One of me droogs really gave it to me at poker last night, saying a friend of his looked for a good explanation of the Elijah Dukes-Manny Acta dust-up on these pages, but without finding it. “He had to go to the Washington Times blog,” he said. So today I checked out what Mark Zuckerman had to say about the incident at PNC and it was pretty much along the lines of what we said — with some added speculation. Still, what Zuckerman has to say is more than passably interesting: 

“Close observers of the Nationals note at least three suspect situations involved Dukes in the last month alone. On May 12 at Shea Stadium, he started up the infamous dugout chant that had Mets pitcher Nelson Figueroa referring to the Nationals as ’softball girls.’ Last week at Nationals Park, he gestured toward plate umpire Doug Eddings upon hitting a game-winning homer, a move that upset both Eddings and uniformed personnel (including Acta). Zuckerman says, a little further down in the story:

“His image within the Washington clubhouse has to come into question, too. Though Dukes does have a group of supporters among his teammates and coaches, a sizeable number of uniformed personnel have soured on him and question whether the player with the checkered past really has turned his life around at all.”

So, having heard the explanation from Mark Zuckerman (and wanting to close the book on this angry exchange) we put our crackerjack staff on this story. Their conclusion probably tells it best: Manny and Elijah are like oil and water, from different backgrounds and different experiences and the friction between them finally boiled over in Pittsburgh. The differences between the two are not likely to be resolved anytime soon. The question is, can they learn to get along, or does Elijah get shipped down — or (more likely) out. For now they’ll try to coexist and maybe things will get better. The reason for that, as Ray Knight said on the Nats broadcast from Pittsburgh, is that “between the white lines,” Elijah Dukes’ talent is undeniable.

Between the white lines.

The Test In Seattle: The three game tilt that begins tonight when the Nats sail into Seattle should be interesting. The Mariners are sinking fast, with manager John McLaren’s neck on the line. The guy I respect the most on the bench is former Cubs manager Jim Riggleman, who might get a shot when (not if) McLaren goes. My guess is the Mariners will try to run themselves out of their current troubles, with Ichiro testing Jesus Flores’ arm every chance he gets. If Nick and Ryan were healthy, these three games might not be much of a contest.

The great hope of the Mariners this season was Eric Bedard, the off-season acquisition who was supposed to vault them into contention with the Belinski’s. Bedard is 4-4 and his last game he couldn’t get into the sixth inning. The rumors in Seattle is that it’ll take one more losing streak — and McLaren’s ouster — before a mid-summer firesale strips Seattle of Bedard, Johjima, and Sexson. What the Mariners’ would get for any of them is anyone’s guess. There will be takers for Bedard, Johjima is a heck of a player (in my humble opinion), but Richie is probably done.

Homage to Carl Furillo: Last night one of me droogs asked who played right field for the Dodgers in the 1950s. One of our number (a real Dodger fan — and now a Mets partisan, with all that implies) knew the answer instantly. “It was Carl Furillo.” The questioner was non-plussed. He said that he did not follow the game anymore, since he had “grown out of it.” Not me buddy boy. I’m still the kid I was back when Carl Furillo was playing the caroms off of the wall in Ebbets Field.

Furillo is one of baseball’s forgotten talents, a player who had a very good career, seemed never to be injured, and was a heckofa clutch hitter. His final numbers are pretty impressive: a .299 career batting average, with 192 home runs. He hit .344 in 1953, and in 1955 he hit 26 home runs. He had a gun in right field — hence his nickname, “the Reading Rifle,” which he assumed in the minor leagues.

Furillo was one of Roger Kahn’s famous Boys of Summer. Kahn caught up to him after he left baseball and he was working on installing elevators in the World Trade Center. Kahn got the impression that Furillo was embittered. He had reason to be: he was released by the Dodgers just before he qualified for a pension, because he tore his calf muscle. He later sued the team and was awarded back pay. But he was also embittered because he thought that no one in baseball really remembered or honored him or his career — that the Dodgers might be remembered by their fans, but he wasn’t.

That certainly didn’t seem to be true last night. Furillo died in 1989 at the age of 66.