Breaking Baseball's Hallowed Records & More

I read an interesting article today about the next record that will be rewritten in baseball's history books, and it's not the one you may think it is...

John Donovan, baseball beat writer extraordinaire for Si.com, wrote a great piece today about the lost art of arguing with umpires. What brings this art to the attention of the national media today? The record is soon to fall. Bobby Cox, who has managed the Braves since the Roosevelt administration, is closing in on his 131st ejection from a major league game. That would tie the record, and 132 will break it. Donovan wanted to investigate the art of the ejection a little bit more, so he went straight to the Picasso of Picking a Fight, the Van Gogh of Getting the Boot, the Da Vinci of Da Gate, none other than Baltimore Oriole legend Earl Weaver.

It came as a shock to me to learn that The Earl of Baltimore did not hold MLB's ejection record of 131. It is actually held by John McGraw, a manager from the turn of the century. Interestingly enough, Cox has technically already broken the record for ejections by a manager, since McGraw was ejected 14 times as a player. But if you're going to break a record and carve your name into baseball's record book, go for the gusto and do it right (Barry Lamar Bonds). The Earl is actually fourth on the all time list with 97. It may just be me, but I would be in favor of rehiring the Earl just long enough so he could be ejected three more times and break 100 (come on, it would only take three games).

To say that Earl wrote the book on getting ejected just doesn't say enough. Earl was the original, the innovator, the creator of the ejection (all this coming from someone who never saw the man coach a game... but his best ejections can be found on YouTube). Before Earl there were none, and after Earl it is just not the same. Earl was a fire ball from start to finish. He was shorter than the average person to begin with, and that made it all better. The fire was more concentrated throughout him and therefore more potent, which led to better arguments and better ejections. Earl would cuss, rant, rave, kick dirt, throw hats, throw dirt, turn the hat around to get closer to the target (read "umpire"), and on one occasion even got ejected before the game started. That's absolute skill, a master of his craft.

The thing that shocks me about Bobby Cox potentially breaking the record is that Cox is so much more mellow than Earl. Cox doesn't have the same emotions on the sleeve fire that Earl did. Cox's arguments rarely get out of hand, and never make SportsCenter. How could an argument truly be an argument if it doesn't even land on SportsCenter. If it's not even good enough for ESPN, it's probably just a tea party with the umpires in which Cox brought Earl Grey tea instead the ump-preferred Green Tea. This is not to take away from Cox's accomplishment, it's just to say that while he will hold the record, nobody did it better than Earl. It's kind of like saying that Bonds will one day hold the record, but nobody hit homeruns like Ruth, except in that situation I take everything away from Bonds.

So what is all the hub-bub about getting ejected? Why is it a good thing to leave your team halfway through a game and strand them manager-less? Because it shows you care. It wasn't too long ago in this space that I wrote about a manager that doesn't care, and how it's reflected by his players. Getting in the face of the umpires to argue what is right shows the team that it can never, ever give up the fight, no matter who it is against, and no matter what the odds. If Sam Perlozzo had the same fire that Earl Weaver had, the Orioles could be in first place right now. Instead, the Orioles' most recent managers (Ray Miller, Mike Hargrove, Lee Mazzilli, and Perlozzo) have all lacked the all important fire. The result? Ten straight losing seasons. Coincidence? I think not. If you give the O's someone like Weaver or Cox or maybe even Lou Piniella, they might not suck. They would show the same emotion that the manager shows, and the team would be full of feisty go-getters like Jay Payton.

To read all of John Donovan's Earl Weaver article/ interview, click here .

In other news this day, May 31st has come and gone, which means the deadline to submit any uniform changes for the 2008 MLB season has come and gone. Why does that matter, Kurt? Because now we must suffer another year of the Orioles' away jerseys reading "Orioles", as opposed to the more customary and less alienating "Baltimore".

Uniform tradition in almost any sport dictates that the home jersey of a franchise read the team name, since the fans will undoubtedly know where the team is from. The away jersey traditionally has the city name, so the opposing fans would know from where the team hails. It most likely dates back to when teams first started to travel, and people in the stands would actually not know where the opposition was from. It would be convenient for them to look down and say, "Oh, they're from [insert city name]". If they were playing the Orioles, however, they would say "Oh, they're from Orioles. That's strange... they're the Orioles Orioles". Now that just sounds stupid.

So now the deadline has come and gone, and we are again stuck pleading to fans of Washington to not abandon us. That's what it all boiled down to. In the 70's, after the Senators left Washington (again!), the owner of the Orioles felt that in order to reach out to the newly orphaned fans, he would remove Baltimore from the away jerseys, so as to give everybody a baseball home. That was great for DC, but a huge slap in the face for the people that actually support and pay for the team. All these years later, the away jerseys are still wrong, even after DC got yet another team. I think the time has come for the Orioles to finally stop alienating the fans of Baltimore, and tell the DC fans to go watch their own team if they can't be loyal because of the city on the uniform.

The problem is, of course, Peter Angelos. Since his normal course of action is to hear what the popular voice is and then do the exact opposite, Angelos keeps stalling Orioles' officials long enough to let the deadline pass. It seems as though Angelos is still under the assumption that DC fans can be kept on our side simply by making the team geographically unaffiliated, but that simply won't work. And if that's the case, why don't we rename the team the United States Orioles in order to attract fans from all over the country; afterall, Hawaii and Alaska are baseball orphans as well. Apparently, Angelos has not talked to his accountant though. If he had, he would have realized by now that changing the uniform means they get to sell new uniforms, and that would just be money in the bank for Angelos and the Orioles.

In the grand scheme of things, adding "Baltimore" to the away jersey is a small change and a small gesture to the city. With the way things are, however, and the Orioles mired in a ten year slump that has seen us become the laughing stock of Major League Baseball, a small gesture could win back a lot of fans who feel alienated by the team. I see it as a no lose situation, and yet still, here we are, wondering why it still says "Orioles" on the away jersey of the Baltimore Orioles.

Peace.

Bloggin' From Work (Shhhh!)

I feel like I'm stealing company time by blogging from work, but they aren't keeping me busy, so it's their fault. I'm also on my lunch break...

It was announced today that more disillusioned morons with money want to try and test their mettle against the NFL. An investment banker, a VP at Google, and Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban have banded together to create an upstart United Football League. The idea? Actually compete with the NFL (a moment will be given to squelch any laughter).

My question for these fellows is why? Why even bother to try and compete with the NFL? It's not possible. It's not even plausible. It's certainly not probable. There are no more p-words to describe the money that will be lost in this endeavor. There are currently 4 major sports in the U.S (football, basketball, baseball, and either hockey or NASCAR, depending on if you live in the North or South). There are, by my count, 7 legitimate (read "air on ESPN") professional sports leagues (the NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL, NASCAR, MLS, MLL [lacrosse, people]). There's no more room for the UFL on ESPN, let alone in the landscape of American sports. And if you are crazy enough to start some upstart league, why go after the NFL, the king, the shah, the sultan, the Grand Poobah of all American sports?

Baseball and basketball are the NFL's closest competitors, and trust me, close is a very loose term. The NFL sold out every game in the first 6 or 7 weeks of the season last year. Even Arizona was enjoying sellouts for a while. Most baseball teams can't even sell out on opening day, and some teams have tickets left over during the playoffs. Basketball fares slightly better because it has fewer games and teams, but it still can't touch the NFL. The NFL steamrolls these leagues every year in TV ratings, merchandise sales, and the all important ticket sales. The most watched sporting event any year? Not the World Series. Not the NBA Finals. It's always the Super Bowl. Even when two teams who nobody cares about are in it, people still watch just to complain that the right teams didn't make it. So if people already care more about the NFL than the MLB and NBA, my next question becomes who is going to watch the UFL Bowl?

The fact that they are challenging the NFL is not even the most fatal flaw that the three investors are making in this costly endeavor. The worst idea they have had so far is that all their franchises will be based in cities without NFL teams. I give them an A for creativity, but an E for results. Going by their logic, they will have Los Angeles, and very little else. If a city does not have an NFL franchise, it is for good reason: the NFL does not want a franchise there (except LA, but they don't support their teams anyway). The NFL has the big markets covered: New York, New England, Washington, Bay Area California, Miami, Green Bay (just kidding). That leaves the UFL with what? LA. Mark Cuban wants to put a franchise in Las Vegas, and will receive no complaint from the NFL. The remaining cities have yet to be announced, but they must be somewhere along the lines of Memphis, Birmingham, Orlando, Portland, San Antonio, and Oklahoma City. These cities are definitely deserving of franchises, but also have NFL teams nearby to crush any UFL competition. Fans wouldn't abandon the Titans or Dolphins or Cowboys or Seahawks to root for lesser caliber teams in a lesser caliber league.

That brings me to my next point: think about who is going to play in this league. It will be full of NFL castoffs, college superstars who couldn't cut it in the real league, and average schmucks who want one last shot at glory. Who wants to watch that? That'll be like watching a high school reunion game or an old timers game. It won't be fast. It won't be fun. There will be very little scoring, and almost zero passing or defense. The players that end up in the UFL also have to be rejected from the mildly successful Arena League, which means they are truly of poor caliber. To recap, it's going to be crappy football played in cities that can't support teams by players who really should have other jobs. Well, let me set my Tivo (shut up, I know I don't have a Tivo).

Other people have challenged the NFL before. When was the last time anybody spoke about the World Football League, the USFL, or the XFL? All of these leagues folded in less than four years, and they had franchises in major markets. The UFL is making an unnecessary attempt to topple a giant that can't be toppled, using tactics that won't work, in cities where it won't happen. The UFL is slated to start play in 2008. Depending on which month it starts, I predict it will be in the annals of bad ideas by late 2008 or early 2009. I just thank God that Art Modell moved the Browns to Baltimore, and we don't have the possibility of getting stuck with a UFL team.

Peace.

Re-Lax

Sorry for the sporadic postings, but I'm trying to get into a work rhythm, and blogging hasn't fit into yet. That'll change, I promise...

Yesterday was not only Memorial Day, but also the National Men's Lacrosse Championship. That means it was the one day 0f the year that I watch the Official Team Sport of Maryland (look it up). As it so happens, Maryland was again well-represented, with Johns Hopkins making it to and winning the National Championship Game. In addition to Hopkins, Loyola, UMBC, Maryland, and Towson also went dancing. Yay for Maryland. What was the world talking about, however? A private, rich, predominantly white school in North Carolina.

The Duke lacrosse team looked poised to make a story book ending to their past 18 months, when Hopkins snatched it away in one of the best lacrosse games ever. Duke's rape scandal almost cost the school the entire program, so be back in the limelight so soon is a major feather in the cap for Duke and other accused and acquitted rapists everywhere.

Lets recap why Duke should not have been afforded a made-for-TV-movie ending. They brought their problems, their "trials and tribulations" (no pun intended) upon themselves. Nobody forced them to have a party. Nobody forced them to have alcohol at the party where most people were under aged. Certainly nobody made them order a stripper. Yes, the stripper turned out to be crazy and a liar, but that doesn't mean that the Duke boys made some bad decisions.

As rich, white, athletic young men with much to lose, they should have known how much of a target was on their collective backs from the beginning. There is an understandable income gap between the types of people who attend college in Durham, NC and the type of people who live there. The stripper (smarter than the average bear) saw the opportunity to take advantage of the wealth and vulnerability of the boys, and she did. It didn't work out in the end, but credit her for taking the chance. The boys should have known it was coming from the minute they invited her to the party, and their shock when the allegations were brought against them is unfounded.

Is it sad they lost their season? Yes. Should the players from that team be granted an extra year of eligibility to compensate? No, because they still got the time to practice and hone their skills that year, and it's entirely their own fault they lost the season. This team isn't the Marshall Football team that came back from a horrific plane crash. They came back from losing very little due to their own bad judgement. Hopkins did the right thing by beating Duke and denying everybody the story book ending. For that, I am grateful.

Peace.

All It's Quacked Up To Be

Last night on the evening news, sadness prevailed. I now pass the sadness on...

Duckpin bowling is a sport that is uniquely Baltimore. Much like the Inner Harbor, steamed crabs, and marble stoops, duckpin bowling can remind anybody of being back in the good old Charm City. As reported last night, however, there are only 20 duckpin bowling alleys left in Maryland.

I am aware of two duckpin bowling alleys that have closed since the weekend. One is in Pasadena (Keith called and asked what time Rock-'n-Bowl was, and they said their last one ever was the night before). Another one in Northeast Baltimore closed Sunday. As unique as it is to Baltimore, duckpin bowling is a dying sport, much like Maryland horse racing and the Orioles. All of this talk of duckpin bowling got me thinking, though, about the origins of such a goofy game.

After extensive research (I Wikipedia-ed it), I determined that the origins of duckpin bowling are shrouded in mystery, and if you're from New England, controversy. Most people, myself included, believe that duckpn bowling was invented in Baltimore. This seems to be the most popular story of the origins of the sport. It is believed to be invented by two baseball Hall of Famers, John McGraw and Wilbert Robinson in 1900. New Englanders choose to believe otherwise, however, since they must have their hand in everything and take Baltimore's thunder whenever possible. A writer named Bob Tkacz, from Newington, CT, claimed to have found articles dating back to 1894 reporting on duckpin tournaments in Lowell, Massachusetts. Conveniently, the publication where Tkacz has seemingly dispelled the stories of Baltimore origin are not available in any U.S library. If that's the precedent, then I submit that I have found articles reporting on duckpin tournaments in Baltimore dating back to 1893. I submit as proof two theories: 1) the game was invented and popularized by two baseball players who played for the Orioles; 2) the size of the ball is similar to that of a bocce ball, meaning they could have borrowed a bocce ball from some friends in Little Italy and bowled them toward pins. Take that New England and your spotty fact checking.

Regardless of the origins (it's ours, damn it!), the name duckpin is universally agreed to have been coined by McGraw. He was an accomplished duck hunter, and when the pin exploded in their familiar duckpin way, he remarked that they looked like ducks flying around. A sportswriter caught wind of this, and lo and behold we have a name for a modified and more fun game of bowling.

I, for one, prefer duckpin bowling to ten pin bowling for a plethora of reasons. First, the ball is not so heavy, so when you can play for a long time, your arm doesn't get as tired. Also, since the ball is lighter, you can get some extra mustard on the ball and really knock down some pins. It raises the question as to why duckpin bowling is not more popular in this country. If you have ever watched a professional ten pin bowler, you have undoubtedly seen him/her throw the ball toward the gutter and then watched as the ball curved back and struck the pins. It's a game of finesse. You can't do that in duckpins, because you can't get that kind of spin on the ball That makes duckpins a game of power. Americans love power over finesse. We like football, not soccer. We like homeruns, not pitching. We like big, clunky NASCARs that don't fall apart when they wreck, not faster F-1 cars that shatter like glass. Finally, you three chances to knock down all those pesky in duckpins, partially because the ball is smaller and it's harder to do, but mostly because we're Americans and we love second and third chances. For the record, there has never been a perfect 300 recorded in a sanctioned game of duckpin bowling.

I hope people start to regain an interest in duckpin bowling around Baltimore, because it would be sad to see it go. It would be like losing the Preakness or the National Aquarium. It's an institution in Baltimore, born (I said it) and raised in Baltimore. It was a favorite game of Babe Ruth, a Baltimore born and bred icon. The man who owned the lanes in Northeast Baltimore said the only way to save duckpin bowling would be for people to join leagues and make it popular again. I implore all my reader(s) to at least consider joining a league. I already know that most of you have been or are in a league already. Make sure you do it again next year. Unfortunately for me, I spend 9 months a year in Podunk, Virginia, where I'm pretty sure there's no bowling alley of any kind. Otherwise, I would be right there beside you, enjoying a great Baltimore tradition.

Peace.

Hoop Hoopla

Things we thought would never happen: 1) Peyton Manning wins a Super Bowl; 2) Gas prices go above $3 a gallon; 3) Kurt blogs about the NBA. It's time to scratch all three off the list...

Let me start by saying I know jack about NBA basketball. I like college basketball infinitely better. College basketball is a purer game, its more fun to watch, the players just seem to enjoy what they're doing better, and the fans are more passionate. However, with all the controversy over the Spurs/Suns series in the playoffs, it made me realize that sometimes NBA basketball can be fun to watch.

The thing that has been the most fun about the Spurs/Suns series is the physicality of the play. Steve Nash gets a bloody nose, Steve Nash gets hip checked into the scorers table, Steve Nash doesn't fight back, and the Suns are down 3 games to 2. NBA basketball is rarely this physical, and rarely this fun, so this is a series we have to enjoy while it lasts. The Spurs are out to win a war of attrition with the Suns, and so far, it's working.

The controversy arose in game 4. With 18.2 seconds left, Nash (the Suns point guard), dribbled up court to try and end the game. As he came up court, he was hip checked into the scorers table by the Spurs' Robert Horry (more or less a role player). This did not sit well with the Suns, and two players, Amare Stoudemire and Boris Diaw, came onto the court from the bench area. The result: a 2 game suspension for Horry, and a 1 game suspension for each of Stoudemire and Diaw.

This seems like it would hurt the Spurs more on the surface, since their player got a two-gamer. However, Horry is a role player, and not a critical part of the team. For that matter, so is Diaw. The problem the Suns have is the suspension of Stoudemire. With Stoudemire on the bench for game 5 (which the Suns lost), they had 23 points per game on the bench. Consequently, the Suns only lost by 3. The Spurs only had 6 points on the bench, for comparison sake.

The Suns made a huge stink over suspending a star for one playoff game for simply leaving the bench area during an altercation. The rules of the NBA, which were re-written following the fan brawl in Detroit, say that people on the bench cannot come onto the court during an altercation. Doing so results in a one-game suspension, so the NBA is simply being consistent. I think the bigger problem the Suns had was who was suspended.

Amare Stoudemire is an All-Star, All-NBA player. He represents roughly half of the Suns, with the other half being taken up by Steve Nash. Losing him most definitely cost the Suns game 5, but perhaps he should have considered that before going after Horry during game 4. The Suns' losing of Stoudemire actually helped to prove a theory I have about NBA basketball.

The key to winning in the NBA rests with two people: the point guard/ shooting guard, and the big man inside. The Suns have Nash and Stoudemire. The Detroit Pistons have Chauncy Billups and Rasheed Wallace. The Chicago Bulls have Kirk Hinrich and Ben Wallace. The team that will win the championship, the San Antonio Spurs, have the deadly three headed monster: guards Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili, and big man Tim Duncan. The Spurs simply loaded their roster better than any other, and will win the championship because of it.

This theory of mine is what makes the NBA less fun than NCAA basketball. In college, you need a whole team to win (a la Florida). You cannot survive with only a guard and a big man and 3 role players. That formula is the long kept secret of the NBA, however. Case in point, Kobe and Shaq. The Lakers ran the table three years because they had a good guard and a dominant big man. Last year, the Heat did the same thing. The Pistons did it with Billups and Wallace. The one anomaly is the Houston Rockets with Tracy McGrady and Yao Ming. They can't win because McGrady is a choke artist. More proof lies in teams that don't have both elements. The Cleveland Cavaliers have Lebron, not much else, and no championships. The 76ers had Allen Iverson forever, and never won with just him. The Denver Nuggets now have Iverson and Carmelo Anthony, but no big man to balance them out. The Minnesota Timberwolves have Kevin Garnett, but no guard to help him. The formula is quite simple.

So after all the hoopla and the Suns get Stoudemire back, it still won't matter, because the Spurs have simply played the NBA roster loading game better. They have twice as many guards as they need, and that will carry them as far as they need. I'm done talking about the NBA now, because I've figured the whole thing out.

Peace.

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.

Thank You, Nashville

Today's post comes directly from my travels. It is also brought to you by Todd Heap and the Campbell's Chunky Soup Curse, which has already reared it's ugly head in the Charm City via the Music City...

One year after the Titans and the State of Tennessee screwed him over by locking him out, Steve McNair was sent another stern message that he is not wanted in Nashville: he was arrested for DUI, while sitting in the passenger seat. This is due to a law in Tennessee that permits the police to arrest the owner of the vehicle for someone driving drunk in their car. So I'll reiterate: Steve McNair was arrested for Driving under the influence when he wasn't driving!

First things first, let's clear up this law. Essentially it acts as a way to prevent people from enabling to drive drunk. The law is that if the owner of vehicle allows another person to drive their vehicle while under the influence, then the owner is liable for the DUI as well. It seems like a good law, because it prevents people from enabling others to drive drunk by holding them accountable. Unfortunately, it came back and bit us in the ass.

McNair was allowing his brother-in-law to drive the vehicle, and the moron apparently went too fast or too reckless and drew the ire of the police (you have to hate an idiot brother-in-law). The brother-in-law then failed a field sobriety test, and when it was discovered that the vehicle belonged to McNair, they were both arrested and charged with DUI. They were both released this morning, just in time for everyone to wake up and hear the great news.

OK, I understand where both were in the wrong. McNair allowed his brother-in-law to drive the vehicle under the influence (after two drinks... lightweight), which is against the law in Nashville. The brother-in-law was in the wrong for driving unsafely while apparently under the influence. But it just seems weird to charge McNair for DUI, and he wasn't D. They should charge him with Enabling, or Allowance, or Being a Passenger Under the Influence. DUI just paints a horrible picture of what actually happened.

It's now in the NFL's hands to figure out if this merits any punishment. I am firmly of the camp that it should not, because, quoth McNair, "I was trying to act responsibly. I have to go through the court process now, and I understand that". McNair knows he technically broke the law, but it was because he was most likely more drunk than his brother-in-law. He figured it would be better to let his less drunk brother-in-law drive, which in theory sets a good example. He is saying "Let other people drive when you're drunk"; he just needs to add a caveat at the end: just make sure they're not drunk too.

The story was a real big deal in Baltimore, I'm sure, but it was also a big deal down here in Nashville. When a service guy at a Dodge dealership in Nashville (exceptionally long story) noticed my and my party's Ravens apparel, he said he couldn't believe McNair was arrested, but also thought it was absurd to charge him with DUI. Nashvillians (Nashvillites? Nashvillains? Nashtrash?) still love McNair for all the great things he did for the Titans and the city, but also realize that he is not above the fundamentally sound albeit slightly odd law.

The NFL knows McNair is a great guy and was not trying to intentionally hurt himself or anybody else. This story seems bigger than it really is, however, in the wake of Josh Hancock's death. In the week when baseball teams are taking alcohol out of their locker rooms in an attempt to curb drinking and driving, McNair really could not have had worse timing. All in all, I blame it on Todd Heap and his Soup friends.

Peace.