Sigh.

And it was shaping up to be such a nice spring too. Now no matter what happens, who plays well, who gets hurt, who earns a job or gets traded, THIS is the story of the spring for the Nats. It's not just Lugo/Gonzalez's reverse-Benjamin Button routine. It's Rijo and the buscones, Bowden and the Feds, Kasten and the Lerners and who knew what when. It's sordid and seedy and almost certainly criminal, but it's also more than a little sad.

This implicates the whole scouting staff from Bowden and Rijo on down. Kasten and the Lerners get dragged in if it turns out that any of this mess is the reason why the Nats have been less involved in the international market over the last few years. It casts doubt on the only tangible evidence of that international presence, the two DSL championship clubs the Nats have fielded. For a team that preaches building from within and doing things the right way, it hurts twice as bad.

Several other shoes have yet to drop, and we may never know the full extent of the corruption, complicity and incompetence. It's irrelevent to me whether JimBo or Rijo or some scout or a few folks in the MLB front office get fired. The damage to the organization has been done, and a public reputation flogging won't undo anything. Frankly, I'm not sure Jim Bowden has any reputation left to lose.

It's Spring Training and I don't want to hear about this $#!%. Is this what it feels like to be a Yankees fan at this time of year?

UPDATE: Hell hath no fury like a Stan Kasten scorned. If the team knew about these rumors by the winter of 2006-07, why bring the "kid" to the GCL? No doubt we haven't heard the last of this.