There is an “I” in “I Told You So”: As predicted in Cheap Seats Daily in the wee morning hours yesterday, TailgateGate™ did indeed blossom into the sports story of the century. Or at least of the sports story of the wee morning hours.
The entertaining putzes over at Dan Snyder’s message board, extremeskins, just got hot hot hotter over the proposed new parking rules at FedExField, which, at the very least, threaten the status quo of tailgating. By mid-day they’d all but held a Synder effigy burning rally.
Petitions to block enforcement of the rules popped up. Talk radio hosts turned their shows over to fans who moaned about the imminent demise of tailgating. TailgateGate™ knocked Paul McCartney off the first page on Redskins.com. The uproar was so massive and quick that by early evening folks who missed the party were left to pooh-pooh the protesters.
The Redskins tried to put out the flames with a press release about the new rules to regulate tailgating. They’ve got a lot more PR work to do, however. As the great Mayor of FedEx Field, who is to Redskins Nation as Ali Khamenei is to the Iranian malcontents, put it: “We will fight for anyone’s right to tailgate.”
You know the Redskins are having a bad day when both the Mayor of FedExField AND Marion Barry come out against ’em.
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UPDATE on the Five Guys Named Williams: Mike “Biggest Loser” Williams has told Official Redskins Blogger Matt Terl that he is looking for a chef.
Williams, once the biggest of the Five Guys Named Williams on the Skins roster by at least a Williams, has a personal Mendoza Line of 400 pounds.
MisterIrrelevant’s Jamie Mottram relays that Williams has lost 85 pounds. Terl has agreed to screen chefs’ resumes for the big man.
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Back to me: The initial press release about the Paul McCartney show at FedEx had McCartney’s talents validated by Dan Snyder and a fellow Paul-o-phile by the name of, um, me. But on Snyder’s web site, redskins.com, my own Macca caca, taken from a 2005 Washington Post story I wrote about the former Beatle, has been replaced with a quote from somebody Snyder likes, Skins executive VP Mitch Gershman.
Why would Snyder white-out me? Well, a story I’d written a year ago called “Hunter, Gatherer, Ruiner” about the Redskins owner’s dubious business history was reposted last week on Snyder’s extremskins.com, thanks to Six Flags’ bankruptcy filing, and as of yesterday remained on the front page of the board.
I’m not totally bummed about being bumped by Snyder. Gershman’s quote is boringer than mine.
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Kevin Youkilis is the featured player in the Nats TV ads running on MASN for the imminent Red Sox series. Sure, Youkilis is having a fine year, but is he really a draw around here? It makes sense to keep the home team out of the marketing, given the state of the home team. But wouldn’t local folks be more juiced about the interleague games if the Nats trumpeted that this is the team’s first DC visit since the Curse of the Babe was lifted? And pumped up Sox greats like Ted Williams, Jim Rice, and Big Papi back when he was juicing?
Oh, lighten up. Everybody knows the Red Sox were way more lovable when they were losers. And who can honestly look at that vision stuff Ortiz is throwing out there without an, um, jaundiced eye?
Besides, Nationals Park was going to look like FedExField during a Skins/Steelers tilt no matter what the marketing strategy was.
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