Hello, friends.
There are now 156 days remaining until Orioles Opening Day 2018. There will be no baseball to entertain us today, since the World Series doesn’t start until tomorrow. Unless you count the Arizona Fall League, anyway.
Do you have any excitement for the World Series? I’m happy that the Yankees won’t be in it, but I find I don’t really have much of an opinion beyond that. If it goes seven games and there’s a longer time before the baseball-less winter sets in, that would be OK.
Not that the start of the offseason ever holds much excitement for Orioles fans. The team doesn’t tend to do a whole heck of a lot before Christmas, except for the obligatory Rule 5 draft pick at the winter meetings. Other teams sign good players and the Orioles sit around waiting for who is left. That probably won’t be any different this year. Maybe they can mange to sign someone better this time around.
Around the blogO’sphere
Six Orioles elect free agency (School of Roch)
If you lost sleep last night because any of Logan Verrett, Vidal Nuno, Jason Wheeler, Francisco Pena, Johnny Giavotella, and Ruben Tejada are now free agents… well, that’s honestly a little weird, but it’s OK, we’re still here for you.
Who is your all-time favorite Oriole? (Steve Melewski)
As you will probably notice from this links selection, it’s a slow news period for the O’s, and I have sympathy for when desperate measures must be taken. Also, who’s your favorite Oriole ever?
Sunday Notes: Collin McHugh and Josh Hader take their mechanics seriously (Fangraphs)
Josh Hader seems to come up on Fangraphs a lot and I post those articles every time because I think the way some people react when he comes up is hilarious.
Among the articles that showed up in the usual place I search for these links are one about the Nationals bullpen catcher, one about the Good Morning Nashville team, and one about favorite Yankees moments of the year. It’s a hard time of year for finding Orioles stuff to discuss.
Birthdays and anniversaries
There are two former Orioles with birthdays today. They are: 2004 two-gamer Denny Bautista, and 1954-55 Oriole Vern Stephens.
Is today your birthday? Happy birthday! Your birthday buddies for today include: steamship pioneer Samuel Morey (1762), Tonight Show legend Johnny Carson (1925), film auteur Philip Kaufman (1936), footballer Pele (1940), wire-fu movie man Ang Lee (1954), music’s Weird Al Yankovic (1959), So You Think You Can Dance personality Cat Deeley (1976), and Game of Thrones actress Emilia Clarke (1986).
On this day in history…
In 42 BC, the army of the Second Triumvirate, led by Marc Antony and Octavian, defeated Brutus in the Second Battle of Philippi, after which Brutus committed suicide. effectively ending the Liberators’ civil war.
In 1911 AD, during the Italo-Turkish War, an Italian pilot took off from Libya to observe the Turkish lines. This was the first use of aircraft in war.
In 1942, a lot of stuff happened in World War II. In Russia, Field Marshal Zhukov took command of the Red Army to defend Moscow. In Africa, the British Eighth Army under Field Marshal Montgomery launched an offensive at El Alamein, eventually driving Rommel’s Afrika Corps back into Tunisia. And on Guadalcanal, Japanese forces began a several-day attack on the US marines guarding Henderson Field.
In 1955, Ngo Dinh Diem won a referendum with 98.2% of the vote and proclaimed himself president of the Republic of Vietnam. Notably, Diem received more than 600,000 votes in Saigon despite only 450,000 people being registered to vote there.
In 1983, a truck bomb blew up a US marine barracks in Lebanon, killing 241 American military personnel. Another bomb elsewhere in Lebanon killed 58 French troops.
**
And that’s the way it is in Birdland on October 23 – or at least, unless something happens later. I mean, other teams keep firing and hiring pitching coaches, so you never know, right? Have a safe Monday.
