Right here’s a couple of issues that didn’t appear possible again in the summertime of 2006, when the Lerner household formally took possession of the Washington Nationals: The crew would win the primary of 4 division titles inside six years; the Lerner household would sooner or later ponder promoting a franchise household patriarch Ted spent half a life pursuing; and 16 years later, that franchise would nonetheless be in a dispute with the neighboring Baltimore Orioles over the rights charges from MASN.
Washington
Perspective | MASN still hangs over the Nationals, but there might be cause for hope
Rank these when it comes to unlikeliness. Robust selection. However that final merchandise hangs over the franchise in a approach that is still crippling. It’s front-of-mind as a result of the Lerners are exploring a attainable sale, and the knee-jerk impulse is that the MASN entanglement with the Orioles is a possible snag. It’s front-of-mind, too, as a result of MASN’s broadcasters are outliers in baseball in not touring to any highway video games — a choice that reeks of economic limitations, regardless of the purported cause.
That is good for precisely nobody. Seventeen years after the Nationals arrived, the regional sports activities community entrusted with its broadcasts nonetheless isn’t offering the crew with the income it anticipated. Greater than that, it typically seems like a low-rent operation that may’t present the very best product for its clients.
That’s a disgrace for Bob Carpenter, the longtime play-by-play man occurring 40 years within the enterprise, and his new colour analyst Kevin Frandsen, who changed F.P. Santangelo this spring and is proving early on to be insightful and enthusiastic. It’s a disgrace for all of the individuals who have labored relentlessly through the years — in entrance of the digicam and behind it — to provide a satisfactory product. For 3 hours an evening, they’ve nearly at all times achieved that.
Todd Webster, a MASN spokesperson, issued a press release to my colleague Ben Strauss that stated: “The worldwide pandemic required all of us to be taught new classes in innovation, resourcefulness, and resilience. MASN is carrying ahead a few of these classes.”
How noble. Phrased in another way: “We’re prepared to avoid wasting money on the expense of the standard of the published. Sorry, viewers.”
Indicators of decay are all over the place, unimaginable to cover. There was once a studio past the left subject stands at Nationals Park, the spot from which Johnny Holliday and Ray Knight — and later Dan Kolko and Bo Porter — broadcast pre- and postgame exhibits. It has been dismantled. Kolko — the favored dugout reporter and backup play-by-play man — was let go by MASN in the course of the pandemic, as have been others, and is on the broadcasts solely as a result of the Nationals employed him again. He now hosts the pre- and postgame exhibits — solo — from a small nook of the Nats’ press field.
For a franchise that gained the World Sequence simply three seasons in the past, the community that carries its video games feels unnecessarily held collectively by duct tape. It’s all rooted within the chaos during which MASN was initially created. That historical past is related — and even amusing — so let’s go over it. But additionally, ultimately, get to this thought: What if, with the Lerners hanging out a “For Sale” signal on the Nationals, MASN isn’t a lot an albatross however a possibility?
First, a reminder concerning the origin story, as a result of it issues now and going ahead. In late 2004, when Main League Baseball moved the Montreal Expos to Washington, then-commissioner Bud Selig needed to lengthen some form of olive department to Orioles proprietor Peter Angelos. Baltimore’s proprietor felt — sorry, feels — that the Nationals’ mere existence infringes on his crew’s territory, in order that department was management of the Washington franchise’s broadcast rights. The Mid-Atlantic Sports activities Community was created swiftly and controversially.
This was a time, you may recall, when the Orioles had a storefront in downtown D.C., hawking orange-and-black gear; when District 12-year-olds grew up on Cal Ripken Jr. and Eddie Murray.
However as a result of Angelos had moved the Orioles’ broadcasts from Comcast SportsNet’s Baltimore-Washington community, father or mother firm Comcast prohibited Orioles and Nationals video games from being distributed on its cable methods, the dominant provider within the space. So the tone for MASN was set in these early days. Washington followers clamoring to develop into accustomed to their new crew and its gamers — who have been surprisingly in first place over the primary half of the 2005 season — couldn’t get the vast majority of video games on their TVs.
“Like this one night time I gave out my cellphone quantity on the air and stated, ‘If anyone’s watching wherever, name this quantity,’” Mel Proctor, MASN’s first play-by-play voice, advised me that June. “And the one one who known as was the tape operator from the truck.”
From a broadcast standpoint, it received higher — tons higher. However there wasn’t — and nonetheless isn’t — ancillary programming across the half-hour earlier than the sport, the sport itself and the half-hour after. “The Mid-Atlantic Sports activities Report” at all times felt extra like neighborhood cable entry tv than the sort of next-level roundtable present each Washington and Baltimore deserve.
And right here we are actually: with MLB’s income sharing committee twice ruling that the Nationals needs to be awarded $100 million, basically in again pay, by MASN. A New York appeals court docket upheld the award in 2020. MASN is, in fact, interesting. If it appears like this by no means ends, it’s as a result of it by no means ends.
However right here’s the place there may be some mild on the finish of a tunnel that for thus lengthy has appeared to increase to the earth’s core: We all know the Lerners are pursuing a minimum of new buyers and, much more probably, a purchaser for the Nationals. Individuals round baseball suspect that the Angelos household is getting ready to promote the Orioles. If the latter occurs, what turns into of the Nationals’ broadcast rights? They switch again to the Nationals.
Instantly, what had been a burden may develop into a boon. That is a very attention-grabbing time in sports activities media rights. Sure, there stays some nagging uncertainty right here, however take into consideration what a possible new Nationals proprietor who has expertise working sports activities franchises and would like to increase her or his media empire — taking a look at you, Ted Leonsis — may don’t solely with the baseball membership, however with the rights to stream and broadcast its content material. That’s not simply the video games, that are three-hour commercials on your product. That’s the programming round them — utilizing in-house media personalities to discover and develop the personalities on the crew.
Transcend that. There could possibly be methods to enhance the experiences each within the ballpark and on the sofa. Both approach, there are alternatives that might excite a brand new proprietor with imaginative and prescient and innovation. For 17 years, MASN has been held again to such a level that it hasn’t had a lot of both.
The potential for a Nationals’ sale issues to Nationals followers as a result of it would assist decide the route of the roster rebuild presently underway. However regulate a possible O’s sale, too, Nats followers. Bob Carpenter and Kevin Frandsen aren’t touring for highway video games, and that’s a symptom of a illness that has plagued the Washington franchise for its total existence. But there may simply be a path out — with unbelievable potential not only for a brand new proprietor, however for the crew’s followers, on the opposite facet.
Just before the three-day Bitcoin 2024 conference got underway in Nashville this week, Tyler Winklevoss, the bitcoin billionaire who founded the cryptocurrency exchange Gemini with his twin brother Cameron, had harsh words for presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris. He was incensed that after years of tension between the Biden administration and the crypto industry — many in the space have complained of a regulatory crackdown — the vice president had declined an invitation to the annual bitcoin extravaganza.
“She can’t even take the first step and show up to start mending fences,” Winklevoss tweeted on Wednesday. He added, ominously: “Our industry won’t forget this. We will show no mercy in November.” Earlier that day, Bitcoin Magazine CEO David Bailey, the organizer of the event, claimed in a tweet that a Democratic donor had told him Harris privately says that “Bitcoin is money for criminals.” (While the sum of money collected annually through crypto-based crime is in the billions, this represents a relatively small percentage of transactions.) Meanwhile, feverish rumors that an increasingly crypto-friendly Donald Trump might use his keynote speech at the conference to announce plans for adopting Bitcoin as a U.S. strategic reserve asset caused the price to surge. It had also soared after he survived an assassination attempt earlier this month, temporarily boosting confidence in his election bid.
But Harris had every reason to feel unwelcome at a bitcoin convention. Chief among them is that tech oligarchs and the crypto crowd have already thrown their lot in with Trump as they seek a freer hand in the economy of digital assets. Trump, meanwhile, has aggressively courted the movers and shakers of crypto finance, trying to sell himself as “the crypto president” who can reverse Joe Biden’s attempts to rein in the sector — this despite commenting himself in 2021 that bitcoin “seems like a scam.” In Saturday’s speech, Trump said that if he wins, “the United States will be the crypto capital of the planet and the bitcoin superpower of the world,” adding: “If crypto is going to define the future, I want to be mined, minted, and made in the USA. It’s not going to be made anywhere else. And if bitcoin is going to the moon, as we say … I want America to be the nation that leads the way, and that’s what’s going to happen. So you’re going to be very happy with me.”
Trump outlined several steps he would take to aid the crypto industry. “The day I take the oath of office, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris’ anti-crypto crusade will be over,” he said. Trump pledged, to great applause, that he would immediately fire Securities and Exchange Commission chair Gary Gensler, and replace him with an industry-friendly regulator. He said he would create a presidential crypto advisory council to create a new regulatory framework that would “benefit” the industry. And he warned the audience that if Democrats win in November, “every one of you will be gone. They will be vicious. They will be ruthless. They will do things that you wouldn’t believe.”
The remarks should fuel even more donations from crypto bulls already betting on Trump. Bitcoin Magazine‘s Bailey, for his part, committed to a goal of raising $15 million for Trump’s campaign during the Nashville event. Last month, the Winklevoss brothers — whose Gemini this year settled a lawsuit from the state of New York over a frozen crypto lending program, returning $2.2 billion to customers and paying a $37 million fine — pledged $1 million in bitcoin each to Trump’s campaign. The amounts exceeded the $844,600 maximum that the Trump 47 Committee, the joint fundraising group to which they donated, can legally accept from an individual, and the Winklevosses had the difference refunded. (Among other spending on GOP campaigns, the committee funnels money toward covering Trump’s legal bills.) They also each chipped in $250,000 for America PAC, the super PAC through which Elon Musk and allies are backing Trump.
Other America PAC donors include Shaun Maguire of VC firm Sequoia Capital, who has expressed interest in “legitimizing” crypto and announced a $300,000 Trump donation with a statement that argued “Democrats have been trying to regulate technology — especially open source AI and crypto in ways that incentivize the best builders to build outside of America.” He has poured half a million dollars into the super PAC. Ken Howery, a co-founder along with Peter Thiel of VC firm Founders Fund, which is heavily invested in crypto and blockchain technologies, has given $1 million. Another million came from Antonio Gracias, the former director of Tesla thought to have helped engineer the automaker’s purchase of $1.5 billion in bitcoin in 2021. His firm, Valor Equity Partners, invests millions in crypto businesses. Joe Lonsdale, co-founder of the software company Palantir and managing partner of the firm 8VC, gave $1 million to America PAC as well. Earlier this year, he mused on how artificial intelligence and crypto technologies could benefit one another.
And while he hasn’t donated to the PAC, Silicon Valley venture capitalist and close Musk associate David Sacks has given thousands directly to the Trump campaign. Two months ago, Sacks said he preferred Trump’s sudden crypto cheerleading to the Biden administration’s scrutiny. “It might have been pandering,” Sacks said at a business summit in May. “But at least he’s saying the right thing and Biden is not saying the right thing. At least if he’s pandering, there’s a higher chance that maybe he’ll do the right thing.” (Last year, on the tech and investment podcast All-In, Sacks floated the unsubstantiated claim that SEC chair Gensler, along with Sen. Elizabeth Warren, had forged an “alliance,” with Warren promising “she will make him Treasury Secretary if he basically destroys crypto in the U.S.”)
It’s not just about Trump, either. The super PAC Fairshake, bankrolled by crypto firms including Coinbase, Jump Crypto and Ripple, has become a major force in the financing of congressional races, backing candidates deemed allies of the industry and helping to unseat opponents including progressive Reps. Jamaal Bowman and Katie Porter with critical ads. It has received tens of millions from the Winklevosses and venture capitalists Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz of the firm Andreessen Horowitz, which invests in crypto companies. (Andreessen and Horowitz recently pledged to donate to Trump; Horowitz says the Biden administration “basically subverted the rule of law to attack the crypto industry.”) As of the end of June, Fairshake had close to $120 million in cash on hand, while two other crypto super PACs, Protect Progress and Defend American Jobs, have more than $5 million and nearly $2 million, respectively. The former has spent on media attacking Democrats pushing for consumer protections in crypto; the latter has doled out more than $15 million on endorsements for Republicans in the 2024 election cycle.
But while Trump had planned to ride this wave of cash by going after Biden for his record on cryptocurrency, it may be hard to use the same line against Harris, seen by some as potentially amenable to these businesses due to her background in tech-saturated San Francisco politics. And if a few major investors were stung to be snubbed by Harris this weekend, it’s still unclear what position she’ll take on the issue. On Friday, the Financial Times reported that Harris advisers have reached out to people close to crypto firms to try to “reset” relations with the industry.
Even before Biden exited the race, the administration had made efforts to alleviate the bad blood between the White House and crypto evangelists, and the House passed a pro-crypto bill in May with support from 71 Democrats. Although Biden was not in favor of it, he did not say he would veto the legislation.
All the same, it would be ridiculous for crypto’s elite to try to disentangle their fortunes from Trump’s at this point, regardless of the direction Harris takes. They’ve made their pick and infused his campaign with considerable wealth, hoping for a president who takes a hands-off approach to their tokens and trading platforms. Now they just have to hope it’s enough to send Trump’s stock to the moon.
“He literally asked me, ‘You want to come with me?’ I was like, ‘Nah, I’m just gonna stick back here and throw the football around.’ And I just remember seeing him walk out — as a kid, everything seemed bigger — but maybe like 40, 50 yards deep into the water. And then he — I saw his hands waving at me, and he just dipped underwater.”
People rushed out to help, but when they got there, they couldn’t find his father. He had been dragged under by a rip tide.
“Forty-five minutes later, he floated back,” Lucas said.
“At the age of seven, I was out of having a dad, out of having my best bud, my best friend, my greatest — my best teacher, you know what I’m saying? Like, the guy that was put in this world to give me all the game that I’ve been searching for since then.”
Twenty-six years later, Lucas is a man, 6-foot-8, 327 pounds, a professional hitter with a goofball grin and the self-confidence he lacked growing up without his dad. Lucas believes his unlikely journey has led him to this moment with the Washington Commanders, where, entering the 11th season of his improbable NFL career, the longtime backup is competing for the huge role of starting left tackle and blindside protector for new franchise quarterback Jayden Daniels.
Lucas, 33, feels he’s doing well early in the competition with rookie Brandon Coleman, and unlike his first shot at being a full-time starter (his second season, with Detroit), he feels ready.
Many players who go undrafted out of college, as Lucas did out of Kansas State in 2014, get chewed up by the NFL. Their moment is darkened by the ever-present possibility of getting fired, and they’re often forced out of the league against their will, broken or brokenhearted. In his fifth year, Lucas was overwhelmed by repeated rejection and tried to quit by ignoring calls from his agent.
It was in those difficult moments Lucas felt his father’s absence most.
“Outside of my coaches and my teammates to push me and tell me I could do this, I haven’t had someone I could call on and just tell them how I’m feeling, what’s going on,” he said.
“It’s really been a me situation. Like, me figuring it out. Me going home and sitting in silence for two hours because I got beat in practice, and I’m thinking about why I got beat and how I can’t get beat no more because I’m on the edge of getting cut, and you know — I’m saying it’s been stressful. ”
As he honed his skills, Lucas has grown mentally tough, observing people around him, looking for “life tidbits” and refining who he wants to be.
In 2018, everything came together. Lucas caught a break, played well in one game for his hometown New Orleans Saints and parlayed it into a job with Chicago, where he shined. In 2020, he signed a two-year deal with the Commanders, and in 2022, he signed another. Last summer, he felt like he finally “filled myself up enough to pour into others.”
And he had an idea how: Swim camp. Every summer, NFL players host youth football camps across the country, and while he saw the value in them, he wanted to do something more personal. He attended pool parties growing up, even after his father’s death, but he still had never gone in a pool deeper than his height.
So he partnered with Son of a Saint, a nonprofit organization for fatherless boys in New Orleans, and figured he could show boys like him how to be a man and teach them a potentially lifesaving skill.
“I live in New Orleans, Louisiana,” Lucas said. “We are currently seven feet under sea level. In New Orleans, we get flooding. Hurricane Katrina, it was flooding for 45 days.”
This year, at his second camp, the only boy scared of the water was too big for anyone but Lucas to hold while learning to doggy paddle. Lucas encouraged him to go into the pool, urging him to fight their fear together.
“Trust me,” Lucas said. “I won’t let you drown.”
Weeks later, Lucas left New Orleans for training camp extra motivated. His girlfriend — with whom he bonded, in part, over missing a parent — is pregnant with their first child, a son, due in early November. Sometimes, when Lucas notices her belly growing, it makes him want to go outside in the sun and practice.
“When he gets here, I just want him to see his daddy doing the right thing.”
Lucas wants to teach his son all the lessons he had to gather from others, such as how to mow the lawn or drive on the highway. He’s picking up even more from Instagram and TikTok. He hopes to one day teach his son to play tackle.
And he wants to throw his son in the water. He wants him to flail on his own at first, to fight to float, because he believes struggling will help his son get comfortable. Even if he doesn’t like to swim, Lucas’s top priority is for his son to never feel how he sometimes felt around water.
“He’s not gonna have a fear of it,” he said.
We have been working like mad on fixing the house up to get it ready for our wedding. Neither of us is very experienced with DIY, so it’s been a difficult, stressful process and caused some tension between us. We were discussing what kind of flooring to get for the front hall, and I wanted the more expensive but easier-to-work-with stuff. We got into a fight that escalated to the point of him accusing me of being a gold digger who was after his money. I was in shock and asked him why he would think that, and he said, “Because you told me about how you grew up poor,” and he’s had the thought in the back of his head since we bought the house. He told me he has a spreadsheet where he keeps track of how much he’s spent on me versus how much I’ve spent on him and he has spent thousands more on me, not even counting the money his parents gave us.
I told him that didn’t sound right since we split all costs 50/50, and he admitted it included my engagement ring. It is a family heirloom his great-aunt gave him, but he was counting the value of it.
Later he apologized, but I’m still hurt and angry. I feel paranoid that maybe his family said something. I’m really sad that all this time I’ve been loving him and thinking he was wonderful, and he’s been thinking this way about me and even documenting it so he could throw it in my face.
He’s said the spreadsheet is just an “anxiety thing” and he loves me and wants us to work on fixing things. I think I do, too, but then I think of what he said and I get overwhelmed. How can I get over this?
“Gold Digger”: Whoo. I don’t know. I don’t know that I could.
He not only has kept the thought in the back of his mind for months? years? that you have poor values and ulterior motives and can’t be trusted, but kept records in the event he needs to prove it.
I wish I had a more hopeful answer for you. But he either lashed out impulsively and didn’t mean it, or accidentally told the truth — those are the only two choices — and the first is a stretch when there’s a spreadsheet as evidence of the second.
Plus, the first is so vicious in its own right.
He says he loves you, okay. But trusts? Respects? Believes in?
Does he feel lucky every day to be the person you chose?
Best case, “just an ‘anxiety thing,’” still casts you as a threat to be controlled. So the “work on fixing things” doesn’t sound like DIY, but instead couples counseling at the least.
The family paranoia, by the way, is wasted stress — each of you stands on your own authority in choosing your partner, 100 percent, or you’re not ready to be anyone’s partner. If he’s that susceptible to their influence, then the problem is still between the two of you, so that’s where your attention belongs.
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