The new Horseshoe Casino Baltimore opened last week with much fanfare, including promos by Md.’s governor & Baltimore’s mayor.

SKEPTICISM OF DOUBLE-TALKING LEADERS
DOESN’T MAKE AMERICANS ISOLATIONISTS

The Orioles will strike out
if they fail to quickly
re-sign J.J. Hardy

BASEBALL COMMISSIONER BUD SELIG
HAS BACKBONE OF A WEATHERVANE
 
By David Maril
 
While wondering years from now how the usually preaching and sermonizing Gov. Martin O’Malley is going to feel about his legacy closely connected to the introduction and establishment of casinos in Maryland, it’s interesting to note the following:

  Maybe I’m being too harsh and unrealistic, but it still seems to me elected officials, like the governor and Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, are stepping over the line and doing too much to promote gambling.

It’s one thing to allow casino entertainment to keep some of this revenue from going out of state. And yes, it’s a plus that half of the casino jobs in the newly opened Horseshoe Casino Baltimore are filled by city residents.

But for the mayor and governor to continually participate in festive ceremonial photos and TV promo spots, encouraging the public to spend money on gambling, is not exhibiting wise judgment.

  O’Malley’s greatest challenge is keeping his political name alive after he finishes his second term at the end of the year.

While it seems as if he has been weighing a presidential run for the last 20 years, he practically needs to wear a sandwich-board sign with his name on it to be recognized when he campaigns outside of Maryland.

PICKING A FIGHT WITH THE PRESIDENT

Picking a fight with Barack Obama for a more liberal approach in dealing with children crossing over the Mexican border into the country drew a few headlines but didn’t have much lasting power.

If Hillary Clinton, as expected, does indeed run for president, it would figure that O’Malley’s campaign efforts seeking the Democratic Party’s nomination would be more about keeping his name alive so he can some day run for the U.S. Senate.

He no doubt will focus on keeping busy and trying to be noticed while he treads water waiting for either Barbara Mikulski or Ben Cardin to not run again.

That may be a long wait. But who knows, maybe while he’s waiting he’ll take a job as a dealer at a Maryland casino.

  Let’s hope the opening of the new Horseshoe Casino on Russell Street doesn’t create impossible traffic issues and make it difficult for fans to get to Orioles and Ravens’ games.

The casino and two stadiums are clustered right at one of the major entrances into the city from Washington, D.C. and points south. You have to wonder if enough planning has gone into making sure the ramps, intersections and traffic lights can handle the traffic and not make entering Baltimore a nightmarish experience.

CAN RICK PERRY WALK AND CHEW GUM AT THE SAME TIME?

  Who says Rick Perry, Governor of Texas, can’t walk and chew gum at the same time? Hey, he’s able to campaign for the Republican presidential nomination while dealing with indictment charges of abuse of power.

His new-look Clark Kent image, with slicked down, well-combed hair and thick black-framed glasses, makes you wonder whether Lois Lane is one of his campaign advisors.

But even with a Superman-related look, it’s still hard to forget all the mistakes he made when he was running in the last presidential primaries in 2012.

  Many national commentators miss the point when they analyze the poll results that show a majority of Americans are not in favor of the country increasing its military commitments.

They refer to a growing spread of isolationism and antiwar sentiments. But to be more accurate, and specific, the rejection of hawkish foreign policy is more about skepticism regarding our political and military leaders.

The quagmire in Vietnam and the distortions about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq have diminished the credibility of our strategists in the military, the White House and Congress.

We are skeptics now when a case is made to commit troops and resources to foreign trouble-spots. After all the times we have been either lied to or given inaccurate information, it becomes increasingly difficult to support putting American lives on the line.

 Why are the Orioles waiting to re-sign shortstop J.J. Hardy to a multi-year contract?

  The fact that Manny Machado, the Orioles’ best all-around young infield star, has undergone surgery on both knees the last two seasons adds to the growing list of reasons why the team should re-sign shortstop J. J. Hardy to a multi-year contract sooner rather than later.

Perhaps there had been some thought that if the Orioles were to lose Hardy next season, they could always move Machado back to short, where he had played before coming to the big leagues.

But with an extensive rehab period on the horizon and some question of his durability and mobility at the beginning of the 2015 season, it would be unwise to move him back to a position that is much more demanding than third base.

Even if Machado hadn’t been lost for the rest of this season, it’s tough to explain the Orioles’ not already having Hardy, a highly-respected team leader, signed to a new contract.

He’s been the glue to the infield, leading a superb defense while surrounded by numerous combinations of players at third base and second base.  He makes brilliant plays defensively without flash or fanfare.

Offensively, he’s not hitting with his accustomed power but has become much more consistent making contact and is chipping in with a number of important hits.

If the Orioles wait until the off-season, when he becomes a free agent, to pursue Hardy aggressively, we will probably have to get used to seeing him in a Yankees uniform, taking over for Derek Jeter.

That would be very disappointing.

  Spineless Bud Selig must be getting a sore back from all the bowing he’s doing as he receives unmerited praise for his lackluster leadership as Commissioner of Baseball.

To me, he’s the commissioner who looked the other way with regard to steroid abuse and performance enhancers in the home-run record-setting era because the slugging was a popular diversion from labor work-stoppages.

It took a grandstanding investigation by our political hacks in Congress to get Selig focused on the problem.

Selig leaves office with the National and American Leagues still playing under different rules even though the teams face each other a number of times during the regular season in interleague play.

THE DESIGNATED HITTER CONTROVERSY CONTINUES UNRESOLVED

A strong, intelligent and effective commissioner would have resolved, once and for all, whether the designated hitter rule should be universal or scrapped. Selig, however, simply avoided the issue and encouraged the silly notion that part of baseball’s charm is to have different styles of games in each league.

Another of his “accomplishments” was allowing the Angels to call themselves “The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim.”

What a stupid and misleading name! They don’t play in Los Angeles and it’s amazing the Dodgers have to put up with such infringing on their territorial marketing.

With this type of ineptitude, it’s no surprise the Selig-regime ruling that favored, over the Orioles, the Washington Nationals’ attempt to change and increase their agreed-upon formula for revenue from the MASN Network was rejected in the first round of court action.

  The recent outburst of airline travelers’ rage when a seat is pushed back into reclining mode, making the person in the row behind more cramped, should give the airlines a few new issues to consider.

With the extra rows airlines are cramming into airplanes, reducing legroom, isn’t it about time to eliminate the reclining option on seats?

At the very least, the amount a passenger can lean back should be decreased so the person sitting in the row behind doesn’t feel as if the folding food tray is leaving a crease mark on their stomach or chest.

Perhaps reclining seats should be restricted to first-class, where people pay more to have much more space.
 
davidmaril@voiceofbaltimore.org
 
“Inside Pitch” is a weekly opinion column written for Voice of Baltimore by David Maril.
 
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