James Barton "Mickey" Vernon who was born on April 22, 1918 in Marcus Hook, PA, made his Major League and Washington Senator debut on July 8, 1939. In his first game Vernon went 1 for 5 at the plate and played first base as the Senators beat the Philadelphia Athletics 6-3. During the rest of the '39 season Vernon played in 76 games and ended the season with a .257 batting average. During the 1940 season Vernon only appeared in five games for the Senators and spent the rest of the season playing for Jersey City of the International League.

From 1941 to 1943 Vernon became the Senators starting first baseman. During Vernon's first two full seasons with the Senators he became a good hitter and a very good fielder. On October 16, 1943 Vernon was inducted into the United States Navy. During the next two years Vernon spent most of his time in the South Pacific. On October 4, 1945 Vernon was discharged from the service.  

During spring training in 1946 Vernon beat out Joe Kuhel for the starting first baseman position. The '46 season turned into Vernon's dream season as he led the American League with a .353 batting average. The next two seasons Vernon saw his batting average drop to .267 in '47 and .242 in '48. On December 14, 1948 the Senators trade Mickey Vernon and Early Wynn to the Cleveland Indians for Joe Haynes, Ed Klieman and Eddie Robinson. 

After one and a half seasons the Indians trade Vernon back to Washington for a 23-year old pitcher named Dick Weik. After three solid seasons with the Senators Vernon found his hitting stroke again during the '53 season as he edged out Al Rosen of the Indians .337 to .336 to win his second American League Hitting Title.

The Gentleman First Baseman will have two more very productive seasons in '54 and '55 with the Senators before being part of a nine player trade between Washington and Boston on November 8, 1955. The 38-year old Vernon hit for a .310 batting average in 119 games for the Red Sox in 1956. In 1957 Vernon's numbers start to decline as he played in only 102 games and ended the season with a .241 batting average. The Red Sox let Vernon go after the '57 season.  

Mickey Vernon was picked up by the Cleveland Indians for the '58 season where he played in 119 games and produced a .293 batting average. In 1959 the Indians traded Vernon to Milwaukee where Vernon was used sparingly. The Braves released Vernon after the '59 season. On September 1, 1960 Vernon signed with the Pittsburgh Pirates and played in what ended up being his last 9 games of his career as the Pirates released the 42-year old Vernon on September 30, 1960.

In total Mickey was selected to the all-star team seven times and still holds the major league record for the most double plays at first base (2,044). It was also known that Mickey Vernon had some very influential fans. The most influential of those fans was the 34th President of the United States of America, Dwight D. Eisenhower.

After Mickey’s playing days were over he came back to the Nation’s Capital in 1961 to manage the new Washington Senators franchise. In two plus years as the Senators manager Vernon could only win 135 of 362 games.

      

May 2, 1969

In only his second full season in the Majors, Dick Bosman, the 25-year-old hurler led the Senators to a (5-0) victory over the Cleveland Indians. Bosman improved his record to (3-1) as he made short work of the Tribe. The only hit the Indians manage to get off of Bosman was a Tony Horton broken bat single in the top of the second inning.

The crowd of 13,649 at RFK Stadium witnessed a very well played ballgame by the Senators as the team improved its record to 14-11. The (5-0) victory over the Indians was the third consecutive victory and the eighth victory in the last nine games for the Washington Senators.

With the win the Washington Senators maintained their 2nd place standing in the American League East 3.0 games behind the Baltimore Orioles.

*Dick Bosman's earn run average of (2.19) led the American League in 1969.

      

When this columnist was a tot, roughly during the Don Draper generation, a popular saying in business circles went something like "Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM."

Meaning that -- whether in reference to the company's stock, which might tank (as it did in 1973-74) or its products, for which cost-effective alternatives might become available (as they did in the '70s and '80s) -- buying IBM might be an unfortunate decision, but not a damnable one, because everybody else was doing it too.  Or so it seemed.

Over time I've been about as successful at selecting pennant races as at playing the market.  (There are still some Pan Am stock certificates in the back of my filing cabinet.)  But some of the predictions I've seen this spring have been real head-scratchers.

Why?  Not because they go out on a limb, but because they seem to go out of their way not to.

Sporting News Today is typical.  Here's who they think will make the playoffs in 2010, and what I think about what they think.

AL East:  Yankees.  (Nuts.  No matter how much money they spend, they're in too competitive a division -- no, really they are -- to be elected by acclamation.  They could even be edged out of the playoffs entirely, not for want of effort.)

AL Central:  Twins.  (Fine, but it's a pure guess.  This may not be the tightest race ever but it will be tight enough that Manny Acta's Indians could luck into an 82-80 record and slip away with the prize.)

AL West:  Angels.  (Another tight race, and I'm not sure who'll be first on closing day, but I'm picking Anaheim to miss.)

AL wildcard:  Red Sox.  (As predictions go that's just kicking the can down the road.  Why shouldn't they win the pennant?  And the Rays are not going away.)

NL East:  Phillies.  (I'm down with that, but not as confidently as I'd be if both Joe Blanton and Brad Lidge weren't starting the season on the DL.)

NL Central:  Cardinals.  (This is the hardest to argue with.)

NL West:  Rockies.  (Most likely, but I wouldn't rule out anyone but the Padres.  Especially with Huston Street and Jeff Francis on the Rox' DL.)

NL wild card:  Cubs.  (Breathes there the man with soul so dead, / Who never to himself hath said, / The Cubs could win a ring this year?  Yes, there does:  me.  The serious, thoughtful answer would be the Braves who -- granted, a bit unexpectedly -- are going all in on Jason Heyward, and are also strong in the bullpen and behind the plate.)

World champion:  Yankees over Phillies.  (Is it Groundhog Day at SNT?  The Phillies will win and it won't be over the Yankees.)

      

As this column reported last week, a number of Washington Nationals alumni have migrated to the Cleveland Indians' organization.  The best known, of course, is former Nats manager Manny Acta.

Two other ex-Washingtonians who went to the Tribe's spring training camp in Arizona were outfielder Austin Kearns and pitcher Saul Rivera.  Neither was awarded a major-league contract at the outset, but both would surely like to get back onto a 40-man roster.

What are their chances of doing so?  See if you can judge by their spring-training performances:

• Rivera has made eight appearances totaling 8 2/3 innings.  He's struck out six and given up six hits and three walks.
• Kearns has made 40 trips to the plate, during which time he has collected 13 hits (including five doubles and two homers) and seven bases on balls.  He's also struck out 13 times, staking an early claim to the chairmanship of the Cleveland chapter of the Three True Outcomes Club.  Summary batting line:  .325 / .417 / .600.  (He also had a hot spring in 2009, so don't get all excited.)

Surprisingly or not, there's at least one report of the Indians trying to pry open a spot for Kearns on their 40-man roster.

However, that same report says that Rivera -- that good-looking stat line notwithstanding -- "did not make the team."  It doesn't indicate whether he was waived out of the organization, or retained to bolster the triple-A bullpen in Columbus.  One would assume the latter but keep an eye on this Hutch in case it's the former or something else.

      

If there's one thing for which Manny Acta should be thankful about his new gig as manager of the Cleveland Indians, it's that -- unless ownership loses its sanity altogether -- he won't have to spend much time worrying what bizarre and futile move his general manager will perpetrate next. That's a win right there no matter how many games his team loses on the field.

While Acta's no doubt pleased not to have to report to Jim Bowden, he'll nonetheless be challenged as he skippers a club in transition.  Far from contending in the AL Central as had been hoped at the beginning of 2009, the team ended up being torn down by GM Mark Shapiro who proceeded to ship out as many over-30s (plus Ben Francisco) as he could find willing takers for.

Shedding Rafael Betancourt, Mark De Rosa, Cliff Lee and Victor Martinez didn't improve the short-term chances of the Tribe which slid to a final 2009 record of 65-97 and a tie with Kansas City for the division's basement.

But the players Shapiro traded did bring back some interesting young guys, among them catcher Lou Marson and pitchers Carlos Carrasco, Justin Masterson, Chris Perez and Jess Todd.  This is a far better situation than what Acta was saddled with in Washington, where excessive amounts of his time and the team's resources were expended on projects like Dmitri Young and Elijah Dukes, even as the Nationals' prospect pool had (and still has) far to go to recover from the desiccated condition into which it sank under MLB's ownership and Bowden's wayward fancies.

There will be some familiar faces in Acta's new organization. Nats-alumnus signees this offseason have included replacement-level infielder Anderson Hernandez -- whom Cleveland just acquired this past Wednesday off waivers from the Mets -- and sub-replacement-level outfielder Austin Kearns, neither of whom should cause Acta any difficult lineup decisions.

On the other hand, 32-year-old reliever Saul Rivera may be pitching his way onto the Indians' 40-man roster:  he's produced five scoreless innings in five relief appearances this spring, issuing three strikeouts, three hits and a base on balls.  With Kerry Wood now on the sidelines, Chris Perez' likely promotion to closer could open a spot for Rivera in middle relief.

Whatever the incremental contributions of Acta's ex-Nats, he's still apt to be leading an improved Tribe.  If nothing else, their spring performance has earned them a record of 11-5 so far in Cactus League play, although by no means does that translate into a winning record in the regular season.  All the same, if Manny Acta's Indians stay healthy in 2010, they should make their share of noise in what rates to be a tight AL Central race.

      

If there'll be anything striking about the National League East's left fielders in 2010, it'll be a remarkable degree of parity and few areas of abject weakness.  (At least defensively, especially since Adam Dunn has decided to concentrate on becoming a first baseman.)

The rankings below, from highest to lowest, account for both defense and offense.

• Chris Coghlan has impressed the Marlins enough to convince that penurious outfit to part with a salary some $50,000 over the league minimum.  He's certainly worth it, as he's apt to outperform his predecessor, current Washington National Josh Willingham, at the position.  Brett Carroll will be Coghlan's backup.
• Not that Washington will suffer.  Although Willingham's better known for his offense, you could do far worse than to deploy him in left field every day.  (Or almost every day, with supersub Willie Harris as the number-two guy in left.)
• The man Harris spelled in Atlanta, Matt Diaz, will most likely be a backup himself this year for former Pinstripe Melky Cabrera.
• Philadelphia fans will be hoping for another great year from Raul Ibanez instead of the more likely regression to the mean.  Ben Francisco, whom the Phillies picked up in the deal with Cleveland that also brought them two-plus months of Cliff Lee, will be the team's fourth outfielder and bench bat.
• Jason Bay was a smart and perhaps somewhat lucky pickup for the Mets, whose fascination with Bay's venerable backup Gary Matthews Jr. cannot be characterized so easily or hopefully.  (That fascination may linger for a while; Matthews is having a good Spring Training so far.)

      

Veteran right-handed reliever Tyler Walker, who spent last season in the bullpen of the National League champion Phillies, has been signed by the Nationals to a one-year, $650,000 contract.

Walker, 34, made 32 appearances for Philadelphia last season.  In 35 1/3 innings, he accrued a 3.06 ERA on a superb 1.132 WHIP, striking out 27 batters while walking just nine and issuing 31 hits.  Pending a physical, San Francisco native Walker will likely be added to the Nationals' 40-man roster from which another player will have to be removed to make room for him.

Washington also inked a contract on Monday with 27-year-old left-handed starter Chuck James, who was granted free agency last month by the Atlanta organization in which he had played his entire seven-plus-year career, and last Tuesday signed 29-year-old utilityman Chris Duncan -- son of St. Louis pitching coach and retired All-Star catcher Dave Duncan -- who had been released by Boston this past August, prior to which he had spent a decade in the Cardinals' system.  Both the James and Duncan deals are minor-league contracts with invitations to major-league Spring Training.

In what one hopes was not a portent of his performance for the coming season, it was Chris Duncan whose misplay of a Ryan Zimmerman pop foul with two out in the bottom of the fifth led to a four-run Washington inning in Shairon Martis' complete-game win at Nats Park on May 2 of last year.

Meanwhile, Chris' brother Shelley Duncan, who won the Most Valuable Player award in the triple-A International League in 2009 and was a member of the Yankees organization through this past season, signed a minor-league contract earlier this month with the Indians.  If both Duncans have the good fortune to make their respective major-league squads, they could find themselves playing against one another this season when the Nats visit Cleveland the weekend of June 11-13.

      

Hardly did the baseball world have time to digest the news of the signing of ex-Nationals relief pitcher Saul Rivera by the Cleveland Indians -- there to be reunited with his erstwhile manager Manny Acta -- than we are informed that outfielder Austin Kearns, who ended his D.C. career on a resounding note of anticlimax, has signed up with the Tribe as well.

Let it be noted that the Kearns transaction is a minor-league deal, with an invitation to major-league spring training.  Best of luck to all involved.

      

Last month saw the Nationals' front office under first-year GM Mike Rizzo fill in a number of gaps that should set the direction not only of the MLB team but also of the player-development system.

If improvement is to occur -- as it must if the Nats are to climb out of the hole of consecutive 100-loss seasons -- an essential part of the improvement will fall to the responsibility of newly designated minor-league field coordinator Bobby Henley.

Henley's role, in fact, may be as large as anyone's in the organization, for it will fall to him and his assistants to instill consistent expectations across the minor-league system.  Not least of these expectations should be acceptable defensive performance on the part of the Nats' prospects.

We've wailed in the past about the Nats' woeful defense on the MLB field, and also taken time to note that the farm system hasn't shown much in the way of good glove work.  Anyone who doubts that this is important should take a moment to consider the relationship between fielding and overall team performance.

Let's look at some numbers from the 2009 season:

• The Nationals finished 15th out of 16 National League teams in defensive efficiency, as well as last in wins.  The NL-West champion Los Angeles Dodgers finished first in both.
• On the American League side, the New York Yankees were first in wins and tied for second in defensive efficiency.  Meanwhile, the league's three worst teams in win-loss record -- Baltimore, Cleveland and Kansas City -- occupied three of the four bottom rungs in defensive efficiency.  (The fourth of those rungs was claimed by wild card Boston.  That might have something to do with their speedy ALDS dispatch by the Angels, in which the Sawx committed four errors and the Halos only one in three games.)

If you go back over prior seasons, there's a remarkable correlation between a team's efficiency in the field and its place in the standings.  This shouldn't be surprising:  a team wins games not just by scoring runs but also by preventing them.  Teams that needlessly give up runs by failing to make putouts can't usually expect their pitching or hitting to make up the difference.

Think of a baseball team, if you like, as a three-legged stool in which pitching, fielding and hitting are each one leg.  If all three of a team's legs are strong, it is poised to win -- but if one or more is weak, its chances dim accordingly.  Moreover, weak fielding will tax a pitching staff and drag down its performance as well, which about sums up what we saw at Nats Park this season.  (That the rotation was young and the bullpen uneven didn't help matters any, to be sure.)

The 2010 season will indicate, both at the major-league and minor-league levels, how much effort the Nats are willing to put into reversing the current state of affairs.  And even though Bobby Henley's name will never appear in the lineup of any Nats minor-league game, his leadership off the field of play will have much to do with the success of that effort.

      

Consider this scenario:  A rookie manager cannot win 40 percent of his games during 2 1/2 years, gets fired for extreme apathy, and then rather quickly receives not one but TWO offers to manage again in the majors.  

You gotta be kidding me.  

But as Mike Henderson and Ken Rosenthal recount, this is precisely what happened with one Manny Acta.  Turned down the Astros to manage the Indians.  Christmas certainly came early for the Acta family.  

What is especially puzzling is that the Indians find themselves in a situation not too dissimilar from the one Acta couldn't handle.  The Indians finished the 2009 season in the cellar of their division, winning only 6 games more than the Nats.  And to make matters worse, going into next year, there will be no CC...no Cliff Lee...no Victor.  In other words, it's a rebuild.

How could the Indians think that Acta is their answer?  It's simple.  They gave Acta a mulligan for his Nationals tenure.  Not only was Acta not to blame for the poor performance of the Nationals the past few years, he is the person that 2 major league clubs think could turn around a rebuilding team.  

All this amounts to a severe slap in the face of the Nats' (partially former) front office and (fully current) ownership.  And it demonstrates how little regard their peers have for them throughout the league.  The Nats are so screwed up, Acta's failure is uniquely isolated to Washington and, thus, easily dismissed.  That's what the Indians and Astros are saying.  

If you needed another example to prove how far the Nats have to climb, you just got one.