Still Smilin'...

Until the 2009 schedule comes out, there's not a whole lot to talk about. This week I'll be going to pick up my Potomac Carolina League 2008 Mills Cup Champs T-shirt. I certainly hope they'll paste over everything next season with 2008 Carolina League Champs, since it appears that No. Va. fans are extremely fair-weather.

In the meantime, I had a great time as a finalist for the MASN Fantasy Camp. What did I win? A chance to play broadcaster, do some live-game blogging, and I got to meet Nats TV guys Don Sutton and Bob Carpenter.

It wasn't the first time I'd been in a press box, but it was the first time in a very long time... about 12 years, to be exact.

The one thing I learned right away is that it's not as easy as it looks. My two fellow finalists were much better than I was at the mike, but in all fairness, I was probably better than they were at the keyboard. My favorite line, obviously written on the fly...

Boone comes through with a ground rule double to LCF, so it plates just the one. And Willie Harris has his chance to be the Avon lady and make up (thank you, I'm here all week, try the veal) for his poor play in LF. The scoreboard is soliciting some noise, and the crowd complies. But Willie won't, taking a called third strike to end the threat.

Perhaps more amusing were the anecdotes told to us by the guy running the promotion, particularly regarding Rick Dempsey ragging on Jim Palmer and his fondness for adult beverages.

The irony of it all is that I merely used one original post, which was preaching the patience of folks with the Nationals. It's amusing to me just how people get knee-jerk about the team's payroll and the inability to sign a draft pick, conveniently forgetting (a) this team had been run into the ground by Omar Minaya (b) that a team full of untested 23-25 year-olds is not going to contend right away.

My second post was a rewrite about the PNats winning it all (speaking of which, they did an awesome job with the year-end video, using that song by The Outfield as the music) which I correctly figured would be enough to put me into the winner's circle.

So I'll save the season rundown for another post, but suffice it to say 2008 was one of the greatest years of my baseball fandom.