Crab Soup Bowl #9 of Baltimore Sports Links
Dec 22, 2013; Baltimore, MD, USA; Baltimore Ravens wide receiver Jacoby Jones (12) gives a stiff arm to New England Patriots wide receiver Matthew Slater (18) at M
This is the ninth of what is a (mostly) regular weekly feature on The Baltimore Wire of links to interesting Baltimore and Maryland sports stories on the web.
In the bowl of crab soup this week are links to these stories …
Ingredient #0 – I put this article about AJ Burnett at the front of the list, as it could become obsolete really fast if he signs somewhere. But it demonstrates the interconnectedness of the free agents and how, using the domino illustration, there is an order to how they fall.
Ingredient #1 – Jacoby Jones is interviewed in this story that contains a video link. He is at a basketball game in New Orleans and is, perhaps, a bit happy on some sort of liquid joy. It is pretty funny actually.
Ingredient #2 – In another strange Jacoby Jones story, the Ravens’ player is being sued for $192,000 in damages for showing up late at a Super Bowl party after the game last year. The lawsuit does not seem to take into account that there was a 34-minute game delay! This is just all-around weird.
Ingredient #3 – The price of autographs at the Orioles FanFest event this weekend is $20 … all sold out. In this article about the same event in Tampa, the price for most players is $25, though for David Price, Wil Myers, and Evan Longoria it is $125 each! Even as a kid I never understood the allure of a person’s signature, but I acknowledge this is simply one more area of life where I’m out of step with the rest of the world.
Ingredient #4 – Here is a great story about how two high school kids with a Nigerian family heritage met each other as UMD football recruits and decided together to become Terps… and roommates. Each saw it as fate.
Ingredient #5 – Here a football article on Terrance West – the Towson University running back who will be going into the NFL draft. This recruiting piece essentially evaluates West as a capable pro back who will not ultimately be a starter, but who will be a player taken later in the draft.
Ingredient #6 – Most folks reading this blog probably also read the Ravens’ web page, which is very active compared to the Orioles’ page, for example. But in the event you did not see this, here is an article that is insightful about the primary quality needed in receivers – not size or speed – it is play-making ability. But how do you objectively measure that?
Ingredient #7 – The Orioles have young pitching prospects in all the varied top 100 lists that come out at this time of year … a list that includes Kevin Gausman, Dylan Bundy, Eduardo Rodriguez and Hunter Harvey. This is being called the new “cavalry.” They sure look like “can’t missers.” But previous “cavalries” have been less than saviors of anything. Here is an article that talks about that.