Wow. Jim Gentile! My first favourite Oriole--Diamond Jim was a muscular power-hitting ist sacker with a terrible temper...Hey Peter-any idea how old Gentile is? I bet he and Boog have some good stories to share(along with a few cold ones) as both like to knock back the brews.

Johnson's injury makes you wonder if it was because of how he was used. In his couple of minor league seasons he was strictly a starter, pitching every 5 day or so for about 25 starts. This year he was used as a reliever for the first time and often was used on consecutive days, or 3 out of 4 days. He is fairly young, just turned 25 this summer.
You wouldn't think that would hurt him but maybe pitching every 5 day for 5 innings is easier on his arm then pitching 2 days in a row or maybe 3 out of 4, especially if you include all of the warmup time in the bullpen.
I think it is just another case of what happens when you have limited talent on the staff and the few that pitched well end up getting seriously overused.

Maybe now that Hafner rocked one of our minor league star prospects the yahoos on here who claim that the answer to all our problems is to bring up the pitchers from Bowie will shut their uniformed yaps. These guys may be good eventually, but they would have fared no better than Olson or Liz and wouldn't have been nearly as ready.

Peter,

I've enjoyed your writing for many years, and always look forward to your columns. Now I'll have to check the computer, too. Life is hard.

Roger

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Pete's reply: I appreciate that. I'll still be writing in the paper and doing the radio show. I just won't be sleeping much,.