Heads were supposed to roll yesterday, but it didn’t work out too well.
It turns out that the Orioles don’t have a guillotine. All the other ML clubs have one, but the only guillotines that are available were manufactured in Argentina, and the Orioles haven’t bought one because the team’s owner “doesn’t trust” Latin American guillotines, whatever that means. There are unwanted, excess guillotines available from other clubs at very low prices, and the Orioles may acquire one of those even though MLB rules would require them to keep the guillotine in the Warehouse for a full year. It’s also possible that the Orioles will acquire another club’s backup guillotine in a Machado trade, but nothing has been approved by — well, by whoever would have to approve that deal.
Even without the proper equipment, the Orioles tried to go on with the head-rolling on the off-day yesterday. Well, sort of. Since Chris Davis is making so much money and contributing so little, he was asked to do the honors. Chris just stood there, ax in hand, for quite a while until he finally saw the right opportunity to chop away. He finally did swing the ax, but he badly missed the necks of all those who heads were supposed to roll. (Most of his swings were made well before or after the head that was supposed to roll was in place.) There is an unsubstantiated report that one Oriole executive suffered a minor nick on his upper leg.
Afterwards, Davis met with Scott Coolbaugh to discuss hid ax-swinging techniques,, and Chris reportedly has asked for another chance to make some heads roll in the next few days. All those whose heads were supposed to roll yesterday favored the suggestion that Chris remain on the job.
A couple of the Orioles announcers were on hand to witness the head-rolling. Mike Bordick said he thought Davis’s swings looked pretty good, that he probably was off “just a touch” because of the spring training time he missed with an injury, and that he should do much better after a session or to with Coolbaugh. When asked to comment, Jim Palmer put his head down and sobbed quietly.
The net result is that so far, contrary to published expectations, so far there have been changes in the Oriole have been announced. There may have been some changes in the roles of members of the Angelos family, but since nobody seems to know what those roles have been for the past couple of years, what they are now or what they will be in the future, it’s difficult to discern any such changes.
Stand by for further updates, probably in late July. Very late July.
