Monday Bird Droppings: One day to go until spring training

Hello, friends.

There are now 45 days remaining until Orioles Opening Day. This number has been used for the last couple of years by that notorious pie-hater, Mark Trumbo. Here’s hoping he comes closer to reaching his uniform number in home runs in 2018 than he did in 2017.

As this is a number that’s divisible by three, that’s also 15 days for every starting pitcher the Orioles don’t currently have. It wouldn’t be a very good set of events if they get a starting pitcher just 15 days away from Opening Day. But let’s hope that they can get at least one pitcher before 15 days have passed from now.

Pitchers and catchers report to spring training tomorrow! It is, like Annie said, only a day away. The way things are going with the Orioles rotation right now, it’s not the last Annie lyric that Orioles fans will be singing this year. It sure feels like we’re on track for a hard-knock life this summer.

Around the blogO’sphere

Orioles have contacted Astros about Collin McHugh (MLBTR)
There are better pitchers out there than Collin McHugh, but the Orioles could, and have, traded for pitchers a lot worse.

When the music stops, who gets a chair in O’s rotation? (Steve Melewski)
We were asking this question in October. Spring training is one day away and we’re still asking it.

The Orioles could learn a thing or two from Cavs’ blockbuster trades (Baltimore Sun)
I don’t think that one can draw many lessons for an MLB team from NBA trades, but I’m sympathetic to the fact that there’s nothing else to talk about.

Zach Britton on the “frustration” of a slow offseason (School of Roch)
It’s not only Orioles fans who would like the team to have a better rotation.

Birthdays and anniversaries

There are a few former Orioles with birthdays today. They are: 2013 short-time catcher Chris Snyder, 2007 two-gamer Adam Stern, 1978-79/81 reliever Don “Full Pack” Stanhouse, 1971-72 starter Pat Dobson, and 1957-58 pitcher Jerry Walker. Today is Walker’s 79th birthday, so an extra happy birthday for him.

Is today your birthday? Happy birthday! Your birthday buddies for today include: 16th president Abraham Lincoln (1809), Renault co-founder Louis Renault (1877), most recent five-star general Omar Bradley (1893), author Judy Blume (1938), talk show host Arsenio Hall (1956), voice actress Tara Strong (1973), and actress Christina Ricci (1980).

On this day in history...

In 1554, Lady Jane Grey, who had claimed the English throne for nine days the year previously, was executed for treason by the queen who deposed her, “Bloody” Mary I.

In 1733, the thirteenth of the Thirteen Colonies and future United States was founded. James Oglethorpe is Georgia’s founder, also founding its first city, Savannah. Less than a century later on this same day, Georgia also figured in the Treaty of Indian Springs, in which the Creek tribe ceded the last of its remaining lands in the state to the federal government.

In 1912, the last Emperor of China, Puyi - or the Xuantong Emperor - abdicated his throne.

In 1924, George Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” received its premiere performance in New York, with Gershwin himself playing the piano.

In 1974, Aleksander Solzhenitsyn, who had won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1970, was exiled from the Soviet Union after the KGB found drafts of his novel, The Gulag Archipelago. This exile allowed Solzhenitsyn to formally receive that Nobel Prize: At the time he was awarded it, he did not wish to leave the Soviet Union for fear that they would not allow him back in.

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And that’s the way it is in Birdland on February 12 - or at least, unless something happens today. Hey, it might. Spring training starts tomorrow. Somebody tell Dan Duquette! Have a safe Monday.