General Manager Jim Bowden steps down under a cloud:
VIERA, Fla., March 1 — Washington Nationals General Manager Jim Bowden resigned this morning, saying he felt he had become a distraction to the club.
The Nationals did not immediately name a successor or an interim GM.
“It is an emotional decision that saddens me, but one that I feel is in the best interests of the two things I love most — baseball and the Washington Nationals,” Bowden said at a hastily called news conference at Space Coast Stadium, the Nationals’ spring training site.
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Bowden’s departure is the second this week for the Nationals, who on Thursday fired longtime Bowden assistant Jose Rijo. Rijo, who ran the Nationals’ operations in the Dominican Republic out of his baseball academy there, was instrumental in the team’s signing of 16-year-old prospect Esmailyn Gonzalez, who turned out to have faked both his age (by four years) and his name. Gonzalez, whose real name is Carlos Daniel Alvarez Lugo, received a $1.4 million signing bonus, the largest of its kind given by the Nationals. Both Rijo and Bowden are being investigated by Major League Baseball and the FBI; both have maintained their innocence, and Bowden reiterated that today.
This is hardly the best way to start out the season.
That’s what the Nationals get for hiring a guy with a nickname like “Leatherpants.”