After decades a couple weeks of rumors, this afternoon at the Verizon Center WJFK-FM brass will officially announce the station’s flip from man talk to sports talk.
All the highlights of the new lineup — eight hours a day of Mike Wise and LaVar Arrington — and the date of the switch, July 20, have already been leaked.
***
On the team’s downest day of the season, the Wall Street Journal kicked the poor Nats in the nads. Here’s the lede of the paper’s coverage of the Sonia Sotomayor coverage, a story titled “Hearings Reflect Broader Struggle“:
Much like the Washington Nationals baseball team, which has known since springtime that it has no realistic chance of winning a pennant this year, Republicans in the Senate knew before they took the field Monday that they had no realistic hope of defeating Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor.
So GOP senators, like the Nationals, are left to ask themselves: What are we playing for here anyway?
“What are we playing for here anyway?”
They’re really asking themselves that? Well, if the GOP Senators are at all like the Nats, specifically .196 hitter Austin Kearns, then they could answer themselves: “We’re playing here for $8 million a year!”
(After the jump: Six Flags goes with mayo substitute? Jim Riggleman’s high school cheer? DC Divas back on top?)
And, for crissakes, given how tough a day it was for the franchise, couldn’t the Journal have made it easier and kinder and gentler just gone with some WASHINGTON SENATORS simile?
***
In case you missed it: Manny Acta’s replacement Jim Riggleman was a “soul sensation” during his days at Richard Montgomery High in Rockville.
Here’s his old baseball team’s cheer: “Thunder, Thunder, Thunderation, we’re the Rockets Delegation/When we fight with determination, we create a soul sensation!”
Damn, that’s funny.
I remember playing in a softball tournament years ago and just before our game started the opponents got together and screamed the theme to “Rawhide” to get fired up. We knew they were going to whup our ass. We were right.
Why don’t teams have cheers anymore?
***
The D.C. Divas surrendered a touchdown and the lead to the Boston Militia with less than a minute left in Saturday’s IWFL Eastern Conference Championship game. But Diva Tara Stephenson returned the ensuing kickoff for a touchdown, giving D.C. a berth in the July 25 league title tilt in Austin, Texas.
The Divas, now 10-0, were forced to play in Boston after getting screwed and losing their #1 ranking to the Militia in the Massey Ratings, the ranking system used by the IWFL to determine playoff seeding.
After this win, the Divas head into the league championship with the top spot in the ratings.
***
Speaking of screwed: Dan Snyder‘s nothing-left-to-lose theme park chain, Six Flags, has signed an endorsement deal with Miracle Whip.
Yes, the mayonnaise substitute. Under the deal, Six Flags will now begin selling a “specially-themed and branded sandwich” at its parks called the “Miracle Whip Roller Roaster” and will put discount coupons on “20 million” tubs of the goo at stores nationwide.
This comes just after Six Flags agreed to make Anatomic Global the “Official Mattress” of the parks, and started actually selling the beds through the parks ($1,299 in queen size).
Here’s the official explanation given by Six Flags for the condiment alliance: “The companies will collaborate on a co-branded marketing initiative designed to reach consumers through multiple platforms and marketing touch points including grocers’ shelves, digital media and targeted in-park signage at key rides and attractions.”
One word: Huh?
I mean, sure, that quote, coming from the company’s PR staff, makes Six Flags’ bankruptcy understandable.
But I’m still going to have to ask Dan Savage what sort of things folks at a theme park could do with a tub of Miracle Whip and a queen-size mattress.
***
Story tips? Wanna Play the Feud? Tube amps for sale? Send to: cheapseats@washingtoncitypaper.com