Young Washington National, Bryce Harper, played in his first simulated game against real major leaguers yesterday afternoon and do you want to guess how he fared in his two at bats?  Well he struck out twice.  Disappointing?  Totally! Surprising?  Not in the least.

It just can’t be surprising if you’ve followed sports in this town for the last twenty years.  DC has been full of young athletes with promise that only serve to let us down over and over again.  We have had several high draft picks or young phenoms that have come into this town and failed, sometimes in spectacular fashion.  DC might actually be one of the worst cities in all of sports in terms of positively assisting in a young athlete’s growth.

Plus, he’s super young (big strike against him), he’s super confident (can he handle not having immediate success), and he’s super inexperienced (can he handle injuries, can he handle the life in the big city, can he handle his money). The odds really are stacked against this kid unless the stars align.

The stars rarely align in DC however. If history is our guide, Harper will be yet another huge disappointment. So let’s look at a brief history of the other highly touted disappointments DC has had, at least in recent memory:

Stephen Strasburg

Ok, so sure, its a little early to judge the whole career of this kid but c’mon, he blew out his arm in his first taste of the majors.  That is a huge disappointment.  Especially from a pitcher who can only be compared to the likes of Doc Gooden, who never took care of his body and in fact abused it to hell with drugs and partying but still managed to avoid Tommy John surgery his entire career.  This city named the day that Strasburg pitched “Strasmas!” for crying out loud. What a huge disappointment that in his FIRST YEAR he blew out his arm.

Sure he could recover from it and be as good or even better than what he was those first few starts he had for the Nationals.  On the other hand, he couldn’t.  Knowing DC superstar disappointment history…he probably won’t. As of right now, this whole city is disappointed that Livan Hernandez will be tossing out the first pitch on opening day instead of Strasburg.

Alexander Ovechkin

This guy was supposed to be a combination of Wayne Gretzky and Mario Lemieux with a dash of pre-concussion Eric Lindros in there.  A big guy, unafraid to mix it up, who was agile, fast and an unstoppable scorer.  He was supposed to be the best. For a little while, there might’ve been an argument that he was the best, this year however, he isn’t even close.

With 24 goals in 63 games, Sidney Crosby is STILL ahead of him even though he’s been out with a concussion for what seems like half the year.

This isn’t even the real problem with Ovechkin however.  All of this season stats could just be a massive, season-long slump. A blip on the career of an incredible player.  Its way too early to tell.  The real problem with Ovechkin is that he has never won anything, anywhere.

Great players are supposed to elevate the talent around them…or at least win a championship at some point.  That Ovechkin hasn’t been able to do that yet, despite teams full of massive talent and promise, is INCREDIBLY disappointing. Read the rest of this entry

After last year’s little bang-bang incident, Gilbert Arenas couldn’t get an endorsement contract from Smith and Wesson, much less a shoe company. So, at the start of the 2010-2011 NBA season, Gil found himself in the extreme minority of professional basketball players: he had no shoe deal.  Even the scrubbiest of scrubs get deals that at least nets them free shoes, if not gear, thousands of dollars, and much more.  Gil used to have this with Adidas.  In fact, the legendary shoe company actually created a line dedicated to Agent Zero himself.  After Gilbert decided to take his guns to town, it all went bye-bye.

Despite all of this, Gil was not to be perturbed.  A well-known sneaker-fiend from his days back at the University of Arizona, Arenas decided to forgo seeking a shoe contract for this season and instead dipped into his own personal collection of incredible kicks.  Each night, sneakerheads were mesmerized by rare Air Jordans and retro Nikes.  The coup de grâce: a pair of hi-top Dolce & Gabbana sneakers that retail for around $400 (but now on sale for $277!).  Suddenly, the much-maligned Gil was developing an underground following that dare I say it — started to admire him.

Well, so much for that:

What happens when you REFUSE to pay your pregnant babys moms her CHILD SUPPORT CHECK for nearly 3 months . . . if she’s a hood chick like Laura Govan . .. you get JACKED!!!

NBA superstar Gllbert Arenas found that out the HARD WAY!!! According to a VERY WELL PLACED insder, Laura was SICK and TIRED of Gilbert dodging her and not giving her any money, so she sprung into action.

Many of Gilbert’s possessions, including his sneaker collection, wardrobe, and his shark tank are now in Laura’s posession. According to our snitch, she’s “Going to sell his stuff, so that she can have diapers and formula for their [fourth child].”

While Gil hasn’t confirmed this report, feel free to hop on over to the DC Craigslist and try to confirm it.  I hear he wears a size 14.5.

h/t Nice Kicks

The dirt has barely settled on the grave of the infamous #0 jersey yet Boo-ray has raised its ugly head in an attempt to bring down another team. Well we are talking ’bout the Grizzle. They can’t get much lower. They get free passage from Charon when crossing the Mississippi and Cerberus guards the locker room door at the FedEx Forum.

A fight broke out between the Grizzlies’ OJ Mayo and Tony Allen during a team charter flight on Monday night. The dispute was over money owed from a game of Boo-ray. Yes, that would be the same game that caused the “drama” between Gilbert Arenas and Javaris Crittenton. That minor altercation destroyed the Wizards and earned Hibachi a season-long cooldown.

Mayo owed Allen money from a card game, “Boo-Ray” and sources said Mayo became increasingly belligerent and antagonistic toward Allen when asked to settle the debt. Sources said Allen walked away from Mayo to go the restroom and returned to find Mayo continuing to berate him. Eventually, Mayo inched close to Allen, and sources said Allen hit Mayo.

“Tony warned [Mayo] to watch his mouth, and [Mayo] wouldn’t do it and just kept going off on him,” a source with knowledge of the incident told Yahoo! Sports.

Teammates separated the two and the team considers the matter closed. Gilbert won’t be impressed unless Allen brings guns into the locker room so they can settle it like fools.

Note: I meant buck buck like a gun, not the Bill Cosby/Fat Albert game. Apologies if you were expecting the latter. If you were, I hope this makes up for it.

Buck buck muthafuckas! Guess who’s back after last night? Gilbert Arenas. This time without the guns. Too bad the same can’t be said for Ajax’s Rene Kofi Osei.

Osei is picking up where Hibachi left off. The Ghanaian midfielder, on loan at Dutch second division Almere City, had his contract terminated by Ajax after he pulled a gun on a teammate and threatened to kill him.

The 18-year-old midfielder, who is on loan at second tier Dutch club Almere City, put the gun to the head of Christian Ghandu and threatened to blow his head off in a furious tirade.

Terrified team-mates quietly intervened before the sweating Ghandu was set free from the imminent danger.

The two players had been involved in verbal exchanges after a training ground row which resulted in another bust-up at the club’s car park.

Osei Kofi returned from his car with a gun and pointed it to the head of his team-mate Ghandu.

Well Osei can soon expect meetings with Roger Goodell and David Stern followed by NFL and NBA suspensions of indeterminate lengths.

All isn’t lost for Osei. He’s young. There’s still time to save his career. Newcastle would be more than happy to sign him. They’re quickly becoming the Bengals of the Premier League. He would link up with Joey Barton and Andy Carroll rather well. I mean that in a criminal, not footballing way.

Before K-State survived, Syracuse was knocked out by Butler. 

Yeah, 75% of the country’s brackets were done last weekend, so we don’t care.  What I really care about is the deification of Gus Johnson.  What happened to this guy?  He’s not that good anymore.  A few years ago, he was solid.  Now, he’s just another screamer.  I found him almost unbearable last night. 

Meanwhile, Billy Raferty explained the origin of “onions.”

I, on the other hand, will never get tired of Billy Raferty.

Joe Mauer signed an 8-year $184M extension with the Minnesota Twins.

Couldn’t be happier for Twins fans; Mauer is a great player (even though his guaranteed $184M is roughly $32M more than what the team contributed to the funding of their new ballpark.  Thanks, Hennepin County!).  I just find it interesting that people are back-slapping the Twins for stepping up to the plate and taking such a big risk.  The recently- deceased owner was reportedly worth $3.6B.  Yeah, that’s a “B” for BILLION.  Excuse me if I’m not as obsequious.

Vicente Padilla, a true gentleman of the game.

Vicente Padilla will be the Opening Day starter for the Dodgers.

Apparently, Dean Wormer was wrong.  Fat, drunk and Plaxico is a great way to go through life.

Gilbert Arenas will be sentenced today.  

I wouldn’t be surprised if Flip Saunders hopes for the chair.

Tim Tebow was cursed at when he suggested a prayer before the Wonderlic test.

Tebow is denying the story and if I were him, I’d deny it too.  The dude scored a 22 out of 50.  Just to give that score some context, 24 is the average for NFL QBs.  Even this guy beat him.  Clearly, Jesus was busy that day.   

Phil Hughes will start the season as the Yankees’ 5^th starter.

Color me shocked.  If you followed the Yankees in spring training even somewhat closely, it was pretty easy to see this wasn’t really a competition.  And since most teams don’t need a 5^th starter until May, once again, I must ask: who cares? 

Tiger Woods will hold a press conference the Monday before the Masters.

Wrestlemania XXVI is this weekend.

Now, there are two unrelated places that could both use Gus Johnson.

This week was kind of a downer, yes, I know.  Treat yourself to Keith Law’s Top 200 Rock Songs of the 1990’s.  In addition to his encyclopedic knowledge of music, I’m fairly certain he’s one of the few people in the world who could make the Kansas City Royals a playoff team.  That’s a rare combination of talent.   Have a great weekend, enjoy the games.