Archive for July 2008

HBP

30. July 2008 by Crys.

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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Back in Charlotte…

29. July 2008 by Crys.

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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Cooperstown Bound

25. July 2008 by Crys.

I have started several posts in the last week, but haven’t been able to finish them. Really, it’s not right the misery of our pitching. If we could have, like, just mediocre pitching, our bats could take us the rest of the way. But, nevermind. We all know that. What more can we say except that we’ll keep bleeding orange, and one day, everything will come together, I hope with most of the members from our current team. At such point, we will hear the beautiful singing of angels and I will be sitting in the stands watching every game in person. (This fantasy is entwined with my Lotto fantasy that I’ll have to save for another time.)

Last night, Jim Palmer and Gary Thorne interviewed Cal Ripken, Jr. and Eddie Murray in the broadcast booth. Learning that they will both be in Cooperstown served to mitigate some of my suffering that I am not in Baltimore on so many occasions this season when the Orioles are honoring the ‘83 team. Sure I didn’t get a Wild Bill Hagy t-shirt, but in three short days, I will have the honor of viewing Eddie and Cal from a great distance through a zoom lens during the Induction ceremony. And this year, perhaps the zoom lens will actually work, and take pictures, unlike last year during the Great Conspiracy of the Electronics to destroy the last threads of my sanity and have me permanently institutionalized. They didn’t win. But it was close.

Will I meet Goose? I haven’t heard a reply from the guys who claim to be friends with him, and as my luck runs, it would be foolish to assume that I should hope for anything other that enjoying the wonderful gift of being in Cooperstown during Induction weekend. Truthfully, that will be plenty enough for which to be grateful, especially considering my husband, who had no intentions of ever returning to Cooperstown, agreed to come with me. (I think he may actually be on the verge of becoming a fan despite grumbling tonight, “You’re not planning to watch the game again tonight, are you??” Yes, I handed him the remote. What choice did I have? On second thought, his accompanying me to Cooperstown may work against me. How many points do I have to award and for how long? I’m just realizing that I didn’t completely think this through.)

Tomorrow will be the first time I’ve been to New York City in more than seventeen years. We’re hoping to eat in Carneige Deli, tour the Rockefeller Center, and walk the streets of Manhattan before we drive the rest of the distance to CTown. I know nothing will compare to last year’s experience, but this year will have a charm all its own. Namely, the ability to park a car without paying a small ransom or getting up before the sun to find a space.

If there is time or wireless Internet access, I will post at Nomadic Traveler. I’m temporarily turning over the chaperoning responsibility to you, dear readers, and I expect to come back to a winning team in time for the Ys series!

Happy weekend my friends!!

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SGG Keys to the Game

8. July 2008 by Crys.

Welcome to the SGG Advice Column, where no Oriole will ever come for advice.

Before every Orioles game, Rick Dempsey provides his list of “Keys to the Game.” I confess that I usually don’t get to see them because there just isn’t enough time in the day to work full time, watch the pre-game show, the post-game show, and three or more hours of baseball, plus still have time left for cooking, laundry, or attending to daily hygiene (though I’ve scaled back on these things as much as I can).

I’ll grant that Dempsey may have more experience or be more qualified than I to make a list, but since concern for quality has never been a deterrent to me running my mouth, I’m making my own list. It’s more of a general “Keys to Success” since I’ve been promising all season that we’re going to the World Series, and even I, in all my denial must admit that things have to start happening now if the Orioles are going to fulfill this promise to my one loyal reader (thanks!).

Here we go. Here’s how we get to the WS:
1) Outfit HBP with a bluetooth headset. When he starts losing focus, ring him and talk him through it.
2) Allow Cabrera to pitch more. I don’t know his full story yet, but perhaps we could try him as a starter?
3) Liz, sorry, not ready. Three wild pitches in one game tell me somethin jus ain’t right.
4) Massage therapy. I met this creepy masseuse in February who told me during a very worrisome and uncomfortable massage, between panting (story for another time), that he and some friends used to work for a minor league team. The masseuse’s friend worked for the Cubs and he spouted off a long list of numbers (on which I was able to concentrate only marginally given that the greater part of my attention was focused on devising an escape plan if it came to that, and I was quite sure that it would) about how many fewer injuries the team incurred from the massage and stretching program his friend devised. I promised myself to never set foot in a discount massage parlor again, so I have never seen the dude again and consequently can’t tell you how credible he was, but the idea makes sense. Given the activity of our DL, this may be something our team is missing.
5) Don’t let Burres pitch again unless everyone else on the team, including Roberts, is involved in some freak accident that amputates all their arms.
6) Don’t trade any fielders. Nope. I said, “NO!” Wen ich nein sage, ist nein!
7) Tell the starters to pitch better and not give away so many runs.
8 ) Tell Hernandez to catch the ball.
9) Tell Trembley to keep doing what he’s been doing. We love him!
10) Ditto for JJ and Triple Hot (though for the latter, perhaps some love is not for a strictly baseball reason). Does it matter though? Love is love.

That’s it. Pretty doable, don’t you think?

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Tides Pictures

3. July 2008 by Crys.

Here finally are some pictures from the Tides vs. Knights game last Monday. Pictures

Enjoy!

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