HBP
20. August 2008 by Orioles Fanatic.
Bummer. That game was a real bummer…most especially because it was the Red Sox and HBP didn’t hit anyone. Not one! Worse, Trembley took him out in the fifth inning cutting short his opportunities. It’s just that kind of incompetence that has landed the Orioles in the sad place where they are now.
This is what I was so sad to be missing? HBP not hitting a batter and baldy injured?
Nevermind, let’s focus on the good. HBP is still five ahead of any other pitchers.
(I have to have something to cheer myself, don’t I?)
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Sherrill…on the DL
20. August 2008 by Orioles Fanatic.
Sherrill is on the disabled list?! (Hope I didn’t give you a fright worrying that Sherrill was on the down low. I don’t even want to think about that.)
And none of you bothered to tell me? I wondered why he didn’t pitch last night, but I thought Trembley was trying to mix things up or give him a rest.
So should we just write him off now? Do we ever have a pitcher who returns from the DL?
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Vacation Over, with a rather appalling thud…
19. August 2008 by Orioles Fanatic.
When my plane touched down in Charlotte this morning, first I was relieved that it landed safely, of course. Next, I was disappointed that vacation was over. Just like that. All over. Just a memory. Like so much of my life already (though I’m pretty sure I’m going to beat death).
Always armed with a litle lie to help myself through hard times, I tried to take comfort in the benefits of being home: a) the pleasure of being able to watch the Orioles again b) escaping RS Nation without any mishaps, c) getting to see the cat again, who I always miss a lot, and d) the anticipation of the joy in affixing my new bumper sticker, which reads, “I don’t brake for Y’s fans,” (except it spells out that word).
Um…
…a) is still a little bit under question. (C and D were definitely the highlights of the day.)
Millar had a rather rough night. Has it been this bad the last two weeks?
I’ll classify this under my favorite category and “bad luck” because, well, you already know the other lie I always tell myself. Soon I hope to catch up with all the wonderful funny and informative posts you all give me the pleasure of reading.
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Matusz
16. August 2008 by Orioles Fanatic.
Hot off the press, this just in:
The Orioles on Friday announced that they have come to terms with LHP Brian Matusz, their first-round pick (fourth overall selection) in the 2008 First Year Player Draft.
Isn’t “coming to terms with” something you do when you resign yourself to bad news? Like, “I’ve come to terms with the fact that the Orioles will definitely not be going to the World Series this year, unless a new one is invented for those of us at the bottom of the standings.” Or, as someone put it to me yesterday, “I’ve come to terms with the fact that the Orioles ‘have fallen on hard times.’”
Here’s how freedictionary dot.com describes the idiom, “to start to accept and deal with a difficult situation.”
Still, despite how the wording was phrased to suggest the Matusz will be another dismal addition to our pitching staff, if you rearrange the letters in his name, you can spell Utz, and that’s gotta be good news. If not, I at least hope HBP will share some of his special techniques to make next season interesting, if not good.
Interesting. Yes, I’ve come to terms with “interesting” being the most I should hope for.
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Red Sox Nation
12. August 2008 by Orioles Fanatic.
I am in Maine, and much to my surprise, this is Red Sox nation. I thought people in Maine were nice. But, everywhere you go, there are people attired in Red Sox caps and shirts, babies are decked out in the team gear, there are giveaways for Red Sox tickets, “Give blood, win two free Red Sox tickets,” “Pump your gas here to win two free Red Sox tickets,” “Get an appendectomy here, get two free tickets.” Okay, maybe I’m exaggerating a little, but only a little. There are so many people wearing Red Sox crap, that I’ve wondered if, in fact, the residents here have any other choices in their wardrobe. Is it formal attire here?
Oddly in this mix, I’ve seen more Maryland license plates than any other besides Maine (several of them maryland.gov plates - what’s up with that?). Yet, only one other Orioles fan, another chick, which gladdened my heart.
The other night, my husband and I were having dinner in a sports bar of sorts. The Red Sox game was on, as it always is in any establishment with a television. The Bosox were playing the Chisox, and after starting with a lead, the Chisox started acting stupid. In the privacy of our booth, I emitted a quietish sound of exasperation, something like “Oh come on!” A man sitting at the bar nearby swiveled his stool around so fast that I thought he might have given himself whiplash, all to find who could be committing such a crime so publicly. “Yeah, that’s right, Buddy,” I said under my breath. My only regret was that I had left my Orioles bucket hat in the car. Dammit! I love to give them a taste of their own medicine. Sadly though, I can’t imagine a day when Fenway is called OPACY North and the stadium is overrun with Orioles fans. So, I just do my small part wherever and whenever I can and take much, great, great pleasure in it! Heeheee.
I have learned one thing on this vacation, that is where all the Red Sox fans live. There’s a town called Falmouth. Where I come from, that would be pronounced “foul-mouth.” My husband thinks it’s a British pronunciation, “Fall-muth.” I like my explanation better.
Okay, I’ll stop being mean about the Red Sox fans now. I haven’t seen or heard an Os game in a long time and it makes me sad. I have seen a few scores and then when I look at the standings, I stare in disbelief. How can we be so far behind with this team I love so much (minus the pitching of course). Is it just in comparison to last season? Is it just that a decade and a half away from baseball before last season has left me with some fundamental lack of realistic expectations? Fine. Yes, okay. Okay, I said! You don’t need to remind me what I’ve said all season about how we would finish.
I’m changing the subject!
Our local NPR show interviewed the authors of a book called “Death at the Ballpark” and it sounds fascinating. I bored my husband for at least twenty minutes today telling him some of the stories. You can listen to the show here. It’s the first half hour, the second half hour was about a play.
I hope all my Os friends out there are enjoying their live access to the Os, whatever antics they’re up to, and you’re enjoying warmer and less wet weather than I am at the moment.
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But then again…
6. August 2008 by Orioles Fanatic.
We beat the Angels. Once again, all is right with the world.
And we kind of deserved to lose to the Mariners given what we did to them with Bedard.
May I say again, “Luuuuuuuuuukkkkkkkkeeeeee!”
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We lost to the Mariners?????
4. August 2008 by Orioles Fanatic.
I have not yet seen Saturday’s game due to other obligations, so I don’t know the outcome. I did watch yesterday’s game. Even though it was a Sunday, it was still the Mariners, so naturally, I thought we would win. I hate to be a broken record, but what the hell!
Perhaps the best part of the game was when HBP narrowly missed hitting a batter. Honestly, I was disappointed when he missed. I want to see him set a record this season. I don’t want him suspended, of course, but everyone knows that the recent suspension was uncalled for. Next time we’re in NY, I hope he “slips” and hits the ump.
It really hurts to be in last place when our bats, and usually our defense, yesterday notwithstanding, are so good. My only comfort is thinking that if we finish the season in the pits, maybe next year we’ll see some of the dramatic pitching improvements that Tampa did this year. My fatalistic outlook suggests that no, good things like that just don’t happen for us.
It’s official. The effects of Cooperstown washed away. I feel demoralized. It would take a miracle to come back now from thirteen games under. The only thing to look forward to now is seeing how high HBP can get his number and defeating the Ys. At least we can still do that. And that, is rather something to be cheerful about.
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HBP
30. July 2008 by Orioles Fanatic.
I can’t help it. When HBP hits a batter now, I laugh.
I take a perverse pleasure every time his number increases and feel something akin to, not, but akin to, pride that he is the HBP leader in both leagues. In the eighth inning tonight, HBP hit a Y and was ejected from the game by an overreacting ump. It was an unfair ejection, yet I was tickled. Not just because he hit a Y. That’s a bonus, of course. It’s that I’ve come to count on at least one batter getting it and I feel a little cheated if HBP makes it through an entire game without adding one to his magical number.
We narrowly won tonight, but we won with HBP pitching eight innings before his ejection. JJ was brilliant and Sherrill showed us his specialty, his own unique flavor of fan torture.
Final score: 7-6 thanks to Huff’s insurance homer in the 9th. I can’t say what I want to say because I don’t want to jinx it, but I know you know what I’m thinking.
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Well Done!
29. July 2008 by Orioles Fanatic.
I’m back at work. Because that is depressing enough, I thought I might as well look at the standings. Okay, we’re 11 games back, but we broke our Sunday losing streak and we stomped all over the Ys yesterday. 13-4. 13-4. Delicious!
You see! Things are looking up!
I left Mindpinball in charge of the team while I was gone, so let us thank him publicly for an outstanding job!
(Please don’t blame me if we lose tonight.)
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Back in Charlotte…
29. July 2008 by Orioles Fanatic.
We’re just back to Charlotte and there’s so much to say that I can’t wait until I have a block of time long enough to write about it. I can’t wait to share about the Ys fans who ran their mouths (it’s a given), and Frank, and the B&B where I stayed and the wonderful, wonderful Inn owner and other guests that we met, what Cooperstown is normally like on an Induction weekend…the beauty of the varyingly tall and rolling hills of upstate New York that I could never adequately describe…I want to capture all these memories while they’re still fresh, to keep them indelibly and permanently captured through this virtual medium. Even more, I wish I could stop time to live the experience in slower motion, to savor these memories for a little longer before they begin to fade, as they do so quickly the minute one returns to the normal daily cycle of work and chores.
For now, I will not write much. I will happily organize the laundry and open the mail, my excuse to procrastinate learning the outcome of this weekend’s games. (The longer I am away from the Internet, the better.) I will hold onto my Cooperstown high…
It was after this point last year that things got really ugly. More specifically, we found our way irretrievably into a pit of despair after mid-August. The Os were waiting to see if Trembley could handle a loss before officially appointing him as manager. Handle a loss, he did. Perhaps this year, this weekend will mark the turning point when we recover, when we resurface, drawing in a long, deep breath after suffocating, lifeless and listless without air for too long in the depths of the division. Maybe we will no longer need to hold our collective breath through the Orioles pitching, exhaling when we bat, and starting the cycle all over again the next inning, until all breath escapes in frustrated sighs. Perhaps, this will be when we remind the entire baseball world that we command respect, that we cannot be so easily dismissed, that we are the Baltimore Orioles, and in our short history have produced six of the greatest players baseball has known. Yes, we have an admittedly smaller, but it is just as loyal, following, and we know that though one team may have more Hall of Famers, their history is longer. A history, do not forget, that started with us. These fans may swell with pride in their great sums of money and strategy for purchasing more than fostering and growing, but their superiority, if any is warranted, is our superiority, as they were once us, founded in our fair city.
But this isn’t about them. It’s about us and a new and energizing era in Baltimore, about our own history and future of greatness. Future. Greatness. The Orioles will again breed a caliber of player that belongs in the Hall. For some of us, the existing six are special and cannot be equaled. We will always revere them and the memories they gave us with an unmatched fondness. We will always regard them as unique. ‘No one like them.” Yet, our hearts are big and there is room for more and different love. We are eager and ready to make room for new talent, to start filing away stories of magnificence for future reminiscing. We don’t want to buy a World Series. That is unsatisfying and inglorious. We want family. We want to be awed as our young, new rookies mature, as they develop and astound us with their ability. We choose to suffer with them as they grow because that’s what families do; it is the price in order to rejoice. We want Orioles and the Oriole Way. Our success may not be overnight; maturation is a process. But when that success comes, we want it to be ours, with ORIOLES.
I realize how all this may sound, but this is what Cooperstown does to you. If you love baseball, you cannot help but leave the town feeling in love. A sparkle in your eyes, you cannot wait to come home and share with others who love what you love the enthusiasm that is infused in you after only a weekend. It overcomes you.
But there will be more of and about that later…for now, I have to get back to procrastinating with laundry, holding onto this hope and wonderful mood for as long as possible.
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