Jesus. Is. Dead.

I'm not making that shit up. See... it says so right here:

[Jesus] Flores has a torn labrum, tests revealed this week, and will undergo surgery tomorrow in Birmingham, Ala., to repair it. <....> [The Injury] threatens the Nationals catcher's availability for the start of the 2010 season.

Oh. Okay, so it doesn't say he died, per se... (I'm not sure I used that Latin phrase correctly. I confuse it with "persona non grata" all the time. People use it around me a lot, so it really muddles my Latin.)

Where was I? Oh, yeah... Jesus is dead and buried, and not waking up, nor moving the boulder out the way this time. And so, it is with a heavy heart that I put Jesus out of my thoughts forever. The only way to do so properly, however, is to give the man a decent burial. Farewell, my friend. While you were productive when healthy, you were never healthy. May your bones and muscles rest now, and be no longer tearing or breaking. Though it will be hard, we turn our gaze towards a new shining figure. One clad in battle armor, same as you, yet more... non-breaky. So, as we say goodbye, we also say hello. Welcome, DeNo. Now hurry your ass up. We need you by 2011, dammit.

Ashes to ashes... dust to.... ahh screw it. Just get in the ground, Flores.





Bonus for the folks still reading (you lucky sum bitches!). If you aren't following my Tweets, you missed out on ones like these from last night:

Rumors of a Flores labrum tear floating around...about 17 hours ago from Twittelator

Zuckerman confirms it. Jesus Flores labrum tear. 2010 opening day in jeopardy. Rizzo says it's not related to orig inj. http://bit.ly/QTgPpabout 17 hours ago from TweetDeck

I can't believe I didn't break Flores' hand when I shook it the few times I did. That guy goes down more than a hooker on pay day. #barbaro2 about 17 hours ago from TweetDeck

Oh, and this one from this morning. (Pony up, cheap skates!)

Ian's baseball-reference sponsorship price keeps dropping. Down from $95 to $45. Who has $45 for me? No one? C'mon, dammit!! ::pouting::about 4 hours ago from TweetDeck

See? I even try and break some news once in a while. I suck at it, but I try!

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.