Given that MLB has been around for 150 years with over 218,000 games having been played, it is always amazing to me that there are still “firsts” occurring. Check out this chain of events in Saturday’s game between the Orioles and the Blue Jays.
The Blue Jays had their ace Alek Menoah pitching a good game against the O’s through 5 innings. The score was tied 2-2 in the 6th inning when Jay’s manager John Schneider visited the mound to talk to Menoah. Turns out that it was Schneider’s second visit to the mound that inning and by the rules he must take his pitcher out of the game. Schneider forgot that it was his second trip and as he said in his post game comments summed up his visit very succinctly when he admitted “I F****** Up” (click here.)
For another good video discussing this a little longer but just as funny (click here.)
Being an Orioles fan, what made this f’up particularly enjoyable is that it went down immediately after Menoah had struck out O’s Adam Frazier on a very bad third strike checked swing call. When Frazier said something to the umpire about the call, Menoah then proceeded to yell at Frazier. This prompted Schneider to visit the mound probably to try and calm Menoah down some. Note in the video how the announcer states that Schneider is going to make a pitching change. The announcer knew that this was Schneider’s second visit and that Menoah had to come out. Somewhere in the Orioles dugout I’m sure somebody yelled out to Menoah “Karma buddy.”
The Orioles went on to win that game after a three run homer tied the game in the 8th to send it into extra innings where they won 6-5.
Yesterday when I left Buzzy’s Country Store the Orioles and Jays were tied 2-2. Not being able to find the game on the radio as I drove home, I had to check the MLB.com scores on my cell phone. (I wasn’t texting and driving but I was baseballing and driving.) When I saw that the O’s had gone up 3-2 in the top of the tenth, I thought “We got this.” But when I had stopped for a visit with Caitie, Brady and the kids, I saw where Toronto had tied the game in their half of the 10th.
Once I had made it to my home however, I enjoyed watching the O’s score 5 times in the top of the 11th inning and end up winning and sweeping the Blue Jays for the weekend.
Having finished off the Blue Jays, the Orioles are flying high as they now head to New York to take on the Yankees. Some Byrds’ music seems in order. Although this one is usually regarded as being about a drug trip, the song was supposedly written as they flew into London. Most commercial planes cruise along at the 5-6 mile altitude, but eight miles sounded better to them so that’s what they went with in the song (click here.) Here are the original Byrds performing it on American Bandstand:
And speaking of flying to the UK, my wife Pam has organized a tour of Ireland for next May. If interested in joining us, give her a call 301-481-3667.
