SB Nation User Blog: CStoneNo37

Torts praises Rozsival/Redden paring

CStoneNo37 — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 17:33:03 -0000

"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.

Anybody know anything about U.S. Cellular Field?

CStoneNo37 — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 19:39:29 -0000

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?

RW&B hats for the 4th of July

CStoneNo37 — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 04:24:47 -0000

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.

Song they play before the game

CStoneNo37 — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 14:40:29 -0000

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?

So uhh... are we booing Miggi or what?

CStoneNo37 — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 14:44:57 -0000

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!

Torre to the Dodgers

CStoneNo37 — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 19:08:46 -0000

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."

I think I just figured out why Boras' clients get so much $

CStoneNo37 — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 18:25:57 -0000

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.

Rivera to test market, Pettitte and Posada not sure

CStoneNo37 — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 15:56:36 -0000

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...

Why do the ushers at Camden Yards suck so bad?

CStoneNo37 — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 14:10:09 -0000

I know I've heard similar complaints before so this is probably beating a dead horse, but I need to do a short rant.

Five of my friends and I have a 13 game plan in section 85, and that plan included last night's game. So we're surrounded by BoSox fans (not surprising) and decided pretty early on that we needed to be vocal. So we're booing when the Red Sox fans cheer and all that crap ... nothing offensive. We took some good-natured ribbing from a few Sox fans around us, but by the 9th inning we're running out of steam and not really saying much. So when Tek singles in the go-ahead run the stadium goes wild and my friend yells something pretty stupid like "Go back to Boston" or "Sit down." And a few guys in the section in front of us turn around to give us shit. Not too surprising. But the one dude who really wants to get some shots in is decked out in red and blue, but not for the Red Sox ... this clown is wearing a Phillies jersey and hat and for some reason is there rooting on the Red Sox like he grew up trolling Yawkey Way. He yells something to the effect of "What now bitch!?" or something equally ridiculous, so my friends and I can't resist.

"YOU'RE WEARING FUCKING PHILLIES GEAR! YOU'VE LOST 10,000 GAMES! THAT'S OVER 60 SEASONS WORTH OF LOSSES!" etc. etc.

Profanities were exchanged but honestly I'm not sure too many people heard us over the Sox fans' jubilation.

So it's dying down and the usher for our section comes to us -- not the Sox/Phillies fans -- and says to sit down and keep our mouths shut, and if she hears anything else she's kicking us out. Not a word to the Sox fans.

Of course the Sox fans are having a field day with this.. I'm fine that she told us to shut up, but tell them too. So we tell her to go explain it to them also and she said that they weren't doing anything wrong.

Then she proceeds to go sit next to them for the remainder of the game and share a few laughs.

This isn't the first time I've heard of OUR ushers bending over backwards to please opposing fans in spite of Orioles fans. Why the hell does that happen?

Nats get Wily Mo

CStoneNo37 — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 21:34:48 -0000

Seems like something the Orioles would do, but Bowden's a pretty crappy GM so that's not too surprising. Pena's still only 25 and he did have a pretty solid season last year if only for 276 at bats (enough for everyone at O's hangout to annoint him the future savior of this franchise if only the FO was shrewd enough to pull off a deal ... but there are about 5 of those types a year), but this season he's been horrendous and I don't see that swing working itself out anytime soon.

I kind of see Pena as a Corey Patterson who can't field or run ... someone who everyone was crazy about until they actually saw him taking wild hacks at the plate.

BUT HE'S GOT 40 HOMER POTENTIAL.

Good luck with that.