The Orioles have 83 losses and counting, but the Keys are going to the playoffs! Game one of the first round of playoffs is Wednesday, 8 September 2010 at 7 p.m. at Harry Grove Stadium in Frederick. Andrew G, Knubles and Bits and I will be there. Will you?

Tickets will be either $9 or $11 depending upon what's available when I make the purchase. If you want to go, let me know by the end of the day tomorrow and I'll get the tickets.

LJ HOOOOOOOOOOEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Brian Roberts is holding his fifth annual charity event for the University of Maryland Hospital for Children on 22 August 2010. Brian's people got in touch with me and asked me to help spread the word and I'm more than happy to do so. Brian is a great asset to the community and has raised a ton of money for the UMHC over the years. I've never been to any of the bashes, but they always look like a lot of fun. Anthony at Oriole Post was there last year and took these great pictures. 

This year will be similar to previous events as many Orioles will be on hand to sign autographs, take pictures, and play games with the kids in attendance (I hear Jeremy Guthrie just loves shooting hoops, but I'm pretty sure I could take him in air hockey). There will be both a live and silent auction with all proceeds going to the UMHC. 

Due to the closing of ESPNZone, the event will be held at Dave and Buster's in Arundel Mills Mall. Tickets are $200 for adults and $150 for children under 12 and include parking, a Dave and Buster's game card, dinner, dessert, and cocktails in addition to the rare chance to hobnob with some of your favorite baseball players. 

For additional information you can visit the Brian's Baseball Bash webpage. If anyone attends this year's bash, be sure to take a lot of photos and report back here. 

I follow football casually, but not well enough to be able to extensively preview what will be a crucial game for the US side in kicking off Group C for the World Cup.

I do know that the Yanks are favored to advance out of Group since, apart from England, our competition are the lesser powers of Algeria and Slovenia. But upsets happen in WC competition all the time, and a determined underdog who slips in an early score can shift to strong D for the rest of any game and make it much harder for a supposed "favorite" to advance.

For this reason, today's match against our former colonizers can be seen as a bellwether for the USA's chances. If they can come out of it with a draw, they're in the driver's seat. If they actually manage to beat the Three Lions, they would have to implode spectacularly to not make the second round. But if they lose today, they would likely need to beat both Algeria and Slovenia to advance, and while that shouldn't be a problem, you just never know. The US team has been inconsistent in recent years, playing up for big games, but looking listless in less crucial matches. Critical to their chances today will be stopping English striker Wayne Rooney (or enraging him to the point he gets a red card). 

The revenge factor may motivate the US: in the 2002 World Cup, they made the quarterfinals and dominated Germany for much of their quarterfinal match before succumbing 1-0. Hopes were high for the program after that victory ("US soccer has arrived!"), but the US had a very disappointing cup in 2006, going winless in the first round and failing to advance. Assuming the US gets out of Group this year, there is a decent chance they would face Germany in the 2nd round.

England are 3-1 favorites in the Vegas odds.

For more on previewing this match, I refer you to a good article in the WaPo, as well as this brief write-up from . Excerpt below:

Since England hosted and won the FIFA World Cup in 1996, they are yet to stamp their authority on the game gain as its rightful inventors. A part from that first and only world cup triumph, they best they’ve managed since then was a semi-final berth in 1990. With a history of always crashing out at the quarterfinals stage at the hands of team that play a more skillful and beautiful football, the English team will be hoping to make an easy win of the US which has a similar style of play to their own.

Or, if that doesn't grab you, you can just read about Footie Booty (sex and the World Cup). 

UPDATE: How remiss of me. SBNation, of course, has lots of stuff on this game. View it here. 

Note: I'm bumping this up in case anyone missed it yesterday (it got pushed down the page rather quickly). If you're interested, let me know and I'll add your name to the email list for info.

Before the season started I mentioned planning a day a Camden Chat trip to Camden Yards, similar to the one we did last year, just with more notice and not the second to last game of the year. Well, I planned on discussing this earlier but time got away from me. After some deliberation, duck and I decided that Saturday, July 24th is the day we'll be holding our 2nd annual CC trip to OPACY.

Continue reading this post »

Last week we talked about meeting up on Opening Night to watch the Orioles play the Rays on the road. There was quite a bit of interest, which is awesome. 

As you guys know, I've been appearing on Drew Forrester's morning show on WNST three times a week for about a month now, and it's been a ton of fun. Drew has invited all of Camden Chat to watch the O's game with them at Jimmy's Famous Seafood in Dundalk. 

Jimmy's is a big place with a lot of TVs and unlike places closer to downtown, has all the free parking you could want. There will be drink and appetizer specials for the occasion and WNST has generously offered to buy every Camden Chatter their first beer. Additionally, if you show up and you're rocking one of the awesome Camden Chat shirts, I'm going to buy your second drink (just be sure to order your shirt soon so it arrives in time). 

I hope that anyone who is local and free that night will join us, even those of you who read CC but don't participate all that often. The bigger the CC crowd the more awesome the night will be. 

If you think you'll make the trip out to scenic Dundalk, please send me an email letting me know so that I can add your name to the free beer list. 

The first pitch in Tampa Bay is at 7:10 and I'll probably get to Jimmy's around 6 p.m. I really hope to see you there!

The Orioles first day playing baseball is odd this year. For one thing, they're on the road. For another, it's on a Tuesday. In addition to all that it's at night. Weird!

In an effort to make Opening Day a little more Opening Day like, I thought it'd be fun for some of the local Camden Chatters to meet up at a local bar to have some beverages of your choice and watch the O's destroy the Rays.

If that's something you might have an interest in, click the I'm cool button below and maybe post a comment letting me know who you are. If we have a few people interested we'll organize something.

 On 11 March 2005, Camden Chat was born. SC poured his heart and genius into this blog, building a corner of the internet where Orioles fans could take refuge. Camden Chat celebrated its 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th birthdays with SC at the helm, and with his nurturing CC went from being the best blog that no one knew about to the premiere destination for intelligent Orioles discussion. In a time when it's been tough to be an Orioles fan, SC facilitated the growth of a community that cares about the Orioles and each other.

Camden Chat has been experienced a lot in its life, much of which is chronicled excellently in the links above. Below are just a few of many awesome and/or horrible moments experienced in the past year:

• The major league debuts of Bradley "3E1N" Bergesen, Jason Berken, David Hernandez, Nolan Reimold (you can't stop him, you can only store him in a cool, dry place), Brian Matusz and his BFF Chris Tillman, KOJI!, Justin Turner, and of course the Switch Hitting Jesus.
• The rise and fall of the "Hire John Gibbons" movement.
• The two most ridiculous game threads in CC history: Memlomania and Rhymeapalooza.
• A 13 game losing streak.
• The first annual CC Night at the Yard. 

Ah, memories. I'm sure we have even greater things in store for the upcoming year. Happy Birthday, Camden Chat! If you're interested in buying a present, CC's wish list includes: a winning season, a top tier first baseman, and a pony. 

In my other FanFest post I left out the part about the Blogging the Birds forum featuring in addition to me, writers from Oriole Post, The Loss Column, Baltimore Sports and Life, and MASN Sports. It was the last forum of the day and we were joking before it started that there might be a dozen people interested in sticking around to listen to a bunch of nobodies give their opinion on the Orioles. It ended up being more than that, perhaps even twice that many! 

MASN's Steve Melewski was the host of the forum and had us each give a little rundown of our blog. When it stood up, what we're all about, etc. He then asked us why we got into writing. A pretty hard to answer question really, at least with any uniqueness. It seems safe to say that most people who write a blog focusing on a sports team 1) love the team, and 2) love to write. For me at least, those are the reasons. That and I love and am really proud of this community and want to do all that I can to to keep it going strong. 

Once the other bloggers started answering, though, I was kind of surprised by the answers. They said things like they wanted a place that was quiet and away from the yelling of sports radio (I certainly agree with that aspect, sports radio is ridiculous) and suddenly the guys were saying things about taking out emotion and having a place to get away from reactions and focus on analysis. I'd already given my short answer (I love to write and love baseball, duh) but I had to offer up my own opinion because my love for writing doesn't jive with the cold, analytical approach being preached by the other bloggers. 

Continue reading this post »