Ruminations on Rude, Thoughtless Little Pigs and Backup Catchers... Baltimore Sun columnist Rick Maese, for some reason, detests the fact that Red Sox fans travel to his fair city to watch the Red Sox routinely throttle his hometown Orioles.

His words: “They come to town today wearing their cargo pants and backward ballcaps. They have thick accents, thirsty livers and girlfriends with blond streaks running through their hair. As they do a couple of times a year, these chowder-eating tourists invade Camden Yards as though it were their own, putting their feet on the coffee table and tracking mud onto the carpet.”

Um. Well. Yeah. Red Sox fans do that. Why? Because there are so many shampooing empty seats.

And why is that? Because your team shampooing sucks! They're usually out of the running in the AL East by Easter.

So before you decide to take a shot at Sully and his girl, slugging back beer in their Old Navy and shouting out a few F-bombs at Miguel Tejada, think of a few things:

* hotel taxes in the Inner Harbor and around Baltimore are like 22.5% or so. That helps to make your property taxes lower.
* there are also sales taxes and liquor taxes, so everytime Sully buys a cold 12'er for his hotel room, that helps to put your kids through B-t-more's stellar public school system.
* Sully and his chick and their friends-in-arms make Camden Yards a wonderful place nine times a year, because there's nothing worse than an empty, quiet ballpark.

Actually, there is...an annoying, snarky sports columnist.
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Once again, sources close to the story confirm that I was #104 - down from #102 a year ago.

BTW, the folks at What Would Tyler Durden Do also have a story about it, using their own unique and funny viewpoint.
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Go away.

Take him with you. (more about him below)
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I blame Dougie.

Seriously, this guy brings nothing to the table, except for being a pretty lousy human being.

A loyal reader thinks it's time for him to take his big mitt and head on out of town. I agree. In fact, I agreed when they did ship he and his big mitt out of town, until they decided it was time to subjugate Johnny Damon's return to Fenway with his 11 minute commute from Logan to Landsdowne and his slightly-above-the-legal-limit batting average.

D-bag.
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Two Sox related stories for the weekend.

1. The casting company for Sox Appeal called me yesterday to come and audition for the July reality dating show, based on a Red Sox game. The idea of the show great. The laughs about "what if I was on the show" are also great. Actually going on? Not so much. So I'm gonna pass.

2. Instead, I'm going to embark on my first foray into the world of sports journalism. This Saturday, a longtime friend and esteemed sports scribe and I will attempt to bring sports fans of Boston and around the world some hard-hitting, no-nonsense journalism that could bridge the gap between all the problems we face in this here hardscrabble world.

Nah, I'm just spitting nonsense. We're going to review some sports bars. But still, it's going to be a can't-miss. So stay tuned.
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Torre admits the Yankee bullpen has been overworked.

In other news, Alec Baldwin admits he can get angry with his daughter from time to time.

And in other news, there are no WMD's in Iraq.
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It just wouldn't be April if Mark Prior wasn't hurt.

On an NL Central aside: how about my Crew? Still waiting for the deadline deal to send Mike Lowell, and Craig Hansen to the Brewers for Bill Hall..
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Need to see Hot Fuzz, from the good folks who brought us Shaun of the Dead.
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Wow. This is a must read.
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OMG! NW!
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Ok, that's it for today.

yh&os, I remain...  ¶ 4:13 PM