Fox Sports video: Fox Sports national baseball correspondent Ken Rosenthal, formerly a hugely popular columnist for the Baltimore Sun -and constant presence in the Washington, D.C. radio scene as well thru his frequent appearances- discussed on Wednesday night what Oriole pitching great Mike Flanagan meant to devout Oriole fans and how he exemplified "The Oriole Way" of doing things, an ethos missing in Baltimore for so many years that when I bring it up, people look at me like I'm a dinosaur.
For those of you who only know Ken Rosenthal from his work on Fox-TV game broadcasts, Ken is a very classy guy and a very talented writer who knows how to get to the heart of a story and share the context in an interesting and informative way.
Which puts him on a very short list.
If you don't think I shared an email or two -or dozen- with Ken while he was at The Sun...
Years before it was being written about just about everywhere, I told Ken about litigator and Orioles majority owner Peter Angelos' interest in pursuing the link between the use of cell phones and brain damage/cancer, based on reports coming out of Europe.
Rick Dempsey: He played 'The Oriole Way':
THE HERO!
Rick Dempsey, Baltimore's World Series MVP, October 24th, 1983
I could've predicted this criticism below in Baltimore Sun's TV critic David Zurawik's column Thursday, early Thursday morning when I sent my previous email with the WBAL video with Gerry Sandusky.
And guess what, he doesn't even link to it.
WBAL put the video on their YouTube Channel, which I subscribe to, but they made it un-embedded so that they keep it as exclusive. They have NOT placed any of their news stories about Mike Flanagan from Thursday on the Channel.
Can't help but wonder if that's due to laziness or because of station management caving-in to dopey fans like the ones below calling and complaining.
Fans who even in the year 2011 think that because they see someone on TV or have seen them in person, that they REALLY know them.
You'd think that the cases of O.J. and Tiger Woods would've enlightened people about this ridiculously naive approach, but then even when I was going to 25 games a year at Camden Yards from my home in Arlington County, VA, for a decade straight after it opened, often getting home around 1:30 a.m. during the week, parochial Baltimore locals were STILL preciously saying that the D.C./Northern Virginia fans were "ruining things."
No, actually devout fans like me saved the franchise from irrelevancy and made the Orioles a big-market team (in a small market) by selling-out that stadium day-after-day, night-after-night.
But even that financial alchemy couldn't prevent Angelos & Sons from micro-managing and ruining a good thing, firing Davey Johnson shortly after he was named AL Manager of the Year, and they haven't been the same since.
(Davey Johnson being the last MLB batter to ever face Koufax, in 1966 World Series, when 'the Baby Birds' swept the Dodgers.)
The direction of the Baltimore Orioles -their glorious past, absymal present and rather uncertain future- both on-the-field and up in the B&O Warehouse, where Angelos & Co. brook no dissenting opinions, will be the subject of even more posts here in the future.
My "THANKS CAL" BUTTON FROM 2001
Cal Ripken Jr.
The ONLY new WBAL video on Flanagan storyline is this 29 second interview with former O's pitcher Tippy Martinez. http://www.wbaltv.com/video/28978855/detail.html
Pathetically, on their own website, as of Midnight, 2 of the 3 news stories about it are NOT theirs! The third?
The aforementioned 29-second video.
Thursday night on MASN, which I watch on DirecTV from here in South Florida, even though much of the programming is blacked-out here, after midnight, rather than show the scheduled repeat of the Twins at O's game, they replayed the Orioles' last home game at Memorial Stadium from October 6th, 1991, against the Tigers.
(A game that was commemorated by the Orioles thru seemingly manufacturing a million green or black plastic soft drink cups embossed in gold that were used that last series at Memorial Stadium. I had about five of them when I left a game against the Tigers that last week. But they were still being used at Orioles Park at Camden Yards so much into the next year that after a while it became an inside joke to Oriole fans.)
In that last game, Mike Flanagan came in with one out in the top of the 9th with O's trailing 7-1 -he struck out the two batters he faced.
And left to a standing ovation.
I taped the show and will endeavor to post some screenshots I took of Mike Flanagan here later.
I'll also go thru my Orioles stuff I have on hand and see what I might have that might interest you.
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Baltimore Sun
Z on TV
WBAL-TV stands behind Sandusky report on Flanagan and reasons for suicide
But police investigation offers different explanation for Flanagan's act
By David Zurawik
The Baltimore Sun
10:47 p.m. EDT, August 25, 2011
WBAL-TV is standing behind its Wednesday-night report by sportscaster Gerry Sandusky linking the suicide of former Baltimore Orioles pitcher and executive Mike Flanagan to him being "despondent" over being perceived as having failed the team and fans during his time in the O's front office.
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I will try to find out what Beltway-area baseball maven Phil Wood, late of MASN, whose WTEM radio show I listened to every Saturday morning for years -like all my friends did, too- is saying about the Flanagan story-line all of this and share that with you over the weekend
