Dear Baltimore Orioles, I Believe In You.

Posted on March 28, 2019 by Jackie, The Baseball Bloggess

“Baltimore was bad last year, but this year it will be much worse. Its starting lineup is made up entirely of bums, retreads, and no-hopers. This team is more Major League than the movie.” ~ The Toronto Globe & Mail, April 27, 2019

Dear Baltimore Orioles,

It’s Opening Day and I believe in you.

Sure, I also believe in climate change, e.coli in my romaine, and menopause. These things do me no good, but I must believe in them because they are real.

But, I believe there’s more to you than just bad things.

I don’t believe you are made up entirely of “bums, retreads, and no-hopers.”

Sure, nearly half of your roster — 11 of the 25 players — are enjoying their very first Opening Day in the majors. I’m looking forward to learning all their names.

“It’s a dream come true,” infielder Drew Jackson told The Baltimore Sun. Last year he was playing AA ball in the Dodgers system.

Drew Jackson. I’ve learned one new name already!

I believe that you all have worked up some crazy, ingenious, secret plan that will make you better … better than last year’s historic 115 losses. Better than what everyone else believes is possible.

I believe you’re going to try your best not to suck.

(I can’t believe I had to write that.)

I’m not sure why I believe in you, because it seems pretty hopeless, doesn’t it?

But, it’s baseball season and it’s nice to feel hopeful on Opening Day.

No matter what anyone else says.

I believe in you.

(Please don’t lose 100 games.)

Your Pollyanna Friend, The Baseball Bloggess

P.S. Toronto Globe & Mail Sourpusses: You do know that the bums, retreads, and no-hopers of “Major League” won the AL East in that movie, right? On a bunt … a freaking beautiful bunt.

Go O’s.

My Experts Predict The 2019 World Series

Posted on March 26, 2019 by Jackie, The Baseball Bloggess

Before I unveil my fabulous 2019 panel of baseball experts and their equally fabulous post-season picks, I need to cover two important details.

First, the season has already started. The Seattle Mariners and Oakland A’s kicked it off last week with games in Tokyo, which counted for baseball, but do not count with me.

True Opening Day is Thursday, March 28. This is the earliest Opening Day ever and all 30 teams will play. This early start is to allow teams to scatter a few additional rest days into the season. (Need more rest days? Lose 100 games and you’ll get all of October off.)

The New York Sun, 4/23/1919

Opening Day in 1919?

April 23.

Second, Sports Illustrated.

Hi, SI guys. (And, by “guys” I mean, literally, guys, because girls are generally unwelcome at Sports Illustrated.)

Last year, my experts outsmarted the dude-fellas at SI who were sure the Nationals would win the World Series.

They didn’t.

Neither did the Colorado Rockies, which was the team my cat chose. My cat.

But, the Rockies did make the post-season. Do you know who didn’t make the post-season? The Nationals.

So, Mookie the Cat – 1, Sports Illustrated – 0.

Being outsmarted by my cat apparently did in SI, because there are a lot of words in their latest MLB preview issue (including calling the Baltimore Orioles “ugly” … twice), but no official World Series pick. Best I can tell, they will commit only to predicting the Dodgers will be the strongest team in the NL and the Astros, the strongest in the AL.

Where’s your Series pick, smart guys?

Are you SI, or are you SI’m Afraid To Be Wrong Again?

My 2019 panel of experts is clear that SI is wrong about the Dodgers and the Astros. And, as in previous years, my panel is awesome. Continue reading →

Bryce Harper’s Big Payday Got Me Thinking …

Posted on March 2, 2019 by Jackie, The Baseball Bloggess

Do you remember the first time you got paid for work? Not a weekly allowance for washing the dishes, not the handful of ones from the neighbors for babysitting their kids (in a house filled with brazen mice who hid under the sofa in the daytime but came out after dark. Wait. That’s another story.)

Not those stuff-the-coins-in-your-pocket-not-really-a-job jobs, but a real job.

For me, it was Kmart.

I was Number 29. “Number 29 to the registers. Number 29.” My ears perked up like a puppy hearing car wheels in the drive whenever I heard that over the loudspeaker. They always called me first. Always. Because I loved being Number 29. And, I would race the entire length of the store and have my register open before the manager could call a second time. I loved being needed.

It was only for a year, maybe not quite that, from my senior year in high school until I left for college.

Courtesy Devils Lake Daily Journal, via Creative Commons.

It closed last year.

I still remember that first pay envelope. I kept it for a long time in a folder of important things. (Important things that my mother went through one day and threw out. Wait. That’s another story.) Continue reading →

Real Baseball. Games In February. Games That Count.

Posted on February 28, 2019 by Jackie, The Baseball Bloggess

You can cheer for spring training and it might be warm where you are. But, it’s not quite spring – not quite, not yet – in Virginia.

Last week.

But, it is baseball season. And, not the warm-up-the-bones-in-games-that-don’t-count variety that the big leaguers are playing in Arizona and Florida right now.

Real baseball. Games that count.

The 2019 University of Virginia baseball team began their outside team practices back in January. In cold, snowy, polar votex’y Virginia.

Their regular season began two weeks ago. (Ok, their regular season began two weeks ago … in Arizona. I’ll give you that. But, your nit-picking is missing the point. My point.)

Last weekend, they played Villanova in Charlottesville and it was cold. Bone-chillingly-butt-numbingly-nose-frozenly cold.

(Ok, so maybe it wasn’t that cold on Sunday, and, yes, some people wore shorts to Sunday’s game. But, people who wear shorts in not-freezing-but-still-not-warm winter weather are not to be trusted.)

It was cold – 45-degrees cold – on Friday.

And, before you interrupt me again to tell me how soft people are today and how back in the day people lived without heat or fluffy parkas or polartec or hand warmers, let me point out that the University of Virginia baseball team 100 years ago – the 1919 team – had not even ventured outdoors until the middle of February because their baseball season would not begin for several weeks and it was too cold to practice outside. Continue reading →

Manny Got A Job.

Posted on February 20, 2019 by Jackie, The Baseball Bloggess

I’m not sure why I care so much about Manny Machado.

Manny Machado, you may have heard, is expected to sign a $300-million, 10-year contract with the San Diego Padres.

(The San Diego Padres – the team you always forget when you’re trying to name all 30.)

Not Manny.

This is the biggest free agent contract in sports history.

Until, I guess, Bryce Harper signs – with, maybe, the Phillies – later this week.

Not Bryce.

(The Philadelphia Phillies – the team with the name that’s not even trying. All teams should do that. The Washington Washies. The New York Yorkies – woof! The San Diego Sandies. The Baltimore Balties. Whatever.)

Having boatloads of quality free agents still unsigned when spring training is well underway is both weird and disconcerting. Continue reading →

Turn It Off.

Posted on February 3, 2019 by Jackie, The Baseball Bloggess

“More than 100 million people will watch this year’s Super Bowl. If you’re going to be one of them, and you care about the players on the team you’re rooting for, then don’t fall for the fantasy notion that fancy new helmets are going to protect their brains. Instead, support changes to the game that will truly protect players.” ~ Usha Lee McFarling

You knew I wouldn’t let Super Bowl Sunday pass by without my annual reminder that football is a vile, brutal, and unacceptably dangerous game. Also, stupid.

High-Tech Helmets Won’t Solve The NFL’s Concussion Problem

After the number of concussions in the NFL spiked dramatically in 2017, the number during this past season dropped by nearly one-quarter.

My favorite part of this story, written on NFL.com, is that the NFL was “startled” by the spike in concussions in 2017.

Really? That startled you? Because it didn’t surprise any of us regular people who have even the slightest understanding of what happens when your head is slammed into, say, the ground, with the weight of 300-pound lineman on top of you.

The NFL attributes some of the drop in 2018 to “advanced helmets.” And, they may be right, but when your game is still suffering hundreds of concussions each season, I’m pretty sure your “advanced helmets” aren’t advanced enough.

Or, as Pulitzer Pulitizer Prize-winning science writer Usha Lee McFarling wrote in the Los Angeles Times on Friday:

“No helmet, unless one is invented that can be inserted directly into the skull, can prevent concussions.” Continue reading →

“Baltimore Base-Ball Club’s Suits Have A Washday”

Posted on February 2, 2019 by Jackie, The Baseball Bloggess

There was a time – long before our time – when a housewife would set aside her entire Monday for doing the laundry.

I do a lot of laundry.

I have a washing machine that will agitate itself into a frenzy. I have eco-friendly laundry detergent and a dryer that runs extremely hot. With the exception of folding, I do very little.

It takes awhile, but it doesn’t take all day.

I still hate it.

But, I really would have hated it in 1895 when hours upon hours were spent boiling water over a fire and then scrubbing and rubbing and twisting out stains with caustic soaps and lye and turpentine until your hands turned red and peeled and bled.

Sure, the clothes wringer made washing day a little less back-breaking, but, as you can see, its biggest benefit was giving the wife time to get dinner on the table in time.

Doing the laundry in 1895 has nothing to do with baseball.

Until I found this …

The Baltimore Sun, 2/7/1895

“This wash-day scene is a sign of spring.” ~ The Baltimore Sun

Fourteen black Orioles uniforms were hanging to dry at the von der Horsts’ on a February day in 1895. Continue reading →

In Praise Of “Peculiarly Hypnotic Tedium”

Posted on January 20, 2019 by Jackie, The Baseball Bloggess

Good news, baseball fans!

All your griping about long and slow baseball games has paid off.

Games are shorter!

Last year the length of the average baseball game dropped – dropped! – to 3 hours and 4 minutes. That’s a savings of 4 minutes per game over 2017.

I hate math, but check out this wizardry …

With a 162-game season, there were 2,430 regular season games scheduled in 2018. At 4 minutes saved per game, that comes out to 9,720 free minutes or – and this is going to blow your mind – 162 hours saved!

Pulitizer-winning novelist Philip Roth once called baseball’s pace “peculiarly hypnotic tedium” and, just to be clear, he meant that in a good way.

I’m sure you put your 4-minute-per-game savings to good use last season.

Maybe you used your free minutes to watch Bongo Cat play Africa …

The average American shower takes 8 minutes – so you could have had half a shower, which is time enough to soap, but maybe not enough to rinse.

Fun Fact: The 3 hour, 4 minute average baseball game is almost identical to the length of an average NFL football game, but without all the brain-damaging concussions.

(It’s odd that some people who complain about baseball games being too long and slow are the same ones who complain that the off-season – without baseball – is also too long and slow. I watched the Orioles lose 115 games last season. What’s your hurry?) Continue reading →

Babe Ruth Gave Up Reading, But I Didn’t

Posted on January 5, 2019 by Jackie, The Baseball Bloggess

“[R]eading isn’t good for a ball player’s eyes and if my eyes went bad, even a little bit, I couldn’t hit home runs. So I gave up reading.” – Babe Ruth in the St. Louis Star

I never really trusted this old quote of Babe Ruth’s that floats around the internet. But, I snooped around and found it there in an old St. Louis Star.

“Bad Boy No Longer”

In a wide-ranging interview, given during a Yankees batting practice in the spring of 1929, Ruth also clears up the then-and-still prevalent myth that he was an orphan, promises that he no longer “plays the ponies,” notes that the President he admires most is Harding (along with Wilson), but, adds, “Al Smith is my favorite,” and tells his manager Miller Huggins to “go to hell.”

(Harding?)

It’s an interesting interview, but it requires reading, something Ruth was not fond of, but I think that, since you’re here and all, you might be.

I love reading. Continue reading →

Season’s Greetings, Nationals Fans! (Finally.)

Posted on December 28, 2018 by Jackie, The Baseball Bloggess

Dear Washington Nationals Fans,

So, look, I know you may have given up on your Nationals wishing you a Happy Holidays this year, what with their website linking – still … three days after Christmas – to the New York Mets holiday greeting.

oops.

Maybe I was a bit harsh when I kinda-sorta suggested in a recent post that a screw-up like that seemed like a perfect wrap-up of the 2018 Nationals … and so very, very Washington, DC.

But, that was uncalled for. And, I’m sorry if I made you sad.

I’m sure it was just a simple mistake. Let’s blame the interns.

But, I couldn’t stop thinking about you on the holidays – the only fans in baseball that weren’t greeted and thanked for being fans. Even the 115-loss Baltimore Orioles came through to wish me a happy holidays.