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Hello, friends.
There are now 39 days until Orioles Opening Day. You only have to get through three 13-game plans worth of days and then there will be real, actual O's baseball. It doesn't seem so long when you put it that way.
The full squad has reported. Spring training games, poor facsimiles of O's games that they are, happen to be only five days away. You can listen to a game on the new flagship, 105.7, a day after that, and a MASN game follows after still another day. It won't be the Orioles, but it'll be guys wearing Orioles uniforms.
Before you get into the links from elsewhere, if you missed it last night, Nick Markakis said some confusing stuff, apparently in anger, about the Orioles. And now on to the links!
Baltimore Orioles: Chris Davis says 'I let a lot of people down' - MLB - SI.com
I actually feel bad about how much Chris Davis seems to feel bad about what happened. Hopefully he doesn't put too much pressure on himself to do better... although hopefully also he does better.
Sports Rehab: Jim Duquette talking Orioles Spring Training " CBS Baltimore
If you don't have enough Duquettes in your life, and really, who does, here's Jim joining the 105.7 people to discuss some of what's gone on early in O's spring training.
Peter Schmuck: After gambles paid off in 2014, Orioles take another with former Padres shortstop - Baltimore Sun
It is a bit of a gamble when you sign a guy who gives a quote like, "Now I'm a nice guy." That is an actual thing that he said.
School of Roch: Recapping the first full-squad workout with photos and video
The mother lode of photos and video from the first full squad day of spring training. Look, nobody does anything exciting on the first full squad day of spring training. But it's there.
And here's one that has nothing to do with the Orioles except that the subject destroyed a dugout phone in a fit of (libelous opinion removed) one time...
Red Sox slugger David Ortiz refusing to change routine for new pace-of-play rules | The Augusta Chronicle
I would say the truest test of whether MLB is serious about the new pace of play rules is whether or not they are going to fine and suspend Ortiz for open defiance of the rules. They haven't before, so why would they start now?
One former Oriole with a birthday today: Josh Towers, one of many to come through and fail in the 00s. There are not any interesting transactions for this date.
And that's the way it is in Birdland on February 26 - or at least, unless something happens later, which it probably won't, because it's the second full squad day of spring training. Have a safe Thursday.