Short Break to Tell the Truth

FanBoys comic

Serves You Right For Being a Bitch

On Monday, the Orioles fired their manager Sam Perlozzo, a former Orioles player whose lifelong dream was to manage the Orioles.

He was not very good, compiling a 122-164 record in less than two seasons as manager.

So the Orioles, who haven't finished above .500 since 1997 (congratulations to Davey Johnson, who now is the answer for the question "Who is the most recent Baltimore Orioles manager not to suck?"), went on a crash search for new talent in the drivers seat. They aquired a new general manager/Chief Operating Officer in the person of Andy MacPhail, whose father was Orioles manager right after the team moved from St. Louis to Baltimore.

They were the St. Louis Browns, for the uninitiated. And oddly enough, the team has purged all records of ever having been the Browns from their website.

Anyway, the question was, would Baltimore owner Peter Angelos, who is a historically whiny bastard as owner, let his staff do their jobs and make the team better? He has deep-sixed several trades that would have made his team capable of winning at least he wild card, if not the division, in the last few years. His only big free-agent splashes were Sammy Sosa, who sucked for one season in a Baltimore uniform, and Miguel Tejada, who was good for one season and has since been on the decline.

And ohbytheway, the Orioles have a 90-million dollar payroll. For 90-million, you would expect to at least have a .500 record, or something. Right?

As another ohbytheway, Peter Angelos categorically opposed letting a team move into Washington (the Nationals), because he thought they would take away fans from his team. He shut up when Major League Baseball agreed to write him a multi-million-dollar check.

Perhaps Angelos doesn't understand that fielding a crappy team is what costs you fans, and being a dick costs you fans. Having another team appear in your market will only cost you those fans who weren't really your fans, capiche?

The team went on a search, and zeroed in on Joe Girardi, 2005 National League manager of the year. Girardi, you may recall, managed the Marlins almost to a wild card berth that year, despite having a total payroll of 14 million dollars, lowest in the majors by about $10 million that year. He was summarily fired because he got into a public argument with Jeffrey Loria, the Marlins owner.

What made the Orioles owner, who is a bigger turd than Loria, think that no-nonsense Joe Girardi would manage the Orioles, a worse team? God only knows. But Angelos went after Girardi anyway.

And today, he was uncermoniously rejected. Girardi politely said that it was family issues that made him decide not to take the job, but my guess is that in the interview, Girardi said, "I'd like to run the team my way," and Angelos said, "I'm the billionaire here, you poor little peasant. I'll run the team how I want."

And so the Orioles have no new manager, and are suffering through their worst attendance in decades - 2 million tickets sold is a stretch goal, where they used to draw nearly four million a year.

And Peter Angelos still doesn't get it.

Tomacco!

Most of you should remember the Simpsons episode about Tomacco (if not, click here for a refresher video).

There's a building for sale in my neighborhood that's listed by Tomaco realty. I have yet to figure out if there are any violent sheep trying to buy it.

That's One Lucky Pole

On June 10th Robert Kubica, an F1 driver from Poland, launched his car airborne when he left the track and hit the grass apron during the Canada Grand Prix.

Videos are available by clicking here.

He's fine, came out of the hospital on the 11th limping a little bit, but otherwise OK. He also said he remembered basically everything about the crash, presumably including the bit where his feet were dangling out of what was once the front end of the car when it was over (that would explain the limp).

Thing is, though, the wreck illustrates part of what I dislike so much about Formula One versus the other major auto racing formats, NASCAR and IRL/Cart (Indy Car).

Formula One tracks have a bumper curb, meaning that the road edge is higher than the grass around the track in the apron. As part of their desire to not see racers take shortcuts around the track, F1 also has that curb ramped, meaning that there's basically a small ramp all around the track. This means that when a car loses control, if it hits that ramped curb moving forward, it will go airborne.

Just like Robert Kubica's car did.

If you watch the video carefully, one thing you'll notice is that the front end of the car stayed airborn almost until the car struck the dividing wall. If the car had remained at that angle for another split second, chances are good that Kubica would have been killed by being crushed or split in half, or that the car itself would have continued onward and upward into oncoming traffic - he wrecked at the start of a U-turn.

NASCAR and IRL/Cart road tracks have flat curbs, so if you lose control, you just slide into the dirt and barriers. There's no going airborne as a result of a system-wide design flaw.

That flaw came pretty close to killing a guy. I hope F1 changes that curb system before it actually does kill someone.

By the way, how many people thought this post would be about strippers?

I Can't Stop Giggling

Invisible Sandwich!
Visible Sandwich!

I will kill him! I will! (That's a reference to Sting's stellar acting skills, by the way.)

I am a failure.

And, finally, my own "work"

For more really goofy-fun images, click here.

Great Moments in Caption History

"These French sunbathers on the beach in Cannes probably should avoid eating the sand."

From Foxnews.com. Link

Apparently, Cannes sand is full of E. coli bacteria.

There and Back Again

Yes, that's a Hobbit reference. Yes, I'm a dork.

So I visited Kirsten's kinfolk in Houston (with Kirsten, I should add) last weekend, and it was a good time. Good Texas folk, every one of them. I should point out that the public high school in Texas had an invocation during graduation. It was even scheduled on the program. Apparently, the ACLU and ADL haven't had a lot of effect making inroads into the central Texas mindset.

Anyway, as per my previous post: driving in Houston is not so bad. Traffic is heavy, but not insanely so. I kind of enjoyed it. The construction in the town of Conroe, north of Houston, was insane and foolish, but whatever. I only had to drive through it twice, and so I can live with it. Pity the poor fools who chose to live there, though.

Anyway, a second portion of our trip involved going to Charleston to visit my parents, which was also nice. I got to practice my masonry skills and lay a stone patio, which was kind of fun. I've never done it before, but I think I did a decent job of it. We'll see how it holds up to weather. The only problem was the heat - it was 90 and humid in town when I did it, and I was close to passing out by the end of the day.

Finally, I noticed a lot of talk on SportsCenter while I was out about how the NL Central is the worst division in baseball. That might be the case - the Pirates, Cardinals, and Reds are all in that very same division. But I figure the best way to compare the divisions is to look at the divisions' cumulative records against other divisions, and against interleague opponents.

Here's what we get. The comparisons are broken up into overall out-of-division record, other division record, and interleague record:
AL East: 78-75, .510 (72-66, .522; 6-9, .400)
AL Central: 78-72 .520 (68-67 .504; 10-5 .667)
AL West: 66-69 .489 (58-65 .472; 8-4 .667)
NL East: 66-56 .541 (57-50 .533; 9-6 .600)
NL Central: 51-88 .367 (46-78 .371; 5-10 .333)
NL West: 75-54 .581 (71-46 .607; 4-8 .333)

So there it is. Not only is the NL Central the worst division in baseball (with a winning percentage 120 points below the next-worst division, the AL West) they one of only two divisions with a losing record outside of their division, and the only division with a losing record in both American League and National League play.

That division is terrible. Just terrible. As a Cardinals fan, I can't help but understand that this season is going to be very, very long.