The DC Landing Strip Is Not Completely Crazy!

When rooting for a shitbox team like the Orioles, and all you have is hope, it's nice to see the optimism justified by professional writers.

Today's front page of espn.com features a Jerry Crasnick article entitled "Three Bad Birds" which details the oh-so-kickass outfield trio of Adam Jones, Nick Markickass and Nolan Reimold. I'm pretty sure the title means "bad" in that backwards '70s way which really means "good", kind of like "cat" used to be used the way "dawg" is now. As in, "hey jive turkey, that O's outfield is filled with some bad cats, ya dig!" would be street slang for "Yo homeboy, the O's outfield is filled with good dawgs, woof woof motherfucker." I've never said that sentence, but I've heard the kids jiving on the streets recently and been on facebook once or twice.

An ESPN Insider article also explores "The Cavalry" of O's pitching prospects, ranking them as follows: 1. Chris Tillman, 2. Brian Matusz, 3. Jake Arrieta, 4.-6. Brad Bergesen, David Hernandez, Troy Patton. So for the low low price of not-for-free (what isn't free in the internet era?) you can read the exact same article we wrote a month or so ago. Hey ESPN, if I wanted to pay for plagiarized material, I'd buy a Harry Potter book.

If you don't have ESPN Insider, all you need to know is the money quote from the last sentence:

The best three teams in the American League all play in the East this year, but by 2011 that number might be four.

And I'm 80% sure they're not talking about the Blue Jays.