No place like home
Or, at least, there’s no place like home this side of Antarctica. Returned last night and just made the last connection through Chicago to get back to Baltimore ahead of the blizzard. Rode in with dozens of Chicago Bears fans, who weren’t the least bit concerned about the long airport delay as long as they kept the bars open at Midway Airport.
Frankly, I’m a little worried about tomorrow’s game, at least from a crowd perspective. Bears fans are used to getting drunk and standing around the stadium parking lots all day in three feet of snow. I’m pretty sure Jamison Hensley will be giving them the advantage in the “Ravens Drunk Disgusting Fan Behavior vs. Bears Drunk Disgusting Fan Behavior” section of his Ravens Scouting Report in tomorrow’s paper.
I sat near one Bears fan who acknowledged that, even though the game had been moved back to 4:15 p.m., he and his group would still begin drinking at 8 a.m. It’s some kind of rule.
Quick teammate plug: Before I do anything else, I want to thank Jeff Zrebiec and Dan Connolly for keeping the home fires burning on the blog this past week, while I took my lovely spouse on her birthday trip to California and Oregon. Tried to leave her there, but she always manages to find her way home.
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Comments
I root for whatever yes man the warehouse wants. I am a zombie and listen to whatever they say. I do not need to think on my own. I am an Orioles fan.
Posted by: Orioles fan | December 19, 2009 2:06 PM
SELL THE TEAM PETE!! YOU SUCK!!
Posted by: Anonymous | December 19, 2009 2:07 PM
Anybody see this?
Best and worst teams of the decade
Baltimore Orioles
Pros: Surprised to see the Orioles here? You wouldn't be if you were one of their dwindling fans. Has any team fallen as far as Baltimore? The Orioles were second in attendance in 1999 with 3.4 million. By the end of this decade, attendance had fallen to 1.9 million. They had a losing record every season, finished in last place twice and finished next to last seven times. They had only one season in which they were in first place after April -- and one year, their final day in first place was in March.
Cons: Baltimore won 26 more games than the Royals and 17 more than the Pirates. Plus, fans could watch Cal Ripken Jr. the first two years of the decade.
LOL so i guess it could be worse! Not by much though
Posted by: Jake | December 19, 2009 2:14 PM
I saw that Jake and by the looks of the attendance plummeting (sp?) I'd say the orioles are being held accountable, at least at the gate. I don't care how much money PA's making, not having 1.5 million fannies in the seats hurts.
They are taking baby steps in the right direction, but eventually you gotta make bold moves to compete in the AL East. Shoot, just for fun, lets say the Os signed Delgado (just for fun!) to play 1b. Put them in AL Central, NL Central, and maybe even the AL and NL west, they'd be competitive.
By the way, I am on the Delgado bandwagon! The guy'd drive in 115 runs with Roberts, Reimold, Markakis in front of him!
Posted by: cush | December 19, 2009 3:04 PM
You guys want snow, try living up here in Northern Ontario for a winter or 2!
Anyway, a little snow never kills anyone-talking baseball seems to help. The O's can't help but get better with the latest moves...I see .500 as a possibilty and right now, we are probably already better than the Jays and Rays.
Toronto basically got fleeced in the Halladay deal and are paying 6 mill of his salary to boot! Their starting rotation is suspect and while they have decent hitting, it will take years to dig themselves out of the mess Ricciardi left. Plus, no one seems to care about the Jays and attendance in severly done in that parking garage they call a stadium.
Tampa Bay had a decent run but they aren't going to get much better as guys like Burrell didn't pan out, Kazmir is gone and they likely won't be able to afford all their stars like Crawford, Upton etc because no one seems to care about baseball there and as a result, the bottom-line isn't good.
As a long-suffering O's fan since the mid-60's, I'm not wearing the rose-coloured glasses but maybe we finally are on the right track.
Posted by: TerryP | December 19, 2009 4:20 PM