Archive for the Off-Season/Boredom Category
Get a Life
29. January 2008 by Orioles Fanatic.
I know some of you must be thinking it and I wouldn’t blame you. When it comes to the Orioles though, I was predestined, by virtue of my birthplace, to be a rabid fan. My husband, by extension, even though he didn’t know it when we took our vows, and didn’t know much at all about baseball, to wit, he is still learning to call home plate, “home” and not “fourth,” is also legally bound as part of our holy matrimony, to be an Orioles fan. (He tried to suggest otherwise yesterday and the short version is that I disabused him of that misunderstanding.)
Nevertheless, I do recognize that other, less important things are happening in the world. For example, there was the very last time I had to watch bozo deliver the State of the Union and that’s a pretty darn happy thing. And other stuff has happened too, some mess in the Middle East and poor Africa. That continent breaks my heart. But I ask, is there really any point in listening to the news? Last week, I was all excited about the market crashing, thinking, “finally, there will be some buy opportunities.” Did it crash though? Did it even end down over the week? Why get all depressed by world events, when I have the Orioles to bring me down and beat the cheer out of me, day after bloody day?
So until such time as I can get a life, if I choose to do so, which honestly isn’t likely anytime soon, I’m going to think about this. Did you know it would take about eight hours to drive to such an event for someone? Someone would love to see Ken Singleton and Al Bumbry!! And Scotty and Tippy!!
That’s all I’m going to say while I try to remember with whom over the past year still employed or in touch with those still employed at my office I have shared this link.
© 2008 Enchanting Sunshine. This post does not contain any admission of guilt and cannot be used in a court of law, nor by a Human Resources representative, nor a back-stabbing employee who turned me in without the express written consent of Enchanting Sunshine. All rights reserved. Use of the Website signifies your agreement to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Violators will be subject to fine, slashed tires, keying, and or revenge, a dish best served cold.
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Movie/Off Season Cheer
27. January 2008 by Orioles Fanatic.
Let’s say you’re getting a little antsy for some good Orioles baseball. Here’s a way to cheer yourself, rent the Vintage World Series Films: Baltimore Orioles (2006) featuring the highlights of the 1966, 1970, and 1983 World Series. It’s a lot of sunshine watching Brooks, Boog, Frank, Elrod, Belanger, and Blair, and we haven’t even gotten to the 83 series yet. It’s narrated by Chuck Thompson.
CTT: Two thumbs out of two. The husband’s thumbs don’t count on this one, even though he’s the one who rented it for me.
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Cap Update and Branch Orioleans/Temple Ravenians
21. December 2007 by Orioles Fanatic.
I ran the idea of buying the canvas Os cap with the pink O by a couple friends of mine, the only two people in the entire state of North Carolina I can talk to about these things. It was important to me to get a second opinion before I made a big mistake. They confirmed my long-held position that caps not in the team colors are reserved for frou frou gals who only wear team caps because their husband talked them into it. These are often the same people who don’t know how many outs are in an inning or why it’s a VERY BAD idea to trade Bedard. I even explained my rationalization, that I’d be making a political statement and they still said, “no.” Even if I wore my Cooperstown t-shirt and accompanying hip flask? Still “no.” They insisted I wasn’t the kind of person to wear a pink O and it would definitely send the wrong message.
I was further informed that I wouldn’t be allowed back into the state of Maryland, nor west of Tennessee, nor into Georgia, nor as far south as Florida, though on that last point, I must disagree. At Spring Training back when I lived in Tampa, my friends from Balto and I were the only ones making any noise at the games. It was akin to being at a golf match. The quiet did allow us to get Frank Robinson’s attention and when he turned to wave at us we were tickled senseless, for about the next 125 hours. Ah, such fond memories of the good old days.
I’m not going to lie. I was a little disappointed about the hat. I’ve become quite enamored with it. Why couldn’t the O be in orange? I have to get a grip on how easily I am seduced by all things pink. That was a close call.
Anyway, in the end I can’t wear a pink O. I couldn’t bear to be shown up again like I was a couple of years ago in Atlanta. My husband and I had gone to see the Orioles play the Braves. In a stadium full of people, sitting next to me was a woman who had her face painted orange and white. “Who is this trying to be a better fan than I?” I queried to myself. In a stadium full of people in Atlanta, I was sitting next to someone who works for the Cal Ripken Foundation! Though I don’t generally believe that things happen for a reason, in this particular instance, I wonder if God was saying, “You need to go save the Os.” Or maybe it was just God taunting me, as usual. I bet she had never heard of the Orioles for the first twenty years of her life and now she works side by side with one of my heroes. (Yes, I will be telling that story over and over again for the next 125 years.)
Whatever.
At any rate, I’ve warmed up to the knit cap after hearing that it proves, “I am down and dirty.”
Anyway, who the hell cares. It’s 2 pm and the managers have released us from our cubicle prisons and told us to go home, so I’ll leave you to contemplate the merits and fashion of one cap over another. You should also or perhaps instead, read this article sent by my friend, hapless victim of the Ravens, Mindpinball. If you’re from our fair city, you’ll feel less alone in your suffering.
Oh yeah. One more thing. ESPN made a list of worst sports years ever. I don’t know how we didn’t make the list. I’m beginning to think that the Baltimore sports teams are a new division of the People’s Temple or Branch Davidians. Don’t the Branch Orioleans know that fewer fans will cut into their profits?
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Orioles cap makes political statement
20. December 2007 by Orioles Fanatic.
The Orioles are always tempting me with discount offers. I struggle to resist. I really want that blanket and I can see where the flask will come in handy. However, today I browsed through the website and saw a cap I like. Now normally, even though pink is my favorite color, I’m opposed to baseball caps that aren’t strictly in the team colors. It’s wrong, morally so, in my opinion.
However, this cap seems to make a political statement. It’s wrong on three counts:
1) It’s not in Orioles colors (though it is pretty).
2) It’s grammatically incorrect. Here’s something I would like to shout to the world, “THERE IS NO APOSTROPHE in ‘Os.’” (I would also like to teach programmers the appropriate use of the single and double quotation mark and have permission to taser them every time they use a single where a double quotation applies — which is nearly always.)
3) It’s ripped. At first I thought it was a mistake, but I’ve been informed that this is the style. Duh!
I struggled to discern the statement the cap is making and then it hit me. Of course, it’s that things with the Orioles are all messed up.
I have now successfully rationalized buying and wearing an Orioles cap in the wrong colors. I’ll just have to make sure that if I wear it, I also wear my Cooperstown “I was there” t-shirt so that no one mistakes me for a pretend, sissy fan, who doesn’t even know the rules of the game.
Which reminds me, if I were president, I’d have a law about only real fans wearing caps. I hate it when I see someone in a baseball cap and when I try to talk game with them, they turn out to be from the far reaches of a remote, dusty town in Slovenia and don’t even know what baseball is. I feel like such a fool. Then my husband laughs, as if to say, “Why would you think anyone besides you cares about baseball.” It hurts, because it’s so true.
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Oriole (Mitchell) Report
13. December 2007 by Orioles Fanatic.
So about that Mitchell Report. Yeah…Um…Trying to think of how to change the subject. Okay. Let’s get it over with. Here’s the link if you want to read it for yourself. It’s only 400 pages, but they’re double-spaced.
Here’s how to read it. Skip to about page 200 where the list of named players starts. (There’s some early stuff with Segui all over it.) Then scroll through the names. Every time you see a player who was on the Ys, you say, “Cheater! Cheater Ys!” and when you see a player on the Orioles, hit your down arrow key rapidly and pretend like it didn’t happen. Unfortunately, you’ll find a little repetitive stress injury in your down arrow finger.
Roch provides a list if you prefer to not hurt yourself. Physically anyway. In the words of my friend Jeff, “Segui appears to have been a cancer for your team.” Indeed he seems to have been a pusher. I think what’s even more tragic is I found myself wondering, “So if so many were doping, why the hell weren’t they doing better?” I haven’t followed the Orioles much in recent years - I had no MASN. Dark cold years they were. So maybe the Os were great and I missed it. Or I’ve been blacked out for a long time.
I have to say my greatest disappointment is that more cheater Ys weren’t named. It would have been such a comfort and I was not just hoping, but expecting to see the whole team implicated. Instead, half the names are Os and for what? It’s like every day they look for a new way to hurt me.
Oh well. Hopefully the MLB will start to address this problem now. Regardless, I’m not giving up my right to call the Ys cheaters. (If only Jeter had been on the list!! Cheater, cheater, Derek Jeter!!)
No, I never have grown up.
—–Later that evening—————
A comment from Roch’s blog:
Are we ever going to hear any good news from the Orioles again?
Every year we seem to trade our talent for mediocre players … how many years now have we been told the Orioles are rebuilding? To top it off Mr. Angelos seems either not inclined or not able to spend on top notch quality free agents - which has made many fans question his committment to fielding a quality team as opposed to just making money. He is widely seen throughout baseball as another meddling George Steinbrenner and the Orioles have become an irrelevant laughing stock of baseball with little chance of being competitive, a weak farm system and little to offer even in the way of trades. A far cry from the glory days of the team or even the years with Cal Ripkin when we were held in high regard.
What has gone so wrong for so long? Truth be told NO ONE I know can see a competitive team in the future nor any strong pitchers or position players (that we don’t trade). How can you build a quality team if you let all your top talent leave? Like many fans I have been a season ticket holder for years and have grown up an Orioles fan - but am completely frustrated with the direction of the franchise.
Now to top it off revelations from the Mitchell Report have revealed many Orioles players used performance enhancing drugs. Yet another black mark for a team in disarray. So I ask again are we ever going to have a competetive team with good news? All i can say is clean house, get your act together, get a clear game plan, build, acquire AND RETAIN talent and show the fans that you care and that the team and owner are making a serious effort and working in a positive direction.
Posted by: Karl S. | December 13, 2007 5:32 PM
Here! Here!
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Logical Oriole Souvenirs
30. November 2007 by Orioles Fanatic.
Lately, I’ve been pretty good about keeping up with Roch’s blog. (In an unusual moment of cooperation, Outlook allowed me to syndicate the RSS feed and actually pulls the updates from his blog, though not for anyone else’s.) This afternoon, I saw the headline “Trading Bedard” and thought, “oh no, he was our only good pitcher.” I haven’t read the post yet. Some of the trading strategy is beyond me and the idea we’ll lose our only sure thing for who knows what, like we do every stinking year for the last twenty, is, to understate it a bit, rather discouraging.
Meanwhile, a colleague came by my cube to excitedly tell me something he saw yesterday. Actually he said, “I know something that will make you happily waste gas and abandon your environmental ways.” I couldn’t think what could do that, but as it turns out, he was right. He saw a Ford pick-up truck painted in Orioles colors: the top of the cab was orange and the rest of the body was black. I immediately went online to see if this is a standard color option, but sadly couldn’t confirm that it is. Too bad.
Coincidentally, I was also browsing through the Orioles online shop since I get about ten email coupons a day. I have to admit that I find a lot of the Orioles memorabilia tempting. Perhaps it’s a tad self-indulgent, but an Orioles throw blanket would be so nice to warm me on chilly nights. These bottle stoppers are just too cute to resist. Who can do without a sticky note cube? The most useful and practical item for sale though? A clue that those high up in the Orioles organization are catching on? Is this. Pair it with a Orioles emblazoned pill bottle, with separate compartments for blood pressure meds, Xanax, and uppers, and I think they’ll have a hot seller. Or, maybe they’re just planning to sell joints at the ballpark.
In the meantime, I ordered the flask. When it gets here, maybe then I can handle the news of whatever is in Roch’s blog.
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Hating the Ys, A Widespread Phenomenon
27. November 2007 by Orioles Fanatic.
Since I decided to withhold my grumblings yesterday, I didn’t publish the original post. However, here is a bit of Yankee fan hating that I can’t help sharing:
A friend of mine isn’t a baseball fan. He’s from D.C. and should be an Orioles fan, but nevermind. This summer, I started an education program to teach him that if he can’t like baseball, he can at least hate the Yankees. He’s a fast learner. Mostly because of a highway incident a few months ago. The driver of an SUV that had a huge Yankees magnet plastered on the back of the car cut him off and nearly caused an accident. The same friend told me that yesterday, there was a white sedan behind him on the highway, driving aggressively and recklessly, weaving in and out of traffic. He could see in his rear view mirror the front license plate (North Carolina only has one plate on the back). It was none other than a Yankees novelty plate. I don’t even need to do any convincing, the Yankees fans make people hate them all on their own.
Yes, I do want to solve world peace, but that doesn’t mean that certain people don’t need to be exiled and locked in cages.
Some things are true every day, even when you’re feeling cheerful and happy.
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