District Daily: Heath Bell ready to rebound with the Nationals

Apr 17, 2014; St. Petersburg, FL, USA; Tampa Bay Rays relief pitcher Heath Bell (13) throws a pitch during the sixth inning against the New York Yankees at Tropicana Field. Mandatory Credit: Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports

Good morning DoD readers, start off your day with some great Washington Nationals articles from  around the web in today’s District Daily:

Heath Bell ready to rebound with the Nationals

(James Wagner, Washington Post)

It was November, still early in the offseason, so Heath Bell was taken aback when he was first told by his agent that the Nationals asked about him. “I didn’t think they’d be interested,” the former three-time all-star closer said recently in a telephone interview. “I thought it’d be more of a club around .500 or sub-.500.”

Several weeks later in December, the Nationals returned to Bell’s agent, Scott Lonergan, and expressed stronger interest in Bell. “I thought, ‘Man, this must be a sign so let’s go with this,’” Bell said. And by early December, the 37-year-old had signed an incentive-laden minor league deal with the Nationals that included an invitation to big league camp, part of what he hopes will be his return to the majors after the past three difficult seasons of bouncing from the Marlins to the Diamondbacks to the Rays to minor league stops with the Orioles and Yankees. The veteran reliever has lost 30 pounds since last season, he is refreshed after spending half of last season with his family at home in San Diego and his arm feels strong again. Read full article here.

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MASN court filing advances claim of MLB bias toward Washington Nationals in media rights dispute

(Eric Fisher, Baltimore Business Journal)

New court filings in MASN’s ongoing media-rights battle against Major League Baseball and the Washington Nationals show the network has found 74 different legal representations of baseball-related entities by Proskauer Rose LLC, furthering MASN’s claim of bias in a league ruling favoring the Nats.

MASN since last summer has argued to the New York Supreme Court that Proskauer’s representation of MLB, the Nationals and numerous entities connected to arbitrators on the league’s Revenue Sharing Definitions Committee was improper and should be grounds to vacate the RSDC ruling for Washington. Read full article here.