Thomas Boswell: For All His Hard Work, Bowden Needn't Look Elsewhere for Blame

There is, of course, one decent benefit to the way Bowden left. If he comes out of the ongoing federal and MLB investigations into potentially illegal activities in Latin America with his reputation intact, then he may be able to resume his career as an executive. For his hard work, the Nats didn't want to fire him, which would mean specifying his deficiencies. Quitting solves that. But, you have to blame somebody.

Nationals players themselves saw Bowden's departure more simply. "They had to do something after all the problems down in the Dominican," one player said.

Perhaps the person most sympathetic to Bowden is Bob Boone, who managed for him during his GM days in Cincinnati and was the first person Bowden thanked in his farewell.

"My first team meeting as a manager, I asked the team, 'If anybody thinks baseball is fair, raise your hand,' " Boone said. "No hands went up. I said: 'Then we're in agreement. So don't tell me, "That's unfair." ' "

"I hope Jim's exonerated. He's got to feel like, 'Put a charge on me or leave me alone,' " Boone said. "All he cares about is GMing and this team. The thing that seems most unfair to me is how bad the vetting process is down there in the Dominican for the ages of young players. It goes through the government and MLB first and they have far more resources than we do. But we get blamed for 'Smiley.' "

Bowden's departure will probably have almost no long-term effect on the Nationals while simultaneously allowing the team to focus on its apparent improvement, much of that a credit to Bowden. In all of professional sports, it is rare to find one GM who has taken a team from the expansion stage -- which is essentially what the Nats were in 2005 -- to a title.

How will the Nats replace Bowden's energy level, his ability to work for four years at a pace many could barely maintain for one season?

"We won't be able to," Kasten said. "They don't make people like that. From the day I came here I said that Jim had something that we really needed -- resourcefulness. Is there a better example of that than Jim? He was given nothing or next to nothing but he kept finding players that could help us. That's what we needed."

The biggest question that remains is whether Bowden actually upgraded the farm system, which was his No. 1 assignment, far more than the big league team. At first, results looked promising. But the Dominican has been a total waste of time so far. And the high draft picks he constantly praised have under-performed.

Two pitchers have been exceptions. John Lannan was an 11th-round pick, perhaps a testament to luck as well as skill. The team's brightest prospect this spring has been pitcher Jordan Zimmermann, for whom Bowden doesn't get primary credit.

"[Assistant GM] Mike Rizzo made one of those miserable 'extra trips' that good scouts always take. On a cold day in Wisconsin, he saw Zimmermann," Kasten said.

Rizzo should certainly be the first person given serious consideration for the GM job, though one Nats source said, "The phone has been ringing with people around baseball who have said that they would be 'willing to help us.' "

In time, federal and MLB investigations will end and Bowden's good name may be restored. "I will 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," Bowden said.

Bowden is entitled to his view and his pain. However, it is difficult to believe, bordering on inconceivable, that the Lerner family and Kasten would let their GM resign (or that as tough a cuss as Bowden would quit) just because the mean old media was jumping up and down.

If nothing else, it would be terrible business practice to allow your second-in-command to be drummed out of town by unproven allegations. What top executive would sign on with the Nats if that's all the backing he could expect?

The Nats joined poor company on Sunday. The last baseball departure in this area that seemed comparably disingenuous was Davey Johnson's exodus from the Orioles -- technically a resignation, not a firing, though everyone knew better -- on the same day he was named American League manager of the year.

A team that terminates a vital relationship, but won't man up and be candid about its causes, especially when those reasons are so obvious and far more than sufficient, is setting a poor standard for its own behavior.