NL East Infection: Davey Jones Locker

Washington Nationals

It’s easy to understand why the Nationals feel like they need attention:  They’re a first place team with a 14th place attendance rating.

But they have a plan!  Every time they acquire someone with even faint attachment to the Phillies, they have them turn around and say something awful about their previous team.  Brad Lidge had his turn.  Jayson Werth won’t stop saying terrible things about the team that gave him a shot and got him a ring.  Nobody really realized when Eric Bruntlett was in the Nats clubhouse.

It seems as though not even manager Davey Jones is above being handled and groped by the greasy hands of Washington’s PR office, hollowed out, and replaced by the words of his petty organization, sharing these “personal” sentiments over the Phillies’ trade deadline moves.

"“I have no sympathy for ‘em.  Shoot, I’m still missing three key players — I’m missing Willy Ramos, Ian Desmond and Jayson Werth. They’re not in my lineup. So they’ve fallen on some hard times over there, and they had a little fire sale today, which was fun for me to watch.”–Davey Johnson"

Nothing stings more than unsolicited non-sympathy, so Davey really knows where to hit us where it hurts.  The question is, how do we move on without the sympathy of Davey Jones?  How long have we not had it?  How much has it cost us, that we’ve relied on it all this time but it may not have been there?

Davey’s words carry weight.  Fortunately, however, we have words of our own.

And that’s the kind of mature, adult responses we will be defending ourselves with in this fun little rebuilding period.

New York Mets

Did you know that Grant Balfour once saved R.A. Dickey from drowning?  Yeah, apparently, he’d just lost out on a $810,000 signing bonus, thanks to a doctor reporting to the Rangers that Dickey was born without a right ulnar collateral ligament, and it was only going to net him $75,000.

Dickey, naturally, felt like swimming across the Missouri River would be just what the doctor ordered; not literally of course, because remember, a doctor had just ordered that he be paid way less money.

Whether a certain elbow-doctor lived in the house on the opposite shore is uncertain.

But Dickey went ahead and did it anyway, and to this day credits Balfour for being there to pull him out when he struggled.

"“I’m not trying to be modest here, but he really saved himself.  He had done most of the work to get himself close to the shore. I’m just the guy who put my arm out to him.”—Grant Balfour"

The important thing is, everybody is okay, and the Mets are starting to succumb to their own Mets-ness.

Atlanta Braves

Ryan Dempster is saying he never turned his proposed trade to Atlanta; he just needed a little time think.  And even if he did then HOLY SHIT DOES ANYBODY CARE THIS MUCH ABOUT RYAN DEMPSTER I MEAN REALLY HE’S JUST ANOTHER FORMER CUB LOOKING TO JOIN A CONTENDER AT THE DEADLINE DO WE REALLY NEED TO KNOW THE EVERY THOUGHT AND ACTION OF ONE MAN SO FAR AFTER THE FACT.

Now let’s all just STOP TALKING ABOUT HIM and MOVE ON to concentrate on more important things, like whether or not Bryce Harper got home before curfew.

I just hope he’s okay.

Miami Marlins

The New York Times agrees; it’s time to give up on the Marlins.  The garish home run sculpture in their crisp new facility has become the colorful cape on a superhero who is really a homeless man on PCP running across a four lane highway.

What?

No, but it’s time.  They’re not much better than we are, and we don’t have a documentary film crew following us.  As the Times points out, Showtime’s The Franchise had a banner year with the 2011 Giants, who gave them a quirky, feel-good, fun-loving, redemptive, grating, irritating, overexposed cast of characters to choose from.

The last thing the Marlins need is a camera in the room as they sell off pieces of their recently-acquired dream team so that Jeffrey Loria can build a new fish-themed retirement community or whatever.  But there it will stay, because Showtime paid for an entire season, and something wildly entertaining is probably right around the corner for this fourth place mess.

Stay tuned for the next episode, when the team’s Facebook account gets hacked.