Thursday Bird Droppings: Where the Orioles are almost back, but not quite

Hello, friends.

We are, as of this posting, approximately 36 hours away from the next Orioles baseball game. There is not a whole lot to do except sit around and stew about what's gone wrong so far this year. A lot of loser talk is flying around about trading Chris Davis, trading Matt Wieters, or whatever. Sell, sell, sell! No. That's for loser teams.

The Orioles aren't a loser team, although they are only .500 and could well be a loser team after this post-break road trip. They're bad on the road this year, you may have noticed. If they can tread water for a week and a half starting Friday, they might make it... of course, 10 days starting Friday takes us to July 27, and the non-waiver deadline is the 31st. Not much time to figure it out.

How are you getting through the All-Star Break? The peloton of the Tour de France has gotten no break whatsoever as their route takes them through the Pyrenees, where steep, high summits await the 177 riders still in the race. Today's Stage 12 is a 195km slog carrying the riders over a Category 2 climb, two Category 1 climbs, and a summit finish on top of the HC peak Plateau de Beille. Chris Froome seized control of the race on Tuesday's Pyrenees opener. Can any of the rivals fight back?

But enough of my random European sports obsession. Been watching anything good? Reading anything good? Listening to anything good? Tell us about it!

Around the blogO'sphere

There's not a whole lot going on over the All-Star Break, but we make do. The Bird Droppings must go on.

Orioles midseason player grades - Baltimore Sun
Slideshow warning. The Sun's Peter Schmuck is here to grade the various Orioles players at midseason. I'm going to guess there's a lot of C grades, which is how you get a .500 team.

Baltimore Orioles midseason betting report - MLB
Some ESPN dude is here to help all the gambling addicts who are trying to figure out if their over/under bets at 83 wins are going to pay off or not. I would have thought it a no-brainer for the O's to hit over on 83 wins, but I am no longer so sure.

Brittany Ghiroli On Concerns For The Orioles At The All Star Break " CBS Baltimore
A couple of days ago, MLB.com beat writer Brittany Ghiroli joined the fellows on the 105.7 morning show to talk about what ails the O's at this point in time.

Five Positives From Orioles' First Half (Press Box)
Stan the Fan is looking at things from a sunnier side. Here are five positives about the Orioles first half. Are you buying what he's selling?

2015 BEVys Awards - Bird's Eye View
Last week I asked for your help in nominating a BEVy award from Camden Chat. The other people of the various Birdland blogs came together to hand out the hardware, along with a usual Bird's Eye View show. It is very unlike Camdencast.

Birthdays and anniversaries

Not an exciting day for either birthdays or anniversaries. On this day in 1999, the Orioles traded Rocky Coppinger to the Brewers for a player to be named later who turned out to be Alberto Reyes. Yeah, exactly. And as for birthdays, there's one lone former Oriole with a birthday today: Eddie Fisher, a reliever from 1966-67.

If today is your birthday, happy birthday! You have a birthday buddy deep in the annals of baseball history: Shoeless Joe Jackson (1887), who maybe participated in the Black Sox scandal and maybe didn't participate. There's also Trygve Lie (1896), the first Secretary-General of the UN, and popcorn magnate Orville Reddenbacher (1907), and uh... that's about it for the old ones.

Your living birthday buddies for today include football coach/talker Jimmy Johnson (1943), original drummer of The Police Stewart Copeland (1952), poker pro Phil Hellmuth (1964), actor Will Ferrell (1967), former vice presidential nominee Tim Ryan (1967), and footballer Gareth Bale (1989).

On this day in history...

In 1790, the District of Columbia officially became the capital of the United States of America, setting in motion the merciless trolling of its professional sports teams by yours truly 225 years later.

In 1862, David Farragut's promotion to rear admiral made him the first ever officer in the US Navy to hold an admiral rank.

In 1941, Joe DiMaggio recorded a hit in his 56th consecutive game, a record that will probably stand forever.

In 1945, the US conducted the first ever nuclear weapon test at Alamogordo, NM.

In 1951, Catcher in the Rye was published, to be weirdly venerated or hated by every American high schooler thenceforth.

In 1969, Apollo 11 launched.

This was not a boring day in history!

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And that's the way it is in Birdland on July 16 - or at least, unless something happens later. Have a safe Thursday.