It seems as though whenever I start praising the Orioles during a hot streak, the wheels fall off the wagon. It happened again this past week...
The Orioles managed to string together a six game win streak, and everything was going swimmingly. The hitters were hitting, the offense was balanced, pitchers were getting wins and throwing strikes, the manager let them pitch, and the team clawed it's way back to .500. Then the hitters stopped hitting, the offense was way unbalanced, the pitchers are getting No Decisions and allowing a lot of hits, the manager is pulling them too early, and we've gone back to our comfort zone of five games below .500. It all sounds too familiar. It has happened before, at least once this season, and probably many more times in the coming years. What I don't understand, however, is why?
Why do we (the fans) have to constantly suffer through the inconsistency of this team? Why can't they just win 2 games, lose 1, win 2, lose 1, and finish with a .667 winning percentage (unrealistic even for a good team, I know)? Why is it that every time we finally look legitimate because we're doing things differently, we revert back to the way we were doing them when we sucked and start losing again?
I know what you're thinking: Kurt, you've said all this before, can't you find something new to write about? The answer is no, I can't find something new, because the team is the same old sorry excuse for a baseball team that it has been for 10 years. Every time we look like we might finally be coming out of it (most recently 2005), spiralling back down we go. We've tried everything, literally everything, to try to stop it, short of actually winning games. We tried loading the roster with veterans, and we lost. We released all the veterans, went with all young blood, and we lost. We tried buying a winning team (highest payroll in baseball in 1998) and we lost. We tried using bargain players (Marty Cordova, David Segui), and we lost. We tried hiring a manager from a winning organization (Lee Mazzilli) and we lost. We promoted a manager from within our crappy organization, and we lost. We've replaced GM's, rosters, staffs, waterboys, and hot dog vendors, and sadly nothing has made us win. And why?
Because the Orioles don't listen. To anybody. Period. The Orioles are a rather delusional bunch, and for some reason do not realize the severity of their awful situation. Case in point, Rick Dempsey. The Demper, when he's not "domestically violating" Jay Gibbons, serves as an analyst for O's Xtra. No matter how bad the loss was, or how heartbreaking, or how demoralizing, Dempsey will undoubtedly sugar coat the loss by spouting off the usual Oriole corporate lines: "It's still early"; "They played hard"; "They were undermanned"; "They were overmatched"; "The coaches made the right calls". News flash Rick: It's not that early (All-Star Game, dead ahead), they don't play hard, they have as much talent as you can ask for, the other teams aren't that much better, and the coaches suck (see previous posts for proof of all of the above).
Dempsey is just the tip of the iceberg, however, because he's not even within the organization. The real meat of the organization, like Mike Flanagan, Jim Duquette, and Peter Angelos, are the ones paying Dempsey to sugar coat everything in an attempt to deceive the fans. News Flash for you three clowns: We're not stupid. We've seen the chaos that has become the Orioles. Furthermore, we've tried to prove to you that we aren't stupid, and that we want the team to be a winner, and that you can't sugar coat things from us forever, but you don't listen. Newspaper columnists, radio hosts, TV sportscasters, even casual bloggers have all seemingly come up with more answers than the team. The team is trying to stay the course, ride it out, let it heal itself, but this isn't something that can heal itself. The Orioles need to start paying attention.
It's not just the local fans that get ignored, either. The Orioles also seem to ignore the trends that go on in Major League Baseball. While other teams are cultivating young talent across the board, or tapping foreign markets for players (Milwaukee, Seattle, Anaheim, Boston), the Orioles sign the recycled cast offs from contending teams (Aubrey Huff, Danys Baez). There is clearly a reason why baseball players become unemployed, and it is that they aren't any good. Baseball has no salary cap, so if a player is worth keeping, you can keep him. Instead, the Orioles trade away the young talent they've invested their time and money in, like John Maine or Gary Matthews, resign free agents that have little talent to begin with, like Jay Gibbons, and make no major plays for the foreign superstars that have become en vogue lately in MLB.
One final trend that the Orioles tend to ignore is the trend that correlates winning and revenue. Peter Angelos is famous for two things: suing Bethlehem Steel for workers getting asbestos, and bitching that the Orioles don't make any money for him. What he doesn't realize is that it is infinitely more expensive to lose than it is to win. Sure, to lose all you need is a low payroll and a washed up coach, while winning requires hiring good scouts, tracking trends, an investing time in players. But the payoff is enormous for winning. Winning puts fans in the stands at an average of $25 a ticket. Twenty-five dollars a ticket times the 48,000 seats the stadium holds comes out to $1.2 milllllllllion dollars in just tickets sales. Think about the hot dogs, popcorn, soda, beer, and Boog's Bar-b-que those 48,000 people will consume, plus the hats, jerseys, pennants, foam fingers, and programs they'll buy, and you can almost pay the entire team with that money for an entire season. But in order to reap those benefits, Peter, you have to put in the time to make the team a winner. Everybody knows the Orioles' favorite series are the ones against New York and Boston, because those series fill the seats, albeit with the wrong people. Peter, imagine getting that every night, with those people wearing orange and black. If you win, we will come.
One day, maybe the team will listen. It's not like the fans haven't tried. Last season, "Nasty" Nestor Aparicio of WNST organized a fan walkout during a game. The players noticed, but knew there was nothing they could do about it. The target of the walkout was Mr. Angelos, who simply scoffed and patronized the fans who participated. He said, "They don't know how hard it is to run a team. They don't know anything". We may not, but it seems like you're in the same boat, Pete. The least you can do is give the fans a bone and maybe start to listen to some of our ideas. Listen to the people who pay to sit in the seats amongst all the Yankee and Red Sox fans, and quietly cheer for a team we wish would return to prominence. My readers, I apologize for sounding like a broken record.
Peace.
Cool Note: In order to reach a wider audience, the Long Beach Armada minor league baseball team took the Anaheim Angels' approach to naming the team. The new official name of the team is the Long Beach Armada of Los Angeles of California of the United States of North America Including Barrow, Alaska. Read all about it here.
Showing posts with label baseball MLB. Show all posts
Showing posts with label baseball MLB. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 6, 2007
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
O's Rhymes With "Woes"?... You Don't Say
I'm back from my travels (hooray!). I can post with some regularity again (hooray!). I'll kick off my welcome back tour with a post about the Orioles (booooo!).
The only thing more frustrating than watching the Orioles lose a game is listening to the Orioles lose a game. That was the case for me on Sunday. Somewhere in the foothills of Tennessee, I found myself listening to the O's- Red Sox game on an XM Satellite Radio. Things seemed good. The O's were winning, I wasn't missing a pitch, the mountains were barely interrupting the broadcast. Unfortunately, due to XM's agreement with Major League Baseball, the XM broadcast is the broadcast as told by the hometeam's radio crew. I had to listen to the game from the viewpoint of the Red Sox's (Red Sox'? Red Sock?) radio team.
Before I go bird-bashing, let me say that for a franchise that has had as much success in the past couple of years as the Red Sox, I have never heard a broadcast that has so much self pity and as big an inferiority complex as the Boston broadcast. The announcers would constantly defend their team's lackluster performance of a year ago with the caveat that many players were hurt. "The team had injury problems all last year" they would say. Boo-friggin'-hoo. Every team has injury problems. Perhaps the reason your team missed the playoffs is that they weren't that good. With the Sux down 3-0 for the majority of the game, the announcers would wallow in self pity and say that "the wind just hasn't been helping the team out today". They said the reason the Sux hadn't scored any runs was because the wind was blowing hard toward home plate and knocking down any hard hit balls. Then they played the biased mother nature card and said that the wind only blew had toward home plate when the Sox were batting, and not the Orioles. So here they are, getting beat by an admittedly inferior team, and they blame everything but themselves. And I was happy.
Then the wheels fell off the wagon in so many ways my head hurt. First, the XM Radio stopped working. No warning, no wavering, just a nice POOF, and it was done. Apparently, it knew what was lurking in the ninth inning. Once my broadcast was blacked out (with the O's ahead 3-0, I might add), I figured things would work out. Jeremy Guthrie was pitching nicely, the hitters were holding their own, and the Sox were getting shut out. It wasn't until I caught the final score of the game in a hotel room in Bristol, Virginia that my heart was wrenched.
Those who saw the game or the lowlights or just know how the Orioles operate know the rest of the story. It is too painful for me to repeat. It bummed me put for a little while, and I started thinking "Woe are the Orioles. The baseball gods hate us". And then two things hit me: 1) saying that makes me no better than the Red Sox jabberwocky announcers; 2) the Orioles have brought all of this upon themselves, and the real woe is the Oriole fan.
What happened to a franchise that was once so proud? The team that had Cal Ripken, Brooks Robinson, Frank Robinson, Boog Powell, Earl Weaver, Mark Bellanger, the list goes on and on. The team that went wire to wire in 1997 and looked unbeatable in the playoffs. How did things get this bad? Is it too easy to blame a curse?
The answer is yes, it is entirely too easy to say we're cursed. I've heard rumblings about a Camden Curse or a Davey Johnson Curse, but that's too easy. We haven't done anything in the last ten years to prove the existence of a curse. For example, let's pretend like we have a Camden Curse. Did signing Albert Belle, Marty Cordova, David Segui, Rafael Palmeiro, Sammy Sosa, and Jaret Wright whilst jettisoning Gary Matthews, John Maine, and B.J. Ryan do anything to break that curse? Did we even put ourselves in position to break any potential curses? Hell no. It's not a curse at this point, because we haven't done anything to prove that it is. If we had a lineup that looked more like the All-Star team and we still weren't winning, then maybe it could be something supernatural. And don't get me wrong, I'd would love for it to be something supernatural, because life would be easier. But the reality is, it's probably more like a cancer than a curse.
The Orioles managed to kill themselves over the last ten years from the inside. Peter Angelos thinks entirely too much in the short term. He's like a little kid who is offered candy if they clean their room, and accept in order to get the candy right away, without realizing that the consequence of taking the candy is cleaning your room. The O's have jumped at so many "big-name" (read big-money) free agents over the years that haven't panned out that all we can do is point the fingers back at ourselves. The consequences of signing the Belles and Cordovas and Palmeiros has been our inability to have any money left over (in our considerably shallow pockets, I might add) to go after a Vladimir Guererro or Alfonso Soriano.
Yet it all seemed like it would be different this year. We have youth throughout the team, we have a likable, home-grown manager, and we have a star in the making to build the future around. And we still suck. They lack heart. When it comes down to it, they are emotionless, playing like zombies with a leather glove on. They win a game with a walk-off homerun, and everybody crowds the plate and congratulates the hitter because they have to, not because they are genuinely excited about winning. The idea of winning draws little excitement amongst the players, because what's the difference? They've lost games for years and no one has cared. Even when they win, nobody is there to see it. The "franchise" down the road stole half the fans. So why bother trying to win? The manager and coaches seem disinterested, and the owner is too busy paying people to count his money, so why try to win? Any Oriole can simply go through the motions just long enough to draw the attention of a winning team, and request a trade or let their contract expire, and then finally play for a winner. So why try winning for the Orioles?
It's that exact attitude that makes the fans of the Orioles the victim in it all. The players aren't the victim. The emotionless oil painting that manages the team isn't the victim. The owner couldn't care much less. The only people who do care are the fans that continually get shafted. Sunday after the game was the first time any of us have ever seen Sam Perlozzo get mad. He has coached the team for almost two whole years, and never once has shown emotion like he did on Sunday. Sure, Sunday's loss hurt, but every loss hurts, because that's all it takes for the fans to say "here we go again". The Orioles (the whole miserable organization) need to start taking losing seriously in order to take winning seriously. Every fan in Baltimore laughs at the prospect of winning because it's absolutely preposterous. Losing is the way it is here (during the summer, anyway) because winning is a punch line.
The situation has gotten so bad that even non-Oriole fans can't take it anymore. Si.com's John Donovan released his new power rankings, and had the Orioles at #20 (too high, to be sure). The comment: "How can you lose a game like Sunday's? It's sickening. A dropped infield popup. A blown toss play to the pitcher covering first. The decision to pull the starter in the first place. Man, the O's are maddening." A little background on Mr. Donovan: he got his start as a journalist in Phoenix, and has worked prior to Si.com in Guam, Florida, Kentucky, and Ohio. He seemingly has no vested interest in the Orioles, and yet even he is "sickened" and "maddened". It has gotten so bad that people who don't even care about the Orioles care more than the Orioles.
The only comforts for Baltimore nowadays: Raven's minicamp starts in like a month; the Ravens drafted very well, as usual; the Orioles will be mathematically eliminated by the All-Star break, and losses like Sunday's and even Monday's won't matter, yet again. The only comfort for me nowadays? The XM radio stopped working and I didn't have to hear the end of Sunday's debacle through the sounds of Red Sox nation.
Peace.
The only thing more frustrating than watching the Orioles lose a game is listening to the Orioles lose a game. That was the case for me on Sunday. Somewhere in the foothills of Tennessee, I found myself listening to the O's- Red Sox game on an XM Satellite Radio. Things seemed good. The O's were winning, I wasn't missing a pitch, the mountains were barely interrupting the broadcast. Unfortunately, due to XM's agreement with Major League Baseball, the XM broadcast is the broadcast as told by the hometeam's radio crew. I had to listen to the game from the viewpoint of the Red Sox's (Red Sox'? Red Sock?) radio team.
Before I go bird-bashing, let me say that for a franchise that has had as much success in the past couple of years as the Red Sox, I have never heard a broadcast that has so much self pity and as big an inferiority complex as the Boston broadcast. The announcers would constantly defend their team's lackluster performance of a year ago with the caveat that many players were hurt. "The team had injury problems all last year" they would say. Boo-friggin'-hoo. Every team has injury problems. Perhaps the reason your team missed the playoffs is that they weren't that good. With the Sux down 3-0 for the majority of the game, the announcers would wallow in self pity and say that "the wind just hasn't been helping the team out today". They said the reason the Sux hadn't scored any runs was because the wind was blowing hard toward home plate and knocking down any hard hit balls. Then they played the biased mother nature card and said that the wind only blew had toward home plate when the Sox were batting, and not the Orioles. So here they are, getting beat by an admittedly inferior team, and they blame everything but themselves. And I was happy.
Then the wheels fell off the wagon in so many ways my head hurt. First, the XM Radio stopped working. No warning, no wavering, just a nice POOF, and it was done. Apparently, it knew what was lurking in the ninth inning. Once my broadcast was blacked out (with the O's ahead 3-0, I might add), I figured things would work out. Jeremy Guthrie was pitching nicely, the hitters were holding their own, and the Sox were getting shut out. It wasn't until I caught the final score of the game in a hotel room in Bristol, Virginia that my heart was wrenched.
Those who saw the game or the lowlights or just know how the Orioles operate know the rest of the story. It is too painful for me to repeat. It bummed me put for a little while, and I started thinking "Woe are the Orioles. The baseball gods hate us". And then two things hit me: 1) saying that makes me no better than the Red Sox jabberwocky announcers; 2) the Orioles have brought all of this upon themselves, and the real woe is the Oriole fan.
What happened to a franchise that was once so proud? The team that had Cal Ripken, Brooks Robinson, Frank Robinson, Boog Powell, Earl Weaver, Mark Bellanger, the list goes on and on. The team that went wire to wire in 1997 and looked unbeatable in the playoffs. How did things get this bad? Is it too easy to blame a curse?
The answer is yes, it is entirely too easy to say we're cursed. I've heard rumblings about a Camden Curse or a Davey Johnson Curse, but that's too easy. We haven't done anything in the last ten years to prove the existence of a curse. For example, let's pretend like we have a Camden Curse. Did signing Albert Belle, Marty Cordova, David Segui, Rafael Palmeiro, Sammy Sosa, and Jaret Wright whilst jettisoning Gary Matthews, John Maine, and B.J. Ryan do anything to break that curse? Did we even put ourselves in position to break any potential curses? Hell no. It's not a curse at this point, because we haven't done anything to prove that it is. If we had a lineup that looked more like the All-Star team and we still weren't winning, then maybe it could be something supernatural. And don't get me wrong, I'd would love for it to be something supernatural, because life would be easier. But the reality is, it's probably more like a cancer than a curse.
The Orioles managed to kill themselves over the last ten years from the inside. Peter Angelos thinks entirely too much in the short term. He's like a little kid who is offered candy if they clean their room, and accept in order to get the candy right away, without realizing that the consequence of taking the candy is cleaning your room. The O's have jumped at so many "big-name" (read big-money) free agents over the years that haven't panned out that all we can do is point the fingers back at ourselves. The consequences of signing the Belles and Cordovas and Palmeiros has been our inability to have any money left over (in our considerably shallow pockets, I might add) to go after a Vladimir Guererro or Alfonso Soriano.
Yet it all seemed like it would be different this year. We have youth throughout the team, we have a likable, home-grown manager, and we have a star in the making to build the future around. And we still suck. They lack heart. When it comes down to it, they are emotionless, playing like zombies with a leather glove on. They win a game with a walk-off homerun, and everybody crowds the plate and congratulates the hitter because they have to, not because they are genuinely excited about winning. The idea of winning draws little excitement amongst the players, because what's the difference? They've lost games for years and no one has cared. Even when they win, nobody is there to see it. The "franchise" down the road stole half the fans. So why bother trying to win? The manager and coaches seem disinterested, and the owner is too busy paying people to count his money, so why try to win? Any Oriole can simply go through the motions just long enough to draw the attention of a winning team, and request a trade or let their contract expire, and then finally play for a winner. So why try winning for the Orioles?
It's that exact attitude that makes the fans of the Orioles the victim in it all. The players aren't the victim. The emotionless oil painting that manages the team isn't the victim. The owner couldn't care much less. The only people who do care are the fans that continually get shafted. Sunday after the game was the first time any of us have ever seen Sam Perlozzo get mad. He has coached the team for almost two whole years, and never once has shown emotion like he did on Sunday. Sure, Sunday's loss hurt, but every loss hurts, because that's all it takes for the fans to say "here we go again". The Orioles (the whole miserable organization) need to start taking losing seriously in order to take winning seriously. Every fan in Baltimore laughs at the prospect of winning because it's absolutely preposterous. Losing is the way it is here (during the summer, anyway) because winning is a punch line.
The situation has gotten so bad that even non-Oriole fans can't take it anymore. Si.com's John Donovan released his new power rankings, and had the Orioles at #20 (too high, to be sure). The comment: "How can you lose a game like Sunday's? It's sickening. A dropped infield popup. A blown toss play to the pitcher covering first. The decision to pull the starter in the first place. Man, the O's are maddening." A little background on Mr. Donovan: he got his start as a journalist in Phoenix, and has worked prior to Si.com in Guam, Florida, Kentucky, and Ohio. He seemingly has no vested interest in the Orioles, and yet even he is "sickened" and "maddened". It has gotten so bad that people who don't even care about the Orioles care more than the Orioles.
The only comforts for Baltimore nowadays: Raven's minicamp starts in like a month; the Ravens drafted very well, as usual; the Orioles will be mathematically eliminated by the All-Star break, and losses like Sunday's and even Monday's won't matter, yet again. The only comfort for me nowadays? The XM radio stopped working and I didn't have to hear the end of Sunday's debacle through the sounds of Red Sox nation.
Peace.
Tuesday, May 8, 2007
Tidbits
Okay, here's the deal... I'm trying to blog on the road this week, so I'll try to find time whenever I can to write what I can. It probably won't be up to the same quality that my faithful reader(s) is used to, but what can you do? With that in mind, let me clear up this past weekend in sports...
- Will somebody please tell Roger Clemens that baseball season starts in April, not June. This isn't the Little League.
- The Yankees are going to spend just over $25 million on Clemens for just about four months of work. Conversely, the Devil Rays employ 24 players for just over $24 million for six months. That means the Devil Rays will pay about $167,000 per player per month, while the Yankees will pay Clemens $6,250,000 per player per month. I don't know for sure, but it seems to me like the Yankees could have purchased an actual rocket for close to the same overall price.
- I hope you all took the time on Saturday to remember and honor one of America's greatest heros ever, Barbaro. Words cannot express the gratitude I feel for a great American who did so much. Barbaro, as any history buff will tell you, freed the slaves, single handedly won World War II, and even made an unsuccessful attempt at becoming president. All of this is just an addition to his awe-inspiring dash toward the Triple Crown, where he won the first jewel, and no others. I believe I speak for all of America when I say Barbaro deserves his own holiday.
- OK, the above bullet may seem a little harsh, but honestly, at the end of the day, he was just a horse. I love animals, and I enjoy the Triple Crown, and what happened to Barbaro was really sad, but to call Barbaro a hero when we have cops and firefighters and teachers and soldiers doing so much more than Barbaro could ever do just sounds ridiculous.
- How about that Mayweather v. De la hoya fight? The "Fight to Save Boxing". So much for that. How can you begin to save you sorry excuse of a once great sport when there are no knockdowns, and the match is decided by a bunch of overweight, old white guys who probably haven't boxed ever? No knockdowns. None. I wasn't at the fight, and I didn't see the fight, but I would have been pretty peeved if I had just spent good money to see the "Fight of the Century" and nobody was even good enough to knock the other person down.
- I saw an interesting piece on ESPN yesterday about a great new sport sweeping through Europe: Chess-Boxing. This is the ultimate test of both brain and brawn. Chess-Boxing is just that: chess and boxing. Two athletically gifted and smarter than the average bear men face off in an interesting match. The first round features speed chess, standard rules apply. The second round is a round of the sweet science, standard rules apply. Then it's back to chess, then back to boxing. This goes on until there is either a checkmate or a knockout. This sport has really gained a faithful following in Europe, and the World Chess-Boxing Organization (it really does exist) is planning to move the sport to Las Vegas soon enough. All I can say is good luck. We already don't like boxing, and they're going to go and bore it up even more with a round of chess in between each round. I think this is one thing that the Europeans can keep to themselves.
From the road, Peace.
Droppin' El Whammo: Tampa Bay Devil Rays
Thursday, April 26, 2007
Put a Bloody Sock In It
Nothing makes me happier than when someone challenges the misguided beliefs of millions, except, of course, when the challenger represents one my favorite sports teams. Allow me to explain...
In 2004, Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling had experimental surgery on his ankle during the playoffs. Instead of giving his ankle ample time to heal, he rushed back to the mound so as to not miss his start against the hated Yankees. Schilling pitched well (as usual), but the "stuff of legend" was made by some wily cameramen. During the game, a camera noticed some red splotches on Schillings sock, right around that same surgically repaired ankle. Everyone assumed that the ankle was bleeding while Schilling was pitching, and that he is not mortal, for surely mortals cannot pitch with a bloody ankle.
Schilling won the game, the Sox won the series, and eventually the World Series. This performance was lauded (means praised), and the bloody sock was sent to the Hall of Fame and placed on display (ewww). Tales of Schilling's gutsy performance were canonized by baseball pundits, and have gone unchallenged.
Enter Gary Thorne. Thorne is the freshman play-by-play man for the Orioles this season, and possesses both a good announcer voice and a firm grasp of the minute details that occur within a game. This past Wednesday during a broadcast of the Orioles/Red Sox contest, Thorne started a rather nice conspiracy, saying that Schilling's ankle was not bleeding, the sock was painted red (ironic), and the stories were just the stuff of lore like Babe Ruth calling his shot. Most Oriole fans probably shrugged their shoulders and said "Yeah, maybe". Boston, on the other hand, was just about ready to declare war on the City of Baltimore, and the media was serving as the back up.
Unbeknownst to Thorne at the time, the statement he made was in fact sacrilege of the highest degree, a blasphemy worse than that of which the Romans convicted Jesus Christ. Thorne offered the other side to the coin (raising a skeptical eye is good), and good lord is he going to pay, maybe Don Imus style. This story has been the top headline on both Si.com and ESPN.com for at least 4 hours. It has been on Baseball Tonight, Sportscenter, and I think CSPAN. The Food Network has gone off the air in respect to those affected by this tragedy, and the President has declared a state of emergency. I, for once, got my wish, as the national media has descended upon Baltimore to cover this story of high treason (careful what you wish for).
I am somewhat offended, not by the comment by any means (I'm a believer in Thorne... more on that), but by the response this has garnered. On ESPN's "Outside the Lines with Bob Ley", Ley was quoted as saying that the comment was of, and I quote, "monumental proportions". That sounds vaguely familiar, as if I had heard it before somewhere recently. Oh, that's right, those were the EXACT WORDS used by Virginia Tech President Charles Steger to describe the shooting massacre that took place on campus. According to Bob Ley, Gary Thorne questioning Schilling's ankle is the same as 32 people losing their lives in an environment of academia. Bob Ley should suddenly be the one on trial, not Gary Thorne. The problem is, we live in an ass backwards society, so lets crucify Gary Thorne first, and let Bob Ley slide. Just know that Ley's comment was tasteless, classless, and disrespectful, and represents a sad day in editing when trash like that can make it to the air waves. In my mind, Bob Ley is no better (possibly worse) than Don Imus, and deserves the spot in the unemployment line directly behind Imus. With that, I announce that I will never, ever, watch Outside the Lines again.
Back to the story. Red Sox nation, the media, and the Hall of Fame have all come out in support of Schilling, all saying there is no possible way Thorne's comments are true. But lets check some sources, shall we? Thorne says he was told that the blood was fake from Schilling's catcher that night, Doug Mirabelli. When the comment was brought to his attention, Mirabelli called Thorne's comment a "straight lie", with the same vigor as President Bill Clinton denying the Monica Lewinski scandal and Rafael Palmeiro denying steroid use. It was hard to tell from the article, but I got the impression that Mirabelli was pointing his finger at the interviewer when he said "straight lie" (by the way, aren't lies, by definition inherently crooked? Wouldn't a straight lie be a truth?).
What people are forgetting here is that Thorne didn't question Schilling's performance that night. He did not say "Curt Schilling used a stand in that night, and did not pitch against the Yankees, but still took credit for it". The only thing he questioned was the substance that was on the sock. The Hall of Fame has come out in support of Schilling, saying the stain has since turned brown (ewww), which is the natural tendency of blood. I propose this question: how do we know the blood wasn't applied after the game? How do we know that Curt Schilling didn't paint the sock for the game, then apply blood later, knowing it would one day come under scrutiny? Red Sox manager Terry Francona has also come out in support of Schilling, saying that the pitcher's performance was just short of heroic (again, our priorities as a society are way out of order when a pitcher in a GAME is heroic, but cops, firefighters, and teachers still live paycheck to paycheck). The Red Sox nation (of which the national media is a card carrying member) has definitely come out to support Schilling in his moment of need, but what does the pitcher have to say for himself?
Schilling, naturally and as expected, has denied Thorne's claim, saying he has the scar to prove it. He went as far to say that Gary Thorne is a "bad man". Apparently, Schilling knows things about Thorne that the rest of us do not. In Schilling's mind, "Bad Man" Thorne made the challenging comment whilst lighting his crack pipe, selling military secrets to Al Quaida, kicking a puppy, ripping off senior citizens, stealing candy from a baby, and parking in a handicap space. These comments do not make Thorne a bad man, because he didn't call Schilling a "nappy headed ho" or anything derogatory. He simply questioned the sock that Schilling wore that night. What I would like to know is if Schilling is so vehement that the sock was bloodied during the game, why can't he let Thorne's comment roll right off his back? Why does he have to create such public backlash over the issue, and take such a defensive stance? The same goes for Mirabelli as well. If they are so sure that they are right, why bother fighting?
While most of the Western Hemisphere has Schilling's back, who is carrying Thorne's banner? Well, there's me (though I be but small, I am mighty), and hopefully my readers (I know where you live), and that's about it. Not even the network that broadcast the game has Thorne's back. MASN (my favorite network ever) re aired the game today, and left Thorne's comment out of the broadcast as if it never even happened. The network has left Thorne hanging out to dry, which really should be MASN's motto. "MASN: Hanging people out to dry on two networks for over 2 months!"
In all seriousness, the media is blowing this entirely out of proportion. Thorne simply offered a second explanation of what actually happened that night, and he has gotten nothing but the third degree since. The man is entitled to his opinion, and people like it better when there are two sides to an issue. Yes, it's a controversial stance, and yes, it creates a conspiracy, but who doesn't love a good conspiracy theory? Maybe Schilling brainwashed Mirabelli into retracting the comment, and paid off the media to keep it hush-hush. Who knows? All I know is that putting Gary Thorne on trial for making this comment is not worth the trouble. He didn't question Schilling's performance that night, and in the end, the performance was all that mattered.
Peace.
FOLLOW UP:
Hours after I made this post, Gary Thorne retracted his statements, saying he talked to Doug Mirabelli and they cleared the whole thing up. The real reason is that he's spineless, was afraid to stand up for himself, and was terrified of the media.
In 2004, Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling had experimental surgery on his ankle during the playoffs. Instead of giving his ankle ample time to heal, he rushed back to the mound so as to not miss his start against the hated Yankees. Schilling pitched well (as usual), but the "stuff of legend" was made by some wily cameramen. During the game, a camera noticed some red splotches on Schillings sock, right around that same surgically repaired ankle. Everyone assumed that the ankle was bleeding while Schilling was pitching, and that he is not mortal, for surely mortals cannot pitch with a bloody ankle.
Schilling won the game, the Sox won the series, and eventually the World Series. This performance was lauded (means praised), and the bloody sock was sent to the Hall of Fame and placed on display (ewww). Tales of Schilling's gutsy performance were canonized by baseball pundits, and have gone unchallenged.
Enter Gary Thorne. Thorne is the freshman play-by-play man for the Orioles this season, and possesses both a good announcer voice and a firm grasp of the minute details that occur within a game. This past Wednesday during a broadcast of the Orioles/Red Sox contest, Thorne started a rather nice conspiracy, saying that Schilling's ankle was not bleeding, the sock was painted red (ironic), and the stories were just the stuff of lore like Babe Ruth calling his shot. Most Oriole fans probably shrugged their shoulders and said "Yeah, maybe". Boston, on the other hand, was just about ready to declare war on the City of Baltimore, and the media was serving as the back up.
Unbeknownst to Thorne at the time, the statement he made was in fact sacrilege of the highest degree, a blasphemy worse than that of which the Romans convicted Jesus Christ. Thorne offered the other side to the coin (raising a skeptical eye is good), and good lord is he going to pay, maybe Don Imus style. This story has been the top headline on both Si.com and ESPN.com for at least 4 hours. It has been on Baseball Tonight, Sportscenter, and I think CSPAN. The Food Network has gone off the air in respect to those affected by this tragedy, and the President has declared a state of emergency. I, for once, got my wish, as the national media has descended upon Baltimore to cover this story of high treason (careful what you wish for).
I am somewhat offended, not by the comment by any means (I'm a believer in Thorne... more on that), but by the response this has garnered. On ESPN's "Outside the Lines with Bob Ley", Ley was quoted as saying that the comment was of, and I quote, "monumental proportions". That sounds vaguely familiar, as if I had heard it before somewhere recently. Oh, that's right, those were the EXACT WORDS used by Virginia Tech President Charles Steger to describe the shooting massacre that took place on campus. According to Bob Ley, Gary Thorne questioning Schilling's ankle is the same as 32 people losing their lives in an environment of academia. Bob Ley should suddenly be the one on trial, not Gary Thorne. The problem is, we live in an ass backwards society, so lets crucify Gary Thorne first, and let Bob Ley slide. Just know that Ley's comment was tasteless, classless, and disrespectful, and represents a sad day in editing when trash like that can make it to the air waves. In my mind, Bob Ley is no better (possibly worse) than Don Imus, and deserves the spot in the unemployment line directly behind Imus. With that, I announce that I will never, ever, watch Outside the Lines again.
Back to the story. Red Sox nation, the media, and the Hall of Fame have all come out in support of Schilling, all saying there is no possible way Thorne's comments are true. But lets check some sources, shall we? Thorne says he was told that the blood was fake from Schilling's catcher that night, Doug Mirabelli. When the comment was brought to his attention, Mirabelli called Thorne's comment a "straight lie", with the same vigor as President Bill Clinton denying the Monica Lewinski scandal and Rafael Palmeiro denying steroid use. It was hard to tell from the article, but I got the impression that Mirabelli was pointing his finger at the interviewer when he said "straight lie" (by the way, aren't lies, by definition inherently crooked? Wouldn't a straight lie be a truth?).
What people are forgetting here is that Thorne didn't question Schilling's performance that night. He did not say "Curt Schilling used a stand in that night, and did not pitch against the Yankees, but still took credit for it". The only thing he questioned was the substance that was on the sock. The Hall of Fame has come out in support of Schilling, saying the stain has since turned brown (ewww), which is the natural tendency of blood. I propose this question: how do we know the blood wasn't applied after the game? How do we know that Curt Schilling didn't paint the sock for the game, then apply blood later, knowing it would one day come under scrutiny? Red Sox manager Terry Francona has also come out in support of Schilling, saying that the pitcher's performance was just short of heroic (again, our priorities as a society are way out of order when a pitcher in a GAME is heroic, but cops, firefighters, and teachers still live paycheck to paycheck). The Red Sox nation (of which the national media is a card carrying member) has definitely come out to support Schilling in his moment of need, but what does the pitcher have to say for himself?
Schilling, naturally and as expected, has denied Thorne's claim, saying he has the scar to prove it. He went as far to say that Gary Thorne is a "bad man". Apparently, Schilling knows things about Thorne that the rest of us do not. In Schilling's mind, "Bad Man" Thorne made the challenging comment whilst lighting his crack pipe, selling military secrets to Al Quaida, kicking a puppy, ripping off senior citizens, stealing candy from a baby, and parking in a handicap space. These comments do not make Thorne a bad man, because he didn't call Schilling a "nappy headed ho" or anything derogatory. He simply questioned the sock that Schilling wore that night. What I would like to know is if Schilling is so vehement that the sock was bloodied during the game, why can't he let Thorne's comment roll right off his back? Why does he have to create such public backlash over the issue, and take such a defensive stance? The same goes for Mirabelli as well. If they are so sure that they are right, why bother fighting?
While most of the Western Hemisphere has Schilling's back, who is carrying Thorne's banner? Well, there's me (though I be but small, I am mighty), and hopefully my readers (I know where you live), and that's about it. Not even the network that broadcast the game has Thorne's back. MASN (my favorite network ever) re aired the game today, and left Thorne's comment out of the broadcast as if it never even happened. The network has left Thorne hanging out to dry, which really should be MASN's motto. "MASN: Hanging people out to dry on two networks for over 2 months!"
In all seriousness, the media is blowing this entirely out of proportion. Thorne simply offered a second explanation of what actually happened that night, and he has gotten nothing but the third degree since. The man is entitled to his opinion, and people like it better when there are two sides to an issue. Yes, it's a controversial stance, and yes, it creates a conspiracy, but who doesn't love a good conspiracy theory? Maybe Schilling brainwashed Mirabelli into retracting the comment, and paid off the media to keep it hush-hush. Who knows? All I know is that putting Gary Thorne on trial for making this comment is not worth the trouble. He didn't question Schilling's performance that night, and in the end, the performance was all that mattered.
Peace.
FOLLOW UP:
Hours after I made this post, Gary Thorne retracted his statements, saying he talked to Doug Mirabelli and they cleared the whole thing up. The real reason is that he's spineless, was afraid to stand up for himself, and was terrified of the media.
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
Singin' a Familiar Tune
This just in from the Department of the Obvious... the Chicago Cubs are not good at baseball.
This comes as a shock to only one, that being Cubs manager Lou Piniella. "Sweet Lou" apparently hasn't watched Sportscenter in the last 100 years, or he would have known what he was getting into when he agreed to coach the most famous losers in the history of sport. Now, Piniella's tirades over his team's ineptitude are constantly on Sportscenter. With the Cubbies off to another dismal start that will likely end with a familiar dismal finish, I have one question for Sweet Lou: what the hell did you think was gonna happen?
Lets set history aside for a brief second, and focus on the here and now. The Cubs are a disaster on the base paths (they recently had a man thrown out at second for over running the base while advancing on a walk); nobody can name one member of their bullpen, which is good, because these men would prefer to not have faces put to their names; multi-million dollar uber free-agent Alfonso Soriano has as many homeruns as me, and only one more RBI; and oh yeah, theres Kerry Wood and Mark Prior.
Wood and Prior, once thought of as the makings of the greatest pitching tandem ever, started off another season in the trainer's room, and it looks as though the season may already be over for Prior. The last 6 (I think; it may be more, may be less) seasons has seen both of these potential aces end up on the DL, usually for the duration of the season. When they manage to stay healthy, they are two very good pitchers. The problem is, they pitch for the Cubs, and the Cubs are just as cursed as the Madden cover.
The Cubs suffer from a curse that lies deep in the lore of sports legend, the Billy Goat Curse. In 1945, the last time the Cubs made it to the World Series, a man and his goat were admitted to the park to watch the game (the man bought a seat for the goat... whack job), but were ultimately ejected due to the odor of the goat. The man then placed a curse on the Cubs, saying they would never win another pennant or World Series. So far, he's right.
Which brings us back to Sweet Lou. Piniella is a good coach. Piniella is not a great coach. It's going to take the greatest baseball coach of all time to break the Billy Goat Curse. Piniella is apparently delusional, thinking that his pedestrian resume (one World Series win, in 1990 with the Reds) can conquer a curse that lives on when it has no business living on. People want to see the Cubs win (except me... I wanna see the O's win); they've been "Lovable Losers" for so long that it takes people with very cold hearts to not want to see them succeed (I'm frigid). But Lou Piniella is not the answer to the Cubs problems. The problems lie way deeper than Lou Piniella.
The Cubs haven't won a World Series since 1908. That's almost 100 years. A century. Ten decades. Theodore Roosevelt was President. The last World Series they won was World Series V. They were working on breaking a pretty hefty drought before all the Billy Goat business in 1945, and now haven't been back since. They went 20 years without a winning record. Most of those 20 years saw them finish in last place. Even when they get close, people like Steve Bartman act on behalf of the Billy Goat just to ensure that defeat is snatched from the jaws of victory. This is not a problem one season or one man or one act can solve.
And that's most of the problem with the Cubs... they want to solve the whole thing in one felling swoop. Last season, after Wood and Prior made their annual pilgrimage to the DL, fans called for then- manager Dusty Baker's head, saying he worked them too hard in spring training. The ownership listened, and axed Baker, who I think is a better coach than Piniella. Piniella is a time bomb, as any of his tirades will tell you, and he hates to lose. He is a glutton for punishment, as well, seeing as his last two coaching stops (the Devil Rays prior to the Cubs) are with two teams who are currently redefining losing. So now, the Cubs have a lesser coach with a shorter fuse, and Wood and Prior are still on the DL. Some things just aren't meant to be, and the marriage of Piniella with the Cubs is one of them. Piniella is a horrible fit for the Cubs, and the Cubs are a horrible fit for Piniella, but both parties are delusional, so what can you do but fugghedaboutit. Fire Sweet Lou, and try again next year.
To recap: the Cubs have sucked for 100 years; they filled their head coaching vacancy with a short tempered average coach who hates losing; the coach is shocked at the incompetence of the team, and takes it out on the media. Wow. I just thank my lucky stars that the Orioles are only a tenth of the way to that point.
Peace.
This comes as a shock to only one, that being Cubs manager Lou Piniella. "Sweet Lou" apparently hasn't watched Sportscenter in the last 100 years, or he would have known what he was getting into when he agreed to coach the most famous losers in the history of sport. Now, Piniella's tirades over his team's ineptitude are constantly on Sportscenter. With the Cubbies off to another dismal start that will likely end with a familiar dismal finish, I have one question for Sweet Lou: what the hell did you think was gonna happen?
Lets set history aside for a brief second, and focus on the here and now. The Cubs are a disaster on the base paths (they recently had a man thrown out at second for over running the base while advancing on a walk); nobody can name one member of their bullpen, which is good, because these men would prefer to not have faces put to their names; multi-million dollar uber free-agent Alfonso Soriano has as many homeruns as me, and only one more RBI; and oh yeah, theres Kerry Wood and Mark Prior.
Wood and Prior, once thought of as the makings of the greatest pitching tandem ever, started off another season in the trainer's room, and it looks as though the season may already be over for Prior. The last 6 (I think; it may be more, may be less) seasons has seen both of these potential aces end up on the DL, usually for the duration of the season. When they manage to stay healthy, they are two very good pitchers. The problem is, they pitch for the Cubs, and the Cubs are just as cursed as the Madden cover.
The Cubs suffer from a curse that lies deep in the lore of sports legend, the Billy Goat Curse. In 1945, the last time the Cubs made it to the World Series, a man and his goat were admitted to the park to watch the game (the man bought a seat for the goat... whack job), but were ultimately ejected due to the odor of the goat. The man then placed a curse on the Cubs, saying they would never win another pennant or World Series. So far, he's right.
Which brings us back to Sweet Lou. Piniella is a good coach. Piniella is not a great coach. It's going to take the greatest baseball coach of all time to break the Billy Goat Curse. Piniella is apparently delusional, thinking that his pedestrian resume (one World Series win, in 1990 with the Reds) can conquer a curse that lives on when it has no business living on. People want to see the Cubs win (except me... I wanna see the O's win); they've been "Lovable Losers" for so long that it takes people with very cold hearts to not want to see them succeed (I'm frigid). But Lou Piniella is not the answer to the Cubs problems. The problems lie way deeper than Lou Piniella.
The Cubs haven't won a World Series since 1908. That's almost 100 years. A century. Ten decades. Theodore Roosevelt was President. The last World Series they won was World Series V. They were working on breaking a pretty hefty drought before all the Billy Goat business in 1945, and now haven't been back since. They went 20 years without a winning record. Most of those 20 years saw them finish in last place. Even when they get close, people like Steve Bartman act on behalf of the Billy Goat just to ensure that defeat is snatched from the jaws of victory. This is not a problem one season or one man or one act can solve.
And that's most of the problem with the Cubs... they want to solve the whole thing in one felling swoop. Last season, after Wood and Prior made their annual pilgrimage to the DL, fans called for then- manager Dusty Baker's head, saying he worked them too hard in spring training. The ownership listened, and axed Baker, who I think is a better coach than Piniella. Piniella is a time bomb, as any of his tirades will tell you, and he hates to lose. He is a glutton for punishment, as well, seeing as his last two coaching stops (the Devil Rays prior to the Cubs) are with two teams who are currently redefining losing. So now, the Cubs have a lesser coach with a shorter fuse, and Wood and Prior are still on the DL. Some things just aren't meant to be, and the marriage of Piniella with the Cubs is one of them. Piniella is a horrible fit for the Cubs, and the Cubs are a horrible fit for Piniella, but both parties are delusional, so what can you do but fugghedaboutit. Fire Sweet Lou, and try again next year.
To recap: the Cubs have sucked for 100 years; they filled their head coaching vacancy with a short tempered average coach who hates losing; the coach is shocked at the incompetence of the team, and takes it out on the media. Wow. I just thank my lucky stars that the Orioles are only a tenth of the way to that point.
Peace.
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