Thanks for the update on Birkins Roch. Somehow, I think the braintrust could have found a more worthy character from the 40 man to risk losing. You could shake a tree full of current Birds & 5 would fall out of it.

I was looking at the list of free agents and was struck by how many former Orioles are on the list. By my count, there are 12 including 4 former O's closers: Arthur Rhodes, Jorge Julio, Armando Benitez and Jose Mesa.

There's no particular significance to this observation, I just thought it was interesting.

Oh, I see some people are hinting at something tawdry in reference to Shelby's nickname of T Bone. I'll take that easy bait & just say... it's T-Bone .... not Tripod.

Roch,

What's the outlook for the rest of the O's that were outrighted at the end of the season to make room on the 40 man roster? Any of them coming back?

Everyone else,

I've got an idea....lets trade D-Cab for Johan Santana, Tejada for Jose Reyes, Millar for Ryan Howard, Huff for Manny Ramirez, and sign A-Rod, Mariano Rivera, and Torii Hunter. I think we'd have a winner, then.

GET REAL PEOPLE. These ridiculous trades are not going to happen. Angelos is not going to spend any kind of money. This is a rebuilding period. Get used to it.

Roch,

Ogilvie's catch was about halfway up the LF line, maybe a little farther. Not really in the corner. I remember because it happened right in front of me. I was about 10 rows up in the lower section. Had it dropped, the Orioles would have gone on to win that game. I am sure of it.

Yount's first HR was in the first inning and just seemed to deflate the crowd and the Orioles. Then they piled it on. But the O's had a real comeback working and two men on (I think) when Dempsey hit that ball.

It was a low pop fly, or a high bloop if you want to call it that, but it was a long run for Ogilvie and I thought for sure that it would drop in.

I was real proud of myself because I picked up those great seats weeks in advance, when the Orioles were out of it. The last game of the season looked meaningless. Then they started to win, and the game started to look bigger and bigger, and when that Sunday morning came, I suddenly had two great tickets to a classic. For drama, there is nothing like that one huge game at the end of the season.

Good memories.

On Bedard salary numbers... the Orioles have him under arbitration for 2008 and 2009. He made something like $4M this year, and a reasonable guess for next year would be around $8M. If his 2008 is similar to his 2007, that 2009 salary would likely jump into the low teens. What does this mean? An extension has to be nice, but not insane. Bedard gets the security of the money in the event he gets hurt in 2008 or 2009. If you look at what guys like Buerhle have gotten recently, and project Bedard to continue at his current level, he's in the $15M to $20M range of value on the free agent market. Apply that to the 2 years, $20M net he's likely to get through arbitration, and you've got a 4 year deal at up to $60M and arguably less.

I'd also argue that the "three good months" argument for him is off base. After a slow start in 2006 he was every bit the ace we saw in his "three good months" of 2007. That's what gives you confidence the guy is worth an extension. And just because he's quiet doesn't have to mean he doesn't want to be here. Assuming it does is kind of neurotic (think back to high school... "she didn't call me last night, she must hate me... I should break up with her first, yeah, that'll show her").

Birkins was the only pitcher besides Bedard to start any games and have at least 2:1 strikeout:walk ratio. That's something. His 8.13 ERA is something else. More than 1.5 hits allowed per inning will do that.

EJ: I think the $100 million figure just comes from estimating 5 or 6 years, at roughly $16 to $20 million per year. I’m not sure where you get 4 years from; that number could work, though, if the O’s buy out his last two years of club control (giving him big time free agent money in 2008 and 2009 when the O’s could rightfully set the parameters for a much lower salary). I think the problem is, if we don’t invest the kind of money in Bedard that the Giants and Cubs invested in Zito and Zambrano, some other team will.

Bedard’s price tag will just keep going up. If the O’s had extended him last offseason, he could probably have been had at $12 to $14 million per season. Now, we’re looking at least $16 to $18 million. If he stays healthy and pitches well, it’ll keep rising. I’m not sure what the 2009 free agent class will look like, but, as we see each year, it’ll get tighter the closer we get to it as top players either are extended by their current clubs or fall out of top player status through declining performance or injury.

I agree with your logic: the O’s should keep Bedard not because he’s an experienced #1, but that he has the potential to be so. This is why the O’s shouldn’t have waited this long to extend him. Now, it’s going to cost much more than it would’ve, and he’s much more likely to want to test free agency the closer he gets to it.

Thanks for the Birkins hypothesis, Roch. I suppose there's someone else the mgmnt thinks is more worthy of protection on the 40-man roster, perhaps someone still at a lower level of development, but perhaps the space is being kept open for a future acquisition. And I looked up the game in Louisville last August once again and stand corrected: Birkins started and went 4 2/3 innings w/o yielding any runs, but he must've gotten in a jam, giving up too many walks and singles, and was bailed out. Still, to be called up almost once a month and not get stints anywhere near as long as his AAA starts can twist a guy's rhythm way out of sync.

Roch, I remembered all the details about the John Shelby throw that a lot here got, and the one thing I particularly remember is him flying forward making that throw. It’s been 25 years but I still remember that well. That has to be one of the top 5 single plays of baseball that sticks out in my mind. Often when there’s a ball hit to the outfield and it looks a play is coming at the plate, I think of that moment. And we should also remember that Shelby has two championship rings to show off (’88 Dodgers also). More hardware to impress the kiddies with.

As for Birkins, if you’re 27 and pitching to an 8.00 ERA, you tend to get placed on waivers (and sometimes you get picked up by another team). I’m sure next year when Birkins is solid out of the Tampa bullpen and we’re scouring through assisted living communities looking for pitchers, we’ll regret the move. But on the surface, it seems to be, what’s the big deal?

No problem about Birkins, I just saw two free agents we could pick up to replace him. Anyone ever heard of a J. Julio or A Benetiz? Better act quick though.....

O is for Oh NO

Thank you Devil Rays.

Does anyone have a good guess as to when the Mitchell report on players who have used banned substances will come out? If I'm MacPhail, I'm trying very hard to trade Brian Roberts and Miguel Tejada before the report comes out. Both players have been named already, and there simply is no reason for anyone to make false accusations about such things. Trading Roberts and Tejada before they become the next Palmeiros should be priority #1.

If Palmer had won that final game in 1982, he probably would have won the Cy Young award that year. That's pretty good, considering he never pitched effectively again.

Also in the first inning of that final game, did Glenn Gulliver run through a stop sign at 3B and get thrown out at home by 20 feet, with Jim Dwyer on deck with an intact streak of reaching base 12 straight times? That's the way I've always remembered it, at least.

To correct myself: Guthrie also had a better than 2:1 ratio.

I wonder if we cleared that spot on the 40-man to protect someone from the Rule 5 draft, which is only a month away. Reimold, or DuBois, maybe?

Roch,

The Brewer was Bob Skube that Shelby through out. And I think it was Joe Nolan who hit the ball that Ben O made that great catch on.

I think he'll have a place in the Devil Rays' rotation. Who's his competition? Edwin Jackson? Casey Fossum on his 12th chance to finally get it right?

Being that it sounds like we won't be doing much in terms of signing free agents, I'm doubly dumbfounded with regard to the O's letting House and Knott, two disciplined hitters with power, go, when offense is a huge hole on this team and there's talk of dealing our top offensive threat, Tejada. Knott should play left instead of Payton of the weak arm and sub-.300 OBP (trade or release), and House should be on the team in place of Bako (trade or release.) It's bad enough that Terry Crowley was retained, and he's crowing about team batting average, when the team stat that matters is runs scored (his overaggressive offense, as usual, finished in the bottom half of the league in that stat - sixth in team average doesn't matter, as games are won by the team with more runs, not the team with more hits. We were also ninth in team OBP, due to poor plate discipline from most of our hitters resulting in too few walks. Roberts, Markakis, and Millar should not be the exceptions in the lineup.)

While I'm happy to have another former O on the coaching staff, I'll always hold a bit of resentment that T-Bone replaced my favorite childhood player, the great Al Bumbry, as our regular center fielder during the '83 championship season. I never really forgave him (or Earl) for that. By the way, what's Bumbry doing these days? Looks like Shelby's taking the Bee's old stomping grounds in the first base box this time.

I saw Birkins pitch at Tropicana Field a couple of months ago - it was a spot start. I was in Tampa for my annual Orioles away game. As I waited for the gates to open, a family with homemade Orioles T-shirts with BIRKINS written across the back were waiting to get in as well. When we were seated in the stadium, this clan was standing by the bullpen talking to Birkins, so I think he has fans or family in the area - this may be a plus for him if he makes the Ray's 25 man roster.

Alan,

Bako filed for free agency. One would think he's outta here, as he was Mazzone's boy.

Like PhilF, I chose the last game of the 82 season months in advance for a 14th b-day party with my family and best friends. In adddition to the Earl farewell, I'll always remember the orange-painted brooms and the deafening chants of "SWEEP, SWEEP, SWEEP..." Memorial Stadium and Baltimore fans at their rockin' best!

Thanks for the good news on Bako. This makes the decision to not keep House even more questionable. The guy was adequate defensively as a backup catcher, and he is an offensive threat who can DH, play first base, and pinch hit, unlike most backup catchers who are lousy hitters.

I, too, was at that last game in '82. And while it broke my heart, it still represents one of the greatest weekends in baseball that I ever witnessed (I was there for the entire 4 game series and the previous 3 games in Detroit as a number of my college hall mates and I road-tripped to both series.)

Oglivie's catch was a sliding one across the left field foul line where there was virtually no room between it and the stands. It was the bottom of the 8th and the O's had already scored one run to narrow the score to 4-2. Palmer, although he only gave up, I believe, 4 hits that day before being lifted, simply did not have his best "stuff" that day, but he was gritty in keeping the game close. There were 2 out with 2 on and Joe Nolan, not Rick Dempsey, was the batter (he was pinch hitting). As I was in left field, I watched the slicing action of the ball off of Nolan's bat--he was left-handed. I thought the ball had "double" or, with a fortuitous bounce, "triple" written all over it. Either way, it would have cleared the bases, tied the game and put the go-ahead run in scoring position. For a moment, I felt that Oriole Magic, once again, was unfolding before my eyes.

Alas, Oglivie, who always seemed to me to be an Oriole-killer wherever he played, made the catch. I recall Nolan's disgusted reaction to the catch as he rounded 1st. It certainly deflated the crowd and, perhaps, the team as the Brewers added 6 runs in the 9th to put the game away. In addition to losing the division, I also think Palmer lost the Cy Young Award that day. The loss snapped his 10-game winning streak and left him with a 15-5 record (.750 winning %), or the same as Pete Vuckovich (18-6), the CYA winner. A 16-4 record with an 11 game winning streak and a division-clinching win against the Brewers on the last day of the season would have, IMO, cemented the award for him.

The most memorable aspect of that day, however, occurred after the game. The post-game events involving the genuinely mutual and unabashed adulation between fans and team was off-the-charts. I do not believe I will ever experience anything like it in sports ever again. It was certainly a special time for Baltimore and the O's...a time when being an Oriole fan was important, relevant and when the term "Oriole Way" truly meant something.

It was such a stupid move letting JR House go that it may be part of a deal they made when they talked him out of leaving Norfolk at mid-season last summer. I hope nobody picks him up and they invite him to ST.

Terp'n texas - to your last paragraph- AMEN!

Roch must be holding court & once again bailing Anita's show out.... no updates

Martin: Your comment is way off...
"Birkins was the only pitcher besides Bedard to start any games and have at least 2:1 strikeout:walk ratio."

Birkins had such a low walk ration because he gave up so many hits, they didn't wait around to walk...

i thought the play that dealt the final blow to our rally chances was when glen gulliver ran through a stop sign sometime in the late innings, and got throw out at home by a mile.

sound familiar?

oh, that's right, the difference is we were good if not great that year.

among these memories, let's not leave out that it was cal's rookie year.

We also had tickets to that final 1982 game as part of our Sunday package, and had picked up tickets to the Friday and Saturday games as the Orioles crawled back into the race. Disappointing as it was to lose after that great finishing kick, what I remember most was the electricity in town over the whole weekend as the Orioles kept winning to set up that final-game showdown, and the atmosphere outside dear ol' Memorial Stadium before the game that day was unlike any I had ever seen. Hard to believe it was 25 years ago, but that weekend sparked every single baseball emotion you could possibly have. Man, I miss those days…