D.C. Sports Bog: June 22, 2008 - June 28, 2008
Fans Sure Seemed to Love The Wiz Draft
He's no bag of cash. (Dave Weaver/AP photo of Bill Walker from a 2008 tourney practice session.) I guess there were two ways to look at the Wizards' draft performance last night. Here's what the highly paid columnist and TV talking head thought: "The Wizards didn't take a beanpole,...
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Dan Steinberg
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June 27, 2008; 10:22 AM ET |
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Morning Look: Ovechkin Day, the Video
If you've always wanted to watch Caps fans praise Alex Ovechkin over the instrumental soundtrack from a pop-infused "Stay Off Drugs"-style 1993-vintage soundtrack, this NHL.com video is your chance. "It's always good when people love you and have fun with you," Ovechkin says in the site's recently released moving-pictured...
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Dan Steinberg
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June 27, 2008; 8:20 AM ET |
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Caps
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JaVale McGee: Quick Facts
JaVale McGee is able to dunk a basketball. (Brad Horn/AP photo from the 2008 CBI.) A few quick words about Nevada's JaVale McGee a 6-11 or 7-foot forward/center whom the Wiz just took at No. 18 in the first round. * His mom, Pam McGee, played two years in...
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Dan Steinberg
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June 26, 2008; 9:39 PM ET |
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Wizards
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"I Was David Beckham's Teammate"
Becks, always replacing Quavas Kirk. (By Toni L. Sandys - TWP) Here was Quavas Kirk's introduction to BeckhamMania. At the start of last season, Kirk--then an L.A. forward, now a reserve with D.C. United--had claimed a nice central locker, facing the middle of the dressing room, like everyone else....
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Dan Steinberg
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June 26, 2008; 5:43 PM ET |
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D.C. United
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Junkies Earn Gimelstob a One-Match Suspension
(2003 AP Photo) In addition to toying with schlubby panting sportswriters on the tennis court, Justin Gimelstob's Washington Kastles-related D.C. media tour last week included a stop in with the Junkies. With the Junkies enthusiastically egging him along, Gimelstob repeatedly let it be known that he wasn't the biggest...
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Dan Steinberg
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June 26, 2008; 4:39 PM ET |
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Tennis
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Dmitri Young Used to be Svelte
Either way, the man was a professional hitter. But it's hard to recognize that Dmitri as our Dmitri. Note especially his stunning foot speed in the final seconds of this clip....
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Dan Steinberg
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June 26, 2008; 3:01 PM ET |
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Nats
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Doc Walker Tells Vinny How to Run His House
Knows that Shawn Springs is not dead. (2002 TWP photo by Tracy Woodward.) At least one member of the Redskins defense was irritated with Shawn Springs's OTA absence last month, with Phillip Daniels saying this to reporters: "If there's no reason [for his absence] and I'm here, then be...
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Dan Steinberg
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June 26, 2008; 2:24 PM ET |
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Redskins
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D.C. Approval Rating: Ernie Grunfeld
(2006 photo by Jonathan Newton) Taking a one-day breather from sports media approval ratings, we will instead cast our votes in the direction of a D.C. sports non-media figure. Today's entry, in honor of the pending draft, is Ernie Grunfeld. This will be Grunfeld's fifth draft with the Wizards;...
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Dan Steinberg
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June 26, 2008; 12:27 PM ET |
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Wizards
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Best High School Player You've Seen
Dwight Howard, the first time I saw him play, at a prep tourney in New Jersey. (2004 TWP photo by Michael Mancuso) Two of the first athletes I covered in the pages of the Washington Post were named Daryl Thompson and Manny Burriss. Thompson was a skinny, hard-throwing right-handed...
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Dan Steinberg
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June 26, 2008; 11:22 AM ET |
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Nats
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Morning Look: Wiz Draft History
Tonight, the Wizards will have a chance to add to their draft history, and a glorious history it is. The Wiz currently have four players on their roster whom they drafted themselves: Andray Blatche, Oleksiy Pecherov, Nick Young and Dominic McGuire, roughly speaking, the 8th, 9th, 10th and 11th...
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Dan Steinberg
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June 26, 2008; 10:20 AM ET |
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Nats Feature Oil Protesters, Dated Cover Bands, Massage Therapists
Dr. Fu, playing tribute to Bill Bray and Billy Traber. Nats highlights from across the Internats, starting with * Thom Loverro's masterful weekend column, in which he attempted to solve the case of the missing children's promotional jerseys. Never made it through Customs, apparently Even more fascinating, though, was...
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Dan Steinberg
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June 25, 2008; 5:07 PM ET |
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Nats
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The Nats' Version of 9-20
Glory days of badness: Rex Chapman, P.J. Brown. (1995 AP Photo) This is about the Nats. Promise. But first, during one glorious stretch during the late-80s and early-90s, the Bullets/Wizards began their season 9-20 four times in seven years. Like the proto-blogger that he was, Tony Kornheiser then dumped...
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Dan Steinberg
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June 25, 2008; 3:44 PM ET |
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Nats
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Ovechkin Hangs With a BeeGee
Yeah, that's Robin Gibb and Alex Ovechkin, sharing a stage. Sadly, four semesters of collegiate Russian leave me unable to decipher this clip from a Russian music awards show, featuring Alex Ovechkin, Ilya Kovalchuk and some other Russian dude presenting some sort of award to the Robin Gibb, which...
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Dan Steinberg
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June 25, 2008; 1:27 PM ET |
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Caps
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D.C. Sports Media Approval Ratings: Johnny Holliday
(2002 photo by Jonathan Newton - TWP) This week's naming of a new play-by-play voice at Virginia turned my mind toward the college folks, and where better to start than Johnny Holliday, a man who's been in the D.C. media market for nearly four decades, longer than some previous...
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Dan Steinberg
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June 25, 2008; 12:20 PM ET |
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Media
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The "Still Not Using Injuries as an Excuse" Quiz
And so it begins. (By Jonathan Newton) Injuries cause misery and mess with big plans, but they also offer a choice. Teams can collapse, or compensate. So wrote my colleague Chico Harlan during some recent injury-ravaged Nats game. The ravages ravaged more this week, claiming Nick Johnson for the...
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Dan Steinberg
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June 25, 2008; 10:58 AM ET |
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Caps
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D.C. United
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Nats
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Redskins
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Wizards
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More Morning Look: Torrence on Today
See. Told you. And yes, I can finally say that the Redskins forced me to watch "Today." At least I learned a lot about fireworks safety and the Naked Cowboy....
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Dan Steinberg
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June 25, 2008; 10:14 AM ET |
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Morning Look
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Morning Look: Four Portis Costumes!
Having already courted the country music crowd, Clinton Portis's offseason push for heartland fan allegiance took its next natural step this week, when he went on the NFL Network to debut four new characters. If you watch the accompanying video, some of the youthful zest will likely be drained...
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Dan Steinberg
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June 24, 2008; 11:31 PM ET |
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Morning Look
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Redskins
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Leigh Torrence Does the "Today" Show
The happy couple. (MSNBC photo) Redskins cornerback Leigh Torrence didn't watch every segment of the Today Show's Race to the Altar. He didn't follow the five finalist couples as they endured "a series of fun, competitive challenges for the chance to tie the knot on America's No. 1 morning...
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Dan Steinberg
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June 24, 2008; 5:13 PM ET |
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Redskins
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El Muneco's Likeness
Maybe you've seen this Screaming Eagles sign paying homage to Marcelo Gallardo, aka El Muneco, which is variously translated as "The Doll," "The Puppet," or "any doll bearing the likeness of a young boy." I showed this photo to several of Gallardo's teammates on Sunday. "That's not very flattering,...
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Dan Steinberg
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June 24, 2008; 1:58 PM ET |
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D.C. United
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Scenes from a Winning DCU Locker Room
Sergio Guzman, supporting Gonzalo. 1) Sometimes you walk into a professional sports locker room and think, "Gee, that's something I've never seen before. Wow. Gee." This week's example: Watching United left back Gonzalo Martinez conduct his post-game interviews while above his shoulder, a candle burned next to a little...
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Dan Steinberg
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June 24, 2008; 12:26 PM ET |
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D.C. United
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D.C. Sports Media Approval Ratings: Dave Johnson
If there's a D.C. sports media personality who wears more hats than Dave Johnson--and not of the ironic Fedora-like variety--I'd be interested to meet him or her. Johnson's roles, near as I can tell, currently include radio play-by-play voice of the Wizards, television play-by-play voice of United, sports director...
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Dan Steinberg
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June 24, 2008; 11:25 AM ET |
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Media
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Dave Mustaine and Mike Wise: BFF
I guess all this happened during the end of the Wizards-Cavs series, so I kind of missed it, but it's too irresistible never to get its own Bog headline: Mike Wise and Dave Mustaine, careers now joined for all time by one first-round column. Wise--famously bereft of a Wikipedia...
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Dan Steinberg
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June 24, 2008; 10:01 AM ET |
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Caps
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Morning Look: Shoeless Saul
Presenting our third in a series of "Nationals players lying prone following an unsuccessful defensive play." Part I and Part II still available for your viewing pleasure. The complete collection should be ready sometime in September. This photo, by The Post's Toni Sandys, features Saul Rivera, whose leather-losing collision...
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Dan Steinberg
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June 24, 2008; 9:10 AM ET |
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Nats
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Best of Bengt
This was something of a theme. With the news that the Caps drafted the child of Bengt, this seemed a good time to comb through the Post archives for the Best of Bengt Gustafsson, from the eve of the 1980s till the eve of the 1990s. What did I...
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Dan Steinberg
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June 23, 2008; 5:19 PM ET |
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Caps
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DCU Gets Support From Dark Cyde
The Barra Brava and Screaming Eagles monopolize Washington's "Look! Soccer crazies!" media attention, and rightfully so. But if you're always staring at their bouncing side of the par,k you might miss some of the team's other vibrant supporters groups. Like, say the Dark Cyde. That three-year-old group's membership is...
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Dan Steinberg
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June 23, 2008; 2:38 PM ET |
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D.C. United
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GW's New George Washington Mascot
New Little George. (Photo ripped from The Hatchet's Ryder Haske) As if the new, fiercer Jack the Bulldog mascot at Georgetown wasn't spice enough for our local cadre of furry friends, comes now a new and more intimidating "Little George" costume, depicting the father of our country as a...
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Dan Steinberg
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June 23, 2008; 2:16 PM ET |
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College Basketball
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D.C. Sports Media Approval Ratings: George Michael
(NBC Universal image) The true George Michael Era in D.C. likely pre-dated my arrival by a few years, so I'll turn to some experts, as previously quoted in The Post here and here. Norman Chad: "He's the only guy in town who can show you five minutes of tape...
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Dan Steinberg
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June 23, 2008; 12:38 PM ET |
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Media
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George Carlin on the Redskins
(AP Photo). The George Carlin sports clip du jour this morning seems to be on Baseball and Football, included below, but I'd argue his "Running is Not a Sport" bit (warning: this clip has several words you still cannot say on TV) is funnier. King Kaufman has a summary...
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Dan Steinberg
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June 23, 2008; 11:29 AM ET |
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DCU: Got Emilio?
The Screaming Eagles contribute to Emiliomania. A few Luciano Emilio notes from the closing moments of yesterday's 3-1 win at RFK Stadium. First off, his goal celebration. Silly me, I've always thought he was pointing at someone in the crowd when he raises both arms toward the top of...
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Dan Steinberg
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June 23, 2008; 10:44 AM ET |
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D.C. United
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Colin Cowherd Outsmarts the Founding Fathers
Bearing in mind that virtually any Colin Cowherd monologue could be offered up in this space for black humor purposes, I present a brief portion of the radio deity's program that I accidentally happened upon Friday morning. He was, I believe, discussing the Olympics, although, as you can see,...
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Dan Steinberg
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June 23, 2008; 9:55 AM ET |
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Morning Look: Dmitri With Head of Steam
Tough times for Nats fans, no? But I reckon it's impossible to look at this photo and not cheer for Dmitri Young. The tuft of soul patch quivering like a North Carolina palm tree in hurricane season, both feet hovering lightly off the ground like hummingbirds at dusk, the...
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Dan Steinberg
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June 23, 2008; 8:24 AM ET |
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Nats
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