Replies

Wrong again, liver and onions breath..... ;^)

If they had moved Cal to 3rd, they might have been able to sign a free agent SS.

I'm of the age where the SS was a defensive position and not to be counted on for offense.

Cal changed that...to the detriment of the O's. Cal invented A-ROD and JETER...and to a lesser extent, Nomar Garciaparra.

If Cal had been playing his REAL position 3rd base, they would have been able to fill in the SS position.

Finally, 3rd is an easier position to play.

"I'm of the age where the SS was a defensive position and not to be counted on for offense."

See that's the problem. Move on. The game passed you by. Ripken revolutionized the Shortstop position. He was one of the originals who added power and rbi production to an anemic position. That is a team multiplier. For the majority of his career he was the only one out there doing what he did.

Besides the point is not Ripken a HOFer...it is that a scum sucking Roid taking weasel like Canseco talked shit about Ripken.

Envy. Jealousy. Liar. Noncredible. Canseco and others.

Cal moved to 3rd in '97 and the Orioles won 10 more games and the AL East that year. Case closed right? Ummm maybe not. Bordick had 49 fewer Total Chances at short than Cal did the year before (Cal did play in 5 more games), Bordick hit .236 in 97 but Cal hit .278 in 96. Maybe shortstop is not the decisive edge. Offensively, the 97 team scored less runs, had a lower batting average and hit 61 fewer home runs than the 96 team. Yet they won their division because their pitching was better (5.15 ERA down to 3.91) and they had a great manager in Davey Johnson. Angelos fired Johnson at the end of that year and they haven't had a winning season since.

I'm not a stat head, I had to look all those numbers up. I'll be the first to admit that my defense of Cal is emotional. However, looking over the years, I don't see where he cost the Orioles games. They could afford Angelos' boneheaded free agency deals because Cal was the public image of that team and he put fans in the seats. When I paid to see Orioles games he played as hard as he could every pitch that I ever saw. Everything he did off the field and the way he lead his public life made me proud to be an Oriole fan.