Earl Weaver once very famously said, "Terry Crowley's lucky he's in f***in' baseball, for crissake. He was released by the Cincinnati Reds, he was released by the f***in' g***amn Atlanta Braves. We saw that Terry Crowley could sit on his f***in' ass for eight innings and enjoy watchin' the baseball game just like any other fan, and has the ability to get up there and break one open in the f***in' ninth."

Terry Crowley's awesomely inept performance as hitting coach of the Baltimore Orioles for the last 647 seasons is well-documented. It's so well-documented, so painfully obvious, and so overdue for a righteous firing and chasing out of the coaching game that it makes one pull out one's hair in frustration that he still has a job to begin with.

Simply put, Terry Crowley's lucky he's in f***in' baseball, for crissake.

I'm not trying to harsh on The Crow as a man. He seems like a nice old codger, the sort of fellow you invite down to spring training to put on a uniform and wander around the field, sharing tales of when those were, in fact, the days, goils as goils and men as men, but seriously employing him as the hitting coach despite the fact that his teams fail to hit every season? What kind of morons are in favor of this?

Andy MacPhail let Dave Trembley pick his staff, and Trembley fired Leo Mazzone, yet stuck with Terry Crowley. We've unceremoniously canned Ray Miller for Leo because Leo was pals with Sam Perlozzo, then when Perlozzo managed his way off the bench, Trembley took over, let Leo finish out the year, and then they got rid of Mazzone for Trembley's old pal, Rick Kranitz.

The pitching coach changes like it's going out of style, because this team has operated under the false notion that it's the pitching -- and only the pitching -- that has made them suck for the last decade. They always field teams full of a couple of real hitters, a few past-their-primes name guys, and then they literally walk around ignoring facts and pretending that the team can hit.

Jim Hunter wrote a blog entry on Crowley over at the MASN web site, and it's more of the same.

"Crowley has calming effect on young hitters," it's titled. Well that's great. It's so great that Terry Crowley can be calming to overeager hitters, because surely there's no other hitting coach in the world that could muster a simple, "Son, I think you're pressing a little," and in addition to that, actually coach worth a damn.

At the end of the article, BJ Surhoff (in camp as a special instructor) says of Crowley, "He has experience with veterans as well as younger hitters. He finds a way to get it done."

I certainly respect Surhoff's opinion, and I guess he sure got some good work done with Crow, but what is this getting it done of which he speaks? When is this team, past two or three guys, going to start "getting it done"? Whatever way he's finding to get it done, it's not working.

The team won't hit this year, and Crowley will be at least partially to blame. I'm not saying Crowley or anyone else can take a handful of dung and make it chocolate, but at what point do results and legitimate, statistical performance take precedence over the fact that he's Terry Crowley, a halfassed old-timer Oriole pinch-hitter that clearly -- CLEARLY -- does NOT get it done as a hitting coach?

AND TEAM SPEED, FOR CRISSAKE...

Look, again, Terry Crowley could be worthy of sainthood for all I know. I'm not saying anything bad about the man behind the job. But the man in the job sucks at the job, and these stupid ass spring training stories have long since worn thin.