Wednesday Bird Droppings

FYI, the blackout has been lifted in the Baltimore Orioles local television market
for MLB Network’s simulcast of the Orioles at Pittsburgh Pirates Spring Training
game tomorrow, March 10, live at 7:00 p.m. ET. MLB Network will carry Fox Sports Net
Pittsburgh’s call of the game.

“I’m not sure lacrosse will ever really catch on in Boston because we were raised to never trust an Irish guy with a stick. You just don’t know what he’s going to do with it.”
-Last night’s Cincinnati-Rutgers game

Just kidding.

by Matthew Berry. He also lists a good amount of Orioles in his fantasy love coloumn, fwiw.

In the bottom of the fourth inning, the Yankees went 1, 2, 3 with the final out a ground out. As the Blue Jays ran off the field, first baseman Carlos Delgado (told you it was a while ago) tossed the ball up into the stands. Many folks went for it, but I came down with it.

I turned to my father-in-law, all smiles. “Here’s your ball, Joe.”

As he looked at the ball, the kids started yelling. “Can we have the ball? Hey, mister, we want that ball. Give us the ball!” “We’ve been yelling,” and so on. My father-in-law turned to me and said, “If you want to give the kids the ball, that’s OK.”

Hells. No.

My father-in-law was a softy. I’m not. And I was not going to give up Joe’s first foul ball in 65 years so some spoiled brats could add it to their collection. Just because you beg for something in an annoying manner does not mean your efforts are rewarded. Learned that while dating in high school.

But some wise guy a few rows behind the kids started a chant. “Give-the-kid-the-ball. Give-the-kid-the-ball.” It picked up steam. “Give! The Kid! The Ball! Give! The Kid! The Ball!” Soon, the whole section was chanting this. GIVE! THE KID! THE BALL! GIVE! THE KID! THE BALL!

I ignored it and tried to watch the game. The kids turned from annoying to nasty. “Hey [mouth-washed-out-with-soap word No. 1]! Give us the ball, [mouth-washed-out-with-soap word No. 2]! He was throwing the ball to us, [mouth-washed-out-with-soap word No. 3, which, frankly, I’m not sure where an 8-to-10-year-old kid would learn].”

We continued to try to watch the game.

Then the food bombardment started. Peanuts, hot dogs and beer were thrown at us. Repeatedly. Security was nowhere to be found. We asked folks to stop, which made it worse. We tried to ignore it. But the food, beer and insults kept coming.

Order was finally restored a half-inning later when the first-base umpire came over and handed the kids some balls. The kids bragged to us. “Told you we’d get a ball, a—hole.”

And that’s why I hate the Yankees.

So, I hear that the plan is to have the officially rebuilding teams shuffle into the AL East while the teams who would have a shot outside of that division get to shuffle into the AL Central (or whatever). So theoretically the Orioles this year would probably be moved into a division with the Twins, Tigers, White Sox, and Rays, while the AL East would probably look like the Yankees, Red Sox, Blue Jays, Indians, and Royals.

Um McFly? Hello McFly? Anybody home?

So we’re supposed to just throw our hands up and say “There’s nothing we can do, we surrender” and let the Yankees and Red Sox get the easiest unbalanced schedules from now on by giving them 60 games against all of the rebuilding clubs every single year? No fucking way I could get behind that strategy.

You’d be putting more clubs with more equal footing into one division and telling them that only one of them gets into the playoffs because the Red Sox and Yankees would be able to sew up the wild card by July with that kind of schedule. And of course we want those two clubs in the playoffs every single year from here to eternity. Because that sure hasn’t gotten fucking old already.

http://masnsports.com/2010/03/flanny-on-board.html

Here’s an interesting tidbit. From Rob Neyer.

What we didn’t know was that Garciaparra had a wrist injury. A serious injury. In 2001, he didn’t play until late July, struggled in 21 games and shut things down for the rest of the season. There was a surgery, and it was “successful” … but Garciaparra would never again be that player, never again a threat to win a batting title or an MVP award.

If I remember correctly, Al Reyes, an Oriole at the time, is the player who caused Nomar’s wrist injury, thus altering Nomar’s trajectory toward the Hall of Fame. I remember watching the game where Reyes plucked Nomar flush on the wrist. As Neyer points out, Nomar played through the injury for the rest of the season before missing most of the next season. Such a shame, I like Nomar and I’m going to miss his Rain Man routine with his gloves before each at bat.

“We went to Yankee Stadium last year and they are charging $2,400 for a box seat. And they only sell a third of them, but they are still making a ton of money, more than others, just selling one of three. I find that repugnant to be honest with you.”

Repugnant. MacPhail is awesome.

to describe how much I hate Comcast.