Buck Showalter will not accept your excuse

“It’s too tough playing in the A.L East.”

“We can never afford to compete with the Yankees and the Red Sox.”

“All of the best talent goes to top contenders. Our team is just a bunch of no-names.”

“This is just going to be another lost season.”

Whatever you do, don’t tell Orioles manager Buck Showalter. Because he’s not buying it.  And, one of his goals is to turn around the excuse-filled, dark-cloud attitudes of his teams’ fans (am I talking to you?).

Here are some quotes from a recent interview he gave to Gerry Sandusky on WBAL-TV (definitely worth reading in its entirety):

“We want to treat this like a special place to be allowed to come into … we want the arrow to be pointing up, not flat-lining, not going down. Quit giving the opposition so much credit. This is the place to be.”

“At last time I looked, the other team is playing on the same field we’re playing on, so whatever dimensions, or carry, or lack of carry comes into play for us, comes into play for them.”

” You know, they don’t give us three runs before we play the Yankees or the Red Sox. Play better. I don’t want to hear about what their payroll is, or what they’ve done in the Dominican (Republic). Play better. There are no handicaps.”

Showalter knows that it has been 14 years since our last playoff appearance. He knows that our cynicism runs deep. We have gotten our hopes up before – only to watch as even the lowly Tampa Bay Rays won the division. It was easier to make excuses than admit that we just didn’t have what it takes to win. Buck knows he has a lot to do before we can believe – again.

” I hope we have (raised expectations); I hope not only for our players, but for our fans. We’ve got a long way to go to really regain their trust because they’re there. They really want to be a part of this. They want to embrace us but we got a long way to go before they can sell themselves to us emotionally.”

Personally, I’ve got one toe in the water. I’m hoping to be able to commit my entire foot by the end of Spring Training

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