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An Interview With Chris Needham of The Late, Great Nats Blog, Capitol Punishment
By Jamie Mottram | June 18, 2008
I read sports blogs all day, every day. That’s what I do. And one of my favorite blogs, and probably the best of any focusing on one of my teams, was Capitol Punishment.
So my days got a little darker when its proprietor, Chris Needham (pictured), decided last month to blog less and live more. Let’s catch up.
JM: After three-plus years on Capitol Punishment, you stopped blogging one day in May, simply saying, “It’s time to move on.” Why’d you stop, and what are you doing now?
CN: Three-plus years? Man, that’s depressing! I stopped because it was becoming increasingly difficult to find original things to say. There are only so many ways that you can say “FIRE LENNY!” Plus, it’s hard to pay attention as closely to the team as I needed to to write the kinds of posts I strived for when the stench from the team would gag a South Texas homicide investigator. Throw in that I was planning (a very loose term) a wedding/honeymoon (ed. note: cheers!), and I just had better things to do with my time than watch Luis Ayala blow another game after the team valiantly scraped 3 hits together in 8 innings.
As for now, I’m not doing much different. I’m probably not following things AS closely, but I still watch the games. That little burning feeling you get when you see something and think “Man, I gotta blog that!” doesn’t burn nearly as much as before. Of course it’s been a week since Bowden’s said something blitheringly stupid, too. Will I come back to it? Eh. I dunno. If I did, it’d be at a much more relaxed pace. But I went from thinking during that first week that coming back would be an eventual slam dunk to hardly thinking about it anymore. So, I’m not betting on a thing!
JM: That goodbye post generated 130 comments (which is a lot), attracted at least a dozen links (again, a lot) and prompted then-Post beat writer Barry Svrluga to write, “I considered [Needham] my ombudsman.” Were you surprised by the reaction?
CN: Yes and no. I mean, I knew that people liked what I did. The occasional ‘thank you’ email or offers of spare tickets were good signs. But the reaction from Barry was definitely surprising and quite flattering. I heard from quite a few people at the Post and other papers and the words they had for me were definitely unexpected, but very much appreciated.
JM: This spring you were a bit bullish on the Nats, predicting a 70-plus-win season. Right now they’re only on pace for 60-something. Other than key injuries (Johnson, Zimmerman, Cordero, etc.), what’s to blame for the disparity?
CN: LENNY HARRIS!!!! Next question.
Seriously, the offense blows. It’s been worse than expected because EVERY SINGLE batter is ’slumping’. Sure, it could be just a slump, but from what we’ve seen from the pinch hit “king” makes me think that he doesn’t have the first clue about what’s going wrong or how to help anyone. When there was a little fire under his butt a month or so ago, he defended himself by noting how hard he worked. It reminded me of that (terrible) SNL skit where they had a comically overwhelmed George Bush noting that he was ‘Working hard. Coming in on weekends.’ Lenny seems to feel that if he can play Dr. Phil and make sure the players aren’t having any off-field problems and that if they work hard, the problems will be fixed.
You could throw me in front of a nuclear reactor control panel (ala Homer) and I’d sure work hard. But that doesn’t mean that they wouldn’t have to evacuate everything from the Shenandoah to the Bay, though.
JM: Now that we’re 70 or so games into Season 1 on the Anacostia, how do you like Nats Park?
CN: The park’s not bad. I can’t say that I love the place, but it’s an upgrade from the old dump — if only for the return of chili nachos!!!
The seats in the upper deck are pretty good. And the price is generally right for ‘em. But as most people have noticed, the outfield seats are ridiculously overpriced. And (warning: whiny fan ahead) the walk to some of the concessions around the stadium takes forever — especially from the upper deck where the stairs are hidden and the escalators only work in one direction.
JM: What about MASN’s coverage this season?
CN: Oy. If the Nationals had actually hit a homer every time that Bob Carpenter anticipated one, we’d be undefeated now. And it stuns me that nobody, during the design phase of the stadium, thought “I wonder where we should place the camera?” My favorite part of the broadcast: when Carpenter says something blindingly stupid (usually when he thinks he’s the analyst instead of the play-by-play guy) and turns to Sutton for confirmation. Those awkward few seconds in which you can tell that Sutton’s trying to think of how to gently correct Bob without yelling at him or punching him are a comedic treasure!
Despite my dislike of Bob’s style and my annoyance with gomerriffic Ray Knight, there’s actually something magical about when they were in the booth together. One goofball isn’t funny. But two? Sign me up!
JM: While we’re media bird doggin’, what do you think about Chico Harlan, the new guy on the Post’s Nats beat?
CN: I’d have to give him an incomplete. He’s got some really big shoes to fill, and it’s hard to separate what he’s doing from what Barry was doing. He’s had some really interesting things to say, and some of the stories have been excellent. But I think he’s still learning the game, the personalities and the backgrounds. That’ll take a bit of time.
JM: Which of the current Nats do envision being key contributors two or three years from now when The Plan is (hopefully) coming to fruition?
CN: {null}
Well, the obvious answer is Zimmerman. Beyond that, it’s going to be interesting to see what happens with Dukes and Milledge. Dukes has started to show that potential. Since bottoming out at the end of May, he’s hit over .300, been on base at a .437 clip and had pretty good extra-base power.
The question, it seems, with Milledge is whether he can play CF effectively. He’s certainly been pretty terrible out there, making it increasingly likely he’ll have to move to the corners. But if you do that, he’s less valuable because of all the offense needed at those positions. So for him to fulfill the promise he has, the bat’s going to need to come along a lot more or he’ll have to work on those routes and instincts in the field.
I suppose I should mention John “Balls of Steel” Lannan, but at this point, he’s basically a known quantity. I don’t think there’s a Cy Young in his future, but if he’s your worst pitcher, you’ve got a great team.
JM: Which Nats minor leaguers, if any, are you particularly excited about?
CN: {null}
Yeah, I already used that ‘joke’. I don’t think they’re nearly as loaded as Stan Kasten’s henchmen would have you believe.
The guy who intrigues me the most is Jordan Zimmermann. He was promoted to AA not too long ago, and is probably a year+ away. He’s got a good heavy fastball, and the Nats have forced him to work on his secondary pitches, getting them to develop. In college (world famous UW-Stevens Point), he threw a pretty good slider, but the Nats have shelved that to help him work on those other pitches. I’m not sure if they’ve let him work it back into his arsenal, but when he does, he’ll have 4 quality pitches (which is about 2 more than the typical Nats pitcher!)
JM: The Boz recently wrote: “This winter, Ben Sheets, C.C. Sabathia, Orlando Hudson and Rafael Furcal will be available. Get one, at least. No excuses.” Are you on board with that? Perhaps more importantly, do you think Bowden will be?
CN: I’ve been on board with them spending more money since day 1, so, yeah, I agree. Of those guys, Furcal probably represents the best option, simply because the Nats lack any sort of middle infield depth. Although I’m sure there’ll be a temptation to re-sign Cristian Guzman. That idea doesn’t create hives like it used to, but it’s hard to see how Guzman’s going to improve the team seeing as they stink with him doing about as well as anyone ever could’ve imagined.
As far as whether Bowden is, I’m hoping (sort of) that they keep tanking this year. The more losses and the uglier it gets, the greater the chances of him getting dumped on his drunken, leather-panted ass. Bowden hasn’t done as poor a job as his biggest detractors like to claim, but nobody’s ever going to confuse him for Branch Rickey. For one, Rickey never rode a Segway.
JM: It’s been 40 days since you wrote anything about the Nats, so is there anything else you’d like to mention?
CN: FIRE LENNY!!!
Topics: Blog Stuffs, Nationals |
4 Responses to “An Interview With Chris Needham of The Late, Great Nats Blog, Capitol Punishment”
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June 18th, 2008 at 8:57 am
Tell me something interes…nevermind.
awesome interview with a blogger whose presence is already missed.
/fire lenny
June 18th, 2008 at 9:55 am
If you were a tree, what would be your short-term plan for addressing the domestic energy crisis?
/fire squiggy
June 18th, 2008 at 10:41 am
Did you ask Needham what he did with the Stanspeak translator? We need it!
June 19th, 2008 at 2:01 pm
Honestly, I stopped following the Nats as closely since CP shut down so maybe that is a good thing?
Great interview and I have missed Needham’s perspective. I will always knew he was enduring the same agony that I was experiencing by following this team and his posts were money.
Fire Bowden and Lenny!