Barb’s Burblings

Happy 32nd birthday, Most Valuable Oriole Brian Roberts!

One of these years, you’ll actually get to play baseball on your birthday.

Congrats to the Twins on winning the AL Central! Crazy awesome game.

A writer at Sports Illustrated named My Boyfriend Brian Roberts captain of his All Underrated Team–the best players at each position who didn’t make the All-Star Team. Nick Markakis also made it, though the writer–after naming Nick the representative right fielder–keeps referring to him as playing left field. Bizarre, but I’m obviously not going to hold it against him. Not when he writes nice things like this:

How underrated has Roberts been this year? He has more home runs (15) and RBIs (73) than reigning AL MVP Dustin Pedroia and more hits (164) than Chase Utley. He has a higher on-base percentage (.355) than Robinson Cano, and a higher slugging percentage (.463) than Dan Uggla despite the fact that Uggla has almost twice as many home runs. Roberts is also going to finish the season with over 30 stolen bases, is currently tied for the most runs scored (100) by a second baseman and will likely lead the league in doubles.

Hearts, Brian!

(For the record, my boy Brian Matusz is duking it out with Jeff Fiorentino for Reserve Oriole Boyfriend. Matty [which is my nickname for Matusz] has the brighter future, but I have a soft spot for Screech.)

So today’s the 70th anniversary of the beginning of World War II, the invasion of Poland. That seems like an insanely long time, doesn’t it? I’ve been following a blog done by the Orwell Prize, which is run by by the Media Standards Trust, the Orwell Trust and Political Quarterly, posting the diaries of George Orwell. It started about a year ago and will go, presumably, until 2012, when Orwell’s diary ends. For a long, long time it was just him wandering around and had a lot about eggs. Seriously. A lot. But lately it’s gotten more interesting as he chronicles the political maneuverings that led to World War II. They’re also including newspaper images from those days. The beginning of today’s entry?

Invasion of Poland began this morning. Warsaw bombed. General mobilization proclaimed in England, ditto in France plus martial law.

It’s just kind of neat to see a firsthand account of it. Also, fewer mentions of eggs.

In other news, September 1 means September callups for baseball. Huzzah! Jeff Fiorentino, a.k.a. Screech, was called up from AAA Norfolk and that made me happy. He’s been doing really well. He was first called up in the middle of 2005, which probably didn’t help (he was only 22, was called up from AA, and probably was just not ready, though he did OK then [.640 OPS] and in 2006 [.683 OPS] in very limited at-bats). Anyway, yay, Screech! I admit I’m partial to him, too, because he bats lefty, has super nice blue eyes, and I have a cute picture of him from photo day back in 2005:

Screech and me

He looks OK, but it’s actually a great picture of me. Yay! (I have one with Javy Lopez from that same day, and I look wretched.) Anyway, I went to a game at Bowie last year or the year before, and the players were signing autographs before the game. I went up to Jeff and got his, and said that I was bummed I didn’t realize it was autograph day, because I had this great picture of the two of us, and bless his heart, he looked bummed and was like, “Man, that does suck!” Aww, Jeff.

(In mixed news, it looks like he actually may get a decent amount of playing time, due to Adam Jones spraining his ankle in tonight’s game. Good things never happen to Orioles in September games against the Yankees.)

OK, Brian may have thwarted my plans by getting married this off-season, but I still have hope. (Hey, this weekend, Becca’s iPhone Magic 8 Ball told me I’d still marry him! It must be true!) So obviously I was interested to this article in today’s Post about baseball wives. Specifically, wives of Nationals players. For all that I enjoy watching ballgames, I’m also really interested in that sort of “behind the scenes” story. I love reading about the planning involved in road trips, and what players do during the day. It’s just fascinating. I never thought about how much the wives would move as their husbands shuttle between the minors and the majors. I’d think that if they had kids, the families would just stay put somewhere.

But what do I know? (I’d totally be willing to learn! Reserve Oriole Boyfriend Brian [Robert!] Matusz, call me!)

Orioles 4, Blue Jays 3

I knew I wanted to go to this past Saturday’s ballgame; I had to miss Adam Jones bobblehead day, so I definitely wanted to be there for Markakis jersey day. Plus, it was the Nats and the O’s were showing Field of Dreams after the game. Cool! It wound up working excessively well; it was my friend Tim’s birthday, and his father had scored his company’s seats…which are on the field, just past first base. And they had an extra seat. Win! I wound up getting there first and securing our place in line, ensuring that we’d all get the jerseys. Of course, it also meant that we were in the stadium by 5:10.

So Dave and I wound up wandering around the stadium when a couple of Orioles staff people came up to me and asked whether I was a season ticket holder. I said that I was, and they asked whether I was familiar with the “Wear and Win” contest, in which a person wearing the season ticket-holder t-shirt wins at every game. Turns out I won an inning in the press box and control room. Woo! Since it was Tim’s birthday, Dave and I figured he’d come with me. So we spent the top of the 3rd in the control room, where we saw the tech folks cueing up replays, tweaking graphics for the scoreboard, and setting up the Hot Dog Race. The bottom of the 3rd was in the press box, where I got to meet Roch Kobatko and Paul, who does the recaps for the Orioles Hangout. Everyone was incredibly nice–O’s staff, folks in the control room, Roch, Paul. It was awesome.

Plus, the O’s won! Woo! And you can see my pictures here.

Then, last night was usher appreciation night at Ford’s Theatre. There wasn’t much to it, but we did get a sneak peek of the museum, which won’t open until July 15. We were allowed to just wander around the theater, which was just awesome. I could go backstage and peek in dressing rooms. Sweet! The museum was still being worked on, but it looks neat. They’ve obviously taken criticism about the museum focusing too much on the assassination–which, hello people, it’s Ford’s Theatre. What do you want them to focus on? Anyway, so they have stuff on Lincoln’s, you know, life. It’s pretty interesting. And the assassination stuff is still there, though kept more to the edges. I’m looking forward to seeing it when it’s done.

But anyway, the best part was that we were allowed to look into the presidential box! Usually you have to sort of lean over the railing from the balcony to see it from that angle; the door to the box itself generally is closed. But last night we got to go into the vestibule where Booth waited; we could see in the box, and see the actual sofa that was in the box that night. I totally did the History Happy Dance. And then had my mind blown listening to other ushers discuss the assassination; clearly these people are more interested in theater than in the history of that actual theater. Which is fine, but kind of weird. (Pictures? Here.)

There was also a raffle for door prizes–books, umbrellas, mugs, that sort of thing. I didn’t win anything, but I guess I had won enough on Saturday to make up for it. Plus, my tap teacher decided to use “You Can’t Stop the Beat” for a routine for next year, at my suggestion. So, wins all around.

Edit. Amusingly enough, it looks like there’s an article in tomorrow’s Post about the new museum. Funny!

Andy MacPhail dropped it in casually during a 2nd inning conversation with Gary Thorne and Buck Martinez, but the reverberations were felt throughout Birdland. Matt Wieters is coming, and now we know when. Friday. June 29 is Matt Wieters Day. The combination of that and tonight’s 7-2 win over the Blue Jays has created excitement in O’s fans not felt in quite some time. (Their crazy hot start in 2005 may be the last time.)

It’s really exciting. It’s already been a fun season, seeing the you guys come up. Brad Bergesen. Nolan Reimold. And tonight’s starting, winning pitcher, Jason Berken. It’s cute, seeing them all interviewed about what it’s like to have your first major league game. They weren’t kidding when they said that by mid-season, the roster would look much different than it did on Opening Day.

(I’m on a high, so I’m not getting into my annoyance with how they’re handling Pie.)

Anyway, it’s all sunshine and roses…except that I can’t go on Friday! No! I had planned for ages to go whenever he was called up, but I stupidly went and bought tickets to see Arcadia at the Folger Friday night. Gah! I am actually fairly upset about this. And, I’m not even kidding here, I’m totally going to DVR the game. One does not deny the Wieters.

Wieters...waiting. Not much longer, Matt. Not much longer.

I went to my second O’s game of the season tonight (Hangout Night at the Yard; fantastic times)–I also went Monday. You really can’t beat Opening Day. The whole thing was just a great time, particularly when it seems like the O’s shouldn’t have a chance…and then they blow out the Yankees. Talk about your reverse lock. And it’s always nice to see my boy doing so well. (He’s only hitting .429? Send him down! Why did we extend this bum?!) (Hmm, they need to update his bio, seeing how he’s no longer single.) (But at least his picture is better this year than in the past.)

In other exciting Orioles news, they now have a daiquiri vendor. It’s as though the O’ brass were like, “How can we make the ballpark experience more appealing for Barb? I know! Daiquiris!” Sadly, he didn’t quite make it to my section on Monday, but I am very excited about this development. I didn’t see him at all tonight, but that’s fine; it was chilly enough that we were trying to track down the hot chocolate vendor.

And naturally we’re all excited about Matt Wieters coming up…whenever that’ll be. I definitely recommend taking a gander at the comments here (”There are no sports curses, only teams that Matt Wieters doesn’t like.”).

Of course, it’s easy to get excited about the Orioles in April, when they traditionally do very well. Talk to me again in August…

Yes, my friends, it’s that most wonderful day of the year…the first day of baseball season. I’m heading out of work early and will be planted firmly in my seat at 4:05. Woo!

Which gives me the opportunity to link to one of my favorite commercials.