Deconstructing Tony

Bill Ladson over at Nationals.com turned the slightly less than white hot spotlight on Nats President-for-Life Tony Tavares, who looks a little like an aging John Goodman. Below are excerpts from the Q&A, with my commentary in italics:

MLB.com: You mentioned player personnel. Can you elaborate on it?

Tavares: Sure. I feel that we just have to get better.
Warm up the analyst chair, Tony is auditioning for Cold Pizza.

The worse thing in the world is when you are paying for players at premium prices and they don't perform for you. That's true failure at that point. We have to avoid it.
*Cough... Vinny, Goooz... cough, cough*

MLB.com: We often wondered why the Nationals didn't practice before day games.

Tavares: I wonder that, too. It's something that will not be accepted going forward, I can tell you that. When I say we didn't work hard enough, that's exactly what I'm talking about. Too many times, we didn't take batting practice. If you look at our record on Sundays, it's indicative of our success. I just don't think we prepare as well.
What Tony means of course is that we don't play well hungover. And Tom McGraw is worthless.

MLB.com: The team still doesn't have ownership. When do you think the announcement will be made?

Tavares: I don't know. I wish I did know. In a lot of people's view, the sooner the better. There have been decisions made that said we will not get ownership selected until the [stadium] lease is done. We have been working diligently to get that done, but it takes two to tango. We just can't seem to get the city's attention on this issue.
The city council saw this Smulyan thing coming a mile away, and now they're ducking our phone calls. And Jerry Reinsdorf is an ass.

MLB.com: Do you want Bowden back with the team?

Tavares: If I come back, I'm definitely offering a job to Jim Bowden.
He said a job, he didn't say what job. And Screech is supposed to get bigger next year.