MLB 2022: The Long and Winding Thread

Again, I implore everyone ridiculing the Lopez piece to go back and look at his Baseball Reference page. He has caught lightning in a bottle this year as a closer, and his value was never going to be higher. The Orioles now have a young team fighting for a playoff spot. They probably won't get it, not with the ridiculous schedule they have left and the pillow soft schedule the Mariners have left. But they're going through it, learning, getting experience. And they have the best farm system in baseball, so things will only get better /HowardJones. Jorge Lopez was not an irreplaceable piece, as Bautista is showing. As for Mancini, unless you were going to sign him to a long-term deal, you get something for him. The Orioles weren't, and they did. The last time they sentimentally signed someone to a long-term deal, it was Chris Davis, and we know how that turned out.

BAL remaining sked: 3 at TB, 3 at TOR, 1 at CHC, 3 vs BOS, 3 vs CHW, 3 at HOU, 3 at CLE, 3 vs OAK, 4 v TOR, 3 v BOS, 2 at WSH, 3 at TOR, 3 vs DET, 4 vs HOU, 4 at BOS, 4 at NYY, 3 vs TOR
SEA remaining sked: 3 at TEX, 3 at LAA, 3 at OAK, 2 vs WSH, 3 vs CLE, 3 at DET, 3 at CLE, 3 vs CHW, 3 vs ATL, 2 vs SD, 4 at LAA, 3 at OAK, 3 at KC, 3 vs TEX, 3 vs OAK, 4 vs DET

The Orioles' hope is to unseat Tampa or Toronto (more likely Tampa), but that schedule is really, really tough. The only "easy" series are against the A's, Nats and Detroit. Seattle is done with Houston and the Yankees, and I'd argue the Mariners' only tough series left are against Cleveland and Atlanta (maybe the Padres, too). The Orioles will not finish with a better record than Seattle. The Rays still have nine left against the Yankees and six left against Houston. A season-defining series coming up for Baltimore this weekend, and as a fan, I'm pretty happy that such words are being written in the middle of August. I'll be watching.

 

Well said. I didn’t realize how easy the M’s sked is. Or to put it another way, how hard it has been. They’re done with a division rival in early August. Wild. But that’s the nature of this year’s slate.

 

If you are talking poker, on a train running south from Chicago to Memphis at two in the morning. Or maybe on a warm summer'eve, on a train bound for nowhere.

 

MLB marketing is a hologram of Harry Carey singing "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" in an Iowa cornfield.

Boomers. Ruin. Everything.

 

But, but trading the heart of the team, the cancer survivor, was going to send this franchise into a tailspin.

The intangibles, the galvanizing of the locker room and other cliched nonsense.

 

That would be cool. Force the teams to travel by train back to Cincinnati.
The notice on TV was on the ticket and was referring to MLB. I cannot think of any place for a game that could be done.

 

Cubs fans looking toward the booth expecting Harry to lead a singalong in the seventh inning at Candlestick Park may be one of the more pathetic things I've seen in a ballpark.

 

If you aren’t trying to replicate the movie and just have a cool setting for a one-off game, come to Rickwood Field in Birmingham. Oldest existing baseball stadium anywhere.

https://rickwood.com/

 

Actually, OSU's Goss Stadium holds the title. They've played baseball on that same lot since 1907.

https://osubeavers.com/facilities/goss-stadium-at-coleman-field/5

 

Rickwood might be a place for a Negro Leagues tribute.

 

Would be perfect. Play up Willie Mays and the Black Barons.