Bye Bye Manny!!

BREAKING NEWS - MANNY GOES TO L.A. (the only REAL LA team - you're in Anaheim Angels, deal with it), LA sends prospects to the Pirates, the Pirates send Jason Bay to Boston.

Thank God this d-bag is out of the AL East. I'm so sick of heading about Manny and I'm so glad that d-bag is gone. Hopefully I'll post more on this later.

1 Year Ago Today

1 year ago today...I remember it well. The night before, I rode in a limo up to Philly to watch the Phillies game as part of my friend's bachelor party. My girlfriend met me at the stadium and then we continued driving north. We kept driving, and driving, and driving, until we finally got to a person's front yard, where I had pre-arranged and paid to park. Arriving around 3 A.M., my girlfriend and I slept in her car until daybreak, about 3 hours later. We then hauled some lawn chairs, a cooler and a camera down a road that we hoped would lead to the promise land. You see, we were on a pilgrimage, one that a baseball fan must take at some point in their life - going to see someone from your team inducted into the baseball hall of fame.

After walking about 2 miles, we finally reached this great open field, with a pavilion in front of us, and many chairs already in place for what would be the largest crowd to ever witness a hall of fame induction.

The scene at the Hall of Fame induction
when we arrived at about 6:00 A.M.

Now we had to play the waiting game. We also tried to get some sleep, but that became increasingly hard to do as more people arrived and as the sun burned through the pre-dawn clouds and began turning up the heat on this lovely
day in Cooperstown, NY.




They hadn't even set up the VIP seats when we arrived.
We had been told that no one would be allowed to set up chairs before dawn on the day of the induction, so we were surprised that when we arrived, people had already set up chairs the night before. It appeared that the HOF folks had let several bus companies come in the day before and set up chairs, which allowed said bus companies to charge a hefty premium for their induction day vacation package. Some people spent hundreds, if not thousands for these special vacation packages. Hotels were booked a year in advance and if you wanted to stay within 2 hours of Cooperstown, you better be willing to dish out between $350-500 and that was staying at least an hour away! And if you did that, you then had to worry about where you were going to park, with most parking places near the induction sight costing at least $100. Some how, I was able to find parking for $35 within a mile or two of the induction sight. The parking spot I reserved was on someone's front yard and it was weird when we had to pull onto that person's grass at 3:00 A.M. and search for a sign that had my name on it (praying to God it was actually there since we'd be screwed otherwise) and having to leave a check on said sign. Thankfully it all worked out.
The induction ceremony was everything I hoped it would be and more. Having that many Orioles fans around and witnessing one of the greatest players and one of my childhood heros become immortalized forever into the Hall of Fame was an amazing experience. I've put some more pictures below, and included a few captions as well.

This is a really cool before and after photo. I took the photo on the left around 7 A.M. and then I took the photo on the right, from near the same spot, around 11:00. What a difference a few hours made!

Another shot showing how large the crowd was that day. There were
a lot of San Diego fans there to see Tony Gwynn get inducted as well.
There will never be another hall of fame class with as much class,
dignity and respect for the game as the class of 2007.

This guy was awesome...had to have my picture taken with him.

What an awesome picture of the Orioles Hall of Famers: Jim Palmer,

Cal Ripken, Earl Weaver, Brooks Robinson, Frank Robinson, and Eddie Murray.

The scene as my girlfriend and I walk back from the HOF induction to our car. I knew she was a keeper when she was willing to drive me to Cooperstown, spend the night in a car, walk 2 miles to the induction sight, spend all day witnessing a Hall of Fame induction for a team she isn't a diehard fan of, walking back to the car, and then driving with me 7+ hours home on the same day.

Fantastic road trip and experience that I'll never forget.

New Blog

Just wanted to let me loyal readers know that I'm now co-writing for a national blog covering University of Maryland sports.  The blog, called Testudo Times, is part of Sports Blog Nation, a national blog center that covers NCAA, NFL, MLB, NHL and other sports.  You'll see my posts under the name "homertuck."

I'll still be posting here, mainly on non-University of Maryland related items, but might not be as often as my loyal readers are use to.  You'll probably be able to find a daily post from me on Testudo Times so please check it out, as well as continue reading this one.

Orioles Ushers Suck

This might or might not be a surprise to you, but the ushers at Oriole Park suck. I had a horrible experience with the ushers last year, who yelled at us for cheering for the Orioles. Yes, that's right - for root, root rooting for the home team. A Phillies fan (the O's were playing Boston that day, just so you know) was yelling at us for cheering. This stupid troll usher comes over and yells at us and threatens to make us leave. And after yelling at us, goes and sits with that same Phillies fan! I complained to the Orioles, but the troll was back again this year, sadly.

Back to the original reason for this post, which is yet another incident involving Orioles ushers. At the game on Tuesday, part of our season ticket package, there was a group of kids, probably 19-20 years old. These kids aren't harming anyone - they're cheering, trying to start the wave, etc. RANDOMLY one of the head Orioles ushers (wearing his green shirt - I've seen this guy before - he's a d-bag) goes down and starts asking these kids for their tickets (they were sitting in the lower section of left field, next to the O's bullpen). After discovering they all had tickets for the section, he left them alone for a while.  Next thing we know, the usher is back, this time with the "Alcohol Compliance Supervisor."  They start checking these kids ID's to make sure they're 21. Now I know they have a job to do in terms of enforcing under age drinking, but it was clear these ushers were going down a list of ways to try to get these kids out of here because, GOD FORBID, they cheer for their home team. 

I started a "Let them cheer" chant and yelled at the ushers and told them they're part of the reason why the Orioles only draw 20,000 fans/game these days.

If you get a chance to go to an O's game, make sure you stand and cheer. If the ushers tell you to stop, tell them, as I did multiple times, that you pay their salary. Then call the Orioles front office and complain about the usher. Make sure you get their name and what section they were working in.  Pictures/video also can help your cause.

The breeze has died...

Again the Orioles lose despite having the game in hand late in the game. The O's have lost 4 straight, dropped 2 games below .500 and over his last 5 games, George Sherrill  has only converted 1 save.  The breeze has stopped blowing in the Orioles sail.  Right now, the All-Star break can't come fast enough for the O's . Now having to go to Boston for 3 games, the Orioles need to take 2 of 3 from the Blow Sox and stabilize themselves.  The Orioles can either recover from their recent struggles or they can lay down and get swept by Boston. We'll learn a lot about this team over the next 3 games. 

Overall, the O's have more than exceeded expectations during the first half of the season. Will they continue this trend? Not if their starting pitching only goes 5 innings and the bullpen continues to get burned out.  No one needs this break more than the bullpen, who has been overworked drastically over the last month. Losing several starting pictures to injuries has really hurt the Orioles.  Cabrera and Guthrie are the only pitchers in the rotation who the O's can count on to normally go at least 7 innings every game.  Unless Burress, Liz and Olson pick up their games after the all star break, look for the O's to continue to struggle. 

Its really a shame because the Orioles offense has been fantastic, especially over the last 4 games, when they've averaged over 7 runs per game and sadly are 0-4.

Do you think the O's should try to keep gunning for a winning season or should they try to sell off and continue the rebuilding phase? I don't think any can doubt Andy MacPhail after all he's done thus far, but I'm curious for other's opinions. Please vote to the right...

Please come back Orioles Magic!

Poe! Poe! Poe! Poe!

I'm proud to announce that one of the Ravens' Mascots, Poe, has won the fiercest mascot competition on CBS Sportsline. You can read about it here. What makes this so sweet is that the "mascot" he beat was Chief Zee of the Washington Redskins (although I don't really consider him a mascot since he's just a fan dressed in costume and not an official team mascot, but I digress...).

The other thing that makes this sweet is that Poe was a 16 seed and ended up winning. 

Congrats Poe!

Status of Maryland Men's Basketball - Terps in trouble?

In a recent article on ESPN.com, Dana O'Neil talks about how Maryland's Men's basketball program has gone from "One Shining Moment" in 2002 to a state of scrambling to find scholarship players for the 2008 season. I think the article could have been 100x's better and I'm shocked that Dana's editor actually let some of the stuff in the article become published. For one, she mentions Sean Mosely as the only scholarship player in the class of 2008, which simply isn't true. Jin Soo Kim is possibly reclassifying for 2008 and Maryland will soon be officially signing center Steve Goins (http://mbd.scout.co m/mb.aspx?S=174& F=2580&T=2634500 &P=1) giving Maryland a solid class for 2008.

Dana also refers to Maryland as "bottom feeders" in the ACC, which is bullshit. She seems to forget that they won the ACC tourney in 2004, in 2005 they were 7-9 and should have made the NCAAs, in 2006 they were 8-8 in the ACC and didn't make the tournament but should have, in 2007 they were 10-6 and went to the NCAAs and then last year they were again 8-8 in the conference. Yes the program isn't at its best, but I blame that on a few bad recruits, who were all consider GREAT coming into college, but didn't pan out (Travis Garrison, Mike Jones being good but not a super star, Chris McCray failing out his sr. year, Caner-Medley not having a good sr. year). You mention none of that in your article as to why this program has struggled. Maryland brought in All-Americans, but they just had some bad luck, which hurts a program for a few years.

Maryland's biggest problem, which ALSO isn't mentioned in the article is Gary's style of recruiting. His assistants do a lot of the work and with some of his best assistants gone, he now has to go out himself (which he's been doing lately) to recruit. And Chuck Drissell is one of the best recruiters around so once he establishes himself more, you'll see the benefits.

Gary also likes to take guys who are kind of under the radar, and build them into champions (Juan Dixon, Lohnny Baxter, etc.) and that style doesn't work as well as it use to since players can no longer skip college and go right to the NBA. Because of that, more "1 and done" players are playing college basketball and Gary needs to get his hands on them.

I think Maryland will be 8-8 in the ACC, make the tourney and get back on track for 2009-2010, when they have a huge talent poll around them to draw from and when you'll have Vasquez and others as Sr's and Jr's for what could be a fantastic team.