NINETY NINE

"Well, regardless of how many people were sick, you didn't know you were going to be trailing 7-0. You have to go into the game positive and thinking you're gonna get it done. What am I going to gain by being negative and getting myself down because I'm down in the game? Is there anything to gain? I don't think so."
(Manny Acta, via Washington Post, 9/25/2008)

Marlins 9, Nationals 4: Sick day. Another second half stinker by The Tim Redding Journeyman Express puts Nats on the brink of 100.

Not surprisingly, Nats get no help from the Mariners, who dropped their 100th last night.

Meanwhile...

At this point, it just seems like piling on.

Do you think if Ted Lerner knew there was a guy with the last name "Cashman" sniffing around for a new GM job he'd consider changing his mind about Jimbo? Could there be a worse fit for the free-spending Cashman than in penny-pinching Washington?

(AP Photo/Nick Wass)

Comments

[ckstevenson]

99 red balloons.
floating in the summer sky.
Panic bells, it's red alert.
There's something here from somewhere else.
The war machine springs to life.
Opens up one eager eye.
Focusing it on the sky.
Where 99 red balloons go by.

99 Decision Street.
99 ministers meet.
To worry, worry, super-scurry.
Call the troops out in a hurry.
This is what we've waited for.
This is it boys, this is war.
The president is on the line
As 99 red balloons go by.

99 Knights of the air
Ride super-high-tech jet fighters
Everyone's a superhero.
Everyone's a Captain Kirk.
With orders to identify.
To clarify and classify.
Scramble in the summer sky.
As 99 red balloons go by.

99 dreams I have had.
In every one a red balloon.
It's all over and I'm standing pretty.
In this dust that was a city.
If I could find a souvenier.
Just to prove the world was here.
And here is a red balloon
I think of you and let it go.

[The Nationals Enquirer]

Ah, nice Nena reference! I'd be really impressed if you wrote that up from memory...