Thursday, July 2, 2009

All-SCUM Team 2 - Al Lerner

Sure, this could go as a dual player card with Ted Lerner and Peter Angelos, or a group card denoting the "Lerner Family," but I'm just going to pinpoint the thumbs-up a-hole that is nickel and diming the Nationals to insignificance. The worst thing is that the Nationals (or Nubbinals, as christened by local radio legends "the Junkies") are fielding a team composed of Austin Kearns, Christian Guzman, and a horrible pitching staff (off-season signee Adam Dunn was the rare good move) are still making.
According to Thomas Boswell, writer for the Washington Post, the Nationals make money with a terrible team, a low payroll, and terrible average attendance numbers by marketing to the neighboring teams' fans. That's right, the Nationals market to Phillies, Mets, Yankees, and Red Sox fans to come to games. While there, the Nationals concessions stands actually sell the opposing fans jersey and memorabilia. They transformed Nationals Park into a pseudo Fenway Park South during the recent three game series in D.C.. That's shameful. They collect money from the opposing team, as well as through media contracts and revenue sharing, and was ranked the second most profitable team in the MLB last year. That's sick. Add this to the Nationals failure to sign their last two first round picks (I'll go ahead and predict that they'll failed to get Strausburg to sign), a failure to attract in-their-prime free agents, a population of potential fans who are completely jaded, and the Lerners bungling of the Jose Rijo/Jim Bowden fiasco, and you've got the worst ownership in baseball...Al Davis-style.

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