Baseball

His numbers are indisputable, on paper Manny Ramirez is a first-ballot Hall of Famer.

Manny announced his retirement today, ending a career in which he hit .312 on 2,574 career hits. Manny hit 555 career home runs and drove in 1,831 runs. He also helped the Red Sox win two World Series championships in 2004 and 2007.

Not much going on on the minor league front for the Orioles.

Three of the organization's four games were postponed due to rain, and will be made up at a later date. The only game that took place was the second game of Norfolk's series with Charlotte.

Charlotte 5, Norfolk 0.

The Tides looked like they would have preferred a rain-out as well, notching only three hits all night off of the Knights. 

The Orioles minor league affiliates (three of them, anyways) kicked off the 2011 season on Thursday night, and while Low-A Delmarva was the only team to emerge from the opening day slate, that's not to say that there weren't plenty of positive signs for the most surprising big-league squads' minor league system.

Delmarva 2, Greensboro 1

I'm not one to get too excited or upset seven games into a 162-game season. So I'm about as ready to jump off the Ben Franklin Bridge after Friday night's 6-3 loss to the Braves, as I was ready to march down Broad Street after their 11-0 win over the Mets Thursday afternoon.

After four games, the Brewers were 0-4 and struggling to get anything going. They lost a heart-breaker to the Reds on Opening Day after blowing a 6-2 lead, then lost the other two games 4-2 and 12-3. Then their home-opener came and the Brewers had a 1-0 lead until the eighth inning, when Martin Prado and Dan Uggla hit solo home runs to win the game for the Braves.

In the wake of the news of the sudden and sad departure from Major League Baseball by Manny Ramirez, there will no doubt be many articles, op-ed pieces and columns regarding Ramirez and his place in baseball history.

In the 19-year career of Manny Ramirez, the slugger has hit 555 home runs, good for 14th on the all-time list. After today's announcement, it appears that Ramirez will hit no more.

Starting today, the New York Yankees play the Boston Red Sox for the first time in 2011.  The over-hyping of this series began earlier this week when the Red Sox got off to one of their slowest season starts in their history.

Just how important is this series?  It all depends on who you ask.

On Wednesday, I wrote that it was too early to leap off the bandwagon of the 2011 Red Sox. I still believe that—however, alarm bells have started to ring as the 0-6 Sox limp home to Fenway Park to face their hated rival, the New York Yankees.

The vaunted offense of the Sox has disappeared over the last four games.

    While the New York Yankees surprised no one by taking a three-game series from the Minnesota Twins in their trip to the Empire State, there are certain observations that should instill both optimism and pessimism for the Twins as the season trudges through its first weeks.