Category Archives: Uncategorized

Since the Orioles were last in the playoffs…

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On October 15, 1997, the Cleveland Indians defeated the favored Baltimore Orioles in Game 6 of the American League Championship Series 1-0 in an 11 inning game on the strength of a Tony Fernandez home run.

And that was the last time that the Baltimore Orioles could have been said to be “in the playoffs”. Until now. Last night, September 30, 2012, the Baltimore Orioles clinched a playoff spot when the Texas Rangers beat the Los Angeles Angels. Only time and the final 3 days of the season will determine where in the playoffs the Orioles will begin, but now is as good a time as any to put in perspective how long it’s been since the Orioles were “in the playoffs”:

14 years, 11 months, 15 days: The exact amount of time between 10/15/97 and 9/30/12.

7: Number of managers (including interims) who have managed the Orioles since 1997 [counting Buck Showalter]

Troy Glaus, J.D. Drew, Kerry Wood, Mike Lowell, Kevin Millar, Eric Gagne, Pat Burrell, Mark Mulder: Some of the noted players who have debuted in the Majors, had their entire careers, and retired, since the Orioles were last in the playoffs.

2: Number of new franchises that Major League Baseball has had since the Orioles were last in the playoffs (Diamondbacks and Rays, who began play in 1998).

17: New stadiums built or begun play in since the Orioles were last in the playoffs.

5 years old: Age of Orioles wunderkind Manny Machado when the Orioles were in the playoffs last.

2: Number of players on the 1997 Orioles who have been elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame since the Orioles were last in the playoffs (Cal Ripken and Roberto Alomar). A third (Rafael Palmeiro) likely would have been if not for a steroid scandal and a fourth (Mike Mussina) has a chance at the Hall of Fame in the future.

LA Dodgers, Dutch National Team, USA National Team, Washington Nationals: Places that Davey Johnson has managed since he and Orioles owner Peter Angelos had a falling out that led to Johnson’s resignation shortly after the 1997 season.

Saturn and it’s moons: Current location of the Cassini-Huygens space probe, launched on October 15, 1997, which was also the last day that the Orioles had been “in the playoffs”.

Zero: Number of members of the 1997 Baltimore Orioles still active in the Majors (Arthur Rhodes didn’t pitch this season, although he is not yet officially retired)

Three: Number of members of the 1997 Cleveland Indians team that eliminated the Orioles that are still active.  (Omar Vizquel, Jim Thome and Bartolo Colon)

479: The number of home runs that Jim Thome has hit since then.

Zero: The number of times the Pirates have had a .500 season or better since 1997… because some things never change.

The Strangest Stadiums: Weird Parks Themselves

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One of the reasons why baseball is different is because of how the playing field’s dimensions are different in essentially every ballpark. However, this can also lead to some weird stadiums. I mean, we’re talking utterly bizarre, stadiums or fields that almost certainly didn’t have baseball in mind when they were created, or parks that are extremely different from the usual image we have in our minds of what a baseball stadium should look like. And, of course, there are also ballparks that have really weird stories behind them (those will come later).

Take a look (after the jump, of course):

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The Ultimate Unofficial Guide to Racing Mascots

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There are rumors that the unprecedented may happen before the end of the season. No, not that the Orioles could make the postseason… something far more unprecedented: Teddy Roosevelt may win the Washington Nationals’ Presidents Race. You see, in Washington they have the four presidents from Mount Rushmore race every night. But while George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Abe Lincoln have all won plenty of times, Theodore Roosevelt has never won. Ever. Despite the fact that they’ve been racing since July of 2006.  There even was a Ken Burns mini-documentary about it on ESPN, where Senator John McCain declared that he was considering congressional hearings over this. With the Nationals now going to the postseason and with plenty of promotion over Teddy for the final homestand of the season, some are taking this to mean that he may finally win.
Only time will tell whether this is true. However, it does bring the opportunity to go over the various racing mascots in Major League Baseball, because, well, why not?

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Your super-early preview of the 2013 World Baseball Classic Round of 16

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Major League Baseball has released when, who and where the main World Baseball Classic will be. So, as one of the internet’s only sources for WBC news and analysis (based on the large number of hits I get from people searching for World Baseball Classic), I will now give you my early analysis of the pools. Where I have done projections for the teams, I’ll post a link to them.

First off, one thing of note is that the first round will be pool play, but the second round will be double-elimation. After that, it’s single-elimination in the Semis and the Finals.

So… GO AFTER THE JUMP FOR MY EARLY ANALYSIS!

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Football Continuum: The Seattle Screwjob

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Sports has had many blown calls in history: Jeff Maier, Hull in the crease, the 1972 Olympic Basketball mess (I’m still reasonably sure that Doug Collins is forming a Ocean’s Eleven-style team to go steal the gold medals back from the Russians), and, of course, the epic tale of Joyce and Galarraga. But, with the possible exception of the ’72 games, none have been as surreal as what happened last night. Given how Twitter was busy comparing the NFL’s current replacement ref-a-palooza to the WWE, I decided to do some research on pro wrestling to find a inspiration for the name for this incident (thanks internet!). I found my inspiration in something called the Montreal Screwjob, where Vince McMahon intervened in one of his fake wrestling spectacles to ensure that Bret Hart, who had announced he was about to leave for another wrestling company, would not “win” a title at McMahon’s company.

Now, admittedly, there was no vast fake-wrestling conspiracy to take out the Packers last night. Instead, it was just utter incompetence on the part of the replacements, the NFL owners, and NFL commissioner Roger Goodell. But, c’mon, Seattle Screwjob rolls off the tongue well.

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Great Baseball Lies: The Number of Hits Ty Cobb Had

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On September 11, 1985, Pete Rose got his 4,192nd base hit, passing the immortal Ty Cobb for most hits in MLB history.

Except… he probably had already passed him a few days earlier, on September 8, 1985 at Wrigley Field. You see, earlier in the decade, somebody had found that, at one point, a game Ty Cobb had played in 1910 had been counted twice. However, the marketing machine and narrative about Rose was heating up, and the number of 4191 had such a nice ring to it and had been the established number for decades, so commissioner Bowie Kuhn declared that 4191 would remain the MLB record for hits (until Rose broke it, of course).
However, Baseball Reference says differently, as do most other non-MLB sources. Therefore, I am declaring Ty Cobb’s “4191” hit total one of baseball’s great lies.

Analyzing the “42” Trailer Far Too Closely

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While certainly there is plenty to talk about today, whether it’s the Pirates’ crazy player development “training” or the whole thing about Melky Cabrera, but instead, I’m going to be putting a spotlight on something else: a movie trailer.

The trailer, to be more specific, for 42.  As the title and the fact you are on a baseball blog suggests, it is a movie about Jackie Robinson. It has a good pedigree, written (and directed) by Oscar-winning screenwriter Brian Helgeland, and with Harrison Ford as Branch Rickey. Emmy nominee Christopher Meloni plays Leo Durocher. Somewhat wisely, Robinson himself will be played an unknown names named Chadwick Boseman, who’s previous roles have been on TV and an appearance as Floyd Little in the Ernie Davis biopic, The Express. A good move, really, as I worry that if a “star” were to be playing Robinson, it would overtake the story of Jackie Robinson. Let me put it another way: If Will Smith were 15-20 years younger and was cast in this movie, people would be watching the movie thinking about Will Smith, not Jackie Robinson. And that would not be a good thing.

Anyway, here’s the trailer. After it (and the jump), my thoughts:

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The Joy, Misery and Oddity of the Late-Night Baseball Game

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I, like many Americans, live in the Eastern Time Zone of the country. Games in the east start at seven, give or take. Central games start up at eight. The west coast games get started at ten. While I usually fall asleep by the time the West is done, I’m sometimes able to stay up through all of it if I want to see the game.

Last night was not a night where I was able to, even though I was interested in what would happen with the Orioles-Mariners game. I couldn’t do it though, I fell asleep. Sweet, sweet… sleep.

Until about 2:45 this morning, when my dog woke me up. And so, as I let the sleepless canine out to go to the bathroom, I turned on SportsCenter to find out what had happened in the Orioles-Mariners game… only to find out that it was still going on, heading into what I like to call “deep extras.” “Deep extras” is my term for any extra inning game that goes past 12 innings, at which point the bullpens are starting to become completely and utterly depleted and you start half-hoping the game would just end but also oddly wish it never will. It’s sort of the baseball version of Stockholm Syndrome.  I decided I’d keep watching… but quickly fell back to sleep.

Thankfully (or not), I was awoken by the dog- again- around 3:30. Maybe 3:45. As I sat downstairs waiting for the dog to finish his business, I turned on the game, expecting that the MLB Extra Innings would declare “HAVE A NICE NIGHT!” to indicate the game was over. But, nope, it was still going, and not only that, but the Orioles had taken the lead. By the time the dog was back in, the Orioles had won, 4-2, to pull even with the Yankees for the AL East title for a time.

It was, for lack of a word, surreal. And that’s the thing about late-night baseball games: there is the joy at the fact that there is baseball on, there is misery due to the fact you are up way too late… and it’s just odd when a game goes 18 innings, no matter when it started.

Early Look at the Panama City and Taipei pools of the WBC

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Okay, now the other two qualifying pools for the WBC don’t get started until November (as opposed to the first two, which are coming up THIS VERY WEEK), but I think it’s a good idea to do an early look at them:

The PANAMA CITY pool features Panama, Brazil, Nicaragua and Colombia. This is, by far, the best qualifying group. All four of these countries had at least one MLB player active this season, three of them have professional leagues (although admittedly the Panamanian, Nicaraguan and Colombian leagues are often in a financially fragile position), and the fact the group is in November means MLB players will be able to take part. It is also, in international sports parlance, a “group of death”. A “group of death” is a group that is so talented or evenly-matched that there is almost no margin for error. This is the group that has the best worst team (Brazil, which has produced more minor leaguers than you’d think) and a best team (Panama) that, while the favorite, is definitely beatable. I did projections for Panama earlier this year, so you can look there to get an idea of who they will be sending in. Colombia will likely have the Solano brothers of Donovan (a 2B/Utility with the Marlins this season) and Jhonathan (a catcher with the Nationals, although injuries may sideline him), as well as pitchers like Ernesto Frieri, Jose Quintana, Julio Teheran and perhaps a coming-out-of-retirement-for-his-country Edgar Renteria. Nicaragua could have young Mariners organization pitcher Erasmo Ramirez joined by the Padres’ 25-year-old SS Everth Cabrera and veteran pitchers Wilton Lopez and Vicente Padilla. Even Brazil could have a MLB-experienced player in Yan Gomes, who became the first Brazil-born MLB player earlier this year when he made his debut with the Blue Jays. It should be a highly competitive and entertaining pool, and although I think either Panama or Colombia will emerge from it, there are plenty of question marks around it and I wouldn’t be that surprised if any of the teams involved got through (okay, I would be pretty surprised if Brazil got through, but it wouldn’t be as surprising as, say, France or the Czech Republic getting through).

On the other hand, though, the TAIPEI pool of Taipei, New Zealand, Thailand and the Philippines will be the most lopsided of all of the pool. Chinese Taipei (not called Taiwan in international competition due to political considerations) will win this group. Even if New Zealand, Thailand and the Philippines were to pool their resources and throw out a combined team against Taipei, Taipei would win. The only reason Taipei is even having to qualify is because in 2009 they had a game against China in which they played their worst game and China played it’s best. However, Taipei shouldn’t have that problem against their pool, even if the other three get substantial help from passport players.

More detailed previews will be in the future.

World Baseball Classic Qualifier Preview: Regensburg (Germany, Canada, Czech Republic, Great Britain)

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As I have previously mentioned, the World Baseball Classic’s qualifying rounds are about to start. I have, of course, done extensive projections for many of the already-qualified teams, but I am also doing overviews for each qualifying pool as rosters are released. This time: the pool in Regensburg, Germany.
Go after the jump. All rosters are from Baseball America.

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