This Week In Twitter: Feb. 20–Feb. 26

Hello, everyone, and welcome to your second edition of This Week In Twitter.

Let me start by suggesting you give a follow to Jeff Polman (@funkyball77) – a blogger, strat master and all around good guy despite the team he roots for.

A lot has happened in the world of twitter since last week, unfortunately not a lot of it was that interesting.  Not anything by any of the players anyway.  Let’s cut them some slack, they are getting back into the swing of things and reuniting with teammates.  And honestly, this weeks edition wasn’t going to be about them anyway unless there was something really, really awesome that happened.  Nope, this week I was going to introduce a new part of TWIT which I hope can become an ongoing segment of this column…

Bryce Harper: Phenom…enal douchebag

By now I’m sure you’ve heard of Bryce Harper. He was on the cover of Sports Illustrated at 16 years old as the “LeBron James” of baseball. He famously dropped out of high school, obtained his GED and attended JuCo early in order to be eligible for the MLB draft early. He was then taken

Coward

Not to be confused with Cowherd but I can see how the two can be tricky to separate.  So this week we’ve been having a polite back and forth with Jaime Shoemaker (aka Name Redacted Shoemaker).  To get yourself caught up, if you aren’t already, start here and then go here.

Caught up?  Good.  Lets press on.

Where do your expectations fall if Roberts misses significant time again?

This was my biggest, of many, issues with the club resigning Cesar “Wiffle Ball” Izturis.  Offensively most people would argue that the biggest drop off production wise would be if one of the 2 middle infielders goes down.  I agree, but I do think that this years version of the Orioles is much better equipped to withstand losing Brian Roberts for a long period of time than last years version was.  It is late so I didn’t make a chart this time, but I did do a little comparison between Roberts and who I consider the best replacement in the leadoff spot currently on the roster, JJ Hardy.

Really, you honestly believe this?

That is a question I wanted to ask the scribe of the latest internet ramble that got my blood boiling.  Just to give you an idea, he entitled it “Chipper Jones:  Better than Cal Ripken Jr. and Derek Jeter?“

Ok, so someone posing the question didn’t really bother me, but his answer (and certainly) the way he arrived at it did.  Once again, let’s go through this from beginning to end as I give Jamie Shoemaker what I like to call The Cowherd Treatment.

Blogging Adventures in Turdland

As many of our readers are fully aware, new blogs pop up every day. There are so many to keep track of.  The lifespans of these blogs vary greatly.  Some die as quick as they were born.  Others live full and bountiful lives.

This Week In Twitter: Feb. 13–Feb. 19

Wow, I decided it would be a great idea to recap the random musings and ramblings every week on twitter.  In preparation for this, I expanded the number of people I follow from about 40, a week and a half ago, to 217 and counting, as of this morning.  While doing this I learned a few things.

These are those things:

Ahhhh, Spring

February 14th, Orioles pitchers and catchers reported to camp.  This is awesome.  I look forward to that day every year, as do a countless number of other baseball fans.  Unfortunately…bloggers, reporters and tweeters also reported that day…over, and over, and over again about nothing.

Accountability

I don’t know much about the structure they have over at the Baltimore Sun as far as sports writers go.  I know their main O’s guys are Connolly, Zrebiec and Gould and Jones Jr. (I know very little about those last two).  Then you have Schmuck who seems a general sports writer covering the O’s and the Ravens.  KVV is in there somewhere too. MASN clearly has Steve, Roch, Amber, and the always Boston, always hypocritical Royle.  Matt Venzel chimes in over at B the site.

But, most recently we’ve had run-ins with two wanna-be-Kornheiser types.

Things to come…

A look ahead in the world of the Eutaw Street Hooligans.  We’re not really forward thinkers but we do have some plans for the near future.  Here is what they are:

1.  We’ll have 2 representatives down at Spring Training for a bit in Det. Tom Ludlow and Kevin Lomax.

2.  The return of the Eutaw Street Hooligans Fantasy Baseball League, this time with more shit talk and a lot more analysis.  If you want in, let us know.  Maybe we’ll let you in.

3.  Opening Day, we’ll be there.

4. A new weekly column compiling the best, and worst of twitter around the Orioles.  So be on the lookout for This Week In Twitter, or as we will call it T.W.I.T.

Huggy Bear

…if I wasn’t so worried about getting tossed by security, I’d head over to the Law Offices of Peter G. Angelos and give the big guy a hug. Getting Vladimir Guerrero could be that huge.

I read this statement in a column 3 days ago and immediately thought to myself, “this is gonna be good.” I, of course, was being sarcastic and man was I right.   It has taken me 72 hours to pen my rebuttal for a few reasons, the most significant of which is that is how long it took me to convince myself to go back to that webpage and attempt to read this dreck  for a second time.  But for you, the seven people who read this blog still for some unknown reason…maybe pity fans, I went back and read it in order to break down and illustrate how idiotic this jumbled, mislead arrangement of sometimes seemingly random words thrown together really is.

So that just happened…

So, that thing we talked about? It happened just as expected. The Orioles won a vigorous negotiation against themselves to acquire the services of Vladimir Guerrero. To put the cherry on it, it only took 8 million dollars to do it.

Sarcasm aside, this move definitely takes the Orioles offseason down a letter grade in my opinion.

That Eye Sore is Hurting My Ass

If you’ve been to Oriole Park, or driven into the city from 295, or watched a game on TV, or live in Baltimore and felt this strange soreness in your ass over the last few years, you’ve undoubtedly been affected by the cavernous, gigantic, dick-head hotel called the Hilton.