Monday Bird Droppings: Where the Orioles won't pay for pitching

Hello, friends.

There are now 149 days remaining until Orioles Opening Day 2018. There is no baseball to entertain us today, either, so you'll have to figure out how to get through it on your own. Have you started Stranger Things season 2 yet? Don't worry, I haven't, either. Be a good neighbor and make sure you have enough Halloween candy.

I've written this before, and with each passing game it's only more true: After watching this World Series, I'm not sure that I will be able to survive it if the Orioles ever make it to the World Series again. This whole thing is just... bonkers.

Is it actually good and fun baseball? I don't know that I am as sure about that. There is a lot of excitement and a lot of stuff happening, certainly, which is good for the sake of drama, but I just don't know if it's actually good. The details don’t matter when it takes almost five hours to play nine innings - longer than any nine-inning MLB game ever - and then it goes into extra innings on top of that.

Some say the ball is juiced, even more in the World Series than it was during the regular season. The circumstantial evidence of a game that just had a 12-12 score through nine innings is rather hard to ignore. Maybe it’s just plain luck. I don’t know, but it’s really something... and we could probably all use a day off from it today, even though I’m not emotionally invested in who wins.

Around the blogO'sphere

Cobb figures to be too costly for Orioles (School of Roch)
I’ve fired up a separate article to rant about this that will post at 9am. This Roch post from Saturday morning is not encouraging.

Presenting a top 10 Orioles prospects list (Steve Melewski)
Like many people in Birdland, Steve Melewski is excited about Austin Hays. Check out the rest of his top ten. Is there anybody you think he’s overrating, or anybody you think he’s left out?

Hunter Harvey could jump on fast track (Baseball America)
It’s Roch Kubatko again, from Baseball America last week. Subscription is required. Apparently, Hunter Harvey could quickly ascend once he’s healthy again.

Local runners head to cross country state finals (Coldwater Daily Record)
Congratulations to the three high school Orioles runners from the Quincy Orioles in Quincy, Michigan, who have made it to the state finals in cross country: Madelyn Allman, Harmony Harpster, and Nathan Nohr. That race is Saturday.

Birthdays and anniversaries

On this day in 1986, the Orioles traded Storm Davis to the Padres, receiving catcher Terry Kennedy and minor leaguer Mark Williamson. You may recall that Williamson later participated in the most recent O's no-hitter, pitching the eighth inning in the combined no-hitter against the Athletics on July 13, 1991.

One lone former Oriole has a birthday today: 2000-06 outfielder Luis Matos, who turns 39 years old.

Is today your birthday? Happy birthday! Your birthday buddies for today include: St. Paul's Cathedral designer Christopher Wren (1632), President John Adams (1735), five-star admiral William "Bull" Halsey (1882), Happy Days actor Henry Winkler (1945), comedian Larry Wilmore (1961), and gold medal-winning gymnast Nastia Liukin (1989).

On this day in history...

In 1817, the escaped slave Nat Turner was captured in Southampton County, Virginia, after having led the bloodiest slave rebellion in US history.

In 1905, Russia's Tsar Nicholas II issued the October Manifesto, which granted basic civil liberties as well as the right of the people to form a legislative body. This was not sufficient to stop them from shooting him and his family 13 years later.

In 1938, the infamous Orson Welles radio broadcast of H.G. Wells's War of the Worlds took place, which some people apparently believed was really happening.

In 1944, sisters Anne and Margot Frank were deported from Auschwitz to Bergen-Belsen, where both would pass away from disease the next year.

In 1945, Jackie Robinson signed his contract with the Brooklyn Dodgers, which, after a year of playing in the minor leagues, led to his breaking the color barrier in MLB.

In 1974, Muhammad Ali and George Foreman fought the Rumble in the Jungle in Kinshasa, Zaire.

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And that's the way it is in Birdland on October 30 - or at least, unless something happens later. Have a safe Monday.