nick markakis, meet marcel prOust

Wayward O was thinking of doing "year in baseball" post today but decided to focus on "year in Orioles Baseball" instead. Can you believe threshold for rememberance of indignities past? Wayward O is wrapping emotional tourniquet around psychic wounds, strapping on pain shield and taking ride in Battered & Brokebacked Orange and Black Wayback Jammy Pack ...

Come along for ride!

January - Wayward O is very shaky on January. He thinks team may have signed free agent pitchers or something. On Jan. 9, Cal Ripken Jr. elected into Baseball Hall of Fame. Team picks up Jeremy Guthrie from Cleveland off waiver wire.

Feb. 13 - Balloons fall! Small children dance with glee! Along the reeds of the cold-flowing Patapsco, a Baltimore Oriole takes flight! Wayward O launches WEB SITE!!!!!!!!

Feb. 20 - Miguel Tejada vows new attitude, saying, well you can read it here. If you weesh.

Feb. 22 - Baltimore sage Peter Schmuck, second only to JOE ANGEL in WEALTH OF KNOWLEDGE ABOUT TEAM, gets in fight with feral parrot at spring training complex and uses FROZEN BEVERAGE to soothe pain where bird bit NOTE-TAKING HAND.

Feb. 25 - Wayward O takes bite of Happy Apple, writing:

Os have balanced lineup with 5 or 6 guys who will hit 20 hrs ... tejada, mora,
huff, payton, the cake --- but do we lack the HULKING kent hrbek-like slugger
who casts a shadow like the mountain at sunrise? yes. but all is not lost.
because we have a LOT OF YOUNG PITCHING AND OUTFIELD TALENT.

March 22 - The Young Savior, Nick Markakis, hits two home runs in spring training tilt versus Los Angeles Dodgers and also pulls back would-be home run at wall in right. Sports Illustrated, Baseball Prospectus, and other big sports publications too many to count, say Orioles will finish fourth or last. Wayward O gets mad at them! But really he is only mad at self for optimism!!! Wayward O is like Achaean warrior, marching off to certain defeat on plains of Peloponnese, all the while refusing to accept fate; Wayward O's blood will run cold in winedark sea.

March 29 - V.P. of Baseball Ops Jim Duquette says team would "sign for .500 right now"; sets tone for what turns out of be another miserable season. Who said winning in AL East was easy? As we saw this year, however, Duquette would have comeuppance in form of demote-ance.

April 2-4 - Team begins 2007 campaign on wrong end of sweep at Minnesota. Ramon Hernandez, beset with mystery "oblique" ailment, refuses to play but resists DL. Team's backup catchers (Paul Bako and Alberto Castillo) are hitless in series versus Twins.

April 7 - It's going to be a long year for closer Chris Ray. Alex Rodriguez, on way to MVP season, belts Grand Slam off team's no-longer-inscrutable closer in 10-7 Yankees win. However, Orioles take rubber game next day, seemingly righting ship with series win in Bronx.

April 28 - Hapless Orioles manager needs alert coach's help to set straight poor umpire's decision after Young Savior's tag-up run is waved off by umpire in win at Cleveland. Indians play game under protest. Despite win, Sam Perlozzo's fate is sealed, though axe would not fall for many more weeks.

April 30 - Gary Sheffield goes toe to toe with big Daniel Cabrera during nasty one in Detroit. Sheff isn't big enough to fight Cabrera, so he does even better, taking Cabrera deep on the next at-bat in 8-4 Tigers win. Tejada gets into minor scuffle with Pudge Rodriguez after Jeremy Bonderman comes too far inside.

May 4 - Team shuts down "the Wing Man," aka Adam Loewen, for season because of stress fracture in pitching arm. Wayward O looks forward to return, someday. Maybe. Or maybe not. Who knows?

May 13 - Mother's day. Scrappy Orioles begin inevitable spiral into doom by blowing 5-0 ninth-inning lead in Boston, Massachusetts to eventual World Series Champions. Team's record falls to 18-20 and .500 disappears into the mists, not unlike fabled village of Brigadoon. Once again, Ray is on hill as disaster unfolds...

May 30 - Height of Mark Teixeira trade rumors ... but Tex ends up in Atlanta, probably through next year.

June 7 - Just added! Thanks to alert reminder from Birds of Prey forumers! With fifth pick in draft, team selects Georgia Peach Matt Wieters...


Wayward O catches historic moment on camera!
But negotiations with super-prospect cause great consternation. Many fans stake entire fandom on signing young catcher! Orioles and Wieters make a deadline deal in mid-August and everybody is happy! Major hope for future is built-in with signing.

June 18 - Five long weeks after Mother's Day Massacre, Sam Perlozzo is fired. Bullpen coach Dave TrembO is promoted to "Interim Manager." Negotiations with Joe Girardi fail, thank goodness. Trembley looks like Captain Kirk, has spark, Wayward O is at first disgusted but slowly grows intrigued.

TrembO channels Earl.
June 20 - Busy day! Doug Brocail breaks Miguel Tejada's wrist, jeopardizing short stop's run of 1,152 consecutive games in MLB and stalling team's deadline effort to trade star player.


Doug Brocail you @*&^!
Stubborn crazy Miggie tries to keep playing to no avail and finally takes seat on June 22. Apparently looking for things to grouse about, some members of DiaspOra get mad at TrembO after Miggie tries to stay in the lineup. Orioles end 9-game losing streak - all losses at Camden Yards - behind Jeremy Guthrie's 8 innings of road warrior. Team says Andy MacPhail is now calling shots; fanz have their doubts.

June 28 - With Derek Jeter at bat in driving rainstorm, umpire refuses to call game and Orioles get jobbed out of win versus hated Yankees. A month later, Orioles almost come back to win suspended game...

June 29 - Aubrey Huff hits for cycle in losing effort versus Anaheim Angels of Anaheim. An inspired Melvin Mora tries unsuccesfully to bunt for cycle.


Not so nice...
July 21 - No Mas! Chris Ray goes on 15-day DL, never to return.

July 31 - Erik Bedard outduels Josh Beckett in Boston, 5-3, as team finishes nice two-week period before heading into August swoon. Bedard officially becomes star MLB pitcher. We believe this was also game where Young Savior made following catch:


Ball. Player.
Aug. 12 - Team sticks it to Boston and Amber gets chilly shower with Kevin Millar! Wayward O catches image on camera and now Amber lives forever in blogosphere!


Icy Hot!
Aug 21. - DiaspOra mourns death of Wild Bill Hagy.

Aug. 22 - The blue period begins. Team loses to Texas Rangers by score of 30-3. TrembO named real Manager. Other losses during this period include 11-3 at home to Minnesota on 8/26; 15-8 at home to Tampa Bay on 8/27; 17-2 at Tampa Bay on 9/5; 18-6 at Angels on 9/12 and a couple other significant blOwouts, the most ignominious of which being...

Sept. 1 - Young Red Sox hurler Clay Buchholz no-hits Orioles during 10-0 win at Fenway. Pollyanna radio announcer Fred Manfra concedes team may not be heading for playoffs.

Sept. 4 - After a nightmarish year, Ray is placed on 60-day disabled list. He's likely done for 2008 as well. About a week later, on Sept. 12, fellow bullpen exploder Danys Baez climbs aboard the surgery train; we likely won't see him until 2009 either.

Sept. 22 - Markakis goes three-for-five with a walk and a home run in team's 11-9 win over Texas. Just another day at the park for the Young Savior, team's brightest light, who plays hard every day and finishes with 23 HRs, 112 RBI and a .300 BA. Nick's toils in Os-scurity get YouTube props from Os fan Natalie Black:


Need hanky after watching!
Sept. 29 - Cabrera runs win-loss record to 9-18 in meltdown at Yankee stadium. Team gives up a 10-spot in fourth on road to 11-10 loss.

October - Nothing of significance happens to team during uneventful month.

Nov. 6 - Fleet of new coaches comes on board in wake of TrembO / MacPhail housecleaning. Wayward O marvels at lack of Major League experience, prays for divine inspirations instead.

Nov. 13 - Drunky Huff provides week of entertainment after word of his Salty Dundalkness leaks out on Blogosphere. Orioles free agent waxes blue on such topics as drinking, ladies of the night, pleasuring self, and Baltimore's "horseshit" nightlife on Tampa Bay-based satellite radio show. Holier-than-thou Crabtown bloggers vent frustrations in Land of Pleasant Living but to Wayward O's ears it sounds like jealousy!


Clearly not on steroids.
Dec. 6 - Jay Gibbons suspended by baseball for 15 days beginning next season for hGH. GibbO admits he did it but says it was to heal up from injuries. Diaspora yawns.

Dec. 12 - Tejada is traded to Houston Astros for five doods. Also playing for Astros is Carlos Lee, who could have helped team during 2007 season. Free-spending Astros shelled out $100+ million for Lee, however, a sum not likely to be ever again matched for a free agent by Orioles. At press time it was unclear whether five doods acquired in Tejada trade would amount to hill of beans.

Dec. 13 - Tejada, Brian Roberts and Gibbons are key Orioles named in Mitchell report, investigating performance-enhancing drug use in sport. Roberts subsequently cops to using steroids ... once.

Dec. 21 - Roberts says he "likes the atmospheres" at Wrigley Field and makes reference to Bartman game. Will he be next to be shipped out of town?

That about sums up year! Please let Wayward O know what mOments he missed by using handy, easy-to-operate comments section below...

brian raskOlnikov

wayward O is starting to wonder about what's NOT in columbo report...



"just one more thing
before i go, mr. roberts..."
or to put it another way: how does former senator have guys copping guilty despite what appears to be mere hearsay?

wayward O has THREE THEORIES as to why this is: theory number one is pedestrian in nature; theories number two and three SPAN AGES and deal in MAN'S TRUE NATURE and GOOD VS. EVIL.

THEORY NO. 1: confession amounts to FINAL PARTING of WAYS between roberts and organization, since orioles just yesterday attempted to DEFEND their DIMINUTIVE SParKPlug. roberts can't stand EVIL OWNER anymore and wants to MOVE ON. he waits until team defends him, then PULLS OUT RUG FROM UNDER team. wayward O doesn't think this is strongest theory, as he doesn't picture roberts as this type of passive-aggressive person.

THEORY NO. 2.: admission is like 'a tell tale heart', and roberts COULDN'T LIVE WITH THE GUILT. because as we know, roberts is a MAN OF INTEGRITY and he gives back to kids in community and fought off heart ailment as a child, beating the odds to become a MLB star in first place.




THEORY No. 3: our good friend and faithful oriole has copped to the pettitte defense, leading us to believe he has SEEN ERROR of HIS WAYS. this theory can also be called "CRIME and PUNISHMENT" theory. now, as rodion romanovich raskolnikov was exiled to SIBERIA for his CRIME AGAINST THE EVIL LANDLADY, roberts should probably be exiled ... to chicago! for you see mr. Roberts, all MEN are CREATED the SAME. there are no classes of men; no Giants walking among us...

the truth is out there, friends.

chemical bankees

yes, it's true: every team is guilty. but some teams are GUILTIER THAN OTHERS. but don't take it from Wayward O, who is clearly biased. what follows are words and images from NYC and national sports media:

"The Yankees haven't won a championship since 2000. That championship appears to be chemically enhanced." - Len Berman, Channel 4 Sports, NYC. 13 December 6:21 pm


AM New York
"It was a depressing day for the Yankees, whose sustained run of success was smudged by the revelations." - Jack Curry, New York Times


Metro New York
"Many of the proudest moments in New York's baseball history will have to be reassessed ..." - Nicholas Wapshott, New York Sun


Daily News

"There were Yankees everywhere in this report, enough of them to taint their run a bit in the late 1990s and early 2000s." - Filip Bondy, Daily News


Trentonian

"You might as well call it the Clemens report." - Tom Verducci, Sports Illustrated

larry the canary

now that senator mitchell is done fixing ireland, he is fixing baseball with report!!

wayward O read report last night with great fervor. there were so many facts in there! mostly they established that YANKEE GREAT ROGER CLEMENS was SO MAD at RED SOX that he CHEATED HIS ASS OFF in order to prove former team wrong.

here is concise re-cap of winner and losers:


~BIG WINNER~ Adobe Acrobat Reader
~BIG LOSERS~ New York Chemical Yankees*
&
LARRY the CANARY

What's up with Larry's lame accusation? (Please turn to pg. 158 in your report)...

Roberts and Larry Bigbie were both rookies in 2001. According to Bigbie, both
he and Roberts lived in [David] Segui’s house in the Baltimore area during the latter part of that season. When Bigbie and Segui used steroids in the house, Roberts did not participate. According to Bigbie, however, in 2004 Roberts admitted to him that he had injected himself once or twice with steroids in 2003. Until this admission, Bigbie had never suspected Roberts of using steroids.

Not cool, big guy.



something tells me B-Rob cannot beat up Larry the Canary WITHOUT JAY GIBBONS' HELP. but now that gibbons is basically finished, he can be an MLB ENFORCER like how WASHED-UP HOCKEY PLAYERS stay in their league for couple extra years.

NOTE TO B-ROB: If you still live at Segui's house, you should probably move out.

* More on how Mitchell report is devastating to cheating Yankees later....

intenté mi mejOr

a tear fOr number ten

the wayward O is sad to say goodbye to a great player. we'll have to re-name section 80 at camden yards because "miguel tejada home run land" is no longer applicable.

"i don't think it's ever easy to trade away a player of miguel's stature," said a stern andy macphail during a telephone press conference wednesday afternoon.

tejada will never win any awards for being close to the vest, shrewd or patient. but he brought energy, hope, that unmistakable whipsaw swing and immense talent to baltimore, taking a gamble on a team many other players wouldn't.

and he got burned. because peter angelos and his band of jokers did not live up to their promise to build a winner around their start short stop.

but now the orioles have macphail calling the shots. and macphail seems to have a vision for what he wants to do.

at the very least, macphail seems to have his starting outfield set up for 2008: luke scott in left, tike redman in center and nick markakis in right.

macphail is close to the vest about the pitchers acquired in the trade. on the conference call he did not promise any of them would be on the 2008 roster. in fact, wayward O sort of got the feeling that some of the might be traded before playing with team.

hopefully the tejada trade will mark a new chapter the history of orioles-astros deals. baltimoreans are, of course, still sore about the glenn davis trade in the 1990 offseason. maybe some of these young 'uns coming here from houston can undo the lingering resentment and become the steve finleys and curt schillings of the future.

the orioles will "control" luke scott for 5 years and the other four players for six years each, macphail noted. the astros added a big bat to their lineup. it's quite an arms race in the NL central.

wayward O spent part of the afternoon trying to think of tejada jokes, but none came to mind. really, it's a sad day here at t.w.O. world HQ.

wayward O trembles with fear

now that tigers have retooled lineup to hang with red sox, let's have a look at projected '08 team with some key '07 stats:

curtis granderson .302 BA
miguel cabrera .320 BA
magglio ordonez .363 BA + retarded power numbers
gary sheffield .265 BA but look at the protection
carlos guillen .298 BA
ivan rodriguez
edgar renteria .332 BA
placido polanco .341 BA
jacque jones .285 BA

and super-sub marcus thames hit 18 home runs in 86 games.

it's a young lineup. it's an experienced lineup. it's a fast lineup. it's a powerful lineup. it's a world series lineup.

imagine what Tigers is going to do to Orioles next year...

jay cOmes clean, kinda

on sept. 10 of this year, here is what wayward O said about jay gibbons:

wayward O wants gibbons to differentiate himself from this sorry lot by standing up in public like a man and giving a full accounting of his cheating ways.

and you could look it up. today we learn that gibbons has done some of that. here is what he tells the baltimore sun:

"I am deeply sorry for the mistakes that I have made," Gibbons said. "I have
no excuses and bear sole responsibility for my decisions. Years ago, I relied on
the advice of a doctor, filled a prescription, charged the hGH, which is a
medication, to my credit card and had only intended to help speed my recovery
from my injuries and surgeries. I hope that my family, teammates, fans and
[Orioles owner] Peter Angelos and the entire Orioles organization will accept my
apologies and that we can all move on."

so now what do we do? well, i think it's best to trade gibbons if some other team will have him. try to sell him as a reclamation project and give him away -- even if it means eating some of his contract.

because while most of what gibbons says is admirable, wayward O wonders about his stated motive for juicing ... and finds it difficult to swallow the notion that jay simply wanted to heal from an injury.

beyOnd (the mississippi)

away back in july, wayward O reported upon some unsavory doins' afoot on Walter O'Malley front! why would pro-O'Malley movement be hitting radio and teevee waves all these years later, Wayward O asked amid summer's swelter, to sully Robert Moses and re-cast him as central villain in great saga of departure of dem Bums to sunnier climes of west coast in year 1957 AD?


It all seemed a bit random until yesterday:

But revisionist history has been relatively kind to Mr. O’Malley, who owned the Dodgers from 1950 to 1970. Many historians maintain that, still at the height of his city-shaping powers in the late 1950s, [Robert Moses] forced Mr. O’Malley’s hand by refusing to use eminent domain law to acquire land for Mr. O’Malley to build a new domed stadium along Atlantic Avenue to replace the undersize Ebbets Field.

Others say Mr. O’Malley forced Mr. Moses to force his hand by making unreasonable demands for land and snubbing Mr. Moses’s offer of a stadium in Queens. They say he was just looking for an excuse to move to Los Angeles, where he knew he could make a lot more money.

The NYT even plays REVISIONIST HISTORY CArD as t.w.O. did in July!

This episode proves BEYOND SHADOW OF DOUBT that there are secret, powerful, conspiratOrial forces controlling game of baseball to large degree:

• pynchonesque secret handshakes;
• out-of-temporal-phase meetings between greats past and present;
• karma-leases that don't come due for decades to come;
• atavistic urges;
• and other cloak-and-dagger renderings of truth that don't manifest themselves for lifetimes!

JAY GIBBONS, ARE YOU READING THIS? Fear not the moment, rather the DECADES.

in silence we click, seeking hOpe

SO MUCH NOT HAPPENING with Orioles team right now!


why just last week ROCH's blog was OVERWHELMED by traffic of DIASPORA seeking ANY NUGGET of hope for team now ten years in crapper.

So for your offseason entertainment, Wayward O offers you NEVER BEFORE PUBLISHED SCREENSHOT of Miguel Tejada about to beat up JEREMY BONDERMAN.

Wayward O asks you ... if Team has young short stop named Luis Hernandez, and Tejada to play third, why not just trade Mora to Mets for Bag of Ballz? David Wright Can't play 3rd base each and every day, can he?