Ravens’ running back Ray Rice meets the media at the team’s Owings Mills training complex to try to explain why he knocked out his then-fiancée, now wife (seated next to him, at left), in an Atlantic City casino elevator last February. The NFL suspended Rice earlier this week for the first two games of the 2014 season.

WHY DO WE HOLD RAVENS PLAYERS
TO LOWER PERSONAL STANDARDS
THAN ORIOLES BASEBALL STARS?

Running back Ray Rice’s 2-game suspension
for assaulting his then-fiancée, now wife,
is criticized nationwide for leniency

ORIOLES’ 1-DIMENSIONAL OFFENSE,
NOT THE PITCHING, SHOULD BE
TEAM’S PRIMARY CONCERN

5 Ravens arrested during off-season
 
By David Maril
 
While wondering why fans of all professional sports are so quick to put athletes on a pedestal without knowing more about their stature as responsible human beings, it’s interesting to note the following:

 While the news that five players on the Baltimore Ravens were arrested for various offenses during the off-season has been greeted with yawns, and at the most some mild public indignation, what would the reaction have been if even just one Baltimore Oriole was picked up by the police? Media reaction and response from the fans would have been severe and a lot less forgiving.

Maybe it’s the dehumanizing violent nature of football and the perception that serious injuries, going back decades and afflicting players through their lifetimes, are shrugged off and swept under the rug.

While pro football coaches give lip-service to the responsibility of players to display character and serve as role models, their main course of action after an incident is to focus quickly on “moving on” to do what’s best for the team, and “learning” from the mistake.

If five Orioles had been arrested in the off-season, how many would have still been with the team in spring training? And one can only imagine the serious sermonizing that O’s manager Buck Showalter would have publicly unleashed about the importance of responsibility in life.

In baseball, players are not shielded by football-style helmets, with their faces covered. In addition, baseball players, who are not as bulked up for specialized positions, are more recognizable as regular people both on the field and out of uniform.

The sport is slower paced and while games can become intense and competitive, the pace is much more disciplined and under control.

Character and what the players do off the field seems of a higher importance than in football.

ATHLETES WHO SERVE AS EXTREMELY POOR ROLE MODELS

Make no mistake, baseball has its share of immature, irresponsible athletes who serve as extremely poor role models. However, the difference is that the media, fans and the majority of team executives are less tolerant of this type of behavior.

And the question remains why everyone isn’t holding football players to the same standards off the field as major leaguers in baseball.

 While Ravens’ officials were displaying support for the character of running back Ray Rice after the NFL announced his two-game suspension for the February violent assault incident involving his then-fiancée and now wife, the punishment was criticized nationally as being far too lenient.

It should be painfully obvious that Commissioner Roger Goodell missed out on an opportunity to have the NFL take a strong stand against domestic abuse.

 Baseball experts keep warning the biggest obstacle the Orioles have of maintaining their grip on first place in the American League East is the team’s starting pitching.

To me, that concern is overstated. The absence of a marquis ace, or celebrity No. 1 starter, is more than compensated for by the depth of having five or six respectable starters.

The real worry should be over the one-dimensional style of the team’s feast-or-famine offense.

Although there are plenty of games where the Orioles will face mediocre pitching and blast away for a dozen runs, the offense frequently struggles and is unable to advance runners and score in tight, well-pitched games.

STRANDED AT SECOND BASE AFTER LEADOFF DOUBLE

How many times have we seen someone lead off an inning with a double, and remain stranded at second base?

Home runs are great. They can bust open a big lead or wipe out a deficit with one swing of the bat. However, you can not always count on that type of offense consistently producing.

Too many of the team’s hitters, who are not sluggers, show little patience at the plate and are hacking away at bad pitches, swinging for the fences.

You expect strikeouts and huge swings from bashers like Chris Davis, Adam Jones and Nelson Cruz. However, you are not going very far in the playoffs if all nine batters in the lineup try to use that style of attack.

Overall, the team needs a better emphasis on situational hitting and a focus on more patience at the plate. Teams traditionally don’t advance far in the post-season, which tends to have well-pitched and low-scoring games, when four-baggers are the only offensive weapon.

 The news that four of 12 casinos in Atlantic City are shutting down has to be disturbing to advocates of the expanded gambling in Maryland.

Are states like Maryland and Massachusetts getting into this gambling game too late? If the casinos don’t produce the type of state revenue our fast-talking elected officials have predicted, there will no doubt be an epidemic of broken ankles as they jump off the casino bandwagon and distance themselves from the industry.

‘THE SIXTIES’ IS A VERY IMPRESSIVE PRODUCTION

 CNN’s 10-part series “The Sixties” is a very impressive production. The three documentaries I’ve seen so far — on Vietnam, Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights movement, and the British music invasion — are excellent.

Newsfilm footage from network television coverage is effectively showcased.

It’s very interesting to see media legends like Chet Huntley, Walter Cronkite, Howard K. Smith and David Brinkley in their prime, analyzing and reporting on breaking news. The documentaries include a number of thought-provoking interviews from then and now.

The tone of the coverage is balanced, objective and puts everything in an accurate historical perspective.

 Speaking of television, you have to wonder when the Emmy Awards will consider creating special categories for the programming of a limited-series nature on premium channels.

Is it fair to have popular programming from the regular networks, which are done on seasonal-length weekly production schedules, competing against HBO projects, like “True Detective”? The production schedules and values for these glitzy premium series are more comparable to theater movies than weekly TV shows.

 If awards are given out for the worst, most annoying commercial, DirecTV, hyping its elimination of wires, would be the unanimous winner.

The entire series of ads, using people-like puppets on strings in violent and somewhat suggestive poses, is irritating, stupid and in bad taste.
 
davidmaril@voiceofbaltimore.org
 
“Inside Pitch” is a weekly opinion column written for Voice of Baltimore by David Maril.
 
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