Two trades that did benefit both teams

Two trades that did benefit both teams MIKE BURKE Allegany Communications Sports With the Orioles and the New York Yankees wrapping up a rare four-game series today in Baltimore, and given their long history of competing against each other in the American League East since 1969, not to mention the often chippy relationship that has…

New dimensions suit Walltimore just fine

New dimensions suit Walltimore just fine MIKE BURKE Allegany Communications Sports Prior to the 2022 season the Baltimore Orioles reconfigured the size and the shape of the playing field at Oriole Park at Camden Yards. The facelift in one of the most beautiful ballparks in the world took place in left field as the Orioles…

Yay, Reggie Bush; up your nose, NCAA

MIKE BURKE Allegany Communications Sports On Wednesday, the Heisman Trust decided to reinstate former Southern California running back Reggie Bush as the 2005 recipient of the Heisman Trophy, emblematic of the best college football player in America, which, of course, he easily was in 2005. The decision came 14 years after Bush was stripped of…

Draft Day – so bad you have to love it

MIKE BURKE Allegany Communications Sports The NFL hosts one of its most important and most-watched television productions tonight with its first installment of this year’s NFL Draft; or, as it is officially called, the Player Selection Meeting. Yeah, some meeting; but I’ll watch it, even though I don’t follow it very closely anymore. Why not?…

Wash, rinse, repeat

MIKE BURKE Allegany Communications Sports Yes, we’ve seen it before; we’re seeing it again. Only the names change to protect the hitting. This year it’s 20-year-old Jackson Holliday, the No. 1 prospect in baseball, who in nine games in the big leagues is 1-for-30 with just two walks and 16 strikeouts. The same people who…

April can fool you, but the results don’t

MIKE BURKE Allegany Communications Sports April baseball is so fickle. In the matter of a week a team can look like the goods, or a fraud; but just two three-game series later? You got it, there’s an entirely different perspective on a team; any team. Take the Baltimore Orioles, the Pittsburgh Pirates and the Washington…

Remember Jackie Robinson every day

MIKE BURKE Allegany Communications Sports Yesterday was Jackie Robinson Day in Major League Baseball, the day when fans who aren’t tuned in to the world never know who most of the players are because they’re all wearing No. 42 to honor the Brooklyn Dodgers great Jackie Robinson, who became the first Black player in MLB…

Holliday in (See what I did there?)

MIKE BURKE Allegany Communications Sports Get there early tonight and stay late: Jackson Holliday is coming to town. And what do you know? Baltimore Orioles general manager Mike Elias has proven to be a man of his word. Elias told us at the end of spring training, Holliday, MLB’s No. 1 prospect, was not being…

Dapper Dan hits the game-winner

MIKE BURKE Allegany Communications Sports Congratulations to the Dapper Dan Club of Allegany County for its choice of Marshall University’s Abby Beeman as its Top Award recipient for the April 28 Dapper Dan banquet at Ali Ghan Shrine Club. She is the perfect choice first and foremost because she earned it, and she did so…

Leo has been warning us for years

MIKE BURKE Allegany Communications Sports Within one week’s time, Major League starting pitchers Shane Bieber and Eury Perez have been scheduled for Tommy John surgery, Spencer Strider has serious elbow concerns and Gerrit Cole and Kyle Bradish are out with elbow issues as well. Here’s why pitchers’ elbows keep exploding: Modern training, modern theory based…