WillyM

I have a book called The Orioles Encyclopedia, which was published in 2009, covering all the Orioles' history from 1954 up through the 2008 season. I'm not sure how easy it would be to get your hands on a copy at this late date, but it would fill you in on everything up to three years before you started following the club. You named four of the five players whose statues stand in Legends Park at Camden Yards (I'm not counting Earl Weaver as a player). If you want one name of an Oriole to start reading up on, I would suggest the only player in Legends Park that you didn't name - Eddie Murray.

Thanks for the replies. Those pictures are really something.

I live in York County, PA. When I come to an Orioles game, my custom is to drive to Timonium, park my car and take the light rail to Camden Yards. Saturday afternoon the light rail service ran from Hunt Valley only as far as North Avenue. At North Avenue, everybody had to get off and take a bus the rest of the way to the ballpark. Someone at the light rail station told me there was a problem with the light rail tracks along Howard St., though they were vague about exactly what the problem was. The bus had to take a somewhat roundabout route to get from North Avenue to Camden Yards. It worked, but it took longer than the light rail would have. Does anyone know exactly what is wrong with the light rail? Does anyone know when the problem is likely to be fixed?

I was an American League fan living and working in Philadelphia from 1972-1987, during which time the National League won 11 All-Star games in a row and 14 out of 16. I took an awful lot of grief from the National League fans. I really wanted to see the American League turn it around. It took a while, but they did it. The American League has now won 19 of the last 22 All-Star Games played to a decision (not counting that blasted tie in 2002), and I'll tell you what - the winning has not gotten old. You may not care about the outcome of the All-Star Game, but I sure do, and I'm a good bit older than 11 years old. I'll bet there are lots of other fans who care. Including, I have no doubt, National League fans living in American League cities who really want to see the NL turn it around one of these years.

I was at the game on Saturday afternoon. I know the announced attendance was in excess of 22,000, but it sure didn't look like anywhere near half the seats were full. Perhaps the official attendance included not only those sold after the make-up date of July 13 was announced but also all the tickets sold in advance for the original date of May 5, even though many of those may have been exchanged as rain checks for tickets to other games.

I don't know what would constitute a "WOW" offer. Would a "WOW" offer consist of an established major league star or two? Or would it consist of a large number of highly regarded prospects who might possibly be projected as being able to be significant contributors at the big league level - two, three, or four years from now? It seems to me that the latter is pretty much the type of "WOW" trading the Orioles did last year. If they do it again this year, and again next year, and again the year after that, it sounds like a recipe for being permanently two, three, or four years away from contention.

I hated it when All-Star Game ended in a tie some years ago, because the managers of both teams ran out of pitchers. First they used all their starters, each one for one inning or less. Then they put in all their relievers, again each for one inning or less. Eventually the last pitcher on each roster was a closer unaccustomed to pitching more than one inning at a time - and after each of those guys had thrown one inning, it was decided to end the game rather than go to the unthinkable alternative of asking a team's closer to pitch more than one inning. I've felt for years that each league should designate one starting pitcher specifically for extra-inning duty. That way, if the game is tied after nine innings, you have somebody who's capable of going as many innings as necessary until one team or the other wins the game. I've never heard of anybody formally proposing my idea, but at least John Means was ready to fill the role I had envisioned if Tuesday's game had gone to extra innings.

The Orioles challenged unsuccessfully on Villar's attempted steal. I'm thinking that the reason they didn't challenge on Santander's attempted steal was because they can't challenge again after one is unsuccessful.

Having seen old friend Chaz Roe allow the Orioles to take the lead, let's see if old friend Oliver Drake can do the same.

And our old friend Chaz Roe is now the pitcher of record on the losing side.

An article on the Orioles' homepage discusses pitchers who hit notable home runs. There are pictures of Mike Hampton, Bartolo Colon, Madison Bumgarner, and the Orioles' Dave McNally, who remains the only pitcher ever to hit a grand slam in a World Series game. A number of other pitchers are mentioned in the article. I was a little sorry to see that the article did not mention George Brett's brother Ken, who hit home runs in four consecutive games for the Phillies in 1973. The heck of it is, it should have been five. On June 3 of that year, Brett came to bat in the sixth inning at Candlestick Park in San Francisco and belted one to deep right-center. The ball landed near the base of the fence, then bounded high and far beyond. The question was whether it had landed in front of or behind the fence. The fence was nothing more than a cyclone fence, so there was no solid background to allow the umpires to see whether the ball had descended in front of the fence or disappeared behind it. The Phillies' TV crew showed numerous replays, but instant replays in that era weren't nearly as sharp as they are today, and even with the replays, it was impossible to tell where the ball had landed. The umps, positioned far away in the infield, took their best shot and ruled it a ground-rule double. The two guys with the best view of the play were Giants outfielders Bobby Bonds and Garry Maddox. I heard, long afterward, that when the play happened, one of them looked toward the infield, saw Brett stopping at second base, then looked at his teammate and asked "Did the umps say that ball landed in front of the fence?' To which his teammate replied, "Yes. Now shut up and act as if you believe it." Brett went on to hit home runs - and actually get credit for hitting home runs - in each of his next four games.

Of course, I'm not on the rules committee. I don't know what they're thinking. If they think that it is important to provide an extra penalty, in the form of returning the runners to their bases, to further discourage the batter from running outside the three-foot lane, then the rule isn't likely going to change. But if that's the way it is and that's the way it's going to be, this is just one of the little things that a team like the Orioles has to try to do right. We've been told that the other teams have more talent than the Orioles do. In order to win games, the Orioles have to concentrate on doing things the right way - even if it's hard to do it the right way, and even if lots of players on other teams don't do it the right way. I hear all the people who say that when a player is running as fast as he can to try to beat the throw to first, it's hard to get over into the three-foot lane. But if Broxton could have done that on Sunday, Santander's run would have counted. And instead of seeing the Red Sox assert their talent with a five-run rally in the tenth inning, we might very well have seen a 4-3 Oriole victory.

I'd like to see the rule tweaked so that, instead of automatically returning runners to the bases they occupied prior to the pitch, the umpires could be given discretion to place the runners where they would have been if no runner's interference had occurred. In the case of Broxton's bunt, I agree with the umpires that Broxton was guilty of runner's interference, because the pitcher had to alter his throw to avoid hitting him. But the only thing the Red Sox were trying to do was get the out at first base. They made no attempt to prevent Santander from scoring or Davis from advancing to second base. The fact that Broxton ran to the left of the base line had absolutely no effect on those two runners. The way the rule is now, the Red Sox got the extra added bonus of not only having Broxton called out but having both runners returned to their bases. If the umps were given discretion, I don't think there's any question that they would have decided to give the Red Sox the out they were trying to get, put Davis on second base and count Santander's run. Does that make sense to anybody?

I can remember when I was a high school player, an umpire explained to my teammates and me about the three-foot lane rule, which calls for a batter approaching first base to run in the lane on the foul side of the baseline, so that he will not interfere with a throw from fair territory. Long-time Oriole fans undoubtedly remember that the umpires working the 1969 World Series somehow forgot that this rule was in the book. The ending of last night's game against the Rangers made me wonder a little bit. Does the rule change if a throw to first base is coming from foul territory instead of fair territory? Two out in the ninth, tying run on second, the batter (Andrus) struck out but the ball got past Severino, who had to chase it down and make a long throw to first. For a moment, I had a nightmarish vision that the throw would hit Andrus and deflect away from Davis, allowing the tying run to score. Fortunately, it didn't. I couldn't tell from the replays which side of the baseline Andrus was running on or how close he came to being hit by the throw. Does the rule call for the batter to run in the three-foot lane on the foul side of the baseline in all circumstances? Or does it change and require him to run on the fair side of the line if he's trying to beat a throw from the foul side on a missed third strike?

OK, that shows the answer to my question. It is an official stat, and Fry is credited with 19 IR (inherited runners) and 2 IS (inherited runners scored) for an IS% of 11% (actually 10.5%). Evidently if the runner he inherited scores after he's out of the game, it doesn't count against him. Incidentally, Branden Kline has an even better IS% stat. He has inherited 10 runners and allowed none of them to score.

I'm not sure this is even an official statistic, but it gets brought up pretty frequently on the broadcasts. I'm wondering how it works when a pitcher enters with an inherited runner on base and then is removed, with the inherited runner still on base, before the inning is over. For example, in Sunday's game, Paul Fry was brought in to pitch with a runner on base in the ninth inning. The announcers mentioned that Fry had entered games this year with a total of 18 runners on base and only 2 of the 18 had scored. Fry walked the only batter he faced and was promptly removed. The runner who was on base when Fry entered the game eventually wound up scoring, though he did not score while Fry was in the game. Is Fry credited with an inherited runner but, since the runner did not score while Fry was in the game, not charged with an inherited runner who scored? In that case, his statistic is now 2 out of 19 inherited runners who scored. Is Fry credited with an inherited runner and charged with an inherited runner who scored, even though the guy didn't score until after Fry had left the game? In that case, his statistic would now be 3 out of 19 inherited runners who have scored. Or, if the pitcher enters the game with an inherited runner on base and leaves the game with the same inherited runner still on base, does it not count in his statistic at all, which would leave Fry still with 2 out of 18 inherited runners who have scored? My guess would be that the second alternative would apply and Fry's statistic is now 3 out of 19, but I don't know if that's right or not. Anybody know?

Because once in a while, they actually win one of these games.

Kline retired the last two batters in the eighth and the first batter in the ninth. IIRC, at least one of those three batters was a lefty swinger and the TV announcers made note of the fact that lefty batters were 1-for-19 against Kline this year. The next batter was a righty and he got a single. The next batter after him was another lefty. At that point the choice was to either bring Fry in for a lefty-lefty matchup or leave Kline in there, even though he's a righty, because he's done so well against lefties. Fry had pretty good statistics against lefties, too, but not as good as 1-for-19. And, as we know, the decision was to bring Fry in. Fry couldn't find the strike zone, and after that, Hyde didn't have much choice but to bring Givens in. Givens couldn't find the strike zone, either, and after he walked in the tying run, up came Wolters, who had spent the whole previous at-bat standing almost directly behind home plate timing Givens' pitches, and he produced the game-ending sacrifice fly. Boy, I wish we could have seen what Kline could have done against that lefty batter with one out and one on in the ninth.

In addition to having slumped badly of late, Villar sports an 0-for-19 lifetime against Yankee starter J. A. Happ. Tonight seems like an especially good time to give him a day off.

Last year, Chris Tillman started out by losing his first four decisions. He was just awful. Then he was brilliant against the Tigers in his fifth game, pitching seven innings of one-hit, shutout baseball to pick up his first win. Some of us dared to hope that Tillman had finally rediscovered the form that had enabled him to win 66 games over the four-year period from 2013-2016. But in his next outing he was just awful again, giving up seven runs on seven hits and a walk in just one inning of work against the Angels. And when he followed that up by allowing six runs on four hits and three walks in 1 1/3 innings against the Royals, it marked the end of his Oriole career and, it appears, probably his major league career as well. This year, Dylan Bundy has started out by losing his first four decisions, though he wasn't quite as bad as Tillman had been in losing his first four the previous year. Then he was outstanding against the Rays, pitching 7 1/3 innings of three-hit, shutout baseball to pick up his first win. Boy, I was hoping that, unlike Tillman, Bundy would come back and pitch really well again in his next start. But, though he wasn't as bad against the Angels today in getting his fifth loss as Tillman was last year in getting his fifth loss, he fell quite a bit short of inspiring a great deal of confidence about how he's going to do the rest of this season.

Well, if the general consensus is that it's better to play ultra deep, so be it. I did have another thought. I don't know the name of the White Sox' first base coach, but I assume he's a good baseball man. I can envision that when Abreu came up to bat after Delmonico walked, the first base coach leaned over to Delmonico and said something like this. "See how deep the Orioles' outfielders are playing? If Abreu gets a hit, you make sure to run as hard and as fast as you can. It's going to take them a while to get to the ball, and you might be able to score all the way from first." So, if the Orioles want their outfielders to continue to play deep, the Orioles' outfield coach should explain to his guys that opposing first base coaches are going to notice where they are playing, and are going to tell their players to run as hard and fast as they can. That means the Orioles' outfielders had better get to the ball quickly and get it back to the infield with a good, strong throw, or else the other team's guys are going to continue to score from first on singles.

I wonder when the Orioles' vaunted analytic staff is going to analyze how much good it does to have the outfielders playing ultra deep all the time. In last night's second game, the White Sox' first run was scored by Sanchez, who reached on a pop fly to shallow center that Rickard, positioned in ultra deep center field, could not get to. If that ball had been caught, the inning would have been over before Wynns could forget how many outs there were. Then three more runs scored in the fourth inning. First there was a two-out triple by Engle over Rickard's head. If that ball had been caught, the inning would have been over. Then two walks, then a routine single to center field by Abreu, but by the time Rickard came all the way in from ultra deep center field to get the ball and lob it in to second base, all three runners scored. If the other teams hit the ball over our outfielders' heads even when they're playing ultra deep (see Engle's triple), why not see if playing a little shallower might help our outfielders catch a few bloopers and prevent guys from going first to home on singles.

I have not heard Kevin Brown. Had no idea that anyone by that name was working as a broadcast announcer for the Orioles. There have been three major league players named Kevin Brown, including one who pitched for the Orioles in 1995. Is the announcer any one of those three?

No, I don't. I moved to the Philadelphia area in the 1970's and to York County, PA in 1995. I still live in York County. But when I arrived in York County and discovered that I had access to Orioles telecasts on MASN's forerunner, Home Team Sports, I thought I'd arrived in heaven.

I grew up in upstate New York, in the Albany area. A lot of people were Yankees fans, but there were Red Sox fans, Giants fans, and Dodgers fans (this was the mid-1950's). So there wasn't any one team that everybody rooted for. My father subscribed to Sports Illustrated magazine. In either 1955 or 1956, when I was six or seven years old, SI's preseason baseball issue included full-color pictures of all the major league teams' uniforms. I decided it was time for me to choose a favorite team. My favorite color was orange, so I looked to see which team's uniform included more orange than anyone else's. And the Orioles, with the orange script Orioles across the chest, with the little orange bird and the orange bill on the cap, were the clear choice. Some years later, I found out it was possible to order an Orioles cap by mail for 75 cents. I wrote out a nice letter, as professional as I could make it look in my childish scrawl, and got out three quarters to put in the envelope with the letter. Then I put a stamp on the envelope and hurried to the mailbox to send it off to Baltimore. And when I got back home, I found my three quarters still sitting on the kitchen table. I had forgotten to enclose them with the envelope. The Orioles sent me the cap anyway. I wore it proudly for many years. Considering the number of times I've gone to Memorial Stadium and Camden Yards in the ensuing years, I'd say sending me that cap was a pretty good investment for the Orioles.