The Winter Meetings are here!

And they mean so much to us baseball fans right now that I'm capitalizing them! In fact, let's just rename them, shall we? The Goddamn Awesomest, Drinkinest,  Wheelinest, and Dealinest Winter Meetings are here!

Mr. Michael Rizzo and Mr. Mark Lerner are sitting in their booth, ready to wine and dine potential clients. Look, here's a picture of them! (Let me know if I did this right.)

"Can we interest you in some cool pens? Take as many as you want!"

If you didn't get the reference, then I'm sorry, but you're missing teh awesomest part of the internet. And I just feel sorry for you. (Or is it me that I feel sorry for? Yes. It's me. Curse you, Reddit! /Sobs quietly while eating Cheetos and browsing r/pics.)

Jim Riggleman given the full-time manager job.

Yes, folks, Jimmie Riggs just had the interim tag pulled off his title. Your manager of the Washington Nationals for 2010 and... well... beyond is the local boy made good that took over last year for Tony Robbins Manny Acta part way through the season. I found out last night and gave GM Mike Rizzo a call to ask a few questions. The following is a transcript of the conversation*.

Me: Mike, thanks for taking a few minutes of your time, I appreciate it.

Rizzo: No problem. Happy to do it. I'm actually at dinner, though, so we need to make it brief.

Me: Will do. Actually, I guess I'll combine two questions into one to get this done twice as fast. First, what did you order, and second, why Jim Riggleman over the other candidates?

Rizzo: Well, I was wanting something top shelf, really tasty and good, but with the situation being what it is I settled for something from the rail. You know, house stuff.

Me: Can you expand on that?

Rizzo: Sure, sure. I really wanted a scrumptious 12 oz filet with a delicious Caymus Special Selection Cabernet Sauvignon . Then, I figured that with me having a cold and no taste or smell, it wouldn't make any sense right now. So I went with the hamburger and a bottle of Ernest and Julio Gallo.

Me: I see, and what about the answer to second question, the hiring of Jim Riggleman?

Rizzo: Uh, I was talking about Jim.

Me: Of course you were. Right. Sorry. So what did you end up ordering to eat, then?

Rizzo: I just had a mixed greens salad with chicken.

Me: Sounds delicious. Any concern about Riggleman and him handling such a young pitching staff? Strasburg and Zimmermann in particular?

Rizzo: No, not at all, why would you ask?

Me: Well, according to Keith Law, when Riggleman was managing the Cubs in 1998, he had then 21 year old Kerry Wood exceed 120 pitches in eight out of his 26 starts. Also, in start number 25, Riggleman had Wood throw 133 pitches.

Rizzo: ....

Me: You there, Mike?

Rizzo: /Muffled yelling
"Outta my way, tubby, I need to undo a horrible wrong!"

"But, sir... you haven't paid your bill!"

"Fuck your bill, pal, he's gonna break my poor Strasburg in half!"
/CLICK


*Real/dream, who knows? I confuse reality with make-believe often.

We all knew it was Mike Rizzo's gig all along. Right?

What a weird few days it's been for "interim" General Manager Mike Rizzo. After being drafted months ago, Rizzo finally signed the Wonder Boy on Monday night, with 77 seconds to spare. (At 11:58:43. Get your t-shirts here.) "Way to go, Mikey," I thought as I went to bed around 1 AM.
Imagine my surprise when I check my Tweets the next morning and they read like this:

tradepolicyguy Report: Dipoto Could Be Next Nats GM http://bit.ly/37IInc #nats

It boggled my mind. As the day wore on, there were a lot more reports about who else might be taking Rizzo's job. The consensus turned out to be some dude from the Arizona Diamondbacks that (get this) took Rizzo's old position after Rizzo left to come to the Nats.

misschatterRT @1067thefandc: cbsports.com writer Danny Knobler is on the Mike Wise Show right now reporting that the Nats have hired Jerry DiPoto #fb

NFA_BrianKnobler blog on Dipoto http://tinyurl.com/nj2gv8 "DiPoto has told friends in Arizona that he plans to accept the job"

I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Mike Rizzo had done a great job to turn around the damn mess that the Segway riding, highlights having, bonus stealing Jimmy Bowden had left. I mean... the Dominican was a fucking mess, the bullpen was an even bigger fucking mess, and we had to go into the season with LOLastings "Bend yo' Knees" Milledge as our starting God damn center fielder! To call it a mess would be an insult to actual messes around the world. This was a debacle that only a leather pants wearing man could create.

Then, finally, cooler heads prevailed.

washtimesbbWe've confirmed Rizzo will be named the GM tomorrow--details here: http://bit.ly/r1Ntj #nats #mlb

(Excuse me for a second as I digress here... Many many props to Mark Zuckerman and Ben Goessling over at the Washington Times. They've kicked Chico Harlan's butt in breaking news, and general Nats coverage. Plus, they have a Twitter account that's updated many, many times a day. And I'm not kissing their asses either. If I were, I'd say Ben has a face and voice for T.V. Which he don't. Just watch the MASN pre-game show once or twice, and you'll see I'm right. (And I am right. Love you, Ben!))

You can catch up on all you may have missed over at Ben and Mark's blog post about the very same subject, btw.

(BTW, Many thanks to Twitter and their piece of shit servers. I started this post at 10:00 am, but couldn't grab the Twitter quotes until now cause Twitter kept going down. Dear Twitter, FEED YOUR DAMN HAMSTERS!)

And finally, I ran into Mike Rizzo this morning and chatted with him for a bit. I managed to grab one quick picture that summed up his mood throughout the entire ordeal. Bravo, Mikey Rizz. Bravo.