Friday, August 27, 2010

Cancel the Hall Ceremony

It wasn't supposed to be like this. He was supposed to pitch. Pitch no-hitters. Perfect games. Win the World Series by himself, aided by a series of ghost runners. Then, he was supposed to be inducted into Cooperstown before he'd even reached opening day of his second season.

It wasn't meant to be it seems. The renaming of the Cy Young Award will have to wait now that Strasburg has blown out his arm after just under three months in the big leagues. The Nationals' Ace will likely have Tommy John Surgery, named after the famed Yankees pitcher who performed the surgery on himself between innings in order to stay in a close game.

The Nationals are in big trouble. "What the hell are we going to do with 300,000 Strasburg NL MVP t-shirts?" said one Nationals team executive. "We can't sell these now in order to finance our recent signing of another prospect who might never do anything worthwhile! Our business plan is totally f#@ked! Thanks a lot Stephen!"

It isn't clear what affect this will have on the Nationals promising season. I'd finish that thought but it's patently ridiculous. In a few years, Strasburg will probably be pitching out of the bullpen, no longer throwing 110mph change-ups. Ah, youth.

3 comments:

Jon Roberts said...

Who knew a 95 mph curve could hurt your arm? I guess all those pre-draft Mark Prior comparisons can resume.

Mike Rizzo was overheard saying "This is why we can't have nice things!" just before he sent Jim Riggleman to his office to think about his actions.

Using my crystal ball I divine that the Nationals are a couple of years away from competing anyway. I wonder if they could open up the check book though to try to keep fan interest up. They were willing to spend on Tex why not Cliff Lee? At some point they might try to land a big free agent to help build up some legitimacy kind of like how Reggie White is credited with helping Green Bay get respect or Wade Boggs and our beloved Yankees.

Rich Mahogany said...

This sucks. I had already bought my tickets to the ceremony.

Fernando Alejandro said...

They were willing to go big after Mark Teixeira. Not big enough, but it at least shows that they have some money to spend if they want to.