Nationals Ownership Reportedly Eager To Cut Ties With Bowden

Bowden Proclaims Innocence In Nationals Prospect Saga

PATIENCE IS A VIRTUE: In DC, Thomas Boswell writes as the Nationals "sit and wait for word, from federal and MLB investigators," about Bowden's role in the scandal, the team "want[s] to be fair and also to be perceived as fair" regarding Bowden's future with the organization. An MLB source said, "We're getting pressure from the Nationals. They want to find out, one way or the other." Boswell notes the Nationals "sit by the phone, paralyzed, frustrated, sometimes angry, waiting month after month, ever since Bowden was first interviewed by the feds last summer." The Nationals "have to stand by him until 'the professionals' finish with him." Then, if the team wants to "fire him because the team lost 102 games last season, or just because you're tired of this drama, that's any franchise's prerogative." But the "limbo in which the Nationals now find themselves would be destructive to a 102-win team, let alone this club, which is trying to regain its respectability" (WASHINGTON POST, 2/24).

DISTRACTION TO THE TEAM? Also in DC, Mark Zuckerman writes while Kasten and other team personnel "insist none of this is a distraction to the players and coaches who are trying to prepare" for the '09 season, the "public and the rest of the baseball world may not agree." The Nationals are "viewed around the sport as a franchise in disarray, one that can't escape bad publicity." A team exec said, "It's all you hear about with that team. It just seems like it's one thing after another with them" (WASHINGTON TIMES, 2/24). Ladson said, "There has been a lot of drama since Jim Bowden is GM. There's always a lot of news, and it's not surprising that the Nationals have made a lot of news in the last four years since Jim has been the GM. ... It's the way it always has been" (“Washington Post Live,” CSN Mid-Atlantic, 2/23).

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