W00t to the Twinkies! At least 1 more game in the Metrodome. It was so cool to see the fans bust out the homer hankies.

Although when I did flip over to see the winning run score (12th), it was the exact same time the Flyers scored the winning goal in OT over the Caps :(

Geez, I wonder how DT felt when he found out (a) he wasn't getting fired and (b) the team beat the BlowJs 3 in a row to close out the season.

I know a lot of people wanted Trembley gone, but I'm not opposed to letting him give it another try. There were improvements individually for a number of the young guys...maybe all he needs is for them to get their stuff together as a team.

Now the waiting begins to see if the same coaching staff is kept otherwise.

Final Bryce Harper Sweepstakes Standings

Gnats 59 - 103 .364 ---
Pirates 62 - 99 .385 3.5
Orioles 64 - 98 .395 5.0 (why oh why couldn't we have won 1 more game and gotten to .400?)
Indians 65 - 97 .401 6.0
Royals 65 - 97 .401 6.0

Based on MacPhail's explanation that DT successfully met expectations of developing the young'uns (Wieters, Matusz, Tillman, etc.), I think that's the right approach. Plus given what he had to work with (injuries, Sherril/Huff Daddy being traded). I am a little bit concerned about Markickass' production slowing down and BRob having a career low in SB.

Next season, the bar will be raised for DT.

In the days to come we'll see if Riggleman gets another chance in DC.

Most teams change their signs when there is a runner on 2B, so I doubt Mauer was stealing signs. Not my wholesome Joey M :)

And I <3'd that bleepin' awesome powermat commercial that was on during the hockey game LoL

www.powermat.com/us/home/#
(2 versions: one office, one dorm)

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Edited 10/7/2009 1:18 pm ET by lynnrd

Mrs. Ovechkina lays down the law!!!

"How can [Commissioner Gary] Bettman not let them play?" fumed Alex Ovechkin's mother, Tatyana, in a recent conversation. "Doesn't he understand what Olympics are? Let him read books! Let him study history! They stopped wars in ancient Greece for the Olympics. Wars! And he can't stop his league for 2 weeks? This is nonsense!"

Tatyana, a 2-time Olympic gold medalist in basketball, knows what she is talking about when she expresses the importance the Games have for Russian athletes. What she may not know is that Bettman is not the only decision-maker.

It's possible that Capitals Owner Ted Leonsis could give Ovechkin permission to go back to Russia for the Olympics, but he could also suspend the star winger should he leave without clearing it with the team.

Mike Knuble suffered a pretty bad cut on his left ankle last night when he was struck by a puck. He finished the game and was on the ice @ Kettler today, but had to get stitches. In the locker room after practice, his sock was stained with blood, a la Curt Schilling. When I mentioned this to him, Knuble, a big sports fan, shot back: "Yeah, but my sock is not going in the Hall of Fame."

htt p://blog.redskins.com/2009/10/04/alex-ovechkin-was-available-for-field-goals/#continued

Ovie kicks FGs ... left-footed!

www.nationalsenquirer.com/2009/10/time-to-bury-the-2009-nationals-and-move-on.html

Here lies the 2009 Washington Natinals. When they pitched, they couldn't hit. When they hit, they couldn't pitch. Sometimes when they pitched and hit, they couldn't field. When they had a lead, the bullpen almost always blew it. But just when you thought they were about to quit: they didn't.

Oh yeah, and they signed Strasburg.

Andy Cohen said on last week's "Watch What Happens" that RHoAtl was taping its reunion show this week, but I'm guessing that's been rescheduled due to this shocking tragic news ...

Suspect Held in 'Housewives' Slaying
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
ATLANTA (AP) -- A strip club worker is being held without bond in the death of a "Real Housewives of Atlanta" cast member's ex-fiance.
Ashley "A.J." Jewell, 34, died at a hospital after a scuffle with Frederick Richardson outside the Atlanta strip club Body Tap Friday night. Until late August, he was engaged to newest cast member Kandi Burruss. He appeared in several episodes of Bravo's hit reality show, which follows metro Atlanta socialites.

Magistrate Sylvia McCoy has ordered Richardson held on a voluntary manslaughter charge in Jewell's death. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports that Richardson's attorney, Dennis Scheib, tried to persuade McCoy to dismiss the charges because no cause of death has been determined.

www.ajc.com/news/atlanta/defense-attorney-a-j-155837.html
www.ajc.com/news/atlanta/respect-may-have-been-155280.html

ESPN Mag's nekkid issue hits mailboxes today and newsstands tomorrow ...
htt p://insider.espn.go.co...ider/magazine/body/issue

America's Smartest Cities, from First to Worst
www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-10-04/americas-smartest-cities---from-first-to-worst/?cid=bs:archive9#gallery=787;page=1

1. Raleigh/Durham
2. San Francisco/Oakland/San Jose
3. Boston
4. Minneapolis/St. Paul
5. Denver
6. Hartford/New Haven
7(t). Seattle/Tacoma

7(t). Washington: With an egghead-in-chief occupying the biggest house in town, the nation’s capital seems to be enjoying an intellectual renaissance. The Washington, D.C. area scored extremely high in the educational categories — bachelor’s and postgraduate degrees per capita — helping to reinforce its reputation as a destination for smart young college grads. Then again, the area’s relatively low voter-participation score doesn’t say much for what government workers think of their employers.

9. Portland, OR
10. Baltimore: Fans of "The Wire" may be surprised to find Baltimore, Maryland — aka Bodymore, Murdaland — so high up on this list. “We are very blessed to have wonderful schools [and] universities,” says Sheila Dixon, Baltimore’s first female mayor, “but ultimately it is the engaged, educated, and active citizenry in the City of Baltimore that deserves the recognition.”

11. Philadelphia: Oscar Wilde once called Philadelphia, “dreadfully provincial.” Not anymore. From education to civic participation to reading habits, Philly, home to the University of Pennsylvania [and other universities], scored well across the board.

12. Austin
13. NYC
14. Salt Lake City
15. Milwaukee
16. Charlotte
17(t). Kansas City
17(t). Columbus
19. Nashville
20(t). San Diego
20(t). Indianapolis

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Edited 10/8/2009 9:01 am ET by lynnrd

22. Providence
23. Atlanta
24(t). St. Louis
24(t). Chicago

26. Rochester, NY
27(t). Pittsburgh
27(t). Richmond
27(t). LA
30. Grand Rapids/Kalamazoo/Battle Creek

31(t). Cleveland
31(t). West Palm Beach
33. Tampa/St. Petersburg
34. Tucson
35(t). Oklahoma City
35(t). Sacramento

37(t). Greensboro
37(t). Jacksonville
39. Miami
40. Detroit

41. Norfolk
42. Birmingham
43. Cincinnati
44. Buffalo
45. New Orleans

46(t). Houston
46(t). Orlando
48. Dallas/Fort Worth
49. Phoenix
50. Harrisburg: The capital of Pennsylvania, encompassing nearby York, Lancaster, and Lebanon ranks near the absolute bottom in new nonfiction book sales. Whom to blame? The Amish. Sort of. “I think its origins are in the Amish and Mennonite culture, but there is a longstanding culture of thriftiness and re-use,” says Eric Papenfuse, owner and operator of the Midtown Scholar, Harrisburg’s largest independent bookstore. “There’s a very large used-book trade. There’s also an incredibly strong library system in central Pennsylvania. Each town around here has its own library.” There was a huge disparity in local opportunity (top 5% for universities per capita) and the education of the local population (bottom 10%).

51. Memphis
52. Louisville
53. San Antonio
54. Las Vegas
55. Fresno

Which metropolis has the most intelligent residents? The Daily Beast crunched the data on the brainpower of America’s 55 largest cities, from first-to-worst. How did your hometown rank?

Collective brainpower. More than sports prowess or political leanings or wealth or cultural accomplishments, this is the quintessential bragging point of a metropolitan area, the civic version of a playground taunt: I’m smart, you’re not.

So in terms of sorting out which cities walk the walk, The Daily Beast decided to play scorekeeper. Specifically, we’ve gone out and ranked the relative intelligence of every major American population hub, from first-to-worst.

First, some rules of the game. We only ranked metropolitan areas (the cities and their suburbs) of 1 million people or more, using Census data, with the definition of each greater metropolitan area defined by Nielsen. That gave us 55 in all. All data was then organized on a per-capita basis, so that a resident of Norfolk, Virginia, and New York, New York, had equal weight. We’re looking for the brainiest cities, not the biggest.

Then we divided the criteria into two halves: Half for education, and half for intellectual environment. The education half encompassed how many residents had bachelor’s degrees (35% weighting) and graduate degrees (15%). No credit was given for “some college,” or “some grad school” — we rewarded those who finished the race. The intellectual environmental half had three subparts. First, we looked at nonfiction book sales (25%), as tracked by Nielsen BookScan, the nation’s leading provider of accurate point-of-sale data, which tracks roughly 300,000 titles each week. We focused on nonfiction as an imperfect proxy for intellectual vigor, because overall sales are dominated by fiction works that, while entertaining, aren’t always particularly thought-provoking. We also measured the ratio of institutions of higher education (15%), as defined by the federal government — different than just measuring college degrees, this acknowledges that universities don’t just churn out diplomas, but instead drive the intellectual vigor of cities. Finally, many studies link intelligence and political engagement, so we weighed this, too, as measured by the percentage of eligible voters who cast ballots in the last presidential election (10%). (Our relatively small weighting acknowledges that numerous other local factors can affect turnout.)

Once we had all these comparable, per-capita figures, we ranked the cities in each category, assigning 10 points to those near the very top, and 0 to the bottom, with scores allocated between in a broad bell curve. We then added the totals, and multiplied by 2, which made for a perfect score of 200, a wash-out score of 0, and an average score right at 100—close to the exact parameters of a classic IQ test.

Russert's Office Replicated At Newseum
Longtime "Meet The Press" moderator Tim Russert's office, complete with Buffalo Bills pennants and a journalist's clutter, will go on display next month at DC's Newseum. The office will be reassembled to look as it did June 13, 2008, the day Russert died of a heart attack at age 58 while recording voiceovers for his next show at NBC's Washington bureau. The exhibit opens November 20 and will remain through 2010.

The Caps are following the wrong football team :)

Ravens Beat Redskins In TV Ratings
At washingtonexaminer.com, Jim Williams tells us that last Sunday's Ravens TV game (@ Patriots) did great, with a 59 share, while the Redskins (vs. winless) did pretty good, with a 46 share.

Considering the games were on head-to-head, that should tell you something!

"Real Housewives Of DC" Announced
Despite the flood of rumors, Bravo today officially announced that "The Real Housewives Of DC" is set to premiere in 2010. Duh! Still no word yet on who will be among the cast. But we're told that it probably should be called "The Real Housewives Of McLean."

Rush Eyes Rams
Rush Limbaugh has talked in the past about being interested in buying the St. Louis Rams if they ever came on the market, and now he's reportedly in one of three groups vying for ownership. More from profootballtalk.nbcsports.com. Titanic righty talker Limbaugh is heard locally on WMAL, WCBM, and WFMD