Vintage Fridays: Ed Barnowski and Larry Haney, 1967 Topps #507

By my count, Ed Barnowski was one of 30 Orioles to date to be born in Pennsylvania. He was born in Scranton, as were 17 other major leaguers. As he had only 7.1 innings pitched in his major league career, it's the ultimate in small sample sizes, but it's still worth mentioning to this fan of minutiae that Ed's 2.45 ERA is the best among all Scrantonians in MLB history.

So why am I talking about the Keystone State? Ah, it’s once again getaway day. I’m bound for the family cottage in Northeastern Pennsylvania (an hour north of Scranton, and an hour south of Binghamton, and nothing else you'd know is even close to there), with my significant other and her dog in tow. Since we’re both trying to conserve our vacation leave, we decided not to go until after work today. Of course, she works a 9-to-5, after which she has to go home, pack the car and dog, and make the eighty-plus-mile drive up from Southern Maryland to my home. Whenever she arrives (likely between 8 PM and 9 PM), only then will we be able to set out for a four-hour car trip up interstates 83 and 81, with a dash of PA Turnpike sprinkled in. It’s not ideal of course, but I’m driving and I am the “night person” between the two of us. Considering how long it takes to get there, it just wouldn’t be worthwhile to wait until tomorrow morning to make the drive. Two full days is the bare minimum to spend at the cottage if you want to feel like you’ve had time to relax.

So what’s on the itinerary, besides as little as possible? The simple things. There’s no cable or Internet (heavens forefend!), so we’ll probably catch up on some DVD viewing. I haven’t seen Kill Bill or Raising Arizona, so Barbara intends to remedy that. In turn, I’ll be exposing her to the final season of LOST, and maybe The Wrestler if she gets tired of my pestering. Undoubtedly we’ll get some reading done – for my part, I’ve fallen off the wagon in my literary pursuits ever since I stopped riding trains to work a year ago. “The Boys of Summer” has been sitting on my shelf for far too long. Maybe we’ll take the rowboat out on the lake, or roast marshmallows in the fire pit. I can assure you of two things, though: 1) I will not give another thought to this blog; I hope you’ll make do with pre-written auto-posts for the weekend. 2) I will enjoy the hell out of the weather. The forecast is calling for highs in the upper 60s and lows around 50 with no precipitation. After a typical week of high 90s and choking humidity in Baltimore, that sounds like a panacea.

Happy Labor Day weekend to you and yours!

Ed Barnowski, 1991 Crown/Coca-Cola All-Time Orioles #22

Pitcher Ed Barnowski is one of twenty major leaguers to come out of Scranton, PA. Of course, most of you know Scranton as the setting of "The Office", which happens to be one of my favorite TV shows. If you're a real sports nut, you may also know it (in conjunction with neighboring Wilkes-Barre) as the hometown of the Yankees' AAA affiliate, the Penguins' minor-league hockey affiliate, and the Arena Football League 2's Pioneers. It's also the location of the University of Scranton, the alma mater of my grandparents, incidentally. Tomorrow afternoon, I'll be driving past Scranton with my family en route to our cottage in northeastern Pennsylvania, which is situated about an hour north of the "Electric City". We're spending the holiday weekend up there in order to open the little lakeside dwelling for the summer. It's a true getaway destination, nestled in the mountains and sitting on a manmade lake. It's four hours from home, and there's no cable or Internet (gasp!). So I'm abandoning you again for a few days, but the next four installments of "This Day in Orioles History" are scheduled to auto-post in my absence. I might just have a surprise in store for you in the middle of next week, so sit tight and enjoy your long weekend!