Thursday Bird Droppings: Staying warm on a day with no baseball

Hello, friends.

There are 164 days remaining until Orioles Opening Day 2016.

There is no baseball today, however. That sucks. I can't say the Mets haven't earned a little break, though, with the way they dismantled the Cubs. How about that Daniel Murphy, huh? There are people on Baseball Twitter - who may or may not know anything - who seem to think Murphy would be a Dan Duquette "trying to do something that matters but it's a horrible decision" kind of signing.

Do you think the Mets can take down the AL winner? Will the layoff between now and the start of the World Series put a halt to their momentum or anything? That kind of thing is probably not something that matters. People just apply a narrative to what happens even if it's not really connected. Like for instance, the Rocktober team of 2007 supposedly lost their momentum after an NLCS sweep and then they lost to the Red Sox in the World Series. But the truth is they probably just weren't as good as those Red Sox.

Anyway, forget all of these other teams. Let's turn our focus to the Orioles.

Around the blogO'sphere

Orioles' Dylan Bundy to return to game action in Arizona Fall League - Baltimore Sun
The last I heard, the Orioles didn't want Bundy to do the AFL because they wanted him to go through a normal offseason routine. Maybe whoever reported that didn't know what they were talking about... or maybe the Orioles changed their minds because they have no idea what to do with Bundy.

School of Roch: Orioles coaching staff remains intact for 2016
Hey, everybody's coming back next year! That's good, right? Continuity is not something we were able to enjoy during the dark years.

Free Agent Profile: Chris Davis - MLB Trade Rumors
The people over at MLBTR put a number on Chris Davis. More on this topic later this morning from yours truly.

Maybe Orioles should think about securing Schoop, too | CSN Mid-Atlantic
Over at CSN, Rich Dubroff offers some sensible advice that the O's should get to work on locking up Jonathan Schoop too. That'll probably be just a bit cheaper than extending Manny Machado. As the taco girl likes to say, why don't we have both?

Pirates lose Worley on waivers to Orioles | Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
A little view from the other side on the newest waiver-claimed Orioles player. It's not super encouraging.

Quincy Lady Orioles claim Big 8 Crown - Sports - The Daily Reporter - Coldwater, MI
As you know, it is the ongoing editorial position of this blog to celebrate the successes of all Orioles teams, everywhere. So let's all applaud the conference championship of the Quincy girls cross country team. They earned it!

Birthdays and anniversaries

Today is Darren O'Day's birthday. He's still officially an Oriole until after the World Series, so there! It's also the birthday of some former Orioles, including two-time World Series champion Eli Whiteside, Hector Carrasco (40 games in 2003), Keith Osik (11 games in 2004), and Jamie Quirk (25 games in 1989).

Is today your birthday? Happy birthday! Along with those O's birthdays, your birthday buddies include the likes of Daniel Boone (1734), composer Franz Liszt (1811), Back to the Future actor Christopher Lloyd (1938) - wouldn't it have been great if that was yesterday? Also the birthday of "Must go faster" actor Jeff Goldblum (1952), figure skater Brian Boitano (1963), Maryland-born movie dude Spike Jonze (1969), and probable future Baseball Hall of Famer Ichiro Suzuki (1973).

On this day in history...

In 1746, the college later known as Princeton University received its charter.

In 1884, Greenwich, England was officially adopted as the meridian of longitude for Universal Time by the International Meridian Conference. The mean time was needed for trains, don't you know.

In 1962, the Cuban Missile Crisis was underway - on this day, President Kennedy announced to the world that American spy planes discovered Soviet nuclear weapons in Cuba. A naval blockade was put in place.

In 1966, the album A' Go-Go by The Supremes hit #1 on the Billboard chart, making them the first all-female group to ever have the #1 album on that chart.

In 2001, the release of Grand Theft Auto III kicked off a trend of open world video games that still influences design today.

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And that's the way it is in Birdland on October 22 - at least, unless something happens later. Have a safe Thursday.