Tag Archives: Baltimore Orioles

Season of Baseball. Season in Hell.

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There will be poetry and noetry (not a word. should be a word.) here today.

There will be just enough baseball to keep the “baseball” in The Baseball Bloggess. (But not too much.)

There will be a double date gone bad.

There will be poets.

And one of the best bands of the 1980s.

Let’s go.

“Season in Hell”

On Tuesday night, the Baltimore Orioles won. That had happened just 71 times this season. Which sounds like a lot, but it is not. It is not good.

On Tuesday night, despite the win, the Baltimore Orioles were eliminated from the postseason.

In short, it was a worthless, meaningless, whatever win.

(The win on Wednesday afternoon? Also meaningless.)

That means for the next 10 games, Orioles fans will go through the motions of pretending they’re having a good time.

It looks bad, I know. (Because it is.) But eight teams are even stinkier than the O’s including the uber-awful Colorado Rockies who have won just 41 games this season.

It’s like being on a double date. (Stay with me on this. It’s a metaphor and metaphorizing is not my strong suit.)

Continue reading →

12 Things You Should Know About Arlie Pond

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Come for the baseball, stay for the leprosy.

(Trust me, there will be leprosy.)

A sepia-toned photo of Arlington Pond from the 1890s.

Arlie Pond, 19th-century pitcher, meets all of the unfussy criteria of my “12 Things” series – quirky name that doesn’t come around much anymore; a mess of time-worn obscurity; and a backstory that’s weird, but, and this is important, ultimately honorable.

Do my “12 Things” players come bearing a prom-date bouquet of interesting?

They never disappoint.

Sure, sometimes they give too much. What am I supposed to do with all this?

Today I’m going to squeeze into my skinny jeans of storytelling so I can get all things Arlie Pond into 12 tidy snack bites.

Let’s begin.

1. Easy Stuff First.

Erasmus Arlington Pond was born in 1873 in Saugus, Massachusetts, just north of Boston.

Colorful vintage "Greetings from Rutland, Vermont" postcard

But his family moved to Rutland, Vermont early in his life and Vermont embraces him as their own (and so shall we). He was named for an uncle who was a doctor, and his father sold medical equipment. (Remember this. It will be on the test.)

Continue reading →

Trying Again

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Life is hard. Times are tough. I haven’t written on here in forever. Forever being one year, but it is forever in the land of blogs. It seems like forever to me.

I missed you, dear readers (Reader? One? Two? Anyone?)

I’ve missed wrapping my head around faded and peculiar box scores in 100-year-old newspapers.

I’ve missed the challenge of finding some new and comforting way to explain the disappointment of the Baltimore Orioles.

(I have no words for that right now. I’ll need a little time before we again wander together down that mysterious, but maybe not all that surprising, Orioles road to nowhere. At least we have Ryan O’Hearn. There. I said it.)

But, all the bad news and weight of the world have occupied my working life and made my stress’y brain foggy and restless.

(It also put me in the ER last month, but that’s a story for another day.)

I needed a challenge. Something new, but sort of familiar. And that’s where Bob Dylan comes in. Because life isn’t all baseball. (It’s not, right?)

Continue reading →

33-1/3: My 18-Word Return

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20th century: the rotation speed of a vinyl record ☝️

21st century: the beginning of an Orioles dynasty 👇

********

Consistency

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I haven’t been around a lot on here lately.

I’ve been busy.

Stuff going on.

You know.

You didn’t notice? Hey, don’t feel bad. The cats are generally the only ones who notice my absence … and only when it impacts mealtime. Once they find me, they just sit and stare at me until I feed them.

It’s nice. Makes me feel needed.

The Baltimore Orioles lost 110 games this season. As you can imagine, watching all that losing takes time.

Fun Fact: Do you know how long it takes to become numb to losing? 99 games.

After the 99th loss, you just want to see how many more games they can lose before Major League Baseball steps in and says, “Hey, we love your enthusiasm and all, but maybe Triple A is a better place for you.”

Being the worst isn’t easy. Some seasons you have competition. The Arizona Diamondbacks lost 110 games this season, too.

So, with identical records, who was worse? The Orioles. And, I’ll tell you why. Continue reading →

12 Things You Should Know About Fred “Crazy” Schmit

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The Buffalo Enquirer, 8/28/1899

Fred “Crazy” Schmit wasn’t crazy.

Now that we’ve cleared that up, let’s get on with more important things.

I didn’t just stumble upon Schmit, the long-ago pitcher. I went looking for him. I wanted to find the first pitcher to carry a “cheat sheet” on the mound – someone to show that today’s trend of pitchers tucking info cards into their caps is really nothing new.

Dear readers, meet Crazy Schmit.

Schmit has just a few major league seasons to his name, but there is much to unpack — from his pitcher’s notebook that would make Earl Weaver proud, to his eerily prescient take on baseball matters that remain controversial today to, well, okay, there’s some crazy, too.

I swear, sometimes I think I don’t go looking for these players as much as they come looking for me.

Here are 12 things you should know about Fred “Crazy” Schmit.

1. Frederick Schmit was born in Chicago in 1866.

His parents were immigrants – both arrived in America in 1857. If you dig around in Schmit’s past you’ll quickly discover that newspapers routinely spelled his name Schmidt. Census takers often screwed it up, too. Schmit himself seemed content to spell it whichever way – including misspelling his own name in a self-published book. But, I’m getting ahead of myself. Continue reading →

9 Years … 9 Things.

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It was two weeks ago that WordPress reminded me that The Baseball Bloggess is 9 years old. Happy belated birth’a’versary, me!

I would have written about this two weeks ago, but I was busy watching the Baltimore Orioles sweep the Washington Nationals that weekend. That sweeping by the lowly – but occasionally feisty – Orioles was the tipping point that led the Nationals to, quite literally, trade away 30 percent of their lineup, including sending two beloved players, Max Scherzer and Trea Turner, to the Dodgers.

Dear Washington Nationals Fans,

Sorry about that.

Your Friend, The Baseball Bloggess

Sure, I’m a little late, but I’m ready to celebrate 9 years of honing the qwerty skills I learned in Mr. Brown’s high school typing class. Whether you’ve been reading from the beginning (that’s just you, Editor/Husband) or happened upon this for the first time today, The Baseball Bloggess is glad you’re here and considers you a close personal friend.

From 9 innings to 9 players on a lineup card, baseball is a 9’centric game.

So, here are 9, 9’ish things as I belatedly celebrate the 9-year birth’a’versary of The Baseball Bloggess.

1) The 9th Most Popular Post On This Website: Edd Roush Takes A Nap In The Outfield

I gotta hand it to Cincinnati Reds fans – they love baseball history.

Well, they love this story anyway, of how, in 1920, future Hall of Fame outfielder Edd Roush found a way to take a nap … in center field … during a game. But then, who doesn’t love a good napping story?

Public Domain, via The Library of Congress

Does he look tired to you? Continue reading →

Relationship Status: It’s Complicated

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Dear Baltimore Orioles,

Hi.

It’s been a while since we talked and I didn’t want it to come to this. Really, I didn’t.

But, you leave me no choice.

You see, I’ve put up with a lot from you lately. And, by lately, I mean over the past 1,183 days.

That starting point is not arbitrary. It was March 29, 2018 – Opening Day. You won that game. Good for you.

Sure, it took 11 innings. But, you won.

In the past 1,183 days since Opening Day 2018 you have played 458 games. You’ve lost 67 percent of them – 309 games.

You’ve lost games by a run, two runs, 13 runs. Like Baskin-Robbins ice cream, you offer a lot of variety in your losses.

Baseball Nut? Yes. Pink Bubblegum? Entirely unnecessary.

While I hate math, even I can see that you have lost nearly all of the games you have played since 2018.

Nearly all of them.  

I have kept my mouth shut long enough. Continue reading →

12 Things You Should Know About Matt Kilroy, The “Little Whirlwind”

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On May 5, 2021, Baltimore Orioles twirler John Means tossed the first Orioles one-pitcher, no-hitter since Jim Palmer in 1969.

Embed from Getty Images

But, you have to go all the way back to 1886 to get to the very first Baltimore Orioles no-hitter.

Matt Kilroy

Before I tell you 12 things you should know about Matt Kilroy, the 1886 pitcher who did that, let’s get any dreamy-eyed 1886 nonsense out of the way.

Forever ago.

There are no “good old days.” You might think you missed out on something special, but you didn’t.

1886 was lousy. It was unsafe. It was unsanitary. And, the average lifespan in the United States was 39.

Albert Pujols, 41. Nelson Cruz, 40. Yadier Molina, 38. You get my point.

It was tuberculosis that probably got you. Or, rabid mad dogs in New York City. Or, a horse fell on you or a carriage ran over you. Or a bridge or building collapsed on you. Or your entire town burned down with you in it.

Or, you were a child, which was extremely dangerous. As John Graunt, the 17th-century founder of demography sweetly put it: “Being a child was to forever be on the brink of death.”

You think wearing a mask for a year was a bother?

Stop your whimpering.

Try living through the recurring epidemics of cholera, typhoid, typhus, scarlet fever, smallpox, and yellow fever that mowed down Baltimore, Boston, Memphis, New Orleans, Philadelphia, and Washington, DC, over and over and over between 1865 and 1873.

And, if you did live through the latest epidemic – and you probably didn’t, but if you did –  chances are, unless you were awfully rich, you lived in a house with no hot water, no shower, and – this is important – no toilet.

If you think the most important room in your house is your man cave, you are wrong. It is your bathroom. And, you should go in there right now, get down on your knees, and thank the modern gods for installing one in your house.

Good Things That Happened in 1886 Continue reading →

Patience, Time (… And Baseball)

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“The two most powerful warriors are patience and time.” ~ Leo Tolstoy, War And Peace

It’s game day. Today, at 3 p.m., Virginia plays George Washington at nearby Disharoon Park in Charlottesville.

The Cavaliers are off to a wobbly 4-3 start. But, I’m not worried. They are a stacked team. They will be fine.

Today, at 7 a.m., I am having my coffee. I should be scouring the weather report, calculating temperature and wind speed to determine how many layers I will need to sit through an early March baseball game.

I should be scanning the rosters, recharging my camera, making sure the scorecard is ready to go.

These are little nothing chores. Things I rarely think about as I’m doing them. The routine of a baseball fan.

I should be doing all these things.

I am not.

Only a few fans can attend and they must be spread widely through the park.

Where I Am Not.

Instead, I’m sitting here wondering where the past year went.

One year. March to March. One big blurry uncomfortable inconsiderate wasted lost year. Continue reading →