Josie's on a Vacation Far Away....

...A little reference to one-hit wonder "The Outfield" could only mean one of two things - Camden is either making a fool out of himself, drunk off Jack at Klondike Kate's '80s night or it's time to preview the Baltimore Orioles 2009 outfielders. Lucky for you guys, it's the ladder tonight.

This preview is gonna be a little different, I'll take a look at the O's current OF's as well as a couple of guys that should be greeting us in Left Field at the 'Yard later on this summer. Also, just for grins, each player gets a music lyric that reminds me of them. Why? Because it's my blog and I can do what I want. Let's get started.   

                                                                                       

Nick Markakis, RF, #21 (in case you are stupid and don't know who he is)

"I'm a pimp in every sense of the word, bitch." -Jay-Z

Nick defines the term "Alpha-male." He's 25 years old, he's rich, and he makes a hard game look easy. He is the undisputed cornerstone of this franchise and one of the best all-around players in the game. He is a phenomenal bat at the plate, a heady base-runner, and should be sittin' on at least one Gold Glove, if not two. His six-year extention in January literally added 5 years on to my life. With him patrolling RF for us, hey, we at least have something    (Balt. Sun)

 to watch every night. I'm thinking .310 with about 28 bombs, 100 RBI and 20 steals, and more importantly, he'll do something that make's you say wow every night. Simply put, he's "The Man."

Adam "Sugar Bear" Jones,  CF, #10

"Picture Me Rollin" -Tupac

I would like to take this time to personally thank Bill Bavasi, former GM of the Seattle Mariners, for bending over and taking one for Charm City on the Erik Bedard trade. O's get a Superstar CF in the making, an all-star reliever, and possibly the best pitching prospect in baseball for a whiny bitch that is always hurt. Bill, this Bud's for you, wherever the hell you are. Sugar Bear (let's start referring to him by that for now on), has the tools to be great, and I look for him to show that off even more so in 2009. The kid bleeds athleticism and just needs to put everything together. He worked out with B-Rob in Arizona all off-season and looks to enjoy the fruits of his labor. I'm thinking .280, 18 hrs, 25 steals and stellar "D."

Felix Pie, Left Field, #18

"And you may ask yourself, where does that highway go?"  -Talking Heads

Who the hell knows what we have here. All we heard was how if nothing else, he was a sure-thing with the glove, yet he's been a bigger train wreck in left than Britney and Lindsay combined. He was named the Cubs top prospect two years in a row, but I'm not real confident he ever puts it together.  I admit I was for the trade, but if Garrett Olson wins 10 games and pitches 180 innings this year and Pie is released by the trade deadline, i'll have to eat a large crow hoagie. I'm not feelin' the dude at all. I say he is replaced in June by...

Nolan Reimold

"Just a little patience, yeah-yeah, some more patience, yeah-yeah"  -Guns N Roses

This kid has pop, no-doubt, but when he swings and misses, it looks like an Oklahoma twister. He's gonna have streaks where he hits 5 bombs in a week and he might "K" 15 times in a week. He is very athletic for a big man and should be an asset patrolling left. He's raw, but when it's said and done, I think he is the LF of the future. He'll hit 25-30 bombs a year and strike out a ton. Never an all-star, but when your other two outfielders are all-stars, you just need a solid everyday player. Enter Nolan Reimold.

Also in the mix:

Lou Montanez  

"Two out of three ain't bad." -Meatloaf

Can hit for average, can hit for power, couldn't catch an STD on the block at 2 a.m. Should get ab's later in the year as a 4th or 5th OF.

Ryan Freel, Util, #2

"Let the bodies hit the floor, let the bodies hit the flooooorrr." -Drowning Pool

This guy has an imaginary friend (Farley), runs through walls, steals bases, plays all over the field and thoroughly enjoys himself playing the game. I'll take him.

All in all, I love the outfield. Nick is my man-crush. Sugar is a blossoming star, and we have a couple of intriguing youngsters on the horizon. I think we'll run-down every ball that stays in the 'Yard (which might not be many) in sight and get better every night. What more can you ask for from a rebuilding team? 

Mac, hit them with the infield bro...

Camden is Here...

(The cure for cancer?)

...And that isn't necessarily a good thing. After all, I am an O's fan. Basically, I echo most of Mac's words from earlier this afternoon with just a few things to add. I love the Baltimore Orioles as much as anything on this planet, that should tell you about the issues I have right there. This franchise means the world to me and it always has since I was a baby bird

I love all sports, and by sports I mean baseball, football, basketball, and golf, if Tiger is involved. Baseball however is on another level.

It's a sickness that just isn't curable. Mac and I wanted to start a blog that was a little different than your run-of-the-mill internet blogs. This is a place for O's fans (or haters) to vent their frustrations as well as share their optimism. As Mac mentioned before, this isn't a blog for the faint of heart. The word fuck will be used and it will not be spelled like f*%& or some stupid shit like that, it will be spelled f-u-c-k. We are pretty much down to Earth guys and we are going to call it as we see it.

Mac talked about some of our ideas in his post so I won't bore you with the repeat. I'm sure we will add things and we are definitely open to suggestions. I'm usually not big on the rules and regulations as I don't respond well to authority, but I'm going to leave you with a couple notes:

1) Mac has a fucking gift with the keyboard, read his shit, it's highly entertaining. 

2) We know our baseball, so if you want to disagree with us that's fine, but please know what you are talking about.

3) No Nick bashing. If he couldn't do something right, then it can't be done right. I heart him.

I'll be back tomorrow night to get our 2009 preview crackin', come back and see us.

Hello World...

And welcome, damn it, to 33rd & Eutaw – a blog about the Baltimore Orioles. Now, there are several blogs out there about the Birds, and co-author Camden and I are well aware of that. But this one is going to be a little different and, hopefully, entertaining. Hell, everyone else on earth has a blog, why not us? And, no, we are not fucking losers typing this from our mothers' basements, despite what douchebags like Bob Costas, Buzz Bissinger and Rick Reilly want America to think.

Let me start by saying that this is not a family blog. We will be cursing. A lot. Hey, a decade of losing seasons will do that to you – as most of you probably know. This will be a place to bitch about starting pitching, to look lovingly at the arms in the minors, to express our man crushes on the likes of Nick "The Dick" Markakis and Matt Wieters, and whatever the fuck else creeps into the brains of Camden and I.

We'll delve more into what to expect on a daily and weekly basis later on in this post, but first, Camden and I wanted to tell you a little bit about ourselves, not that you really give a fuck. This is my intro, Camden's will be coming later tonight.

I was born into a family of O's fans, and have been one since I can remember. I love all sports, but baseball and the O's are more important to me than football, basketball and golf combined. I love everything about the game and, believe it or not, I fucking love this franchise. Nothing chaps my ass more than when I used to check out Roch Kubatko's blog when he was at The Sun and read comments from alleged Oriole fans about abandoning the franchise, or not going to games anymore. It makes me sick. Do I love Petey Angelos? Fuck and no. But that's not going to stop me from loving this team. I hate going to games against the Yanks for Sox in our beloved Yard and being outnumbered by those cockless frontrunners. Hate it. But that's the world we are living in. One day soon, we'll make them all eat some fucking crow though. We will.

I've been there through the good times:


And the bad:

(Note: I was going to put a photo here of Jeffrey Maier grabbing that fly ball from Tarasco, but it's just too painful. Little bastard.)

And here at 33rd & Eutaw, we'll be embracing the past, bitching about the present, and wishing for the future. That's what we do as fans.

But enough about me. I'm really not that interesting. I'm a pasty Irishman who spends too much time evaluating Brad Bergeson's stats. What can you expect from us? And why should you waste your time reading this blog when you can be looking at porn? Good question, and I like where your head's at.

Like I said before, we're going to try and be different from the other Oriole blogs. We want to be informative, but we also want to inject a ton of humor, some angst and, maybe most importantly, interaction. Here are some things that Camden and I discussed during a recent 12-hour shift at a Grotto's Pizza drinking 20 oz. beers. Needless to say, this may change:
• Daily game recaps.
• Live blogs of games and running diaries of attended games. We're going to try and do live blogs at least once per week and also during every big game (AL East opponents, etc.). During these live blogs, you'll be able to interact with us by posting real time comments calling Adam Eaton a pussy or raving at Brian Roberts' baserunning ability. Whatever the hell you want. When we go to games, we'll try and put together running diaries of our experiences, starting with Camden's take on the most magical day of the year: Opening Day.
• Once a week, Camden will drop by with a Down on the Farm report about the state of the O's minor league teams. Trust me, Camden has forgotten more about baseball than I know, so he'll hit that fucking nail on the head.
• We'll also do a weekly segment called Memories of the Magic. That'll be memories of the happy times we've had as O's fans. Hey, it's probably going to be a long fucking season, we'll need to look back at the good times often to keep us from driving to New York, ringing Mark Teixeira's doorbell and hitting him in the face with a bag of shit on a daily basis.
• Other than that, expect a lot of venting and some new features that will definitely crop up. If this thing ever catches on, maybe we can do a monthly mailbag Q&A's with people like Roch and Spencer Fordin. Time will tell.

So that's it in a nutshell. Camden will be back later to drop some fucking flavor on this bitch, so don't miss it. And bookmark us for your entertainment all year long.