Even though it’s a long time from April until October, the wins in April count just as much as wins in September, and it’s always good to get off to a hot start.

It seems to me that teams with losing records should start their seasons against weak teams, and get a lot of time off in April when the weather is cold, and you need to protect your pitching staff. If nothing else, it would give you a chance to rest your bullpen.

It would be nice to have your home opening series against a team that not only has finished last in their division for years, but is predicted to do so again this year.  It would be especially nice if they had only won, let’s say for example, 56 games last year.

I’m sure MLB takes all of this into consideration when they make the schedule. After all, they want a competitive season and a more or less level playing field.

So let’s see – which team gets to not only have their home opening series against the team with the worse record in baseball for the last 2 years, but also gets 5 days off in April to rest up from the battle?

Is it the lowly Orioles?  How about the Tigers or the Mariners or the Devil Rays, or even the Rangers or the Blue Jays? Nope – it is the poor Yankees.  Guess they need all the help they can get.

There are several things going on here in MLBlogdom that cry out for comment, but after taking a deep breath, I have decided to write about what I really care about – the game.

Having a day to reflect, the Orioles outfield looks like it is in the same situation that second base was a couple of years ago.  Back then, both Brian Roberts and Jerry Hairston were O’s second basemen. Hairston always looked like he was the leading candidate, but a couple of fluke injuries kept Roberts around. Neither one was great – both were adequate.  When both were healthy, it was like they were both always looking over their shoulders, wondering what would happen if they went 0 for 4 that day.  They were great friends, and even live near each other and train together in the off season. That obviously didn’t make it any easier.

Last year, the Os traded Hairston to the Cubs as part of a deal for Sammy Sosa.  Roberts was now the second baseman.  I don’t know what would have happened if they had traded Roberts instead, but staying here as “The Man” certainly seemed to work for him.  When it didn’t matter if he went 0 for 4, he didn’t.  He knew that no matter what happened on any given day, he would be back in the starting lineup tomorrow.  He had an All Star season.

The O’s outfield looks the same way.  In my role as amateur manager, I would pick 3 guys, tell them that they are my starting outfield, and go with them. Let them hit against both right hand and left hand starting pitching. Give them each a day off every week or so just to rest them, but let them know they will be back in their position the next day.

I’m glad I don’t have to make the decision, if for no other reason than the fact I’m not qualified to do so, but someone should. Gibbons owns right field.  Pick 2 others and give them the jobs. Don’t tell them that it is their job to lose. Tell them that it is their job.  It’s a long season. The others will get a chance to play.

Baseball is not an 0 for 4 sport.  In the heat of the moment, I forgot that yesterday. Last year Mora started 0 for twentysomething.  In his rookie year, Cal Ripken was 1 for a month.  The last time the Yankees started 1 and 4, they went on to win 114 games.  I reserve the right to revisit my decision in May.

Evidently, the joint Red Sox – Orioles chant concerning the Yankees was not a miracle, but just a reaction to a guy in Yankee gear catching a foul ball.  On the other hand, maybe it was divine intervention that sent the ball his way.

I don’t remember if I posted this sometime in the past, and even I won’t read all of my old stuff just to find out, but……

At one of the Orioles/Nationals games in Spring Training last year, when Sammy Sosa was introducec, the young man in the seat next to me jumped to his feet, stood on the seat and yelled "Sosa – you S***!  You don’t deserve to wear the uniform!"

Sosa fouled off the first pitch.  It went on top of the pressbox, and came back down directly into the young man’s hands.  Coincidence?  I think not.  I think the baseball gods have a sense of humor.  BTW – he looked at me, and I looked at him.  After a while I said "You really can’t keep that ball."  I thought he would give it to my daughter, but he choose to throw it back on the field.

It has been a busy week for the part of my family that lives in Baltimore.  As a group, we have been to 11 baseball games (3 of us at 1 game counts as 3), a lacrosse game, a track meet, and a High School Band event. The part of the family that lives in California is in Honduras walking through the jungle, so I doubt if he has seen much except snakes and other nasty creatures.

We just got back from the Os-Red Sox game.  In spite of the results, and the fact that it was REALLY cold, we had a good time.

Normally, I try to have coherent thoughts on my postings, but today they may just be a collection of random thoughts.

Just for the fun of it, I tried an experiment. I took along a laptop to try to Blog in real time. Unfortunately, all I could see on the screen was my reflection, so that didn’t work. Maybe I’ll try it again on a rainy day.

The Club Level at Camden Yards only has footlong hotdogs, but they had no footlong hotdog buns.  They were using crusty sub rolls.  Yuck.

Boog’s Barbeque on the Club Level had no beef. All they sell is beef, ham, and turkey. Seems like bad planning not to have beef.  Almost as bad as not having hotdog buns.

BTW – in some parts of the country they are hotdog rolls. In some parts of the country, subs are heros, or hoagies or Poor Boys or grinders. Please insert the proper term….

The Orioles have played 6 games.  In 3 of them, they scored a total of 2 runs (0 runs-1 run-1 run). Does it seem like a good idea to anyone out there, when you have 6 guys competing for outfield positions, that you start 2 guys who are hitting .188 and .100? And then, in the 6^th inning, with a man on first and third and no outs, you let them both bat?  And to add insult to injury, they displayed the wrong stats for one of them every time he came to bat.

I don’t know what it sounded like on TV, but a miraculous thing happened. As I’m sure everyone knows, Camden Yards is really Fenway Park South whenever the Red Sox are in town. On a good day, the split is 50/50.  Today, early in the game, came the expected chant of “Let’s Go Red Sox.” For a change, the O’s fans booed it down.  It happened again, then again, then again. Finally, a mighty noise came from the crowd. From where I was sitting, at first it was unclear, but it became louder and louder and more distinct. Thousands of people, wearing Orioles gear and Red Sox gear, joined as one to raise their voices to the sky and from their lips to God’s ear came the sound of “YANKEES S***, YANKEES S***.” It was almost a religious experience.  My newfound Red Sox friends and I formed a bond that can only come from having a common enemy.

My wife noticed a couple holding a camera, and asked if they would like her to take a picture of them together.  He was wearing Orioles gear.  She was wearing Red Sox gear. The camera didn’t break.

One of my new Red Sox buddies confided in me that, in spite of the fact that he was wearing a Red Sox jersey and baseball cap, he was really a Yankee fan. He just thinks it’s wrong to wear Yankee stuff to a Red Sox/Os game.

My Bowie Baysox are 3-1.  I know they are “my” Bowie Baysox because the announcer tells me so before every game.

The Orioles have now started a “Joke of the Day.”  Today’s joke, delivered by Bruce Chen, was “What do you call a bear with no teeth?”……”A Gummy Bear.”

In spite of the fact that I really, really wanted to, I still couldn’t yell the “O” in the National Anthem.

Oh well, even random thoughts take time, and I had a dream last night that I was a muffler.  I woke up exhausted.  (OK – another Bruce Chen joke.)

When I posted “Melvin Mora and Leadership” in early February, I said “I hope they sign him for three more years.”  (I would put in a link to the posting here, but I have no clue how to do it.)  I am a huge Melvin Mora fan.  At that time I hadn’t noticed a groundswell of enthusiasm for this idea.  About a month later, the bandwagon was pretty full of talk radio guys and posters to the local websites.  The air is full of chants of “Pay the Man!!!!”  I still hope they sign him, but I can understand why they haven’t.

There are only a handful of people who really know what has been going on in the negotiations, and none of them are you or me.  I only know what I read and hear, and I have reason to believe that sometimes the media doesn’t get things exactly right.  For example, last month my son’s apartment burned down.  He was interviewed by the local news, but when they aired the interview they got both his first and last name wrong.  If I hadn’t seen the flames in the background, I would have wondered if there really was a fire.  Having said that, I will assume that they have it pretty close this time.

There are two very important parts of any contract: the money and the “Terms and Conditions.”  They don’t seem too far apart on the money, but the Terms and Conditions look like the deal breaker.  Mora wants a “No Trade” clause, and the Os don’t appear to want to give him one.

Issues like “he wants to play here”, “he is a great member of the community”, and “it will make Tejada happy”, are basically irrelevant.  I want to play here, but they won’t let me.  Bea Gaddy was a great member of the community, but no one offered her $8-10 Million a year to provide Thanksgiving dinner to hundreds of needy people.  Buy Tejada a puppy.  The only issue is – do the Orioles want to lock up between $24 and $27 Million for three years on what will then be a 35 year old third baseman?

I hate to keep referencing my own posts, but in January I posted “The Plan”, in which I said that I think the Os have several players at the minor league level on the verge of being major leaguers.  They don’t want to sign a free agent, or make a trade for, someone they have to sign to a long term, expensive, contract that will limit their options for developing, and promoting, the younger players.  Evidently, “The Plan” also applies to existing players.  As much as I would hate to see it, maybe keeping Mora for 4 more years isn’t part of “The Plan.”

But wait!  They signed Millar and Conine and they are both old guys.  They signed them to short term, relatively cheap contracts.  If they both don’t play here next year, at least the Os won’t be saddled with over $20 Million that they still owe them.

Oh yeah, but there is nobody in the minors waiting to play third base!  I realize he’s a shortstop, but Brandon Fahey looked great at Bowie last year, had an excellent Spring Training with the Os, and looks pretty good at Ottawa so far.  OK, to be fair, he’s only played one game.

But the Orioles always do this kind of thing by not locking up great players and the players leave and that’s why the Os don’t win!  Looks like a short list to me.  I don’t think keeping Mussina would have resulted in a couple of World Championships and, so far, I don’t miss B.J Ryan.  BTW – I heard the other day that the Os are still paying both Mussina and Brady Anderson because of deferred payments in their contracts.  Now that seems like bad planning to me.

I miss Larry Bigbie.  I miss Eric Byrnes.  I really miss B.J. Surhoff.  I would miss Melvin Mora and I really hope he stays.  "Pay the Man?"  If I had $30 Million lying around, I would sign him and donate his contract to the Orioles, but even I wouldn’t give him a No Trade clause.