I was looking at a list of free agents in our main "need" positions (1B, 3B) and the lists are pretty freaking thin.

http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2008/12/2010-mlb-free-a.html

There's a couple decent-but-risky options at 3B in Troy Glaus and Juan Uribe, but do you really trust that Glaus is healthy and that Uribe won't revert to his sub-.700 OPS White Sox form? I don't. 1B is not much better ... Hank Blalock? No thanks. Branyan will probably get re-signed by the M's. Nick Johnson's always injured. Adam LaRoche is the only respectable option IMO and his production isn't even anything to write home about for a 1B.

So what's the game plan? Trade? Sign one of these scrubs? It's not like the O's really have any good options at these positions in the system. MacPhail said he's planning to be active this winter. I guess I should trust that his vision is better than mine.

Story here: http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20091003&content_id=7302990&vkey=news_mlb&fext=.jsp&c_id=mlb

How long before everyone stops kneeling at the holy altar of Moneyball/Billy Beane? The A's have sucked for years and Ricciardi couldn't hack it for the Jays. I guess Theo Epstein has succeeded but he's got billions of dollars to work with.

Even at the time my one thought about Moneyball was, "This all makes sense, but it's ignoring the insane amount of luck that Beane and the A's had in having Zito/Hudson/Mulder all on entry level contracts at the same time. (Even if it's not luck, it doesn't have anything to do with math.)

"With [Redden and Rozsival], one of the key things in their game, they were willing to take a hit to make a play, protected the puck well and we were probably more successful with them getting out of our end zone," coach John Tortorella said Thursday after a short meeting with his club before giving the players the day off. "Their game was really good. That's why they ended up with the minutes. Reds and Rosy really stabilized us when they were coming at us pretty hard." - Newsday

Really? I left the game wondering if the reason that Redden has taken so much heat this year is because he's paired up with Rozsival. Every time I've seen Rozsival this season I've thought to myself, "What's the deal? He looks like crap out there." Getting beat clean on two separate occasions (one by Ovechkin and one by Semin) on Wednesday didn't have me any higher on him.

If I'm Rozy and I hear Brandon Dubinsky say "Defensemen in this league are too good. ... They don't get beat one-on-one, I mean, ever." I'm thinking "STFU dude!" Because A) we saw it a lot on Wednesday and B) you know if you get highlight-reeled by Ovechkin or Semin for GWG later in the series that quote's gonna re-appear on every Caps blog and half the newspaper game recaps with your picture right above it.

I'm heading out to Chicago for business this week and it turns out I'll have some downtime on Thursday night, and the White Sox are at home taking on the Tigers. I was kind of "ehh" on going but then they got Griffey so now I'm definitely in.

Let me start out by saying that the ChiSox are morons with their pricing system. Every "price level" ranges from $15 or $20 all the way up to $40 or $50, which means that there is NO way to get cheap tickets through TicketBastard because it only ever offers you the best available seats in the price level that you select. So say I want to sit in the $18 seats in "Lower Box" ... too bad. Since Lower Box seats run all the way up to $50, if you want Lower Box, you get $50 tickets.

I guess I should also be bitching about TicketMaster not having a "price range" option.

Anyways, enough whining and on to the real reason for this post now that I'm over the character limit:

Is there any reason to think that I won't be able to get day-of-game tix for a Thursday night vs. the Tigers?

Are there any sections/areas/levels in U.S. Cellular that I should avoid when buying a ticket? Oh and what's the must-try food a la Boog's BBQ or Uncle Teddy's Pretzels?

I thought the design was pretty cool to be honest. From far away it was hard to tell that there was actually red, white and blue within the O's logo, but up close they look real good: check it out

Honestly I'd probably buy one if they weren't that ugly New Era 59Fifty shit. What an awful fitting/feeling/looking hat. I don't know who they paid to become a staple of hip-hop culture, but that person should have asked for a lot more.

This has probably been talked about before but I'm too lazy to look it up. Last night before the game they played a song that I hadn't heard at OPACY before. It wasn't Orioles Magic and it wasn't World of Orioles Baseball (the Hyper Hanna/Jason Siemer song that they played all the time in the early years of OPACY). It talked about Baltimore and Natty Bohs and crab cakes and whatever. It wasn't very good and I'm not a big fan of shameless pandering in that fashion, but I still want to know what the song is so I can hear the rest of it. I'm not sure if it wasn't something done specifically with an O's theme or if it is just a Baltimore song.

Anyone have any idea what I am talking about?

I'm going tonight and I'm kind of torn. I loved loved loved Tejada during his first 2 years here, but then he went and ruined that all with some pissing and moaning, not running out ground balls, and you know ... completely losing all ability to field his position...

That being said, I don't blame him fully because when he came to Baltimore it was with super duper promises from Flanabeattigan to all the fans that we're going to get good players and we're going to go hard for Vlad Guerrero and we're going to be good enough, we're smart enough, and doggone it, PEOPLE LIKE ME!

But none of that ever happened, and instead of Guerrero we got Javy Lopez, Rafael Palmeiro, Sammy Sosa, Ramon Hernandez, Kevin Millar, Aubrey Huff............

So I think I'll politely cheer for Miggi. Nothing raucous, just a nice little applause. Does anyone violently disagree? I can still be swayed!

That was quick, if you believe "multiple media outlets" (when have they ever been wrong about anything!??!?!).

ESPN link-a-dink

Allegedly Grady Little is out and Torre's in.

And why not some quotes since Camden Chat forbids one-line diaries (in case you were not aware):

"Citing sources, the Journal-News of Westchester, New York said the announcement of Torre's hiring could come as early as Tuesday."

"Along with the possible hire of Torre, it is being reported that his bench coach, Don Mattingly, may be joining him in the same role that he manned for one season with the Yankees after spending three seasons as their hitting coach."

"Interestingly, a move to Los Angeles would reunite Mattingly with the organization that drafted his son, Preston, in the first round of the 2006 major league draft."

"Despite never enduring a losing season in four seasons with the Dodgers and Boston Red Sox and compiling a .552 winning percentage (358-290), Little will have lasted just two seasons with each team."

Teams pay him to shut the hell up because he's murdering their IQ.

Check out these gems from this article.

"One of the other things that Alex has that some of the other things that Alex has that few players have is he has network value ... That means for a regional sports network he has an impact on in that may allow that regional sports network to increase by a half-a-billion to a billion dollars over a 10-year period because of the ratings increase that he will bring."

"The key point to what Alex has done is that over the last 10 years is that when you are talking about home runs, RBIs and runs scored, no one in baseball history has ever done what he has done over the last 10 years."

Either he's a windbag or the guy writing the article butchered the quotes (I guess those aren't mutually exclusive), but I wanted to strangle myself trying to hack my way through all the useless and repetitive words.

Per ESPN

I've gotta think the Yanks will hold onto Pettitte and Posada and throw all the money in the world at Rivera, but maybe I'm wrong. It wouldn't be the first time Pettitte's left the Bronx and maybe he, Posada and Rivera will skip town to make a statement about Torre's allegedly imminent demise.

And don't forget A-Rod...

So if A-Rod, Pettitte, Posada, Rivera and Abreu are on the market, do we legitimately go after ANY of them?

I say no ... Rivera, Posada and A-Rod will get a world of money somewhere else, and Angelos won't pay the $$$ for some stupid pitcher who only applies his trade one out of five days (f-ing slackers!!!!). The only one we'd even have a shot at is Abreu and, frankly, ehh.

But we can dream, right? Imagine this lineup with A-Rod plugged in the middle and the rotation with Bedard, Pettitte and Guts...

On second thought, don't imagine it. It will never happen. We are the Orioles.

We'll probably end up with Tony Batista and Ramon Ortiz...