After a good attempt to make it to Giffords on time last night (I blame the city’s lack of protected left turns), I arrived minutes after the Nationals crew had already departed. Others were there to fill you in on the details. It sure smelled like heaven in there. Sounds like it was a great event for the local business which will be selling products at the new Nationals Park.

The Nats also announced their new Baseball America ranking for prospects. The Nats moved from dead last to #9 by adding the talented Detwiler, Burgess, McGeary and Smoker.

The team also announced their kick-off of the Spring Training season with single game ticket sales and a fan fest for those in the Melbourne/Viera area. Saturday’s fest will include Jason Bergmann, Ross Detwiler, Shawn Hill and Alex Escobar and feature batting practice, a pitching clinic, and dugout pictures. There are only 20 days to go until pitchers and catchers report.

We have not said much about Barry Svrluga yet — we were waiting for his official word. But it does turn out that beloved Post beat writer will be moving to Redskins coverage in the future. Can you think of just one person who might be okay with this change?

Sideline reporter Debbi Taylor has a fun blog post about her recent trip to the Professional Baseball Scouts Foundation In the Spirit of the Game Dinner and Auction.

Also the Hampton Roads MLB boys are coming together again. This time they are building a indoor sports facility — the Seven Cities Sports Complex. The idea belongs to Twins outfielder Michael Cuddyer who has dreamed about sponsoring such a place for years. The complex should be ready by early 2009. In general, there will be a fee to attend and train, however they also plan to offer scholarships to help send kids to college. The clinics and programs will shape the area’s youth and provide assistance to those that might not be able to afford to use the facility. The group is headed by Cuddyer with support from BJ and Justin Upton, Tim Hummel and Ryan Zimmerman.

Injury update: Nats catcher Paul Lo Duca* seems to have suffered a knee injury recently. It is unknown if it will affect his participation in spring training, but he will have an MRI today. He also has not yet publicly addressed accusations made against him in the Mitchell Report.

The Nats also agreed to terms with 12 players. The only remaining players without contracts are Felipe Lopez (arbitration), Jon Rauch (arbitration) and Ryan Zimmerman (long term contract??).

This entry was posted on Friday, January 25th, 2008 at 11:45 am and is filed under Contracts, Events, Injuries, Steroids. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.