The Loss Column — Baltimore Sports Blog and Community

The latest in a periodic, enigmatic series…

– First it was Nick Saban and his franchise-sinking stint in Miami. Now, Falcons coach Bobby Petrino has pulled a similar vanishing act.

Petrino now has zero credibility as a teacher and leader. Say you’re an Arkansas player and your team is down 34-10 in the fourth quarter. Are you really going to listen when Petrino starts talking about commitment and respect and showing up to play? Are you really going to play hurt, or constantly give 100%, for a man who didn’t even have the stones to finish out his first season in Atlanta?

What a weak move.

– I suppose something like this was inevitable: this blogger wants to fight Tom Brady.

I link that mostly for the comments, some of which are choice:

America doesn’t hate Tom Brady… just you and a small percentage of jealous low lifes. Tom Brady is the greatest quaterback ever.. you sir are a piece of shit with a internet access.

– The much-anticipated Mitchell Report is coming any day now, possibly even later this week.

I’ve got a hunch that this thing will flop. I’ll be real surprised if there’s a bombshell in there. No reason in particular for feeling that way, it’s just gut instinct.

– The Nationals have been all kinds of busy, adding Lastings Milledge, Elijah Dukes, and Paul LoDuca. They’ve got all the makings down there of a team set to make a run. Maybe not this year, but probably before the Orioles get there.

– This is old news, but I neglected to mention it back in September: the Penguins and Sabres will play a game outdoors in Buffalo on January 1st. So awesome.

– The Ravens will beat the Dolphins on Sunday. Everybody relax and enjoy it.

Expect to see more and more of these. Of course I said that last time, too.

– The Indians are up 9-3 in the sixth!

The Rockies lead their series 2-0, and the Cubs play game two against the Diamondbacks later tonight.

– By now you’ve probably heard the troubling news: the Maryland men’s basketball program ranks dead last in graduation rate at…zero.

Gary Williams, predictably, defended his program and his guys:

“These people are very successful people,” Maryland coach Gary Williams said. “If you go to school to improve yourself economically, where have they failed? They make more than the average college graduate. Far more. If you’re judging them just based on getting a degree, then OK, they haven’t gotten a degree.”

I like Gary, and his “close the ranks” mentality has probably helped a few talent-challenged Terps teams win games they shouldn’t have won. But, really, he couldn’t graduate even one guy? I get that everybody covered by the stats went on to play professionally in one capacity or another, but this just looks bad.

And, as a side note, can anyone really say that Lonny Baxter — who just tried to FedEx a gun to himself — is a “very successful” person? He played in the NBA, yes, but come on.

– Those who know me well know that my issues with the Ravens come down, basically, to Brian Billick. I’ve got other issues, but everything pretty much starts and ends with Billick. Specifically, disrespecting Trent Dilfer was as low-class a move as I’ve ever seen in sports. I know it’s a subject of much debate but that’s where I stand.

So it was nice to see that Dilfer has buried the hatchet. I’m not ready to do the same, but it was nice to see.

– Nobody’s paying much attention to it, but Dario Franchitti’s move to NASCAR is huge news. Coming one year after F1 star Juan Pablo Montoya made the same jump, Franchitti’s decision serves notice to the international auto racing community that America either already has or will soon have the premier circuit. The money’s here, the media’s here, the sponsors are here, and pretty soon all the drivers will be here, too.

The perception of NASCAR as a “good old boys” circuit won’t hold for long, and we’re going to be able to look forward to some exciting races in the near future. Keep an eye on it.

– Let’s take a moment to applaud our neighbors the Washington Nationals. Before the year started more than one pundit predicted them to be the worst team in history. Not only did they avoid that particular notoriety, they managed to scrap their way to a respectable 73-89 (four games better than the Orioles).

There just might be exciting baseball in the mid-Atlantic region next year after all.

All that and anything else on your mind in the comments…

Fantastic discussion in the comments on the last two posts. You all deserve a pat on the back.

You’ll need it, too. That sound you heard last night from downtown was the sputtering remains of the O’s 2007 Bandwagon finally rolling to a stop. We’re on our own from here on out.

Perhaps Rookie of the Year candidate Jeremy Guthrie can come through with another fine outing, something to hold next to our hearts as we face up to a surprisingly good Diamondbacks squad this weekend. I’ve got to go put the finishing touches on my cover story (!) for next week’s PressBox, but sometime tomorrow I’ll have a few thoughts on where things stand.

For right now it’s 0-0 in the third. Cross your fingers…

As I write, the Birds have…taken a lead in the bottom seventh on a two-out Jay Payton RBI double, then given it right back up…then done a bunch of other things that I don’t care to recount…finally ending up with Chris Ray failing us yet again.

Another horrible loss. There’s no getting around it. Yet I love the discussion in the comments on my last post. Everyone, including me, seems on the brink, wanting to believe and yet unwilling to ignore the obviously bad signs night after night. I’m right there with you. It’s a strange time to be a fan. Tonight’s game doesn’t make it any easier.

Still, I enjoy the ride, feeling the peaks and valleys. It’s fun to look at a Markakis or a Guthrie and take heart in their success. Likewise, there’s value in wondering why Melvin Mora isn’t performing and why Sam Perlozzo seems to lack leadership ability. Or why Ray can no longer do his job.

So to bring it back…all I ask of myself or anyone is this: just think. Be frustrated, be angry. Rejoice and cheer. If you call for Perlozzo’s head, tell everyone why. If you call for a Tejada trade, decide what you think would be good value in return. If you think that we’re underestimating the value of Kevin Millar, explain how.

Otherwise, where’s the fun?

That’s the crux of why I started this site. Maybe I’m weird, but I find it quite fun.

Nobody’s living or dying on the fortunes of the local baseball team. We just ride the waves, up and down as they go.

We’ve got, what, seven or eight dedicated commenters now? Fucking awesome. Each of you represents ten or twenty other folks who check in but don’t speak up. If we keep going, the numbers will only grow. It’s a solid group of folks who see sports as something valuable and worth our attention, but who also understand that when it comes to brass tacks we’re basically just having a beer and shooting the shit.

We’ve just dropped a series to the Nationals at home. Now what?

I’ve got a serious question for what appears to be a troubling majority of Orioles fans out there:

Don’t you folks get tired of being obvious?

This team isn’t hitting…Jay Gibbons sucks…the bullpen overhaul didn’t work! $40 million wasted!…Peter Angelos sure is a terrible owner!

In the context of a larger point these things can make for worthwhile support. Unfortunately, for too many folks these sorts of observations seem to be enough. And, disturbingly, they’re often made with something approaching pride.

The team isn’t hitting well? You don’t say! What? You mean you don’t like Peter Angelos? Here I was under the impression that his long record of achievement had endeared him to all but the most hardened baseball observers. Next thing I know someone’s going to step up and claim that gas prices are kinda high, and that maybe Oswald didn’t act alone.

The readers here, thankfully, are a cut above this (often several cuts). But I’m honestly curious: to what purpose are these same observations repeated, nearly verbatim, over and over again? What, in June of 2007, possesses someone to call a radio show and complain about Peter Angelos?

Yes, the Orioles are struggling. They’re hitting .261 as a team with 46 HR among them — numbers that place them far beneath contending status. And yet they remain only five games below .500 and have exhibited several signs of life (the starting pitching, in particular).

Now take a deep breath and ask: is that a whole lot different than what you expected?

The goal for this team all along has been to make a push at .500, maybe finish a few games above that if all goes well. In other words, to make progress. We will have one, maybe two opportunities to judge whether or not that has happened: at the end of the season, and if they go on some titanic streak (like, ten games) one way or the other.

Until then, for the sake of all that is good and holy, try to have a little perspective. This is not football, where one loss represents six percent of your season slipping away. You know what six percent of a 162 game season works out to? Ten games.

Relax. Pop open a cold Miller Lite and put your feet up tonight as Daniel Cabrera takes on Micah Bowie at the Yard. Maybe give this a try.

But whatever you do, recognize that things aren’t nearly as bad as they could be, nor as bad as they seem after every two-game losing streak. Just as there are plenty of things to be upset about, there’s still plenty to enjoy. That, folks, is baseball.

The Baltimore Orioles have climbed back to .500, and so tonight they send Daniel Cabrera to the hill against John Lackey in what amounts to Game One of the 2007 baseball season. They begin it in second place in the AL East, ten games back of the Boston Red Sox and one of a handful of teams with a realistic shot at the wild card.

As up and down as things have been so far, there are a lot of teams facing far more dire straits than the beloved black and orange. Among them:

Chicago Cubs
After bringing in fiery “winner” Lou Piniella and marquee free agent Alfonso Soriano, the Cubs have managed to play roughly as well as the rebuilding Washington Nationals (who have an excuse). At 22-30, things have gotten so bad in Chicago that they’re fighting each other in the clubhouse. Not Melvin Mora — Jay Payton fighting, but actual punches-and-stitches fighting. This is a team going somewhere fast, and that somewhere is complete oblivion.

St. Louis Cardinals
Shortly after winning the World Series in 2006, the Cardinals jettisoned much of the starting pitching staff that got them there. The result? A 22-29 record and a heap of questions. While it’s not too late to make a run (especially considering the weakness of their division), there’s no excuse for a defending champion to perform as they have.

And most gloriously of all…the New York Yankees

Faithful O’s fans — and decent human beings across the globe — have been wondering for years when stupidity would finally catch up the the Bronx Boners. All available evidence suggests that this is the year. A righteous combination of injuries and a depleted farm system have conspired to put the Yanks at 22-29, 13.5 games back.

In pointing out how difficult it will be to catch the Sox, former bench coach Don Zimmer unwittingly spilled the beans:

“Joe’s not going to get excited one way or another,” Zimmer said. “Whether they can put something together, there’s a lot of teams that will have to put something together to catch the Red Sox. Joe Torre is not going to do anything different than he’s done in the past 12 years.”

Which simply points out what some of us have been saying all along: nice guy though he may be, Joe Torre is nothing special as a baseball manager. You give any good baseball man the kind of talent and team chemistry Torre had from ‘96-’00 and championships will follow suit. He’s not the reason they won, and he’s not going to be the difference maker now that they’re losing.

Viva O’s.

I should have corrected that Jason Bergmann mistake before I left yesterday. Mea culpa.

The inconsistency of this team is almost as entertaining as it is remarkable. Normal teams lose two of three to Toronto then take two of three from the Nats, but the Orioles seem to thrive on one extreme or the other. They ought to be able to pull this one off with Erik Bedard on the mound against a 32-year old journeyman who hasn’t started a major league game since 1999. But it’s far from a given. As great as the pitching has been (Guthrie is an amazing find) I haven’t seen much in terms of offense or crisp play lately. It seems like if the Nats can put up four or five runs they’ll have more than they need.

Through all the ups and downs, consider this: only five teams in the AL have more wins than the birds. To be in that position despite all the problems isn’t bad.

Also, thanks for the happy birthdays. It was good times in DC yesterday.

Keep those comments coming!

My my my…a disastrous road trip continues disastrously as solid pitching performances get wasted at the hands of a fully inept offense. As was pointed out in the comments, if it’s not one thing it’s another. No consistency whatsoever.

So now they (and we) get a day off to reflect before a weekend series at the Nationals. A team, as I said, they need to sweep.

You know, the Loss Column is only eight months old. I’m still working to build it, figure out how to give folks what they want/need, etc. I imagine it will always be a work in progress to some extent. But I am sure of at least this much in terms of our identity: this is the site that doesn’t bitch and doesn’t take the easy or obvious approach.

Or, to put it another way, this is a site by and for people who want to think about sports. That’s been reflected in the amazing group of comment posters who have started to assemble, and I hope that group continues to grow.

I bring this up now because things are very tenuous with the Orioles. We’re all well aware that we might be staring at a meltdown. Another meltdown. So I want to encourage everybody to remember one thing: we’re not talking war in Iraq here. We’re not talking economic disparity or HIV in Africa. We’re talking baseball, football, basketball, hockey, tennis, auto racing, and other miscellaneous diversions. Things that can and should remain fun even if the team or player in your heart isn’t doing so well.

I’m not suggesting that we shouldn’t get mad — far from it. I’m simply suggesting that we keep it fun as we get mad.

Because I have a feeling we’re about to get very mad. And you know what? The O’s could lose every game between now and August 11th and I’ll still be just as psyched to take back the yard as I’ll be if they’re in first place.

Click the “about” link up top if you haven’t yet. There’s a reason this site is called “The Loss Column”.