DrungoHazewood

They don't. But since you typically see North American baseball players your mind glosses over the differences and focuses on the similarities of the somewhat different Asian windup.

I suppose this should go in the Orioles history section, but without real baseball going on perhaps the mods will let it stay here for a bit. I found some newspaper archives online, and was looking through old editions of the Baltimore American. Here is a link to the stories covering the Orioles' opener at Union Park against the Quakers (now Phillies) on April 18, 1895. The was the first game following the glorious 1894 Championship season, the first in Baltimore's history. But unfortunately the O's lost 7-6 in the ninth. Things I found interesting: - In an era where most games were completed, and unchallenged substitutes of any kind had only been a thing for a few years, the article criticizes manager Hanlon for not taking out the starter, Duke Esper, when he was"losing his speed" in the eighth inning. - The article comes right out and says that the umpire, Murray, was terrible. - The Philadelphia pitcher, Jack Taylor, apparently punched Orioles' shortstop Hughie Jennings in the face during a play in the field. But other players intervened, otherwise "there would have been trouble." - There were a substantial number of visiting Philadelphia fans, who were relegated to the upper deck at Union Park. - They unfurled and raised the '94 Championship pennant before the game, apparently putting it above the American flag. The Naval Reserve Band was on hand to play the Star Spangled Banner and Maryland My Maryland. - 14,000+ were in attendance, which required ropes around the field where late-arriving spectators could stand - Early in the game a yellow dog ran across the field, and fans were heard to remark "that dog hoodooed us." - "Quite a large amount of money changed hands during the course of the game, but the betting was done in such a way that the police could not detect it." - When the 2020 Orioles are up against it and facing a loss I'm going to urge them on with "the cherries are ripe, don't give up the ship." Elsewhere on the page it was noted that Norfolk pitcher Setley was missing. The manager thinks he's gone to New York, since there's a warrant out for his arrest. Louisville has a rousing start with a win in front of 8,000 raucous fans, against Pittsburg. And if you have constipation, the most common from of Dyspepsia, please take Dr. Deane's Dyspepsia Pills. They're free of mercury!

I was in Austria last year and they've just passed legislation banning smoking in bars/restaurants/etc, and it took effect after we were there. I anticipated some issues, but we didn't really encounter many people smoking indoors.

You should have a kid and name him/her Rance.

In '74 he had almost 700 plate appearances, nearly all as a DH, and he had 32 extra base hits and 34 walks. It was a down offensive year. Dick Allen led the AL with 32 homers, and nobody had 40 doubles.

Between Tommy Harper and Tommy Davis the Orioles apparently valued having the name Tommy over being able to hit when filling the DH role in the early years of the rule.

Part of a semi-famous platoon with Buck Martinez. In the 1980s you could be a famous platoon. Lowenstein/Roenicke. Iorg/Mulliniks. Dodo bird level of extinct now.

He's signed by the Braves through this year, in '21 he'll be 37. Are you getting nostalgic over the Surhoff and Conine swan song contracts? Or were you referring to Palmer? I'm sure Palmer thinks he could stage a comeback in his 70s.

I see a fair amount of Nats stuff in SoMd. But also some Orioles stuff, too. Probably because the average age of a typical baseball fan is advanced enough to remember when the O's were awesome and by the time you get that old you ain't changing.

- Lee Lacy, signed for his age 37-39 seasons, the last of a 16-year career - Ron Washington played one awful, partial age-35 season for the O's but somehow came back for parts of two more years with the Indians and Astros. - Greg Walker had three 20+ homer seasons for the White Sox in the 80s, but the last 5-for-34 stint of his career was for the 1990 Orioles. - Of course Dewey spent his last year of a long, near-HOF career with the O's. - Jarvis Brown was something of a prospect in the early 90s (#9 overall pick in '86), ended his career with a 4-for-27 run for the '95 O's. - Jerome Walton, '89 ROY, played 26 undistinguished games for the '97 Orioles, but got into a few more the next year with the Devil Rays.

Simulator. You build the universe/league/franchise/organization/team. You can be God, league president, owner, GM or manager. No controllers, no mashing buttons to hit the ball. All the results are based on ratings.

Wilbur Wood and Smokey Burgess may not have survived the pre-event stretching.

I'm looking forward to the release of Out of the Park 21 later this week. I have a hybrid fictional league I've had going for many decades where I run the Continental League as a third major, but the rest of the world mostly still exists as in real life. In this alternate universe both Weiters and Manny are still Orioles and annual MVP candidates. And I had nothing to do with this, I swear, but the AI moved the Yankees to Indianapolis a few years back. Version 21 has a basic 3D stadium editor included, which I'm sure I'll be a huge fan of. You've always been able to define stadiums with dimensions and park effects, but this brings actual modeling, and the ability to change dimensions and stands and other attributes and have that reflected in the park effects. I've been missing this since the Earl Weaver baseball series in the late 80s and early 90s.

I don't have too many, but Tony gave me a press pass to go to Fanfest in 2003. That happened to be the day the space shuttle Columbia disintegrated on re-entry. I was in the back room watching the coverage of that with Rick Dempsey. We didn't say a lot to each other, but it was kind of surreal.

Oooh... are they going to have everyone run the 40 and do standing jumps and measure their chests and biceps with a tape? Baseball has always been lacking that special livestock sale feel of the NFL. I've always wondered where Brian Matusz and Chad Bradford and Todd Frohwirth would have been drafted if they'd had a televised showcase where they had to do massive squats and bench presses.

And a .327 career OBP in the minors. His career high for walks in a calendar year is 25. He basically has Adam Jones' plate discipline. But we don't have much else available.

Today a typical game will have more than 51 minutes in breaks between innings and pitching changes. Then another two-plus hours of playing baseball. Cue someone reminding us that baseball was always meant to be played at a languid and relaxed pace, and that the game has no clock and doesn't need one. Any time you have no limitations someone will use that to their selfish advantage. People will buy 88 packs of toilet paper, leaving none for anyone else. Nine inning baseball games will last four hours because we have lights and people in Boston have nothing better to do.

I read something like that a few places, but opening day was only about a week or so later than usual. Did that really give them any more meaningful time to get players back from a war that ended in November of '18?

The War Department did order the 1918 season stopped on September 2nd due to WWI, so most teams played about 125 games. Then in 1919 the schedule was 140 games, although it's unclear to me just why - the season began and ended on roughly the same dates as the 154-game schedule of 1920. I think they just decided to have a shorter schedule that year. Pretty sure it had nothing to do with the flu pandemic. The Black Sox would have still been bitter, they probably would have just thrown games in 1920. The game was rife with unsavory characters in the 1910s, it's likely to have blown up in some way, eventually. Something like 21 players were banned or informally told to never show their faces at a MLB park again in the 1915-1920 timeframe. Maybe Jackson would have kept himself out of it, maybe not.

Rock, paper, scissors, lizard, Spock.

The Appy League and Florida State Leagues should be good to go, they draw like 133 fans a game.

Question about the poll and the last option: if the 2020 season doesn't start in 2020 is it really the 2020 season?

I'm sure they all plan on being back. This isn't Captain Trips.

He led the international league in walks, too. In just 112 innings. He was 6th in the IL in K/9 among pitchers with 10+ starts. In the 10+ start group he was 27th in the league in ERA.

I don't think he was fully into it. Earl batted John Shelby and Juan Bonilla leadoff a total of 72 times. Shelby had a .263 OBP, Bonilla a .311. Alan Wiggins and his .309 another 59 times. On a team with six regulars with a .334 or higher. Old Earl would have never done that. He'd have batted Jim Dwyer leadoff against righties and given the middle finger to anyone who questioned it.