What have we done to deserve this?
For 100 years, Washington has been blighted with some of the worst owners of pro sports teams that the United States has produced. Daniel Snyder of the Commanders is just the latest, though he is rapidly working his way up a list of ignominy that includes racists and rip-off artists, the vindictive and the vain, cheap town-jumpers as well as the merely meddlesome and incompetent.
This week, as detailed in James V. Grimaldi's stories in The Post on Commanders tickets, the team has taken the bad faith prize for mean and greedy business practices toward its own fans. If ticket buyers with multiyear contracts suffer from economic hard times, the Commanders do not emulate at least nine other NFL teams, as well as local franchises such as the Capitals, and simply cancel the tickets and sell them to someone else. Nope. Despite a "waiting list" they claim is 160,000 long, the Commanders sue some of their own fans for the money and, at times, even resell the tickets.
To whom would they do such a thing? A 72-year-old grandmother who has loved the team all her life has lost a $66,364 judgment to the team even as she says she's close to bankruptcy. That might take the cake for meanness. But for stupid moves, my choice was the Commanders suing an unemployed paranoid schizophrenic. Now that's crazy. Another fellow, sent to jail, told the Commanders and Nats he'd like to cancel those season tickets of his. The Nats sent him free tickets. The Commanders , of course, sued him.
The Commanders have a right to enforce contracts. But that doesn't make it right. No wonder there are few rebukes in this town as insulting as, "That sounds like something Dan Snyder might do."
The recent revelations about Commanders tickets, including sales of thousands of them to secondary-market brokers even though it is against team policy, have brought howls of "that's the last straw." The Commanders say they've disciplined miscreants internally. They say there'll be no more Steelers crowds at FedEx Field. And they say the problems involve a relatively small number of tickets.
I say I'm not surprised. Unfortunately, it's the pattern of a whole lifetime for many of us. Embarrassing sports ownerships -- not worthy of the town, the teams and the fans -- are our curse.
As a child, I read Shirley Povich's condemnations of the racist practices of Commanders owner George Preston Marshall, including the famous story that began, "Jim Brown, born ineligible to play for the Commanders, integrated their end zone three times yesterday." No wonder, if you were looking for a team with an offensive nickname, you would start here.
