Wrigleyville: The Nats schooled the Baby Bears yesterday, 13-5 and that makes two wins in a row. Shocked? This wouldn’t be the first time the Nats played well against the sluggies. Back in late April, the Nats took two of three from the Cubs, with John Lannan turning in a stellar performance (I was in section 128 for the game and he was masterful). He was as masterful yesterday, even if the line didn’t show it: the wind was blowing out at Wrigley and Lannan was touched for five earned runs in six-and-a-third. It could have been worse: he might have been Jason Marquis (I still can’t get past the idea that Marquis remains with the Cubs — as a sixth or even seventh starter. Why isn’t he in Texas? Or Baltimore?).

In the midst of this stinking run (the Nats are 14-23 since July 22), Nats fans can fall back on the fact that the Cubs (or anyone for that matter) would love to get a guy like Lannan and would trade more than a few prospects to put him on the mound. Which is the best reason to keep him and to look to next year — when (if the Nats have any kind of hitting at all), the young lefthander will be odds-on to be much better than .500. That is to say: a premium pitcher, the kind (with Balester) you can build a rotation around.

If Lannan continues to grow he will be a one of those unique pitchers — a lefthander with stuff who can dominate a game. He damn near does now. I wonder if Bowden knows what he has?

Victory, Defeat, Profits: Baseball and softball have been taken out of the Olympics, despite providing some of the most entertaining amateur contests in the history of the games. The U.S. won bronze in baseball and the U.S. women were upset by the Japanese in softball (a phenomenal game). But the most entertaining game was the Cuban-South Korean tilt, which provided a South Korean upset. It was a nail-biter: the Cubans had the bases loaded in the ninth with one out and grounded into a double play.

So why take both sports out of the games? IOC President Jacques Rogge (who berated Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt for celebrating his 100m and 200m wins — because, apparently, he can’t abide having black athletes celebrating), says that when major league players agree to be a part of the games the IOC will review their ban:  ”We have Federer, Nadal in tennis. We have the best cyclists. Rinaldinho is here in football. We want these guys in the game. We’re not saying its an entire Major League team, but we want the top athletes here at the Olympics.”

So much for amateur athletics. So much for the joy of victory, the agony of defeat. So much for up-close-and-personal. The Olympics are about profits — putting bodies in the seats, putting eyes in front of the television, and putting money in the bank. Exhibit A: In wake of the war in Bosnia, Olympic athletes asked the IOC to help them start a fund to rebuild Sarajevo. The IOC said ”no.” After all, the IOC isn’t a humanitarian organization. Rogge, a one-time yachtsman for Belgium, waves all of this off. “We’re a sporting organization,” he says, “not a political organization.”

The Big Train: For anyone following “Baseball Tonight’s” all-time franchise listings, the biggest surprise came on the night of July 31, when Tim Kurkjian (et.al.) announced that Kirby Puckett had outpolled Walter Johnson as the fan’s pick for all-time Twins franchise player. I suppose it shouldn’t be a surprise: baseball fans rarely remember two generations back — and Walter Johnson (who pitched in Washington twenty years) isn’t that well known except among the die-hards. But Kurkjian (a graduate of Walter Johnson High School) got it right: “Walter Johnson is the greatest pitcher to ever play the game of baseball.” I’ve got nothing against Puckett, but let’s review the bidding.

Johnson won 417 games, of which 100 were shutouts. What is most shocking is that “the big train” actually completed more games than he won — 531 (vs. 417). How can this possibly be? I think what this means is that even the games he lost were so close it was counter-productive to remove him. He was all the Senators had. He won over 30 games a season twice in his career, over 20 twelve times (including ten in a row) and notched over 3500 strikeouts. He led the majors in strikeouts for 60 years, until Nolan Ryan passed him. And here’s the punch line: the Kansas farmboy was a Senator. In the twenty years that Johnson pitched, the Senators finished first twice. In 1912 and 1913, Johnson accounted for roughly one-third of all the Senators’ wins. In 1911, the Senators were pathetic. They won only 64 games. But Johnson was brilliant; he won 25 of them. His ERA that year was 1.90. He once pitched 369 innings without giving up a home run.  Ty Cobb said he had the most powerful arm in baseball.

Johnson went into the Hall of Fame with Christy Mathewson in the Hall’s inaugural season. He was clearly better than Mathewson, but there are still those who argue that he was only the second best pitcher in history — behind Lefty Grove.

Nonsense.

The Washington Nationals finally got untracked tonight — scoring six against the Atlanta Braves. While the team of Carpenter and Sutton extolled the virtues of Ryan Zimmerman’s eighth inning double down the rightfield line, it was John Lannan who once again provided all the Nats needed. Lannan tossed a seven inning shutout with four strikeouts. This was not the eleven strikeout wonder of his previous no-decision outing (his fastball was not diving in on righthanders as much as it was last week), but it was a beautifully pitched game nonetheless.

Lannan is fasting becoming the ace of the staff — the undisputed Nats Number One Pitcher on a staff without an ace. The only other contender is Tim Redding, who has pitched well (as he did several nights ago in a losing effort), but who lacks the catch-em-looking stuff that Lannan has shown. Later, on “Baseball Tonight,” the team of John Kruk and Buck Showalter (sans Steve Phillips — thanks be to … ) idenitified the league’s aces and came up with the usual top-of-the-line dominators: Santana, Zambrano, Peavy, Webb, and one or two others. (I still believe there’s no better pitcher than Webb — the class of both leagues.) Lannan is certainly not in that company, but for a ballclub that’s not supposed to have any pitching, Lannan is “exhibit number 1″ of an ace-in-the-making — and if he keeps pitching the way he did in his last two outings, he’ll be on the Kruk-Showalter list by the end of the season. So for all of the Nats’ troubles recently (and they are formidable), Lannan is evidence that not all is amiss along the Anacostia. Then too, as I keep saying, there’s always this guy — who is on the way:

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In an interview with Thomas Boswell of the Washington Post the other day Nats manager Manny Acta summed up his impression of 23 year-old hurler John Lannan this way: “Lannan has moxie and command. He can hit the glove.”

Gotta love Manny: a 39 year-old Dominican native going ‘old-school’ with the 100 year-old moxie reference.

If you’re young and the ‘moxie’ expression isn’t something you’ve heard before you’re probably more familiar with other words that have similar meanings such as ‘chutzpah’ (from Yiddish), ‘bollocks’ (from the Brits) or ‘cojones’ (from Madeline Albright).

mox·ie (mok - see) n. Slang, The ability to face difficulty with spirit and courage.

And unless you grew up in New England decades ago you probably have no knowledge of what Moxie, the soft drink, is all about. Since the name of the soft drink is the origin for the term meaning ‘spunk,’ here is a brief primer:

Moxie, the cola, originated in Maine in the 1870s and was originally marketed as a tonic for what ails you. Among the afflictions it was said to cure were “softening of the brain” and “loss of manhood.” Apparently it was the Viagra of its day. I have a feeling that wasn’t what Manny was referring to.

By the 1880s the boys on the Moxie marketing team must have realized the soda would never measure up to popularity of the little blue pill so they added carbonation and repositioned the drink to be used for ‘refreshment.’ I use the term lightly. If you’ve ever tasted it you know, despite its deceptively pleasing orange can, it is the most vile concoction ever invented. The one and only time I tasted it I think I looked like this:

First off, in your Flintstones jelly glass it looks like 10W40. There is no sparkle to it at all. It is the black hole of colas. If there is carbonation in there it gets bogged down in the sludge. Second, Robitussen by comparison, is a sweet-tasting elixir. There is no amount of aspartame that could make Moxie taste pleasant.

Even so, it supposedly sold well in its hey-day. Included among Moxie’s famous adherents was Calvin Coolidge. But then again, ‘ol Cal always looked like he had just downed a glass of the stuff:

I think this is a picture of him on his wedding day.

Anyway, Moxie (the soft drink) is not completely unknown to baseball lore. Ted Williams is said to have endorsed the product once upon a time. So, this is another indication that Manny knows his baseball history. And he also knows a gutsy kid when he sees one.