Monday Bird Droppings: Where we’re declaring it baseball season

Happy Monday, Camden Chatters! The Super Bowl was completed yesterday with old man Tom Brady once again proving that he might be the greatest player in the history of the NFL. If you follow baseball Twitter, you now know that people everywhere are declaring it baseball season. It’s not really true, of course, but I get what they’re saying.

Pitchers and catchers are scheduled to report to spring training in just eight days and we’re now only 52 days from Opening Day. So we won’t get to actually watch baseball for awhile, especially since word has it the penny pinching Orioles aren’t planning on broadcasting many spring games. But still, I suspect it’ll be here before we know it.

If you can overlook the fact that COVID is still going strong and the players and owners seem to hate each other’s guts, you can actually get a little bit excited!

Links

Jahmai Jones: "I Could Not Be More Excited To Be in Baltimore"- 105.7 The Fan
This is a short story with a link to the audio of the interview done with new Oriole Jahmai Jones. It's fun to hear someone say they're excited to be here! Also, I learned on Baseball Reference that Jahmai (pronounced Juh-MY) is nicknamed Jam. I approve.

Orioles might need more starting pitching, even with Félix Hernández and Wade LeBlanc in the mix - Baltimore Sun
I mean no offense to the King or to Mr. LeBlanc when I look at this headline and say, "duh." But in the article Jon Meoli lays out the options for starting pitching as they sit right now, so it's worth the read.

Jim Callis On Why Orioles Prospect Gunnar Henderson Could Soon Be Top-100 Prospect - PressBoxOnline.com
Money quote: "I really think if Gunnar had gone to the [South Atlantic] League in 2020, there’s a chance he would’ve hit .280 with 20 homers and maybe we would say, ‘He’s got a better chance to stick at short than [we thought].’ Assuming we have a normal year, which we all hope for, I think Gunnar’s on the top 100 a year from now.”

Birthdays and History

Is today your birthday? Happy birthday! You have three Orioles birthday buddies. One of my favorite players from the dark days, Félix Pié, turns 36 years old today. Pié played in 268 games for the Orioles from 2009-2011. Was he very good? No. But he was very exuberant!

Also born on this day in history were Bob Oliver (b. 1943, d. 2020), a utility player who appeared in 847 major league games. Nine of those games were for the 1974 Orioles. And Hoot Evers (b. 1921, d. 1991) had a 12-year major league career that ended with 108 games with the Orioles from 1955-1956.

On this day in 2008, the Orioles made a very good trade. They sent lefty pitcher Érik Bédard to the Seattle Mariners in exchange for Adam Jones, Chris Tillman, George Sherrill, Kam Mickolio, and Tony Butler. What a day that was for the franchise. Bédard didn’t pan out for Seattle (or anywhere else) while Adam Jones and Chris Tillman went on to become vital pieces for the first good Orioles teams of my adult life.