Thursday Bird Droppings: Former Orioles in plenty as Korean baseball gets going

Hello, friends.

In the parallel universe where everything is the same as this one except there was no coronavirus and no rain delays, the Orioles would have played 37 games by now. Today was always going to be a day without O’s baseball since they were scheduled for a day off, so it’s like you’re not missing out on anything.

With baseball starting back up in other places, particularly Korea, you can now choose either that or assorted imaginary O’s baseball for your baseball fix. There are former Orioles every which way you turn in the KBO, or so it seems. The only catch is that a lot of the games start at 5:30 in the morning in US Eastern time. Most of us, I think, are not working with that kind of schedule right now.

I watched the re-air of a contest between the Doosan Bears and the LG Twins yesterday afternoon. It had a charming quality to its minimal budget production, with no pretense that the two broadcasters were doing anything other than sitting with headsets on in basements or offices very, very early in the morning.

Since ESPN only had the no-frills video from South Korea, the broadcast wasn’t polluted with their usual junk like the constant K zone right over the plate. As a bonus, the looser format offered more opportunity for some check-ins with people who had relevant information to share about Korean baseball, including recent KBO pitcher Josh Lindblom, and Chelsea Wilson, who is married to former Oriole Tyler Wilson.

If your life is free of enough other responsibilities today, you can watch a game between the NC Dinos and Samsung Lions that started at 5:30am, or the re-air of the same at 3pm on ESPN2. It’s not MLB, and you probably won’t know who anyone is, but it does feel like baseball.

As for imaginary Orioles, the Baseball Reference-simulated Orioles were victorious yesterday, beating the Blue Jays, 12-8. The O’s and Jays are both 16-21 for the sim season, both a half-game ahead of the 16-22 Red Sox. Rio Ruiz drove in three runs in a four-hit game. Renato Nunez drove in another three runs. The offense was able to overcome a poor John Means start, as well as Hunter Harvey giving up a pair of homers in relief.

The Orioles of The Athletic Alternate Universe are not very good, well into last with a 24-38 record. Their O’s writer Dan Connolly recently simulated the first four picks of the 2020 draft through the Out of the Park Baseball sim their league is using. That included a top pick of Vanderbilt infielder Austin Martin, my real-life hoped-for pick for next month.

Camden Chat’s own OOTP simulation will be getting an update later on this morning. Check back to see how our team is doing. Spoiler: It’s bad.

Around the blogO’sphere

MLB return-to-play proposal expected within week, sources say (ESPN)
The announcement is that there will soon be an announcement. Jeff Passan runs through the current status of the maybes.

Dwight Smith Jr. staying ready while waiting for baseball to return (School of Roch)
Aren’t we all? It’s probably a little harder for Smith to stay ready than it is for us, of course.

With baseball season on hold due to coronavirus, Orioles infielder Rio Ruiz bides his time (Baltimore Sun)
There are a lot of things I’m tired of with all of this that’s going on. The ongoing “Here’s what a mildly famous person is doing in quarantine” genre of article is not one of them.

A thumbnail guide to the KBO’s season (Fangraphs)
If you’re looking to half-heartedly get mildly interested in one of these KBO teams, Jay Jaffe is here with a guide about who is who and who you might want to root for.

Orioles top international signings of all time (Orioles.com)
It is a bit of a mystery why Hyun Soo Kim is on this list but not Wei-Yin Chen.

Remembering the O’s World Series champions, with video (Steve Melewski)
The three times the Orioles have won the World Series were all before I was born. Yeah, I know, you’ve heard it before.

Birthdays and Orioles anniversaries

There are a few former Orioles who were born on this day. They are: 2019 outfielder Keon Broxton, 2000-03 catcher Brook Fordyce, and 1994-96 reserve Mark Smith. For Smith’s birthday, I hope he lets someone else take a look at the air conditioner.

Is today your birthday? Happy birthday to you! Your birthday buddies for today include: philosopher David Hume (1711), poet Robert Browning (1812), composer Johannes Brahms (1833), composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840), poet Archibald MacLeish (1892), and wrestler Owen Hart (1965).

On this day in history...

In 558, the dome of the Hagia Sophia collapsed only about 20 years after it was completed. The Byzantine emperor Justinian I ordered it be rebuilt; you can still visit the building today in what’s now known as Istanbul.

In 1824, Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony premiered in Vienna. There are those who believe that when compact discs were being designed, effort was made to ensure a typical performance of the Ninth could fit all on one disc.

In 1915, the RMS Lusitania sank after being torpedoed by a German U-boat. Among the 1,198 killed were 128 Americans, and the sinking is seen as an event that shifted American sentiment about World War I.

In 1954, the Battle of Dien Bien Phu ended in a French defeat and the eventual partitioning of Vietnam into a north and south. The event is one of many referenced in Billy Joel’s “We Didn’t Start The Fire.”

In 1992, Michigan ratified a Constitutional amendment first proposed in 1789, giving it enough states to be ratified after 202 years. The 27th amendment requires that any Congressional pay increase not take effect until after there has been an election and a new Congress seated.

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And that’s the way it is in Birdland on May 7. Have a safe Thursday.