In baseball news that doesn’t make a lot of sense, Washington Nationals manager Jim Riggleman has decided he hates baseball and would rather have no money than less of it. The synopsis, from NBC’s Hardball Talk.
Just minutes after the Nationals beat the Mariners with a walk-off sacrifice fly in a 1-0 game to move above .500 manager Jim Riggleman announced his resignation. According to general manager Mike Rizzo this morning Riggleman expressed displeasure about his contract, which includes a 2012 option that the Nationals haven’t picked up, and said he would step down from the job if it wasn’t handled by the end of this afternoon’s game.
It wasn’t and he did. What an odd situation, particularly with the Nationals playing their best baseball in … well, ever. Riggleman was clearly extremely frustrated by the entire situation, but to quit 75 games into the season, with the team winning 11 of their last 12 games, is shocking.
I eliminated some of the paragraph breaks, but you get the idea. Be sure to read about the first manager to resign in a Dugout this week, then read today’s, which follows the jump.
