Please consider the below remarks my off-the-cuff and highly subjective review of the park. Oh yeah, the Mets lost, but it was a good game. Hayden Penn did not pitch for the Marlins, which was disappointing for me and the firend I went with (he's also an O's fan). I'm not giving letter grades or anything, just impressions.

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Does anyone remember the farmhand/brief major league starter that was from Australia? I think he played earlier this decade? He threw approximately 84 mph with a big looping curve that fooled absolutely no major league hitters. I recall that Jim Hunter liked him, or at least liked talking about Australia. His name might've been Sean. I've been looking at old rosters (which is always a trip) but can't seem to locate him. He might not have actually made the majors, but my impression is that he got a couple of starts and got blasted.

This has been bugging me for the last 20 minutes or so. Thanks for your help.

Given the inspired nickname of our current skipper, I thought I'd share a song that gives me a great deal of amusement. The song, by indie-pop band The Bird and the Bee, is about David Lee Roth, but when you think it's about Dave Trembley it's quite amusing. At least I am quite amused.

The lyrics almost work, except for the part about the band. First three verses in bold for emphasis.

When I was a child,
You captured my devotion
I spent so many hours
Exploring mixed emotions

All of the ways you spoke to me
All of the things you provoked in me
I'll always love you

Diamond Dave
No one can hold a candle
Nothing else is quite the same
Pretty Dave
I'll always remember
I still carry such a flame

When you left the band
I couldn't understand it
But I've forgiven you
Now that you've recommitted

All of the time you spent away from me
All of the missed opportunity
I'll always love you

Diamond Dave
No one can hold a candle
Nothing else is quite the same
Pretty Dave
I'll always remember
I still carry such a flame

Come on, Dave
Show me what you got
I can take it

I'll always love you

Diamond Dave
No one can hold a candle
Nothing else is quite the same
Pretty Dave
I'll always remember
Diamond Dave
I'll always remember
Pretty Dave
I'll always remember
I still carry such a flame

 

Here's a low quality video to go with: http://youtube.com/watch?v=Foj_enLpD4c

http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/the-george-grantham-all-stars/

 

This dude at the Hardball Times (I found this via the wonderful Shysterball) took a concept that Bill James came up with whereby you look for players who were above-average for their careers in thirteen offensive statistics. Only Mr. Willie Mays and a guy named George Grantham met the requirements.

This other dude decided to look at it on a by-season basis. The results may surprise you. Or not, since I just gave them away. Whoops.

I'm watching the O's-Yanks game on New York TV, listening to a team that I think must be Michael Kay and Ken Singleton, and it's really surreal. I don't like it. This is the first game I've watched since I moved to New York three weeks ago. It's strange listening to other announcers.

I'd even take Jim Hunter and Rick Dempsey. Well, maybe not. But I would love to hear Gary & Co.

Michale Kay just said Mussina is going to get Cy Young votes. Which is dumb. dumb. dumb. dumb.

pretty steal.

ed. note - use this as the game thread, since y'all were anyway. Crafty people, you bunch. -duck

Steve Trachsel pitches against the Royals tonight. This is very, vary bad. According to theorioles.com Trax has "the manager's vote of confidence."  Still, he seems to need to pitch well in order to keep his job.

Pitching well against the Royals is really, really easy. They have an inept, historically bad offense. In many ways they're like the Orioles, in that their pitching staff is actually pretty decent and their offense stinks. Trax will probably go out there and pitch a quality start with 4 walks, 2 Ks, 7 hits, and a decent amount of luck. This will fool Diamond Dave into thinking he's worth keeping around for a while longer, that he still has something left in the tank.

I almost would prefer to see him get shelled by this terrible group of hitters in order to get rid of him. Nothing against him personally, of course, but I just don't want him on the team any more. He's not good.

http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=3215817

Seriously, what the hell is he doing? This is not how a successful sports franchise is run. He fires his highly-paid assistants, hires two relative no-names, and yet still doesn't name a coach. If he was gonna hire Fassel he should've already done it, and he just fired his other frontrunner.

Next season is gonna be a disaster. He's the new Al Davis, except without the early success to kinda excuse his behavior.

According to ESPN.com's Rumor Central:

"Orioles owner Peter Angelos killed a 7-for-2 trade that would have sent second baseman Brian Roberts and left-handed pitcher Erik Bedard to the Cubs, the Chicago Sun-Times reports.

"I don't think we're going to do anything, to be honest with you," Cubs manager Lou Piniella told the newspaper when asked about trading for an infielder. "If we do, it'll be in the outfield. ? It would be a right-handed bat to help out in center field. I would think that's probably a possibility, as opposed to the other things you all have been hearing about."

The Cubs reportedly are interested in Rangers outfielder Marlon Byrd."

Goddammit. I dunno whether this deal would've been good or not. But I thought we were done with this bullshit.

On another note, FEAR THE TURTLE!

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=3155417

So, basically, the D-backs trade a bunch of prospects for Dan Haren (wow...he's really good, and they didn't trade any ML guys that i've heard of for him...bad or good for bedard trade?), and also trade Jose Valverde (overrated, but to Ed Wade, which makes sense) for a bunch of different guys.

Can I just say that I dunno who the D-backs gave up, but Dan Haren is gonna eat the NL West for breakfast. He gets to pitch against terrible lineups in San Fran, San Diego, and LA all the time. Even pitching in Phoenix and Coors won't hurt that too much. He was awesome in the good league. Now? Big money, and the quotes in the article show he knows it.

http://baltimore.orioles.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20070825&content_id=2170149&vkey=news_ bal&fext=.jsp&c_id=bal

...and the twist is that his name is Adam Dunn! One can only hope that this is a whacky attempt to lure slugger Adam Dunn here by making the rest of the team already familiar with his name.

Or maybe the guy is good at his job. Whatever that job happens to be. I'm not really clear on what the bullpen coach does anyway.

Perhaps this has already been adequately covered, but I miss Gary Thorne and wonder where he's been.

It took me a little while to get used to him, but now I love him, especially compared to the perennially-optimistic (and stupid) Jim Hunter. Gary Thorne is a professional broadcaster. Jim Hunter seems like some fan they pulled out of the box seats. Well, a fan from like 1997, because he still thinks the team is good.

Is Gary Thorne on a monthlong vacay or something? I want a team of Thorne and Buck back out there. Not the two Jims and their platitudes.

http://www.baltimoresun.com/sports/baseball/bal-sp.osnotes14jun14,0,852255.story?coll=bal-sports-bas eball

Dr. James Andrews, etc. etc.

He'll be ready for '08, they claim.

"We expect him to be ready from the get-go [of spring training]," Flanagan said. "We don't see this being a problem at all."

http://scores.espn.go.com/mlb/boxscore?gameId=270612106

I'm not gonna lie. I thought he was due for a decline this year. Maybe he still will have one, but hats off to him. I didn't watch, but the way bbtn is sucking his cock right now it sounds like he was pretty good.

Since they usually just suck on large-market teams.

Grant (MD): Fire Sam!

SportsNation Keith Law: (1:16 PM ET ) Indeed. Someone buy that team 121 41-cent stamps so they can mail the rest of the season in now and spare us the trouble. They're an embarrassment to watch.

I agree with him completely, which is why I've quit watching, mostly.

On a mostly-unrelated note, since when is postage all the way up to 41 cents? It's so hard to keep up with this crap.

http://baltimore.orioles.mlb.com/news/gameday_recap.jsp?ymd=20070508&content_id=1952690&vkey recap&fext.jsp&c_id=bal

""Leo said today, 'You're not auditioning. Relax, have fun,' " Guthrie said. "He said it right as I left the bullpen, so that was a nice comfort. I had enough auditions in Cleveland and felt like, 'Hopefully, I've gotten the bad ones out of the way.' I really did feel like every time I ever threw there in three years was an audition. Today, I was relaxed."

That state of mind showed, as Guthrie (2-1) got through his outing on just 67 pitches and used double plays in the third and fourth innings to end two potential rallies. He also stranded a runner in scoring position in the second, fifth and sixth, thanks largely to some fantastic defense behind him by third baseman Melvin Mora. "

Now, I realize that he was somewhat lucky today, given all the leadoff men he let on, but the bullpen is already overworked. Does Perlozzo really need to be overworking it against bad teams? I mean honestly...Bradford almost blew us the game for crying out loud. How about letting a guy soak up some pitches. Sheesh.

Thorne and Buck talked about this and how he's converting from being a reliever, but with no real signs of troulbe i'd have sent him back out to the mound to see what happens.

I don't want to panic, but that's what I am, a panicker. The game recap http://www.baltimoresun.com/sports/baseball/bal-sp.orioles02may02,0,3220727.story?coll=bal-sports-he adlines

says that he has forearm pain, which Buster Olney points out in his blog is often a precursor to elbow tendon injuries. Tommy John-type stuff.

Since the guy who would most likely replace him already is having elbow surgery, this probably isn't good news.

sigh. Let's hope it's just minor.

So the last highlight on BBTN just now was Red Sox - Blue Jays. Divisional rivalry. They show Ortiz hitting a sweet opposite-field homer (gotta give them that one) then go to the ninth to talk about how nasty Papelbon is. They show a couple of sweet strikeouts. But they kind of gloss over the fact that he allowed two baserunners.

What did Chris Ray do today? Three strikeouts in the ninth against a very good offensive team. They didn't even show O's highlights. Unless I missed them. If I missed them then I apologize, but Ray still deserved to be fawned over tonight more than Papelbon did.

Rodrigo Lopez is good.

http://www.denverpost.com/sports/ci_5597031

Not only do the Orioles seem to do everything they can to shoot themselves in the foot, but they have bad luck, too.

Obviously, I'm overreacting. Hell, Rodrigo Lopez once had an entire good year. That doesn't mean he's actually a good pitcher. Still, the day after Jared Wrong's debacle this isn't what I need to hear.

http://www.baltimoresun.com/sports/baseball/bal-sp.connolly17mar17,0,3570295.column?coll=bal-sports- headlines

Apparently Sidney Ponson thinks that Baltimore fans have no idea how baseball works.

"They booed me when I was playing there. It doesn't bother me. Baltimore fans have no clue what baseball is all about," Ponson said. "The old Baltimore fans over on 33rd Street [Memorial Stadium], that's true baseball fans. "[The Camden Yards fans] were booing me the last two years. It doesn't matter. I could be pitching a good game and give up a run in the eighth and they would boo me. It doesn't hurt my feelings."

He does realize that the Memorial Stadium and Camden Yards fans are the same, right? In fact, given how bad the team has been, you would expect it to be mostly the hardcore fans, the true fans, that still watch this sad excuse for a team.

But hey, Sid apparently has a mullet now. I hope he comes to town and really gets booed.

He signed for four years and $42 million.

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=2707975

I've heard a lot of rumbling that with him Milwaukee would have a shot at a pretty weak division next year. We'll see. Ben Sheets better be healthy. If not, I'd say the Brewers probably don't have the pitching depth to compete. Although they do have a decent closer and some good offensive players, especially Fielder and Weeks.

...Which would actually make Mr. Pete look pretty smart. If the Orioles really wanted Giles they could just sign him to a contract and then trade b-rob or whoever for LaRoche or whoever. At least, that's what Buster Olney says.

http://www.ajc.com/blogs/content/shared-blogs/ajc/braves/entries/2006/12/11/braves_face_tue.html