By Zach Wilt, on April 6th, 2012  Click To Enlarge An hour before first pitch on Opening Day, the Ravens posted a photo on their official Facebook page asking Baltimore fans if they would rather be at M&T Bank Stadium than attending a game at Oriole Park At Camden Yards.
“Raise your hand if you’d rather be cheering in THIS stadium than a baseball stadium today,” the post read.
It’s since been removed and the Ravens issued an apology according to The Sun’s Matt Vensel. ”We made a mistake and we have apologized to the Orioles. In no way did we mean to disrespect the Orioles.” The Ravens also posted an image of the Oriole bird in purple uniform wishing the O’s a Happy Opening Day.
If the roles were reversed, this is exactly the type of thing that would have fans outraged and fuming for weeks. Small radio stations would be whining about the organization and piling on a team that hasn’t won in a decade in a half. Instead, this story will get brushed under the rug as the Ravens are the darling in this two sport town. The post was classless and highlights the problem with a portion of fans in this city.
The Ravens should be united with the Orioles and vise-versa. If the relationship isn’t pretty behind the scenes, then keep it behind the scenes.
Don’t try to separate the two fan bases.
And if you really want to know, I’d rather be at Camden Yards.
By Dave Gilmore, on April 3rd, 2012  There are few structures that mean as much to me as Oriole Park at Camden Yards. I didn’t go there a single time last summer.
The Yard couldn’t have caught me during a more formative twenty years of my life. From age nine to 29, it has been my place of pilgrimage to the confusing and enriching church of baseball. Now it sits closer to me than it ever has before. I see it more often than I see the house I grew up in, 23 miles due north. It’s my stone and brick Velveteen Rabbit, a passing reminder of something that was so seminal to my life at times, and so distant and vestigial at others. READ MORE >>>
By Weston Bruner, on March 31st, 2012  Believe it or not, this is the face of a winner. (Photo Credit: CC BY-ND/dushawndaily/Daily, Doosh) Baseball fans everywhere had to be ecstatic- or at least interested- when Frank McCourt finally let go of the Los Angeles Dodgers (or as he must have called it, the expense account) to a group led by NBA star Magic Johnson. It is important to note that while Magic’s face was at the front of this push, it was more of a PR move (and a brilliant one at that) than a representation of where most of the money is coming from. Mark Walter, CEO of Guggenheim partners, will be the controlling owner and will be footing the bill as he looks to recoup that record-shattering $2 billion price tag for one of the nation’s most storied baseball franchises.
It left me wondering whether Peter Angelos would ever do us a favor and be careless enough with the team’s finances to be forced to sell. There is one big piece that is missing in the celebration, however. One that may very well play a role in any future financial mismanagement by team owners. At the end of the day, Frank McCourt won and baseball fans lost. READ MORE >>>
By Dave Gilmore, on March 27th, 2012  Photo: Mitchell Layton For the second season in a row, small sample size notwithstanding, 22-year old Braden Holtby has been the Washington Capitals’ best goaltender. For the second win-or-die game in a row, coach Dale Hunter is giving the nod to Holtby tonight against Buffalo.
In his NHL career, Holtby has played in 18 games, and in all of them has displayed a confidence and swagger in front of the net that shows a visible boost in the 18 men in front of him. Even the four games he’s been lit up in the past two years, the young goaltender hasn’t been fazed.
Hunter might be the paragon of the Capitals organization, but the rough road the first-year coach has seen has exposed the fact that the team’s current makeup might not match Hunter’s coaching preferences. With three good goalies to choose from, Hunter is calling on number 70 in crunch time. Holtby, the Canadian who plays like a defenseman who happens to wear a mask and glove, might be Hunter’s best match in net and the Capitals best chance at the playoffs. READ MORE >>>
By Weston Bruner, on March 24th, 2012  Kentucky continue to roll through a suddenly less interesting tournament. (AP Photo/John Bazemore) I thought I would mix things up a bit this year in my bracket. I saw all my family members picking Kentucky or North Carolina to win it all with a couple of lower seeds making it to the Elite Eight. I thought after all the tumult of the last two seasons things in March Madness would start to return to the norm this season. To separate myself from the fans of pure chalk I decided I would go with Missouri as my dark horse to win it all. I say that because my bracket has been dead for so long I think it gives me enough context to say that this has been one of the most mundane tournaments since the all- #1 seed Final Four of 2008, without many more opportunities for teams to make it truly compelling.
Of course there are a lot of ways to consider what is “compelling.” Some would say seeing the “best” teams play in the Final Four is compelling because there is higher quality basketball. Well if we watched sports simply to watch the highest quality of play we would throw our hands up when the Orioles beat the clearly superior Red Sox on the last day of the regular season to knock them out of the postseason. In fact, how do we define quality except by who wins the game? READ MORE >>>
By Dave Gilmore, on March 20th, 2012  The NFL is benevolent socialism in a vacuum. Most people understand this, but few fans encourage their teams to act on it. Perhaps the fact that our country fought a 50-year Cold War against socialism that many fans still remember makes it hard to embrace this reality. It’s a shame really, because exploiting the cheapest labor possible at every position under the salary cap is exactly how you weather a system that knocks everybody down to the middle eventually.
As the first wave of free agency transactions have come and gone, the Ravens find themselves poached of some of their (previously) most efficient talent. Fans are upset, naturally, at the loss of integral pieces to the puzzle such as Jarret Johnson and Cory Redding. But the way the NFL is structured, losing players to the free market can often help a team more than it hurts.
I appreciate Johnson, Redding, Ben Grubbs, Tom Zbikowski, and the other players lost and leaving for their contributions. As newly signed free agents, they are all likely overpaid. Good for them, and good for the Ravens for not entering bidding wars to maintain the status quo.
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By Weston Bruner, on March 17th, 2012  Earlier this week, Cory Redding signed on with the Indianapolis Colts and he caught a lot of grief from Ravens fans for making the switch. The same fans who rooted for him through his years in Baltimore now found themselves railing against him for making the same kind of decision that brought him to the team in the first place. We as fans view our teams as an emotional investments, but for players they are a financial investment, trying to make as much money as they can in the 10-15 years that they have to earn income as professional athletes.
Now, I have heard all the excuses about players “deserving” whatever they receive from fans because they aren’t properly loyal, but frankly that argument doesn’t hold any water, no matter how much money these athletes make. READ MORE >>>
By Weston Bruner, on March 10th, 2012  Is one great game against the Lions enough to hand the keys to an offense over to Matt Flynn? The Peyton Manning sweepstakes is on, with the latest report putting the former Colts legend on a flight to Denver to talk with the currently Tim Tebow-led Broncos. I imagine when John Elway said that the Broncos would look to add a few quarterbacks Tebow wasn’t thinking about Peyton Manning walking into the locker room. But this won’t be the last visit Manning makes, nor the last visit that Matt Flynn makes as he takes his sterling record as a starter to franchises across the NFL looking for a savior. But of course that record is shining because it comes in just 132 career passing attempts and sporting 9 touchdowns to 5 interceptions. Already it is being debated which teams will snatch up Flynn after Manning signs. One thing is for certain- whichever team signs Flynn will be getting far from a sure thing. READ MORE >>>
By Dave Gilmore, on March 6th, 2012  Pro football is a grown man’s game. I mean that in the sense that, while they are coached and instructed, ultimately everything good and bad carried out on the field is done by grown men. They are free to choose any profession they want to seek out, and they choose to play football in the NFL willingly.
The NFLPA, as the players’ union, would obviously like there to be a unified front on player sentiments regarding the hot-button issues facing the league. In the most recent era, it has been lasting head injuries and the things that cause them, and in the most recent weeks, it has been incentives to injure opponents. Neither create a “safe working environment” by OSHA standards, but players seem to be much more comfortable with their own demise than someone profiting from it.
And that is the problem with the NFL today. There is not a unified front on the head trauma issue because the player pool is in a period of transition. What the league is transitioning to is a mystery, but there is a division between those willing to absorb the implied risk of a pro football career and those who claim to have been (metaphorically) blindsided. Current players bristle at a quick 15-yard flag or a fine for helmet-to-helmet contact. They feel the rules have been changed on them mid-flight. The liked the old way better. The way where the assumed risk was still the same, but the only ones suffering or profiting from a dangerous tackle was the tackler and tacklee themselves. Now, the NFL takes a bite out of the tackler’s paycheck, and the guys in the other jerseys get 15 precious yards. The players who are upset at the recent allegations of bounty systems among teams aren’t mad at the actions, they’re mad at the outcomes. Many are not calling for the game to be played differently. They simply want to absorb the good and the bad of their decision to play pro football like grown men.
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By Zach Wilt, on March 6th, 2012  The Pittsburgh Pirates locked up their star center fielder, Andrew McCuthen to a six-year, $51.5 million deal on Sunday. Details have begun to emerge about McCutchen’s extension which will keep him in Pittsburgh through the 2018 season.
He will go from making half a million this season (with a $1.25 million signing bonus) to $14.75 in the final year of the deal. If you’re a parent who is encouraging your kid to play lacrosse over baseball, that little diddy should be enough to change your mind.
Here in Baltimore, Orioles center fielder Adam Jones eagerly awaits a contract extension and I couldn’t help but wonder if he should receive a similar deal.
Both Jones and McCutchen will be 26 this season and they are both former first round draft picks, but Jones has three more professional seasons under his belt.
Both guys have had similar numbers with their respective ball clubs. In McCutchen’s three seasons with Pittsburgh, he has a .276 career batting average and has hit 20 home runs, 37 doubles and 77 RBI on average during this career. Jones has a .278 batting average in four seasons with Baltimore and has 19 home runs, 26 doubles and 76 RBI on average throughout his big league career.
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By Weston Bruner, on March 3rd, 2012
 The expanded playoffs may make baseball more dramatic, but baseball wasn't designed for one-game series. I have to be honest; I am lukewarm on the addition of two new playoff spots for major league baseball. It feels like terribly manufactured drama to me, where we are content with days off between games in the playoffs yet this sudden death game is crammed right after the regular season, one contest which is completely anathema to the spirit of a 162-game season. The playoffs already have systems that work against the best teams making the World Series, and while this system solves some of those issues it doesn’t solve them all.
For instance, I love that the sudden death game occurs right after the regular season. Too often you have teams that are able to go through the playoffs with just 3 starters due to the excessive days off, failing to play 40% of their starting rotation. Would we shorten football games because one team tends to tire more easily than another? Then why would we allow some teams to possibly omit a serious weak point in their team (a poor back-end of the rotation) due to conditions that are completely different than the regular season? Just look at last year’s playoffs. READ MORE >>>
By Dave Gilmore, on February 28th, 2012  The last opportunity for there to be fundamental change in the 2011-12 Washington Capitals has come and gone.
The dust has cleared on Monday’s relatively quiet trading deadline, with several teams tinkering in a flurry of last-minute deals. Going into the final day of transactions, it seems the Caps were poised to make a deal, either conceding the final twenty games of the season to fate and building for tomorrow, or refusing to back out of a tight race for the back door of the NHL playoffs and adding temporary reinforcements.
Days ago, vice president and general manager George McPhee seemed open to strategies, depending on where the Capitals, now in 9th place in the Eastern Conference, stood at the trading deadline. Ultimately, he adopted neither. As McPhee explained the lack of deals, “there wasn’t anything there that would’ve been the right thing for our club.” McPhee went on to elaborate that there were only a few sellers league-wide, and a few were in the Capitals’ division, making player movement a difficult task in an already tough market.
Given the context of the current roster and the season it has underwent, McPhee was right in not forcing movement. If an ideal trading parter wasn’t available, then the Capitals were faced with the possibility of taking a loss on whatever deal they made. Mortgaging the team’s future for a temporary boost over the final 20 games would’ve been the fan-friendly move, but ultimately would’ve hurt a future version of the franchise that has a healthy first line center for 82 games and a more varied scoring attack. Writing off 2011-12 as a loss, with so many possible points left on the table, in order to stockpile young players and draft picks, would’ve proved just as detrimental. You can’t win a Stanley Cup if you don’t make the playoffs, and even when you come in as an also-ran, you cannot throw away a perfectly achievable invitation to the 16-team tournament because the circumstances aren’t ideal. READ MORE >>>
By Lindsey, on February 25th, 2012  With the scouting combine underway, the thing on every football mind is – who will be on the roster next season? Who has the most potential to make the team better? With the draft, trade-ups, and free agency on deck, sometimes the players we think have the most potential don’t live up to their expectations. With the heartbreaking AFC Championship loss still fresh on our minds, this year might be the most crucial offseason ever for the Ravens. Let’s hope these previous draft busts don’t repeat themselves…
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By Weston Bruner, on February 25th, 2012  Ryan Braun remains in the crosshairs of public opinion despite the successful appeal of his 50-game suspension. Ryan Braun has been exonerated! Well, not exactly. It’s like a suspected criminal getting a not guilty verdict but losing the civil trial, that sort of uncomfortable moment where you aren’t sure if you should be cheering or cursing Bud Selig yet again (one of these days it’ll stick). Ryan Braun, circa 2011 season, was by all appearances a stand-up guy, a team player who was a role model for kids everywhere and a statistical leader well deserving of the MVP award. He may still be a stand-up guy even if he turns out to have used performance enhancing drugs. We don’t know if he did, though. Even after his appeal, we don’t know. That might be the hardest part.
Every season of Law & Order seemed to have an episode like this- the investigation winds up leading to a murder from 20 years ago but- oh no!- the critical piece of evidence is gone from the locker room. Or the medical examiner isn’t quite sure if it’s the same finger print after she pledged it was the same on the stand. Or Lenny “sees” the murder weapon on a casual tour of the apartment even though it’s way up in the suspect’s closet out of view. The case doesn’t become about whether the defendant is guilty but whether the evidence has the proper chain of command, was interpreted correctly, or was obtained fairly. The advantage of Law & Order is when the evidence is obtained we see it happen and we usually know that the suspect is guilty by the time Jack McCoy is furrowing his brow and shaking his head back and forth at the outrageous decision of the judge. READ MORE >>>
By Marco Romanell, on February 23rd, 2012  “Of course, it’s a tough task. It’s a task that needs to be accomplished. I don’t care…we play the Yankees, we play the Red Sox, cool… excuse my French but let’s bust their ASS.” This was the answer that Adam Jones gave on ESPN Radio this week when he was asked about being in the AL East and having to face the Yankees and Red Sox on a regular basis. That answer reaffirmed one thing I have always known about Jones: he is on his way to being a superstar and needs to be the future of this franchise.
The Orioles have been the doormats of the AL East for the last three years and have not had a winning season in fourteen years, but Jones clearly does not have that losing mentality. In the beginning of the interview Jones was asked about his mindset this spring after coming off a career year and said, “ I want to win. It’s a team sport, winning is all that matters.” Having this attitude is the only way the Orioles will be able to beat the Red Sox and Yankees in their head-to-head match-ups this season. Jones’ attitude is very refreshing and it is the precise mindset he needs to emerge as the leader on this team. READ MORE >>>
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