The Preakness and The Battle of the Beltways...

Walking through the inner harbor this past week, you would have had no idea that the Preakness and the first installment of the Battle of the Beltways were happening this weekend. A critical marketing blunder as far as Baltimore sports fans are concerned...

Anyone notice the attendance at RFK Stadium this weekend? Probably the best numbers they've seen all season (I believe Saturday nights game brought about 30,000 fans to the ball park). Good for them...the Nationals, although struggling now, are at least doing it the right way. What I mean by that is that the Nats front office has acknowledged that this was a building year for the young team, instead of snowballing the fans (Jim Duquette) by rationalizing losing as "bad luck." Where's the accountability in the Orioles franchise? It's never anyone's fault, is it?

As far as the Preakness goes, this once wonderful and prestigious event is now known more for being a rowdy party in the infield. When asking one of my friends why he was going he replied "Dude...CHICKS AND BEER." Not for the thrill of the race, not because it was tradition, and not because it could be the last one EVER at Pimlico. I guess the MJC wants to continue to attract the party crowd and continue to steer away sports fans. Hell, they don't care...as long as 110,000 people show up every year and they see dollar signs. But attracting that demographic is destroying the race. The Preakness has fallen from grace, and it may not even return to Baltimore next year! It's hard to account for what EXACTLY is the reason for this possibilty, personally I think it's that we don't have slots at the racetrack. It's probably a combination of many things, but if this truly was the last year for the Preakness, that would be a travesty of EPIC proportions considering what The Preakness used to represent in this city.

I'm not saying I don't like going to the Preakness, but I've only been ONCE. It was the year that Afleet Alex won the race. I got hit in the head with a full can of beer and got peed on by a drunk guy who proceeded to try to fight me. It wasn't my favorite thing in the world, but aside from those two incidents it was pretty fun. It's great when your in high school and college and can go and party and pretty much get away with anything. It's a right of passage for Baltimore youths. But I'm getting to the point in my life where I don't want to stand in urine and vomit for 9 hours. If I wanted to do that, I'd hang out in Lindsay Lohan's hotel room.

Side note about the O's recent series "victory":

When is Danys Baez going to get his act together and when is Sam Perlozzo going to STOP PUTTING HIM IN THE GAME? He ALWAYS blows it, and he royally screwed Bedard's effort today, who pitched a gem and even got an RBI! But Bedard did let me down...after the game, it became known that he asked to come out of the game in the 7th, instead of giving our bullpen a break. He said he was "tired from hitting and running the bases." Excuse me? You're a professional athlete, champ...sprinting 90 feet shouldn't exhaust you to the point where you ask to come out of the game.

In Saturday's game, Chris Ray got bailed out from blowing ANOTHER save because the smoking line drive that was hit off of a middle-of-the-plate, belt-high fast ball was luckily hit right at Freddie Bynum. Considering the closeness of these games, we COULD have walked out of DC this weekend being swept by the lowly Nationals. Thank god we didn't.

Other than the bullpen, it was nice to see some fight in this team again, and overall, they played well during the series in DC after their lackluster efforts in Boston and Toronto. Where was that fire and passion then? In Toronto, the players were SITTING DOWN in the dug out during the 9th inning of a 2-1 game instead of supporting their teammates at the plate. Today and yesterday, they were up in the dugout during the close contests...glad to see that they care again. It was also nice to sneak in a series win at the end of a road trip. Let's see if they can keep it going against Toronto on Tuesday, a game which I will be attending with my dad. Look for us when a right-handed batter is at the plate (we'll be in the background). We're going against Burnett, who has been dominant against us this year, but I'm optimistic...he's due for a loss.