orioles radio

Blogging about the Orioles isn’t for the faint of heart.
The team, which opens the 2008 season tomorrow, used to have about 30 blogs focused on it, according to baseballblogs.org.
That was on a par with the San Francisco Giants (30 blogs) and Seattle Mariners (31), but well below the rabid followings of the Boston Red Sox (145) and New York Yankees (112). Even some teams without the Orioles’ pedigree or in smaller markets had more blogs about them, such as the 3-year-old Washington Nationals (34) and the Minnesota Twins (39).
And while those numbers are ever-changing, some of those Orioles blogs have dried up since last season, evoking an image of the Wizard of Oz tinman rusting in mid-chop. Who can blame them? After 10 consecutive losing seasons, it takes a lot of effort to blog about a team that everyone expects to be lousy - even in March, when by baseball’s cliched tradition, hope springs eternal.
For a blog titled Fourth Place Birds, the no-hitter that Boston pitcher Clay Buchholz threw against the Orioles last year seemed to be the final straw on Sept. 3. Its final post: “OK, getting no-hit sucks. Especially by a rookie. Especially in his second major league start. Especially when I was convinced he was overrated. And yet that wasn’t what bothered me about this weekend. … No, it was Sunday’s opportunity to still win the series despite Saturday’s debacle and they blew it. Bases loaded, none out, and you don’t score?”
Or as the blog Camden Crazies put it more definitively in its last, bitter gasp last fall:
“Step 1. Give Dave Trembley a contract extension. Step 2. Lose 30-3 the very same day. Step 3. Win 3 out of your next 21 games. Step 4. Start the likes of Tike (bleeping) Redman. Step 5. Let Jim “9.00 ERA” Hoey Pitch! Step 6. Quit Blogging.”

baltimoresun.com


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