Major League Baseball

The Baltimore Orioles transformation to a minor league team is now complete

It’s August 1st which means the Major League Baseball (MLB) trade deadline has come and gone. The Baltimore Orioles got out their trade hammer and let it swing with reckless abandon.

The Orioles acquired a lot of minor league talent. Too bad their farm system is terrible. They would have a better farm system if they employed actual farmers to develop their prospects.

An actual farmer should be put in charge of the Orioles farm system.

Real farmers. The guys who grow potatoes and complain their government subsidies aren’t higher.

The problem with the Orioles is ownership

The Baltimore Orioles switch to a AA minor league team is complete - Bent Corner — Baltimore Orioles owner Peter Angelos.

Unfortunately, the Orioles couldn’t trade their owner Peter Angelos or his two sons, Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum. Not only would there be no takers, evidently MLB doesn’t allow trading away ownership. That’s too bad.

Angelos bought the Orioles on August 2, 1993. From 1994 to today, the Orioles have enjoyed a win-loss record of 1,861 -2,064. That works out to a .901 winning percentage. In that same time span, the Orioles have had 17 losing seasons. That’s 17 out of 25 seasons.

Ticket prices should be based on a team’s winning percentage

This season has been extremely brutal. Out of 107 games, the Orioles have only won 32 games. That’s ridiculous. MLB should have rules in place for situations like this. If a team fails to have a winning percentage above a certain number, the team is prohibited from charging MLB prices for tickets. A better idea would be to have all teams base their ticket prices on their winning percentage. There would be a set price for tickets established by MLB and then every ten games, the price would change based on the team’s winning percentage. Teams with a winning percentage above one would be able to charge more, teams with a winning percentage below one would be forced to charge less.

MLB standard ticket price x winning percentage = corrected ticket price

Right now with a winning percentage of only .299, the Orioles are still pricing tickets what they would if they were one of the best teams in the league. That’s immoral.

The Baltimore Orioles are the Washington Generals of MLB

Currently, the only reason to go to an Orioles game is if you’re a fan of the opposing team. It’s one of the reasons they price tickets against the Red Sox and the Yankees higher than they do for the White Sox or Mets. There are fans of the Red Sox and Yankees up and down the mid-Atlantic region. These fans are willing to pay more to see their favorite team play the Orioles, especially when the Orioles are terrible. Fans of other teams usually see their team win against the Orioles. Angelos is able to capitalize on this and add even more money to his already inflated bank account.

Peter Angelos has a lot of money. I have it on good authority when Angelos is home, he sits upon a giant pile of gold, much like the dragon from The Hobbit. Win or lose, the Orioles allow him to add to his giant pile of gold.

That needs to change.

San Francisco Giants Brandon Belt has a 21-pitch at bat

San Francisco Giants first baseman Brandon Belt made Jaime Barria of the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim of Orange Country throw 21 pitches in the first inning of Sunday’s game. Belt eventually lined out to right field, but it doesn’t really matter.

The at-bat lasted 12 minutes and 45 seconds. When you make a starting pitcher throw that many pitches, it is a quality at-bat.

San Francisco Giants Brandon Belt has a 21-pitch at bat - Bent Corner — 2017 Topps Heritage Brandon Belt card.

Belt broke the MLB record set in 1998 with 20 pitches between hitter Ricky Gutierrez and pitcher Bartolo Colon.

Jaime Barria escaped the first inning with no hits but threw a total of 49 pitches. Ouch.

A Giants-Angels game is one of those weird events where I truly hate both teams. I normally want both teams to lose whoever either team is playing, but when they play each other, that cannot happen. I don’t even know which team I hate the most. If I had to pick one, I’d probably pick the Angels. I don’t like how they’re constantly changing their name or how they now pretend to play in Los Angeles. There’s only one team that plays in Los Angeles and it ain’t the Angels.

Cleveland Indians to get rid of Chief Wahoo logo by 2019 season

The Cleveland Indians plan on getting rid of the Chief Wahoo logo for the 2019 season. This is according the AP’s Twitter account, one of my favorite oracles of truth and knowledge:

BREAKING: Cleveland Indians removing Chief Wahoo logo from game jerseys and caps, starting in 2019 season

— AP Sports (@AP_Sports) January 29, 2018

This from the New York Times:

The Cleveland Indians will stop using the Chief Wahoo logo on their uniforms beginning in 2019, according to Major League Baseball, which said the popular symbol was no longer appropriate for use on the field.

The logo has long been the source of anguish and frustration for those who consider it offensive, outdated and racist, but for many of the team’s fans it is a cherished insignia — a divide that has played out at all levels of sports in recent years with teams featuring such nicknames and insignias.

I can’t even pretend to imagine what it would be like to experience “anguish and frustration” over a cartoon character. I’m quite picky when it comes to what I anguish over. The same with what I experience frustration over.

Cartoon images don’t make the cut.

I can’t help but notice how Major League Baseball worded the message about Chief Wahoo. They said it was no longer appropriate for use on the field. What about the gift shop or in the stands?

My guess is that they will still sell merchandise with Chief Wahoo on it because people like Chief Wahoo.

The Washington Bullets changed their name years ago to the Washington Wizards because they didn’t want their name associated with gun violence. Guess what? You can still buy lots and lots of Washington Bullets merchandise.

If I cared about sports, this story might mean more to me than it does. I find the older I get, the less I care about sports. In fact, I’m starting to go the other way.

I’m starting to believe sports and the consumption of sports is more harmful to our society than it is beneficial. It feels like whatever one benefit sports give to our society as a whole, it also generates at least five other problems that we are too willing to ignore.

MLB’s hollow tribute to Jackie Robinson

One of the advantages of reactivating my Facebook account is that I get to see lots of ads. A while back I must have “liked” the official Lids Facebook account. I now get to see ads from Lids in my Facebook feed.

That’s not a problem. I like to wear overpriced hats associated with professional sports franchises. By Lids peppering my Facebook feed with ads, I now have a better idea on what I should be spending money on. In other words, being a good consumer.

There was an ad I saw yesterday that made me look twice. It was for hats honoring Jackie Robinson, the first black player to play in Major League Baseball. Not the first black player good enough to play in Major League Baseball. Jackie Robinson was the first black player the racist pricks who controlled Major League Baseball allowed to play.

Major League Baseball has now turned the legacy of Jackie Robinson into a way of making money. These hats at Lids are just one example. The thing that surprised me about the ad is that they couldn’t even bother to get his name right. It’s Jackie Robinson, not Jackie Robins.

It annoys me that every team in Major League Baseball gets to honor Jackie Robinson when only the Dodgers signed him and put him on the team. When I see a Yankees hat with 42 on the side, I think it’s honoring famed closing pitcher Mariano Rivera. He played 19 years of the Yankees and he wore the number 42 like Jackie Robinson. He started wearing it before Major League Baseball retired Jackie Robinson’s number league-wide. Players who already wore the number 42 could continue to wear it.

Why were they allowed to do that? If you want to mass retire a number you should be willing to enforce it immediately. We’re all for honoring someone or something, unless it’s inconvenient. Having to change the number on your uniform would just be too inconvenient.

Every year I saw Mariano Rivera play with the number 42, the more I associated that number with him, not Jackie Robinson. Like every other Yankees player, his name wasn’t on the back of his jersey. All he had was a large 42 on the back. Even now when I see the numbers of retired players at Camden Yards, the blue 42 makes me think of Mariano Rivera, not Jackie Robinson.

MLB's hollow tribute to Jackie Robinson - Bent Corner — Retired numbers at Oriole Park at Camden Yards.

It looks it me that the Orioles are honoring Mariano Rivera. This is the same team that has a statue of Babe Ruth in front of the stadium. Babe Ruth, the greatest Yankees player of all time.