Tales from the clubhouse: Getting pranked by the players

Every so often in this profession, you write an article knowing it's going to touch a few nerves. Criticism isn't going to sit well with everyone, especially those who are actually being criticized. But when it happens, you show up to work the next day, and if someone wants to let you know what they really thought about your work, you give them the opportunity to express those feelings (hopefully in a productive manner).

It's all part of the job, and over time you learn how to deal with it. But what happens when you write something you think is completely innocuous, only to show up the next day and discover it touched everybody's nerves?

This is a story about one of those rare occasions ...

It's the summer of 2007, and the Nationals are actually playing better than expected. This was supposed to be the worst team in club history, the first true season of the organization's rebuild under the ownership of the Lerner family and oversight of team president Stan Kasten and general manager Jim Bowden.

The Nats spent almost no money in the offseason in an attempt to improve a roster that lost 91 games the previous year. Nobody ever used this term, but it's entirely accurate to say they were tanking.

Every move, every decision the Nationals would make in 2007 would be made with long-term interests outweighing short-term ones. It did not matter (in the front office's mind) if they lost 100 games or 110 games or even 120 games, so long as they ended the season having identified a few core players who would become part of the long-term success of the organization.

But then rookie manager Manny Acta's guys started playing a lot better than expected. They weren't good, not by any stretch of the imagination. But they certainly weren't awful. But in the big picture, did it really matter if scrap-heap veterans like Dmitri Young and Ronnie Belliard were helping the Nats win a few more games? They might help produce a better record in 2007, but they weren't exactly in the team's long-term plans, so none of this really fit in with the overall organizational goal.

It was in that vein that I wrote an analytical piece for The Washington Times that sought to separate the players whose performances truly were important in the big picture from those whose play (no matter how good) didn't actually matter in the larger scope.

I broke down the entire roster, offered up a sentence or two on each player and then gave each one of three designations: "Part of the Plan," "Still Unclear" or "No Future."

(For those wondering, the players I deemed to be "Part of the Plan" included the likes of Ryan Zimmerman, Chad Cordero, Jesús Flores and Shawn Hill, among others. The players I deemed to have "No Future" included Young, Belliard, Brian Schneider, Robert Fick and Mike Bacsik, plus several more.)

It seemed innocent enough. Honestly, I filed that story and didn't spend a moment thinking about how it would be received the rest of that day.

Then I woke up the next morning, opened up the Times sports section and saw how the article was presented: As a full-page spread, with every player's photo included. And those who I had deemed had "No Future" had a giant "X" over their faces.

I cringed. Not that it wasn't well-designed, because it was. But that wasn't really the message I was trying to convey with the piece. I wasn't trying to get rid of players who didn't figure to have a future with the Nationals. I was just trying to identify which players did appear to have a place beyond that season.

Even so, I wasn't particularly worried when I drove to RFK Stadium that afternoon. Players don't always read the paper, and chances were none of those guys even noticed it.

Then I walked into the clubhouse at 3:30 p.m. The entire room was looking at me. On the bulletin board in the middle of the clubhouse was my article. And above every player's locker was either a white slip (those who I said were "Part of the Plan") or a pink slip (those who I said had "No Future").

For about two seconds, I was as terrified as I've been in my entire life.

Then one of the players started laughing. Then another did. Then somebody yelled out to a teammate across the room: "Hey, did you make the team?" "Nah, I've got no future! How about you?" "I'm part of the plan!"

If memory serves, the whole thing was the brainchild of Schneider and Fick, and they took great pleasure in scaring the bejeezus out of me. They also made it clear there were no hard feelings. They knew nothing I had written was personal.

I'd like to think the prank was actually a sign those guys respected me. If they hadn't, they probably would've just chewed me out when I showed up that afternoon, or refused to take my questions. I've maintained a good relationship with both Schneider and Fick - and many others from that team - for many years since they last played for the Nationals.

That 2007 season wound up being a fun one to cover. The Nats finished 73-89, much better than expected. Acta was a treat to work with on a daily basis and had his 2009 contract option picked up at the end of the season. With Nationals Park set to open the next spring, the organization looked like it was headed on the right track.

It wasn't, of course. The 2008 club, which now included Paul Lo Duca, Lastings Milledge, Elijah Dukes and Aaron Boone, was a disaster and finished 59-102, worst in the majors. (At least that set them up to draft Stephen Strasburg the following summer.)

The only player from the 2007 roster who actually wound up becoming "Part of the Plan" was Zimmerman. Everybody else, sadly, had "No Future."

More importantly, by 2010 I no longer worked for a newspaper, moving full-time to the online world, where industrious page designers could no longer present my work in a format that would end up on the clubhouse bulletin board.