Alright, it's high time I showed a little magnanimousness toward a Yankee. Mike Mussina, at the age of forty and in his eighteenth major league season, is doing some of his finest work. Without him, the Bronx Bombers would have been eliminated from playoff contention long before September. On Sunday, he will take the mound at Fenway Park with a chance to do something that he's never done before in his career: win his twentieth game.
And I'm rooting for him to do it.
It's taken eight years of bitterness to reach this catharsis; it certainly doesn't hurt that he's facing the just-as-odious Red Sox in this crucial start. Every once in a while, there's nothing wrong with holding on to a good old grudge: Jeffrey Maier, Bob Irsay, Joe Namath. But this one has run its course. Mike Mussina gave the Orioles and the Baltimore fans nine-plus great years, only to watch the team crumble around him due to the ham-fisted management of Peter Angelos and his cronies. So when his contract came up and the owner tried to get cute with him, he washed his hands of the situation. Sure, the Yankees paid him big bucks. Can you honestly say you would have turned down that money?
Even having watched Mussina in his prime, and keeping tabs on him in the years since his departure, it's easy to overlook how good he really is. Earlier this week, he won his 269th career game, surpassing Jim Palmer on the all-time list. Palmer himself
recently championed "Moose" for the Hall of Fame, pointing out how much more impressive his accomplishments are when placed in the context of the offense-crazed era of the 1990s and 2000s: the steroids, the expansion-diluted pitching staffs, the smaller ballparks. It was refreshing to see Jim ignore all of the short-sighted hooey about Mike's lack of 20-win seasons, Cy Young Awards, and championships. If the greatest pitcher in Oriole history can put aside a sense of blind loyalty to the home team and sing the praises of Mike Mussina, I'm not one to argue.
You've got one more shot at the big two-oh, Moose. If this is the last game of your career, make it count.
When you consider that I’ve owned cats for the past year, and that I’m lazy enough to leave stacks of baseball cards laying around the living room and spare room, it’s pretty remarkable that this Sidney Ponson card was the first significant victim of those exploratory claws and teeth. I only have myself to blame, as I had left a box of late 1990s Orioles open on the guest bed with Sir Sidney sticking straight up as a placeholder so that I might easily place the Danny Clyburn card I’d pulled to scan a few weeks back. I never got around to it, so the portly Aruban hurler was just hanging out there in the open, taunting a couple of house pets who enjoy pawing anything within reach. (Of course, the mystery assailant could have been making a personal statement about his distaste for the boorish behavior and oft-subpar performance of Mr. Ponson.) Homer, the more spastic of the pair, has knocked piles of unsorted cards off of the top of my DVD rack on multiple occasions, and I know that I have to be vigilant when he’s poking around in that vicinity. I’ll say it one more time: I need to get my organization and cataloguing act in gear. If I need any further motivation, I’ll refer to this card…and this picture of Charlie hovering menacingly over my incomplete 1972 Topps set.
