who’s obviously starting to realize his job is hanging by a thread.

It never ceases to amaze me how supposedly intelligent people can completely overreact to something this minor. The PR fallout alone has got to have Acta wondering what he was thinking.

Wait, what?

Outrageous.

I don’t know if anybody noticed this last night on MLB Network: their crawl reported this story, and it said the team had fined Duke “$500K” for being late to the ballpark. I almost crapped my pants and had to jump online to verify it.

Your boss is going to be pissed even if you have a good reason.

The biggest issue here is character development. Dukes has a troubled past and to see him do some charity work is great…and his reward is a fine and a possible demotion. If the Nationals cared at all about the future of their franchise they would encourage this and not slap people on the head for it.

Hopefully the players union will actually do something useful for a change and help him fight this fine.

Maybe it was the Nationals bad scheduling of this event that made him late as well!

I edited the title. The original title was “This is just ridiculous” — which tells you absolutely nothing about the content. I hope the headline I used gives everyone an idea of how you should title your posts.

…there’s a reason I’m a FORMER season ticket holder beyond how easy it is to walk up to the window to get tickets for literally any game. The Lerners literally have no clue.

of Elijah’s teammates were extremely pissed off that he was 5 minutes late after helping out with a Nats sponsored little league event.

Way to let down your team, Elijah.

/sarcasm

They appear to have a strict rule about what time you must show up. He broke the rule because he was doing charity which apparently was not team sponsored. Acta made it clear that he was punished because he broke the rule. Acta also made it clear that they want him to do charity work, that it is encouraged, but that he should do it at a time that does not conflict with the time they pay him to be at the ballpark.

Perhaps threatening demotion seems a bit extreme, but Acta is trying to set groundrules on a team that has seemed to have very few in the past.

threatening demotion?? Dukes is a great player who has been worth ~3 war in 600pa’s and is just going to get a lot better. I know my other team had to get rid of him for the safety of women in Tampa particular reasons , but he’s doing charity work for heavens sake. This fine is going to hit him hard too, whatever the amount, in the off season there were papers filed that he couldn’t afford his child support to the four women who have given birth to his five children, because he was broke (like most mlb players he gets paid only during the season).

The guy even states as much in his justification:

“And it was a bizarre situation, because he was doing something that we encourage our players to do: He was out in the community doing something for some Little League program and just showed up late to work.”

It was five minutes. Five.

with a needle in his arm, while drunk and lied about it……

     Let’s see, they sent Milledge down to the minors, and then they scratched Duke from the line-up Saturday after threatening to send him down to the minors and fining him for being 5 minutes late to a team meeting because he was at a charity event (which they encourage the players to do). Then after Sunday’s game, they sent Josh Bard (one of the back-up catchers) and one of the bullpen pitchers down to the minors and designated two other bullpen pitchers for assignment. My guess, Manny Acta is losing control of the team and this is how he’s trying to regain control. I think Acta should go, but that’s just my opinion.

The little league is more functional than the Nationals.

The Great Falls Little League, where he was speaking prior to the game, says it will pay it for him after a fundraising effort, according to the Washington Post.--link

a $100 fine to be given to the Great Falls Little League. This is one pathetic orginization.

He was being PAID $500 to do the event ? I kind of missed that. I still think the reaction was excessive but why did he need to be paid ?

when virtually every other athlete who’s done work for this Little League group has done it for free. And they’re going to raise $500 more for him?

Both Dukes and the Nationals look like fools. Screw ’em both.