Morning Bog: Tony Plush's Broken Hand

When Nyjer Morgan was at the ESPN Zone last week, he was asked at least twice about his penchant for the head first slide. Emcee Charlie Slowes asked him if he wouldn't please consider the feet first variety.

"Nah, not happening," Tony Plush said. "Headfirst, I just feel like you get dirty a lot quicker," he joked.

The one allowance he made was that he would slide feetfirst into home. Why?

"I busted up my hand a couple times sliding in headfirst at home plate," he explained, "so I learned my lesson."

Well, more lessons learned on Thursday in Wrigley, as the team's most bloggable player by a factor of 17 busted his hand up again. And I still had so many questions. Well, next year in Florida. And as Nats Enquirer noted, without Morgan, the team's playoff hopes take a serious hit.

On to some more morning links, with help from Jake DiGregorio.

* Chad Cordero remembers the summer of '05, when he "felt like I could pitch every day, forever." (Seattle Times)

* Friday night, John Smoltz vs. John Lannan, possibly the most famous pitching matchup in MASN history, yet again. "Yes he did, John." (Miss Chatter)

* It looks like the Nationals are even to blame for the apparent ineptitude of Gene Taylor, proud Representative for Mississippi's 4th Congressional District. (Fire Gene Taylor)

* Are the Nationals playing good baseball or lucky baseball? (Nats 320)

* Who says that Chicago fans aren't well versed in proper English? They even write Haiku's about their baseball teams. (Chicago Now)

* The Skins' message board replicates my Most Popular Athlete poll, with extremely similar results. That oughta lock things up for Ovie. Also, my poll had more than 5,000 votes, and the Ovie percentage remained pretty constant, just above 50 percent. (Extreme Skins)

* Though Google trends would indicate the most interest in Cooley. (Google)

* In less prestigious ranking news, Ovechkin is ranked the NHL's 10th-best interview. On days when he cares, he might be even higher. (The Sporting News via JP.)

* Ted Leonsis, Ted Kennedy, the Caps and a beauty queen. (Ted's Take)

* Thanks to housecleaning at The Post, I'm now the owner of about 50 old-time Wiz, Caps and Skins media guides, including this awesome one.

* Celebrating Awvee Storey's pro contract in New Zealand. (Wizznutzz)

* A fascinating interview with Football Outsiders's Doug Farrar, in which he traces the entire decline of the '08 Redskins offense to Chris Samuels's health. (Homer McFanboy)

* Jim Zorn tells a story about hydroplaning 65 miles an hour backwards on the freeway. (Skins Blog)

* A special teams tale in which Brian Mitchell gets knocked the heck out. (National Football Post)

* Vinny Cerrato interviewed possible future coaching candidate Jon Gruden on his radio show. (Redskins 360)

* Check out the trailer for Chris Cooley's horror movie. (Cooley Zone)

* Buy your Orakpophobia t-shirts. (Hogs Haven)

* Seattle fans make fun of D.C. United and its marketing efforts and attendance yet again. (GoSounders.com)

* And David Gregory throws his support behind United. He's better on camera than Zimmerman. (DCU.com)

By Dan Steinberg | August 28, 2009; 9:34 AM ET
Categories: Caps , D.C. United , Media , Nats , Redskins , What You Need to Know , Wizards Share This: E-Mail | Technorati | Del.icio.us | Digg | Stumble Previous: Who's D.C.'s Most Popular Athlete?
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Comments

The plural of "haiku" may or may not have an "s", but either way I'm pretty sure it has no apostrophe.

Posted by: Cosmo06 | August 28, 2009 10:58 AM | Report abuse

Steinberg, of course Cooley rates higher than Ovie on Google right now. The NFL is ramping up and the NHL is in its deadest period of the year. Redo a search like that in April or May and I bet you Ovie is ahead of Cooley.

Posted by: freakinandpeakin | August 28, 2009 12:59 PM | Report abuse

the Google trends are a little skewed. Cooley has an enormous outlier in September of last year, right around the time he exposed "the playbook". It looks like Cooley got more searches in a 3 day span than any DC athlete the entire year. But if you look at 2009, he is still just a little ahead of Ovie.

Posted by: frmullet | August 28, 2009 4:23 PM | Report abuse

Seattle is a joke. How can they put down marketing to gain fans and attendance when that is exactly what most of their attendance is a direct result of? "Soccer City, USA" barely supported the Gold Cup match hosted there.

Posted by: sitruc | August 29, 2009 12:48 AM | Report abuse