By Weston Bruner, on May 19th, 2012  Adam Jones keeps hitting home runs, but it will take more than that for this team to keep up their pace. (Denny Medley, US Presswire) With their comeback win over the Royals, the O’s maintained their spot atop the AL East standings as they entered an important series against the cross-state Nationals, who have continued their emergence as a contender in the crowded NL East. Every series is important for these Orioles however, who have yet to convince anyone (myself included) that their 25-14 (as of Friday) record is anything but a fun diversion before the division reverts back to the standard order of things. Right now the only thing normal about the AL East is the Blue Jays occupying their usual spot in third.
And there are certainly reasons for concern. The injuries are starting to pile up on this team, and there aren’t any more reserves left in Norfolk that give me reason for confidence. Once Bill Hall was plugged back in at the major league level, you knew things were getting desperate. Mark Reynolds remains out with a strained oblique (which one does not want to risk re-aggravating), and while that gives Ryan Flaherty a good opportunity to develop it strips Buck Showalter of the flexibility to insert anyone other than Nick Johnson into that spot. With Endy Chavez and Nolan Reimold still out, Xavier Avery has performed admirably (his average may be low but he is showing tremendous poise at the plate) but he is not going to be a season-long answer, at least not yet. The current roster is performing well, but there is very little depth for a team that was already thin to begin with. READ MORE >>>
By Weston Bruner, on May 5th, 2012  Suggs will be missed this season, but that doesn't mean players shouldn't be allowed to exercise in their own way. This week has been bookended by two players at the top of their sports being cut down, at least for the year (I am not buying Terrell Suggs’ optimism that he will be back in November). Suggs tore his Achilles playing a pick-up game of basketball while Yankees star closer Mariano Rivera tore his ACL while shagging fly balls during batting practice, a regular practice for both players and a way they try to stay in shape. It would be easy to use this as an opportunity to question what players should be allowed to do, but it is important now more than ever to recognize that players need the freedom to exercise on their own terms regardless of what fluky but terrible accidents might happen.
In sports, perhaps more than any other career path, one’s economic wellbeing is determined by their performance. If they fail to perform in the NFL they will be cut with minimal repercussions to their employer, and even in baseball players are constantly playing for the next contract. There is no flying below the radar and keep collecting pay in professional sports. As such, the best keep themselves in incredible shape and constantly train, and it can’t always be under team supervision. READ MORE >>>
By Weston Bruner, on April 28th, 2012  Don't smile. Whatever you do, don't smile. This is not funny... (Photo by Mitchell Layton/Getty Images) While the city of Baltimore remains inexplicably allied to the Washington Capitals’ playoff run (Why?! I will never understand it. I wouldn’t root for the Wizards and the Redskins and Nats are not my #2 teams in football and baseball so why in god’s name would I root for the Caps? Go Flyers.), the NFL draft drones on (what is it now, three more weeks to go?), the Orioles continue to torment me with their success. Why torment? Because this team is so epically bad on paper, it is the team that truly looked like a rebuilding team, the kind of rebuilding that happens when you are building a sand castle at low tide. The kind of rebuilding that causes you to ditch the few assets with any value for a bunch of assets with even less value.
2011 looked like a team ready to make a leap based on what would turn out to be unfounded optimism. 2010 had a number of proven pieces that resembled a .500 team back in March. We know how those years turned out. Yet here we are about to turn the calendar to May and no matter what happens the Orioles will still be over .500 on May 1. So… what gives? READ MORE >>>
By Weston Bruner, on April 21st, 2012  There is a lot to like about Dwight Howard. His relationship with the Magic is not one of them. The Dwight Howard saga is done for the remainder of the season. Correction: Dwight Howard is done for the remainder of the season. Thanks to machinations both externally and of his own creation, the star center- one of the few true centers with anything resembling a well-rounded game- the headlines aren’t set to quiet down very soon. While he will be sitting on the sidelines in a suit with his herniated disk, I am sure Coach Stan Van Gundy would much rather he stay home altogether. It’s a sad end for a year that started with anticipation and ends with just discomfort- and I am not talking about Howard’s back.
If the LeBron James Cleveland experience has taught us anything, it should be that teams are incapable of keeping a star player by prostrating themselves at his feet and trying to build a team to win a championship right now. All that has created is a scenario where the Magic are on the hook for Gilbert Arenas’ albatross of a contract and have compounded a long-term salary disaster over the past several years.
READ MORE >>>
By Weston Bruner, on April 14th, 2012  I consider that face the least that kharma could do. Bobby Petrino is a great football coach, and despite his ignominious background and unceremonious ouster from the University of Arkansas, he will find a job somewhere else- and sooner rather than later. But Petrino is not unique, as countless coaches have found themselves on the wrong end of a scandal in the last few years. He is also not unique in his affair, as men in power sleeping with attractive young women is almost a cliché in today’s society. No, Petrino’s crime, aside from lying to his boss, family, and the public, goes far deeper than that. It is the very thing that put Jessica Dorrell on the staff in the first place.
She was named Player Development Coordinator for the football team just a month ago, in front of 160 applicants for the position in an abbreviated hiring process (great SI story here on the details) that was spurred on by ex-Coach Petrino. He fast-tracked his mistress into a job that literally hundreds wanted because she was sleeping with him. This may not seem like a big deal on the outset, but in today’s economy the hiring process must be more sacrosanct than ever. There is no place for nepotism, for cronyism, for filling the ranks of your staff with friends and girlfriends when qualified people are waiting in the wings. 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 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 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 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 Weston Bruner, on February 18th, 2012  At the end of the day Stoudemire and Coach D'Antoni will be far bigger factors in his success than his race or religion. The Jeremy Lin craze has made Knicks games must-see for all but the most disinterested sports fans, drawing into the convenient trap of Tim Tebow comparisons with his sudden success and commitment to his faith. Heck, even the New York Times has gotten into the act with a new David Brooks column attempting to frame the humility associated with Christian devotion as incompatible with the ambition and drive to win that comes with modern sports. While I am not much of a believer myself, I always assumed that the Christian faith encouraged people to work as teammates (the ultimate facilitator is the point guard) and work to be the best they could be at their given craft. Certainly Mr. Brooks wouldn’t argue that a Christian businessman should feel guilty if he beats out a competitor for an account or that any of us shouldn’t work as hard as we can in our lives to be the best we can at our craft.
But like the Tebow comparisons, the very existence of “Linsanity” or any phenomenon that takes sports past the sports pages, people are making up facetious connections when they should simply be enjoying the ride. It’s the “second wave” of reporting that comes after a story has gotten too big for the confines of sports media and people try to get another spin on an on-the-court story. READ MORE >>>
By Weston Bruner, on February 11th, 2012  Pujols and Fielder didn't just get paid, they stuck with teams who may easily play in October. I don’t like watching Sportscenter (I have been sober from Sportscenter, PTI, Around the Horn, and ESPN News for over a year now) so I peeked over to SI.com and Yahoo! Sports to get a feel for what the top stories are this week on the national stage. Yahoo! had a story on Bobby Valentine and the Red Sox while SI was going with the indomitable Tim Verducci’s Three Strikes on their front page. With the Super Bowl behind us, I realized that baseball is officially back in the sports consciousness until October. Now, for us Orioles fans (even if you hate the Orioles it only means you still care) this is not a happy time of year. The optimism of last year (and the year before) is not around in 2012, and for good reason. After a decade and a half of convincing ourselves that “this year is different” we know that this year won’t be. Football may be king, but baseball is America’s pastime for a reason (that’s another, far more sentimental column). This season there are plenty of storylines as we approach Spring Training that have nothing to do with the Orioles but will make this season one of the more interesting in recent memory. READ MORE >>>
By Weston Bruner, on January 28th, 2012  The players deserve the pageantry, because the schools take control as soon as its over. Saturday morning- growing up that meant superhero cartoons with my siblings and staying in my pajamas as long as possible. Years later it meant something was horribly wrong, since I was never awake by noon on Saturday. Now it appears it means a new timeslot for this column, joining Lindsey for your weekend BSR content. So grab a bowl of cereal, try to ignore how much less appealing Batman, and X-Men cartoons are now than they were 20 years ago and enjoy Broken Bat’s move to Saturday!
By this time next week we will have hit college football’s signing day, the most overhyped ESPN-manufactured event since, well, every NFL Draft and “The Decision.” Thousands of college kids will announce and sign their letters of intent, and committing themselves in writing to attend that particular university. READ MORE >>>
By Weston Bruner, on January 20th, 2012 Well it looks like I am delayed today, which means that at least there will be some fresh sports content between Friday at
 Fielder isn't the only one swinging for the fences and hoping not to strike out. noon and Monday morning. However, I am not the only one procrastinating- Prince Fielder is still on the market and while the Orioles are most certainly not in the running for his services (even Washington is more competitive and there is no doubt they would back up the Brinks truck for him) he will have a significant role in some team’s long-term future. Personally I am rooting for him to join the Rangers, a team that would seemingly be strung as far as they can go after their Yu Darvish signing, but Tom Verducci has a very compelling idea of how they could go after him by offering him an opt-out after three years. Regardless, this is another example of Scott Boras taking a big risk and hoping it pays off. READ MORE >>>
By Weston Bruner, on January 13th, 2012 I am curious: what exactly does it take for a commissioner not to be considered a hero by his owners? In recent years,
 How exactly is this the best MLB could do? despite all of the upheaval and utterly moronic moves by culturally and psychologically cloistered commissioners, they seem to live on in their positions, promoted not only to incompetency but far beyond it. When Bud Selig announced that he was coming back through 2014 for another round overseeing the demise of America’s pastime, I found myself wondering whether being a commissioner might be the easiest job to retain in the country. As long as the commish is content to be a puppet of the owners behind the scenes and a Generalissimo in front of the cameras, he can do whatever he wants as Americans continue to eat up all the sports content they can get, though their tastes waver between the sports.
You would think that perhaps if franchises are losing money or the sport is losing market share to the other major sports that that could be a reason to get rid of a commissioner. It would make sense after all- if the commissioner’s job is to oversee the league and the league starts to struggle, then like any CEO he is out. But that may be the best part about the modern-day commissioner. READ MORE >>>
|
|
|
Recent Comments