MIKE BURKE Allegany Communications Sports Cal Ripken Jr. grew up in a Baltimore Orioles family, naturally, as his father had been a lifer in the Orioles system as a player, coach and manager; and in those days of young Cal’s childhood, no team in Major League Baseball won as often as did the Baltimore Orioles,…
MIKE BURKE Allegany Communications Sports One of the first memories of the Summer Olympics for me was watching Bill Toomey running in the shadows of the Olympic Stadium in Mexico City to win the 1968 decathlon. My mother was watching it on our black-and-white TV, so I started watching even though I had no idea…
MIKE BURKE Allegany Communications Sports In real-life baseball vernacular, it is the proper answer to, “Is this heaven?” No, it’s Cooperstown. Cooperstown, New York is Baseball Heaven. During Hall of Fame Induction Weekend, it may be the closest thing to real heaven on earth. Sunday was Induction Day in the quiet, sleepy village of Cooperstown,…
MIKE BURKE Allegany Communications Sports The Major League Baseball trade deadline is Tuesday, July 30 at 6 p.m. It used to be July 31 at 4 p.m., but the Commissioner’s Office now sets the deadline for any date between July 28 and August 3 in an effort to avoid conflicting with games; which sounds reasonable.…
MIKE BURKE Allegany Communications Sports The Major League All-Star Game is tonight and that used to be a red-letter day for baseball fans, going all the way back to the time the annual MIdsummer Classic was played in the afternoon. Of course, in those days every meaningful baseball game was played during the afternoons, and…
MIKE BURKE Allegany Communications Sports It’s the All-Star break, the much-needed All-Star break for some teams, with the Baltimore Orioles being at the top of the list of teams that can use a rest and a reset the most. The Orioles have had three days off in the last 70 days, facing most of the…
MIKE BURKE Allegany Communications Sports First of all, isn’t the Washington-Jefferson-Roosevelt-Lincoln Mount Rushmore good enough? Why must we be so pee-wee football, “Well, the big kids have it so it’s not fair for the little kids not to have it” as a society? The participation trophy mindset remains a pox on us all. That said,…
MIKE BURKE Allegany Communications Sports Depressing news out of Pittsburgh on Tuesday, though clearly not surprising since it involves Pirates owner Bob Nutting. According to John Perrotto of Pittsburgh Baseball Now, members of the Pirates front office remain “furious” over comments Nutting made in late June when he made it sound as though the Pirates…
MIKE BURKE Allegany Communications Sports With the Fourth of July in the rearview mirror, baseball’s postseason races must be heating up and the All-Star break must be coming next week. Not only that, NFL training camps must be just around the corner. All true, and who could want more, right? The Baltimore Ravens, the best…
MIKE BURKE Allegany Communications Sports When Charles O. Finley announced in 1968 he was moving the Kansas City Athletics to Oakland, Senator Stuart Symington of Missouri, from the floor of the U.S. Senate, blasted the maverick A’s owner, who in just eight years as owner of the team had threatened to move it to Louisville,…
