Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Chico Harlan Obvioulsy Doesn't Care when Stan Yells at Him

"Long time" Nationals Journal readers (like, those from 2007) will remember a certain episode where Barry Svrluga said something snarky about the Nationals on a chat (I don't remember exactly, and I'm tool lazy to find the link, but I clearly remember that it was something pretty mild), and Stan Kasten sought him out, yelled at him, and then iced him out for the rest of the year.

Well, I can assure you that if Stan is still screaming at critical beat-writers, Chico Harlan couldn't care less. He just doesn't pull punches, period. And he's developed a memorable rhetorical device where he opens each game story with a little flourish of mockery directed at the disaster he's paid to cover in great detail each day.

Today's gamer, re: Detwiler, had one of my faves:
To honor the occasion, and to ease his initiation, they gave him a locker between fellow starters John Lannan and Shairon Martis. They set up his family and friends with tickets behind home plate. And, just to make him feel extra-comfortable, they furnished him with the exact sort of defense and relief pitching you might well find in the Eastern League.


4 comments:

phil dunn said...

Chico doesn't have to worry because Stan Kasten no longer has any credibility. He came to DC perceived as a genius. Now, almost everyone realizes he is a fraud and gas bag. Chico should not care if Kasten cuts him off because only BS flows from his mouth.

CoverageisLacking said...

Nice post, Steven. It will be fun to see if Chico takes the gloves off as he has started to do recently. Some critical writing from the Post has been sorely missing since Barry left. By the way, where is Stan these days??? Funny how he seems to disappear when the going gets rough.

For the record, the line from Barry's chat that apparently ticked off Stan was in fact pretty rough. Stan apparently thought that Barry called him a liar. This was from the chat:

A River in Egypt: Kasten "doesn't have a goal for attendance next season"? Yeah, right. Why does he bother to talk to you guys if he's just going to lie like that? Probably a dumb question, I know.

Barry Svrluga: Ah, it's as if I asked a question to my own chat.


Here's the link to Barry's full post-mortem of the dust-up on the NJ:

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/nationalsjournal/2007/09/stan_me_and_the_relationship_b.html

CoverageisLacking said...

The link got cut off in my last post. Here is the tiny url for anyone who wants to re-live the good ol' days:

http://tinyurl.com/ry2kk2

DeezNats said...

I like the Food Critics gamers. Their pretty funny & creative. I don't think they would be nearly as enjoyable if we were winning.