Blurred lines

NOTE: I realize that “Blurred Lines” is the title of a thoroughly inappropriate popular song I recommend you avoid.  I have two things to say in my defense:

1.) I wasn’t thinking about the song when I composed the title for this post.

2.) Weird Al has redeemed the music from “Blurred Lines” and written an amazing, educational, and uplifting new set of lyrics under the title “Word Crimes.” I recommend listening to it and watching the video over and over.  Perhaps while grading.

 

Old Detroit: “L”, 7 – 4.   .297, .395, .514; 0 ip, 0 er.  Yesterday I went on and on about how the EFL is better than our MLB competition. A little later in the day the Orioles hosted their practically homonymic rivals, the Royals, in front of an official count of 0 fans. Manny Machado went 3 for 4 with a double and a homer.

Of course, even though they won, this was bad for the Orioles organization, and it was the result of devastating tragedy for Baltimore. It was a sad day all around.

Please take another look at the featured photo for this post.

In June of 1992 I sat with Ryan and Melissa in seats pictured in this photo, in the second deck almost all the way out at the end.  We could see into Eutaw Street easier than we could see the plate, since we had to lean forward and crane our necks pretty hard to the left to peer around other people peering around other people peering around…  But I’m straying off my point.

Can you see the three of us out there, as we appeared almost 23 years ago?

Of course you can.  You own a fantasy team.

Haviland:  W (-1), L 2; 5 – 9.  .226, .333, .355; 13.3 ip, 9 er.   Jeff Samardzija, who so badly wanted to knock a Royal down a peg or two the other day, found in his EFL team owner a Royals fan he could knock down a peg yesterday with his 7 earned runs in 5 innings.  Apparently, the boundaries between fantasy and everything else aren’t as impermeable as we might think.

Cottage: L, 0 – 3.  .179, .179, .250; 10 ip, 4 er. The Cheese’s non-Cardinals went 1 for 20 with two GDP to essentially create negative runs for the game.  Heroic efforts by Jason Heyward and Matt Adams (4 for 8 with 2 doubles) got it back to 0.

Peshastin: L, 8 – 9.  .313, .389, .563;  11 ip, 9 er.  Danny Salazar ( 6 ip, 4 er) and Alex Wood (5 ip, 5 er) combined to stink things up in Pearland.

Pittsburgh:  W 1, L 1; 14 – 13. .400, .421, .686;  1 ip, 0 er.  Michael Brantley went 0 for 4, but all 9 of the other Allegheny hitters reached base at least once, and Mike Trout went 2 for 3 with a double, a homer and a walk to make up for the replacement innings the Alleghenys took on during their double header.

Flint Hill : W, 6 – 0.  .343, .361, .714; 18.3 ip, 7 er.  That featured photo shows Chris Davis hitting a home run.  James McCann and Joc Pederson matched his achievement, and Josh Collmenter provided 8 scoreless innings as the Tornados stormed to a victory.

Portland: “W”, 5 – 6. .281, .368, .344; 12.7 ip,  7 er.  Geovany Soto played in the “empty” stadium in Baltimore, and had a batting line that looked a lot like the stadium: 0 for 3.

Canberra: L, 7 – 7.  .308, .364, .615;  14.3 ip, 10 er.  We went to that game in 1992 to see the first-place Tigers begin a 10-game road trip.  They lost. We saw them again in Boston and at Yankee Stadium.  They lost those games, too. In fact, the loss in Baltimore was the first of a 10-game losing streak.  We made it to Detroit to see the bedraggled Tigers finally come home after falling into third or fourth place.  Cecil Fielder hit a homer over the right field roof — which we didn’t realize from our seats in the bottom deck in right field, because the ball had disappeared from our view — and the Tigers broke the losing streak we saw them start.

That trip, starting in Baltimore, is one of our favorite family memories, especially precious to me today. (Happy birthday, Ryan.)

Someone didn’t get to make a memory like that yesterday.

Kaline: W (-1), L 2; 1 – 9. .343, .361, .714; 18.3 ip, 7 er.  Alex Torres made a memory yesterday.  He came in to face one batter. It was Ichiro.  Ichiro homered, his first as a Marlin, his 113th in the major leagues.  Alex left for the showers, 0 ip,  1 er, having contributed his bit to Ichiro’s hall of fame career.