A picture is worth a thousand words.

I very much wish I could have been there for this event, but on April 19th the Society for American Baseball Research had a ceremony dedicating a marker to the old AA/NL Orioles' Union Park at the site in Baltimore. It's at East 25th Street near Guilford Avenue. Unfortunately that day I was traveling to Denver for a life celebration for a co-worker who passed. Union Park had a short life, barely more than a decade from construction to demolition. But it was the home of the World Champion 1894-95-96 Orioles, and so many Hall of Famers and other stars of the day. Like John McGraw, Willie Keeler, Wilbert Robinson, Dan Brouthers, Joe Kelley, Joe McGinnity. More information in this SABR history piece. There aren't many bits of the park left, even some of the street names have changed. But if you look at the photo on the Wiki page, and the Sanborn fire insurance map you can place the park. And the rowhouse in the photo next to the entrance/ticket booth is still there. Reading that Sun article, I see Burt Solomon was there for the dedication. He's the author of Where They Ain't: The Fabled Life and Ultimely Death of the Original Baltimore Orioles, the Team that Gave Birth to Modern Baseball. I'm sure he'd be a very interesting person to chat with.

I think you make an important point about the automated strike zone in the minors helping Holliday.  It seems in the past year I've noticed that rookies with excellent plate discipline seem to get affected much more by the wandering zones of certain MLB umpires.  They seem to know the zone better than the umpires and have been rewarded for that in the minors.  We saw last year that Henderson struggled at first even though he was still walking, and then got hot when he became much more aggressive early in the count and not letting himself fall behind.  I noticed it with Cowser last year, and with Holliday this year.  They seem utterly perplexed when umps call pitches three inches off the corner.

Yea, we all wish that. I also wish everyone else was doing better in every aspect of their game. We want the players on our team to excel.

Hard to argue with you.  I could see him as a very useful 4th OF.

That’s not how I see it.  You’re in a 1-0 game, the strategy is different than 3-0.   For example, Cedric had a one-out single in the 8th inning, down 3-0.  There was no reason for him to attempt a steal then, but if it’s 1-0, maybe he does try it.   Anyway, I don’t want to take this too far off track.  I just wish Adley was throwing a little better.     

Definitely.  And just terrible luck as well.  We had a number of hard hit balls right at fielders, and they had a couple bloopers in their two run inning.  And they got the benefit of some terrible ball/strike calls.

I'm as upset as anyone that Angel Hernandez, CB Bucknor, and Laz Diaz still have jobs, but I don't really believe this is the worst season in memory for terrible calls.  I think it just appears that way because of the data fans have access to now and the fact that social media has really focused on the issue this year.  I'm certain that the majority of umps now are incredibly more accurate on balls/strikes than the umps back in the 80s/90s.  Do you remember Eric Gregg and Ken Kaiser and Garcia, and many more of the incredibly arrogant and incompetent umps back then??  They would hold grudges and change the zone from game to game or even inning to inning.  Again, I'm not excusing the terrible strike zones from certain current umps, and I denounce the fact that terrible umps have no consequences for their incompetence....just wanted to remind people that it's still much better than it used to be.