Every now and then, I hear rumblings that the Orioles might leave. You ask me, they've already left. The Orioles who won world series, the Orioles of Palmer, Stone, Boog, the Robisons - Brooks and Fank. Simon & Garfunkel asked "where did you go Joe Damagio" I'm asking "where did you go Earl Weaver?"
It seems like that coffee commercial, somenone secretly replaced the team. Can we get Fox Mulder to look into how a team can lead the American League East, arguably the toughest division in baseball for the first half of the season, and now they can't win at Tampa Bay. And to rub salt in the wound, they lose so many games to the Yankees, that the Bronx Bombers have now replaced Boston as the first place in the division.
You can blame free agency, for assembling so called teams that are nothing more than aggregations of superstar egomaniac non-team players. You c an blame the owner, who not only signs players, ingnoring the baseball scouts hired to scout talent, but agreed to a team 45 minutes South of here, as long as he, the owner, was garanteed money. With another major league franchise so close, are we ever really going to have the large media market needed to bring in the bucks needed to sign top players - or are we destined to become the Milwaukee Brewers of the AL East?
According to the birding crowd, the true Baltimore Oriole, the orange and black bird, is now extinct. Somehow, while none of us were watching, it faded away into obscurity, and then ceased to exist. This baseball season is a wake up call that the team that bears their name is proving the addage that "birds of a feather flock together."
JIM
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2 comments:
Jim,
You should read "Monyeball" by Michael Lewis. It explains it all. The problem is Peter Angelos, who has no abilities whatsoever as a team owner.
I used to be an Orioles fan until Angelos fired Davey Johnson after he had won Manager of the Year honors, until I woke up one morning to read that Angelos had gotten rid of Mike Bordick, BJ Surhoff, Charles Johnson, etc., until Angelos hired free agent Albert Belle. It goes on and on.
Before Angelos screwed up the Orioles, they drew full houses almost every day. Now...?
...Now I am a Nats fan and I cannot see myself driving 40 miles north to have my baseball enjoyment be abused by a petulant pissant of an owner.
RFK doesn't hold a candle to Camden Yards as a baseball venue, and the team has a lot of growing to do before it becomes a contender, but as soon as it gets its farm system established and it gets out from under the onerous tv deal that Angelos forced on the team and MLB, then I bet the Nats fan base will start achieving the vastness that one was the Orioles.
It would be a tragidy if the Orioles ever left Baltimore, but if that ever happens, it won't be because there is a baseball team in DC. It will be because of Angelos.
Dan R.
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