The Baseball Thread

Oh sure! You had to mention that!

What a crock the Marlins are.

Every day I read about about another ex-Marlin triumphing on the diamond.

Nationals manager Riggleman abruptly resigns

WASHINGTON -- Washington Nationals manager Jim Riggleman abruptly resigned from one of the hottest teams
in baseball Thursday, saying he felt the franchise wasn't committed to him over the long term.

Riggleman quit because the Nationals weren't prepared to pick up the option on his contract for next year,
further reinforcing his feeling that he was merely a placeholder manager until the team could find someone better.

"It's been brewing for a while," Riggleman said in a clubhouse that went from festive to stunned after completing
a sweep of the Seattle Mariners. "I know I'm not Casey Stengel, but I do feel like I know what I'm doing. It's not a
situation where I felt like I should continue on such a short lease."

His decision caught the franchise by surprise. General manager Mike Rizzo said he'll announce Friday who will manage
the team this weekend during a road series against the Chicago White Sox.

"Jim told me pregame today that if we wouldn't pick up his option, then he wouldn't get on the team bus today,"
Rizzo said. "I felt that the time wasn't right for me to pick up the option, and certainly today's conversation put to me
in the way it was put to me, you certainly can't make that decision in a knee-jerk reaction. It's too big of a decision."

The Nationals have won 11 of 12 and are above .500 this late in the season for the first time since 2005.

"We should be celebrating going to Chicago," Rizzo said. "I'm disappointed that this is a distraction, that this is not
thinking of the team first, that it is thinking of personal goals, thinking of personal things firsts. That's probably what
disappoints me the most."

"We should be celebrating going to Chicago," Rizzo said.

The Human Home Run a big hit in Lowell

The biggest hit at the Lowell Spinners baseball game last night didn't come off the bat of any of the aspiring ballplayers.

Instead, the latest installment of wacky minor-league baseball promotions came in the form of David "Cannonball" Smith,
69, being launched over the outfield fence. This comes only days after the Spinners set a world record for most people
flossing their teeth at once.