Expos: 1; D.C. taxpayers: $TK,000,000

Washington's City Council reverses itself on last week's requirement that half the $500+ million cost of the new ExpoNationals stadium be privately financed. The Nationals are now scheduled to play ball the day before tax filing day, 2005. In reporting the deal, the Wash Post's Thomas Boswell so thoroughly demolishes all previous records for tortured metaphors and clumsy marriage/courtship analogies that Commissioner Bud Selig has ordered a probe of possible steroid abuse by columnists.