Crabcake

The Sox were up on the O’s by 6 runs on two separate occasions tonight and still allowed 10 unanswered runs to finish 12-8 Birds. El. Oh. El. 
 

I’m not gonna pretend like I’ve actually watched the O’s this year, but they do seem to have a fire about them. Still nowhere near competing but with Adley up, Grayson soon to follow hopefully, there’s actual, real hope and progress. Unbelievable. 

McDavid vs. MacKinnon WCF. Let’s go. 

I like em. 
 

Also hilarious how the Rockies have now officially embraced green in a uniform more than they’ve ever embraced purple. 

Purple and green as a color scheme SCREAMS 90’s to me, which normally might be a bit of a bad thing for a team rebranding in 2022, but the Rockies are basically a team stuck in the 90’s anyway (logo and uniforms haven’t changed, have been basically irrelevant to the larger MLB discussion since they got their franchise) so I think they of all teams could pull it off. Anything to make them look more unique and less of a White Sox clone. 

This Oilers/Flames series has a “well, someone has to win I guess” feel to it. 

The Jags were basically perfect between 1997-2008 (take your pick between teal and black numbers for the road.  Teal probably looks better objectively, but I'm always a sucker for teams using their secondary color as the main color on the road), and every rebrand has been a step backwards since then.  The closest they got were the Sacksonville-era uniforms, but the helmet and lack of a teal-with-white-numbers jersey still brings it down.  I'm not always a fan of bring back what teams wore in the 90's with little to no changes, because I think the 90's nostalgia has gotten out of hand a bit in pro sports (looking at you, Ottawa), but in this case it's necessary for Jacksonville.  Go back to what worked.

I really don't feel like getting into a long, drawn-out argument over this, and frankly I'm not invested enough in the Orioles these days to hold my own in such an argument, so I'm just going to say my piece and exit stage right.  Feel free to disagree.

2 hours ago, Ferdinand Cesarano said:

First of all, as a general point, criticism over the retiring or non-retiring of a uniform number is perfectly valid. This type of commentary takes nothing away from the current player.

Correct, and maybe I didn't communicate my point well enough.  As a confirmed jersey number nerd I'm always up for some good ol' Jersey Number Dialogue.  But Buster Olney could've complained about Mussina's number not being retired 364 other days of the year.  To bring it up today feels like he's using one of the rare times the Orioles are making national baseball news to take a pot shot at us, which is something he's shown he's more than happy to do whenever he gets the chance.  So my issue is more with timing than anything, I guess.  O's fans have had to endure the worst team in the majors for like 4 years now with very little reason to pay attention to the major league squad.  Let us have our 15 minutes.

2 hours ago, Ferdinand Cesarano said:

Secondly, as to this specific matter, the Orioles absolutely should retire Mussina's number. Mussina's having later played for the Yankees (or any other team) is completely irrelevant.  Mussina deserves this honour from the Orioles, just as Dwight Gooden deserves it from the Mets.

If you look at it purely from a stats perspective, yes.  Mussina was dominant for the O's in the 90's and is rightfully in Cooperstown.  But there's more layers to it than that.  Debate the merits of said layers all you want, this is just what it is.

I know Yankees fans don't consider the Orioles as a rival at all (and rightfully so), so the idea of why O's fans have never really forgiven Mussina for wearing pinstripes might be foreign to them.  The O's don't really have a traditional, main rival (the Nats are filling that role now but this was 2000 we're talking about).  Baltimore sports fans also have a raging inferiority complex about them, and this seems to come out in force against New York teams for some reason.  The fact that the Yanks barely even pay attention to us definitely feeds that complex.  All of this to say that even though Yankees fans don't give the Orioles the time of day in terms of a "rivalry," for us O's fans, the Yankees were the closest thing we had to an archrival for a long time.  Moose leaving, specifically to the Yankees, hurt O's fans a lot more than people might realize.  Of course, in general O's fans lay most of the blame for Moose leaving at the feet of Peter Angelos.  But the fact he went to the Yankees still stings for a lot of old-school fans.  Had he signed for, I don't know, the Twins or something, there would be a lot less vitriol and a much higher chance of the jersey retirement happening.

The other big thing to consider in all of this is this statement I made:

10 hours ago, Crabcake said:

Even if Moose wanted his jersey retired there’s about 5 other Orioles legends who didn’t skip town to a division rival that would deserve it over him.

The Orioles have retired six non-Jackie Robinson numbers: Earl Weaver, Brooks Robinson, Cal Ripken, Frank Robinson, Jim Palmer, and Eddie Murray.  That's it.  For a franchise that was one of the AL's elite in the 60's and 70's, that's not really that many, and I don't think you can really argue that the six guys I just listed are the six biggest Orioles legends ever.  But really, really good Orioles like Boog Powell, Dave McNally, Paul Blair, Brady Anderson, and others haven't gotten their uniforms retired either.  Moose isn't the only Oriole who was a star for us that hasn't had his number retired.

Anyway, that's my two Lincolns.  That's also the most thought and words I've given to the Orioles in the last several years.

This is the dumbest thing I’ve seen in a while. The #1 prospect gets called up, a kid gets his dream realized, and you use that opportunity to take a pot shot at an organization over a jersey number?? Even if Moose wanted his jersey retired there’s about 5 other Orioles legends who didn’t skip town to a division rival that would deserve it over him. The O’s have sucked for the last 7 years. Can we just enjoy today, Buster? Or are we not allowed to do that since it would glorifying our “tank”? (Notwithstanding the fact that tanking is essentially the only way for a small market team to rebuild themselves, especially in the AL East, and all signs point to the O’s doing it the right way and actually trying to pick their moment to compete instead of a perpetual rebuild.)
 

1 hour ago, DoctorWhom said:

You had 1 job Toronto......

While this is true, can we really express that much shock and awe that they fell short? The Leafs have had “1 job” for the last 18 years and haven’t done it once. 

Pittsburgh loses in heartbreaking fashion after choking away a 3-1 series lead. A glorious day for sports. 

I would normally find stuff like this insufferable, especially considering the franchise it’s coming from, but if I’m being honest I kind of like seeing some of the keyboard warriors with empty space between their ears getting called out for this kind of uninspired and creatively deficient “trash talk” that makes 95% of sports fan Twitter absolutely unbearable. Especially when said keyboard warriors are fans of a Boston franchise. 
 

Remember kids, no matter how much your life sucks, it can always be worse: you could be a Leafs fan. 

On 5/2/2022 at 1:34 PM, MJWalker45 said:

Judging by what Baltimore is doing to sink Lamar Jackson next season I'd add them to the Maybe list too. There's still decent WR's out there, but right now after the draft they have a total of three on their roster, not counting undrafted free agents. 

Every single Ravens front office member loses their job if Lamar doesn't resign.  Everyone in the organization loves him and has nothing but positive things to say about him (and more than the usual pandering stuff for the media).  Harbaugh and DeCosta love him but - and this is key - most importantly, Steve Bisciotti loves him.  He will be pissed if Lamar leaves.  The idea that we are sinking him or somehow don't want him to resign (or even the idea that long term it would be best for us if he doesn't resign) is ridiculous.  Especially since we just invested a gosh darned first round pick on a center to protect him for the foreseeable future.  The Cardinals offered a first round pick for Hollywood Brown.  I don't care what your receiver room looks like, when someone is dumb enough to do that, you can't shake hands fast enough.  

Man, May 2 is gonna be a heck of a day. 

When your created character shows up in a cutscene:

15 hours ago, ramsjetsthunder said:

 

Depends on the combo each team wears. Give the Commanders gold pants and their home set would look worlds better than the Rams and probably better than the Black on White Falcons.

I’ll concede that gold pants would help, but to me regardless of pant color I’ll take the Falcons and Rams over the Commanders. The only team I’d consider worse than the Commanders in terms of home uniforms is the Cardinals when they go monochrome red. 

13 hours ago, oldschoolvikings said:

My goodness, the uniform is just the worst. Just startlingly bad. I feel like I need to write some sort of minor apology letter to the Falcons and Rams. 

The Falcons and Rams’ identities are definitely the biggest winner out of all of this mess. They might not be great but by god are they better than that dumpster fire that was released a couple months ago.

50 minutes ago, seasaltvanilla said:

Completely agree, that "federal" slate  and bronze is a great, unique color scheme. Bring that back, leave the logo in the past.

 

And in fact, if you simply flip  the landmark imagery on the Weagle that removes a fair bit of the negative space that annoys Ridley. 

 

 

Eagle, Capitol, W covered on the chest. Maybe a DC flag with hockey sticks for stripes on the shoulders and the Caps' imagery from all eras is covered, minus cheesy text.

That color scheme, that logo, plus the Capitol building logo and you’re set identity-wise for the foreseeable future. 
 

I’ve said it before, but it’s ironic that of all of the RWB teams in the Big 4, D.C. teams should probably have the biggest claim to use that color scheme of any of them, and yet the Caps’ usage of blue black and bronze is probably the best any team who’s pivoted away from RWB has looked, and moving back to that color scheme would seriously distinguish them from the rest of the pack and reintroduce some seriously sharp threads into the NHL. 
 

Of course, with all the sustained success of the Ovi-Backstrom era in RWB, there’s no chance the Caps change color schemes for the foreseeable future. But one can dream. 

4 hours ago, LA Fakers+ LA Snippers said:

I feel like there should be real-life evidence of this, but I can't think of a team in recent history that has.

And that’s exactly my point. When Ravens fans complain we’re not in for every big ticket free agent, the usual, levelheaded response is to say we don’t have the cap space for them. But if teams can just willfully manipulate the cap without ramifications, then that argument sort of falls to pieces. 

12 hours ago, oldschoolvikings said:

It's becoming increasingly clear that the salary cap doesn't actually exist.

Everyone’s rebuttal to this (and what I have to keep telling myself so that I don’t get too upset over the Ravens not seemingly manipulating the cap like everyone else) is that they’ll feel the effects eventually, that they’re just kicking the can further down the road, etc etc. If that’s the case I want to see some real ramifications in the future. I want to see the Rams having half their cap tied up in players that don’t play for them anymore, Bobby-Bonilla style. I want to see the Saints as bottom feeders because they gave huge contracts to guys for years and just kept kicking the can down the road. If that day never comes then yeah, the cap is just a suggestion, and if it ever gets to that point, the NFL should change things (and they will, because they seem to value parity over all else. Pretty sure it was Kevin Clark quoting someone else when he said that the NFL is designed to make you go 8-8 (back in the olden days of 16 game seasons) as much as possible). 

2 hours ago, seasaltvanilla said:

I don't understand the appeal of the Screagle at all. It's horribly lopisided to the bottom left.  I can't tell if the eagle has one or two wings, not in an interestingly abstract or intentional way, but because they just merge into an uninteresting blob in the upper right. The head and talon are rendered to imply three dimensionality, but the wing/body blob is flat. I want to say the perspective of the stars is wrong, but I can't because I'm not sure what the perspective of the eagle is supposed to be. There doesn't seem to be any significance or thought put into the overall silhouette of the logo, it's just what was left over when they put all the parts together. It feels like a napkin draft of a logo.

Most of my good feelings towards the Screagle, I'm realizing, are connected to the jerseys it appeared on rather than the logo itself.  My Caps hot take has always been that they looked their absolute best between '95 and '00 when the blue Screagle jersey was the main dark jersey.  Over time, the Capitol building logo has really, really grown on me, to the point where I now think it's easily the better logo.  The problem is that the only jerseys it ever appeared on as the main logo during the blue-bronze-black era was the one combination (black and bronze) that was the drabbest, most boring jersey of the lot (and the one jersey that happened to most closely resemble their biggest rivals).  Stick the Capitol building on these jerseys, remove the incredibly dumb (but also hopelessly 90's) CAPITALS from the stripe and you've got a really good set, even by today's standards.

20 minutes ago, BrySmalls said:

 

I know that it is a concept and not the official jersey, but that is ugly.

Are you and I seeing the same jersey? I’d buy that thing in a heartbeat if it didn’t cost $200 and would be sold out within milliseconds of it going live. 
 

I still think a blue capitol building jersey with the ‘98 color scheme and design would’ve been the best possible option, but I’ll definitely take this as a consolation prize. 

You know that Simpsons scene where Homer tries to make a bowl of cereal but ends up lighting it on fire somehow? That’s this franchise. Even when they’re just sending out innocuous tweets there’s like 5 different angles at which you can take pot shots at them, and they’re all too easy. 

3 hours ago, Red Comet said:

 

 

Don’t really know a lot about Cleveland aside from the dumpster fire of the Browns organization that’s been blazing longer than Centralia, but how good is Denzel Ward?

He’s a stud. Easy top 10 corner and arguably in the top 5. He probably deserves that contract but still, that’s a lot of money to tie up in 2 players for an organization that, at the end of the day, has still only won one playoff game in, like, forever. 
 

I understand that in the NFL you need to go all in, especially when you actually hit on high end talent in the draft and free agency, but man if this blows up in the Browns’ faces, it is going to be epic to watch. 

3 hours ago, Sec19Row53 said:

I get that having umps announce challenge reviews sounded like a good idea. But if all they are saying is 'the call stands' or 'the call is overturned', it really isn't useful.

 

Has anyone heard any more than that in a game you've watched?

I haven’t watched a single pitch of baseball this year, so I can’t honestly answer your question, but I’m gonna assume the answer is a big fat “no.” Which is exactly what everyone should have expected. It’s like the baseball media and fans all collectively misread MLB’s statement and thought that umps would be mic’d up during the actual review process or something, and not just vocalize what they already were communicating nonverbally.