from the Washington Times:

On Sunday, Jim Bowden said goodbye - caught up in the middle of the Smiley Gonzalez scandal and a list of other sins - and he was defiant and delusional in his farewell statement.

"Let me state this is a bittersweet moment for me," Bowden said in a statement released by the team. "While I will always have the experiences and fond memories of my relationships with the Nationals, Stan Kasten and the Lerner family, who have always been gracious and fair in their dealings with me, I will also carry with me the cold hard realization that my life has been turned upside down by a news media that prints entire stories attributed solely to anonymous sources who refuse to be identified and who are free to allege anything they choose for any purpose without fear of retribution.

"One can only understand the impact of false allegations, insinuations and innuendos by the press if they themselves have been the subject of those false allegations. However, I also want to thank the many media members who have dealt with me with fairness and professionalism, and they far outweigh the others." 

Bowden has not been accused of anything and may be guilty of nothing. But he is no victim.

Even his supporters will say that Bowden has a lot of enemies in baseball. Those enemies are not because he is particularly good at his job. It is because he has abused relationships and earned a reputation within the game as a man not to be trusted. That reputation all along has hurt the way the Nationals do business. Some rival GMs will not even deal with him.

And they couldn't be swayed with jerseys and trinkets.

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MLB nationals, jim bowden, smiley gonzalez