Base Hits: Trembley on Umpire Bias, Reimold for ROY and A Good Baseball Match

Friday morning on Sirius XM MLB Home Plate, Dave Trembley appeared on Power Alley with hosts Seth Everett and Bill Ripken. Regarding Trembley's meltdown with home plate umpire Ron Kulpa, Seth asked if he thought umpires had a bias for or against certain teams when calling balls and strikes.

Everett: Do you sense, and you don't have to name names, but do you sense that there is some semblance of a bias amongst umpires and that sometimes umpires are favoring one team to another?

Trembley: (laughing) Hey listen, I don't have enough money in my checking account...if I answered that question truthfully, I could never pay 'cause Mr. Watson would get me severely. But what I would say and what I would say very clearly is that the strike zone is different from umpire to umpire and sometimes from game to game. It's not consistent...I just don't understand that....I've always said that the toughest three outs to get in Yankee Stadium are the six you gotta get in the bottom of the 9th. It seems like the strike zone in some places is a little bit different.

He drives me nuts when he bats Cesar Izturis second but how can you not like the guy...

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Via the DC Sports Bog by Dan Steinberg, the Orioles are mounting a Rookie of the Year campaign for Nolan Reimold by sending members of the BBWAA some arguments in Reimold's favor. Here's two that Dan posted:

It's nice that the Orioles are doing this because, quite frankly, Reimold probably just isn't on the average writer's radar.

Now, he's not catching Gordon Beckham for the rookie leader in RBI as the Orioles state may happen but of rookie position players (Beckham, Reimold and Elvis Andrus), he's the best hitter. Pitchers like Rick Porcello and Andrew Bailey are going to cloud the mix as well but Reimold is certainly a worthy candidate.

(edit: So much for this campaign; Reimold is done for the season.

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Oriole-Induced Grimace of the Week:

Carl Crawford is pleading to the heavens but The Holiness he seeks to implore is not skyward but behind home plate. And he just gunned you down. Twice. You're out, Carl.

By the way, was Hancock at this game?

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From an article at Guardian.co.uk about the food served at various sporting events in England and America:



In the United States, where baseball has traditionally been associated with soggy hot dogs and watery beer, an interesting trend began a few years ago when the Baltimore Orioles began selling regional cuisine like pit beef platters and Maryland crab cake sandwiches on match days.



Can't wait to go down to OPACY for a good baseball match! Match day. That's classic.



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On a random note, I was at a poker game on Saturday at the house of the son-in-law of the man who played catcher for the 1979 Pirates. (I believe he was the backup catcher, a guy named Steve Nicosia)

Anyway, besides being on the team that upset the Orioles in the World Series, Steve had an enormous collection of bats that this guy had on display in his basement. Luis Tiant, Willie Stargell, Pete Rose, Manny Sanguillen, Bill Madlock...about 45 bats that Nicosia had collected during his playing career.

Not much to elaborate on but it was pretty cool.