Buck Showalter Almost Burned Down Orioles Plane

The Orioles clinched a playoff birth on Sunday. The Orioles. Not only did they clinch a playoff birth, the Orioles are tied for first with the Yankees in the AL East. The Orioles. The team that finished last in the East just a year ago by losing 93 games. The Orioles. A team with a rotation built around Joe Saunders, bandaids, Wei-Yin Chen, a catapult made from Legos and praying for rain. The Orioles. The team that employs and starts two players with career strikeout rates over 30% (Chris Davis and Mark Reynolds).

Davis is having his best season and his second with a positive Wins Above Replacement. He's been crushing it in September hitting .337/.419/.652 with eight home runs including five in his last four games. But it wasn't Davis' smoking hot streak that caused the fire on the Orioles charter plane forcing an emergency landing.

In what I assume was a team-building exercise, manager extraordinaire Buck Showalter was responsible for the kitchen fire and the unscheduled trip to the Jacksonville airport en route to St. Petersburg. I hope they got to use the inflatable slide. Maybe it wasn't technically Showalter's fault but he is taking the blame...

“I didn’t get my coffee so I am a little ornery," he said. "You all know how I am when I don’t get a cup of coffee. They were getting ready to heat up coffee, that’s what happened. So it’s my fault.”

To recap, the Orioles are somehow in the playoffs and do not heat up a tin foil bowl of coffee in the plane's microwave.

Buck Showalter Gets The Interwebs

The Baltimore Orioles snapped an 8 game losing streak Tuesday night exploding for 11 runs while shutting out the Twins. The Buck Showalter Express has been quite streaky this season after opening the year 6-1 before the aforementioned 8 game losing streak. Prior to last night's victory, Showalter was asked if his hitters were pressing. Now watch me blockquote an entire article from The Baltimore Sun...

Last night, after the Orioles dropped their eighth consecutive game, manager Buck Showalter admitted that his players were pressing. "Of course they are," he said. He then turned the attention to the reporter who asked the question and made an analogy about him pressing to produce stories with new-fangled technology.

“You’re pressing to come up with a great … whatever you call it," Showalter said at the post-game press conference. "I mean, that’s what you’re assigned to do. You know, whatever. Blog or blip, or whatever they call them. Or Tweets or Twocks. I don’t know. That’s what you’re paid to do. I got it. I got it.”

I assume he followed that with,"In my day, we used to have to call the bullpen with two cans attached by a piece of string and we had to carve our own bats from hobo carcasses we found on trains." Wow, it got a bit dark at the end of that made up quote.

Anyway, I'm glad that Buck "gets" that blipping and twocking are the future of sports media and isn't afraid that his iPhone will eventually enslave him. I tried to teach my grandpa to use a Wii and now he hides in his room all day from the "robot TV."

Buck Showalter Tries To Downplay Comments

Buck Showalter is awesome. From what I remember, he took over the Orioles half way through last season and managed them to the Maryland state little league championship. But he's become more famous for a recent article published by Men's Journal where he made some comments about Derek Jeter and Theo Epstein which he may or may not remember. I missed that article because I was under the assumption that stuff wasn't printed on paper anymore. So here's a summary from a website...

In the article, titled "Is This Man Too Smart for Baseball?" the magazine quotes Showalter as saying about Jeter: "The first time we went to Yankee Stadium, I screamed at Derek Jeter from the dugout. Our guys are thinking, 'Wow, he's screaming at Derek Jeter.' Well, he's always jumping back from balls just off the plate. I know how many calls that team gets — and yes, he [ticks] me off."

About Epstein, Showalter told the magazine: "I'd like to see how smart Theo Epstein is with the Tampa Bay payroll. You got Carl Crawford 'cause you paid more than anyone else, and that's what makes you smarter? That's why I like whipping their [butts]. It's great, knowing those guys with the $205 million payroll are saying, 'How the hell are they beating us?'"

Showalter goes on to say that he respects both Jeter and the Red Sox organization but I prefer to imagine that he had too many lunch cocktails during that interview and threw a wine glass at a bus boy wearing a Yankees hat.

Showalter Expected to be Next Fired Orioles Manager

The Baltimore Orioles announced the hiring of Buck Showalter as their new manager Thursday, meaning we can begin the countdown to his firing. Let's set it at 750 days.

Showalter is certainly known for turning clubs around. He helped build the Yankees to what they are today, and for that I thank him. After guiding the Yanks to their first post-season appearance in 15 years in 1995, Showalter moved on to manage the expansion Diamondbacks. During Arizona's first season, Showalter once walked Barry Bonds intentionally with the bases loaded, which is one of the stupidest decisions in the history of organized sport. In 1999, the franchise's second season, William Nathaniel won 100 games and a division title, but perhaps because of the Bonds' decision, or because AZ was afraid he would do it again, Showalter was let go following the 2000 campaign. After taking two years off to recommit himself to the bleach-blonde-hair lifestyle, Showalter took over in Texas, where the Rangers had finished in last place the previous three seasons. They finished last in Nathaniel's first season as well (Orioles parallel!), but Showalter finished third in each of his final three seasons in Arlington. If he can do that in Baltimore, they'll make him mayor.

The Orioles are on their third manager of the year after Dave Trembley and Juan Samuel combined to go 32-70. Showalter is expected to get win No. 33 sometime this season.