane with him because he was
black, and in 1959 black players didn't compete with white players,
particularly in a major USGA tournament.
By the end of the tournament, a black player had won the U.S. Amateur
Public Links for the first time.
Tiger Woods will host the third annual AT&T National at Congressional
Country Club this week, 50 years after Bill Wright changed golf history
and opened the door for Woods and other minority golfers by becoming the
first black player to win a USGA championship.
It was a remarkable accomplishment, not just because of the racism
Wright faced to compete but also because he had managed to learn the
game as a young man growing up in Seattle.
"Nobody would help any black players then," Wright said. "All the pros
were white, and they wouldn't take you on. I got my techniques from my
dad [Bob Wright, who would compete in the 1963 Amateur Public Links],
who was a good player and worked hard to teach me the game."
Wright, 73, had been a basketball star in his youth, all-city and
all-state at Franklin High School in Seattle, and he went on to play at
Western Washington University. But golf became his love, and it was a
tough love for a black golfer. He tried to play in the Seattle city
amateur championship but wasn't allowed, "because I did not belong to
any golf club."
"We couldn't at the time," he said. "We had to form our own golf club.
When I got pretty good, my parents started fighting this."
They managed to get the exclusionary rule tossed out, and Wright began
competing in tournaments. He also got some lessons from a black golf
pioneer, Charlie Sifford.
"The only tournaments a black player could play in then were in St.
Paul, Portland, Vancouver and Seattle," Wright said. "When he would come
to Seattle, he would stay with us. He was an inspiration to me because I
saw how much he practiced. I saw what it would take to play this game."
Wright learned to play well enough to qualify for the U.S. Amateur
Public Links in 1959. "Nobody had really played well from the state of
Washington before in the tournament," Wright said.
Wright did. In six rounds of matches, Wright birdied the first, fourth,
fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth and ninth holes every time, using just 12
clubs - two woods, nine irons and a putter.
"I was hitting the ball well, and I was always a good putter," Wright
said. "My folks had owned a restaurant and pool hall, and when I was
very young, I was a very good pool player. Angles have always come easy
to me."
But even crowned a winner, Wright was reminded that in the eyes of the
golf world, he wasn't one of them.
"Everyone was friendly to me, but after I won, a waitress told me I had
a call in the locker room," he said. "It was a reporter from the Seattle
Post-Intelligencer asking me how did it feel to be the first Negro to
win a tournament. I hung the phone up. I didn't think that was what I
was trying to do there. I was just thinking I was a player winning the
tournament. That call was a blow. I was thinking, 'Is that what I am
here for?' I called him back later to talk to him, though."
Wright would go on to become the NAIA college golf champion in 1960. He
would go on to own auto dealerships in the Los Angeles area and later
compete in five U.S. Senior Opens. He currently teaches golf at The
Lakes at El Segundo in Los Angeles.
Last summer, while at The Lakes, he got an unexpected visit.
"Someone told me Freddie Couples [who grew up in Seattle] was looking
for me," Wright said. "He found me the next day and told me that he knew
who I was and that I was an icon to him. He had played at Jefferson Park
like I had and heard the stories about me. He said he saw my picture in
the clubhouse there, so he saw me every time he walked into the
clubhouse. He joked with me now that his picture was bigger."
Wright once played with a young Jack Nicklaus.
"I went on the national amateur tournament in 1959 [in Colorado Springs]
and got a chance to play to play with Nicklaus. Even in that tournament,
golfers didn't want to play with me. [Longtime amateur golf legend]
Chick Evans was in his 80s at the time, but he came up to me and said he
saw what was happening to me. He invited me to play with him and sit at
the head table for the banquet with him. We played with two others,
[future PGA commissioner] Deane Beman and a young Jack Nicklaus. He had
perfect concentration, and he wound up winning that tournament. That was
the first time people knew about him."
Wright also met Woods at the 100th anniversary celebration of the USGA.
"He was the national amateur champion then, and we had a picture taken
together at the banquet," Wright said. "I knew who he was, but I'm not
sure he knew who I was. He is Mr. Golf now, no doubt about it."
Sam Snead was Mr. Golf during his time and a golfer whom Wright admired.
"I liked his swing, and whenever he would play nearby, my mother would
drive me there to watch him," he said. "I followed him around like a
puppy dog whenever I could."
Years later, Wright wound up playing with Snead, who said to him, "Bill,
you remind me of a kid that used to follow me around in the Northwest."
"I said that was me," Wright said, "and he asked me, 'Why didn't you
ever come up to talk to me?' I pointed to my skin and said, 'It was a
different time and age, Sam.' "
PHILADELPHIA -
Hidden in a hilly corner of Merion Memorial Park, just outside the city
limits of Philadelphia, are the gravestones of Beatrice Tate (born
3/14/20, died 5/6/99) and Nellie J. Garrett (1929-2001).
The cemetery is filled with mothers, fathers, sons and daughters -
everyday people with names nobody knows except the family they left
behind.
Between Beatrice Tate and Nellie Garrett, though, is a name whose
mention will give pause to any boxing fan and bring a smile to any
Philly fight fan.
"Gypsy Joe Harris - 1945-1990."
Gypsy Joe was a welterweight contender who fought in Philadelphia in the
1960s with a unique style and a flamboyant talent for showing off. He
wore red shoes and a red satin, double-breasted robe with a black bow on
the back. His style landed him on the cover of Sports Illustrated in
1967.
Gypsy Joe fought with his hands down at his side and leaned back at
different angles, making him difficult to hit - but also helping him see
his opponent.
Gypsy Joe fought his entire career with one good eye. And he drank gin
and milk.
For 16 years, visitors who came to Merion Memorial Park and walked by
the graves of Tate and Garrett had no idea that one of Philadelphia's
legendary fighters also was buried there.
Gypsy Joe lay in an unmarked grave.
That wouldn't do for John DiSanto. So the South Jersey marketing and
financial consultant - and devoted Philly fight fan - contacted Gypsy
Joe's family and began to raise money for a headstone to mark the final
resting place of Gypsy Joe.
"I grew up a fan of boxing and would read old magazines and see old
photographs," said DiSanto, 47. "As I got older, I got more nostalgic
about Philly boxing. I've always been fascinated with the personalities
and histories of fighters. The more I read and learned about fighters,
the more I became emotionally attached and invested in them."
DiSanto had started a Web site, phillyboxinghistory.com. Out of research
for the site came the desire to mark the place in history of legendary
Philly fighters like Gypsy Joe - who died of a heart attack after a
history of drug and alcohol abuse - and others who for one reason or
another were buried in unmarked graves.
"I found a member of Gypsy Joe's family, a brother who lived in
Atlanta," DiSanto said. "Then I found a few sisters in South Jersey and
got the process going.
"These fighters could have been champions and used to walk around as
celebrities, but no one really remembers them now," DiSanto said. "The
families like the idea, and I think the fighters would have liked to be
remembered."
Gypsy Joe's headstone was the first placed by DiSanto under his
fundraising program, but it was not the first he put up for a Philly
fighter.
The year before, he placed a headstone for Tyrone Everett, the great
junior lightweight contender from the 1970s who was shot and killed at
24 by a jealous girlfriend. The year before, in a title bout, Everett
had lost a 15-round controversial decision to Alfredo Escalera for the
World Boxing Council super featherweight belt.
"The story goes he won about 11 or 12 rounds.. but somehow lost the
decision," DiSanto said. "Six months later he was dead. I found out how
big his funeral was. He was very popular, and the lines went around the
block for people who wanted to pay their respects. .. We found where he
was buried, and it was just a grass plot. I figured since he was so
popular, there would be a big headstone.
"His death was an emotional story, and I was struck by his story. I had
been doing the Web site for about a year, and I figured this would just
be an extension of what I was doing - honoring these guys with something
worth caring about."
DiSanto spoke to Everett's mother, who had four other boys, two of them
fighters. DiSanto said the inspiration for the headstone project took
root after that meeting.
"It started to take on a new feeling," he said. "It became much more
than I thought. I felt connected to the fighter - like I knew him."
DiSanto paid for a gravestone for Everett out of his own pocket. He then
committed to placing one headstone a year based on how much money he
could raise from fans and those in the game and on finding the fighters
in unmarked graves.
He next took care of one of the greatest amateurs to come out of
Philadelphia - Garnet "Sugar" Hart, a slick boxer from the 1950s who
fought Gil Turner at Connie Mack Stadium and Charley Scott at Convention
Hall in what was considered one of the greatest wars in Philadelphia
boxing history. Hart died in 2003 at 67 and was cremated. One month
later, Hart's mother, Iretta, passed away and was placed in the same
cemetery as Gypsy Joe - also in an unmarked grave.
DiSanto raised the money for a headstone for both Garnet Hart, whose
ashes were then buried at Merion Memorial Park, and his mother. A photo
of Iretta reading the Bible to a young Garnet Hart rests on the
headstone.
"The thing about “I didn't see coming was the connection I have made
with the families THE mawith the families," DiSanto said. "It's been
very rewarding. These people have become extended family to me."
Now DiSanto is trying to raise money for a headstone for the unmarked
grave of Eddie Cool, known as the "Tacony Flash," an Irish-Catholic kid
from the streets of northeast Philadelphia who became a lightweight
contender in the 1930s. Eddie Cool passed away at 35.
A name like Eddie Cool deserves a headstone.
We walked through Merion Memorial Park, past the gravestones of Gypsy
Joe and Sugar Hart, less than 12 hours after a record-setting crowd
filled Wachovia Center for UFC 101, the mixed martial arts promotion
that is now the sport of choice for young men.
Will any of them be as touched by the personality and legends of their
fighters as John DiSanto? Not likely. The soul that has made the boxing
ring the stage for so many great books and films isn't present in the
mixed martial arts octagon.
"I grit my teeth when I hear about UFC," DiSanto said. "I'm a
one-ring-sport man.
"I have a long list to get to," DiSanto said of the unmarked graves of
boxers still out there, hoping his list won't one day require a
headstone for the sport itself.
Steve Largent is a Hall of Fame receiver. He was Jim Zorn's teammate in
Seattle, and they remain close friends.
In 1982, Zorn and Largent crossed the line as the players' strike began
to fall apart - a decision, it was reported, based on religious
principle. Largent cited Matthew 5:36?37, saying "your word is your
bond" and "all contracts shall be honored as with God."
In 1989, Largent became the first Seattle player to win the Steve
Largent Award for "spirit, dedication and integrity."
In 1994, Largent was elected to Congress from a district in Oklahoma,
where he served for eight years.
In 2006, Largent was inducted into the World Sports Humanitarian Hall of
Fame.
And on Oct. 23, 2009, Vinny Cerrato, the Washington Redskins' executive
vice president of football operations, said Largent was, to put it
delicately, misrepresenting the truth.
I now will list Cerrato's credentials to establish his credibility.
He starred in the 1994 movie "Kindergarten Ninja," portraying police
Sgt. Antonelli.
The first 20 minutes of Cerrato's radio show, "Inside the Red Zone" on
ESPN 980, were must-listen radio Friday for the absurdity and
incredulity factors alone.
First, Cerrato declared Zorn would remain the coach of the Redskins "for
the rest of this season and hopefully into the future."
Really? Even if the Redskins' game against Philadelphia on Monday turns
into a national embarrassment of epic proportions?
Even if Zorn continues to make clear with carefully measured answers
that the presence of Sherm Lewis as play caller is something with which
he was forced to "comply"?
My, my. The capacity of this franchise to create entertaining drama
hasn't come close to its zenith. And as Cerrato said on the show, fans
want to be entertained.
"There's been a lot of false rumors, media speculation, unnamed sources
out there all the time," Cerrato said. "I hired Jim, along with Dan
Snyder. And obviously we're all very disappointed by the season
performance thus far. In fact, Dan constantly talks about how
disappointed he is for the fans. And we've got great fans."
You mean the fans shouting "sell the team, sell the team" at the owner's
box during the Redskins' 14-6 loss to Kansas City on Sunday? Or the ones
behind the bench cursing out the players in the final minutes?
But the most bizarre comments Cerrato made came during his attack on
Largent, who went on a Seattle radio station this week to defend Zorn.
Largent said Zorn, when faced with being stripped of his play calling
responsibilities after the loss to the Chiefs, considered quitting.
Cerrato had a different version of events at that meeting with Zorn. He
said it was just the two of them and that when he suggested a change in
play calling duties, Zorn said he would go home and think about it.
Several hours later, Cerrato said, Zorn called him and said, "I'm in."
No talk of a contract being presented to Zorn as an ultimatum. No talk
about trying to force the coach to resign.
Largent went on to ridicule Redskins management, and Cerrato struck back
on his show, ripping Largent but referring to him only as Zorn's
"friend" and never by name.
"Maybe his friend thought that he was protecting Jim because he thought
something was going to happen to his career," Cerrato said. "But I think
his friend forgets this - that we were a top five defense [when Zorn was
hired]. We had just been to the playoffs. Last year we had four Pro
Bowlers on offense. And in Jim's contract, he controls everything over
his staff.
"And the thing about it is, the other thing is that his friend doesn't
mention that Jim worked with all these coaches for a week prior to
becoming the head coach, and he said during the interview, 'Those are my
guys; I want those guys. Those are the guys I want; I don't want to go
hire anybody else.' "
The way the Redskins operate is hardly worth debating. You can't turn on
the television, read a newspaper or listen to the radio these days
without some former Redskins or NFL player criticizing the way the
franchise does business.
But what strikes me is the discrepancy between Largent's comments about
the contract being used to browbeat Zorn and Cerrato's version in which
he says the coach called him later that night and said he was "in."
Funny, the next day, when Zorn said he would "comply," I don't remember
anything remotely close to "I'm in." One of them - Largent or Cerrato -
is making something up or leaving something out.
It is possible for a devout Christian to do that. And it's possible for
a Steve Largent Award winner to do that. And it is possible for a
Humanitarian Hall of Famer to speak falsehoods. And we know it is
possible for a member of Congress to fudge the truth.
But how likely is it that a devout Christian, recipient of an award for
integrity, Humanitarian Hall of Famer and former member of Congress is
not telling the truth?
How likely is it that Vinny Cerrato isn't telling the whole story?
