Roch:
Have you noticed Gibbons there at all? Maybe they are going to actually release him...

Welcome home Roch, hope you like the rain and the cold because that is what we are getting for a good part next week. seems as if the sunshine and warm temps spoiled you a little. Don't worry it will get warm soon enough. I hope the Orioles brought their sunglasses back with them but won't need them for a while.

Hey Roch, welcome back, Give yourself a couple of days and your car will feel normal again. And thanks once again for all your efforts through this blog. You took no days off in Florida as best as I can tell, and that says something about your work ethic. Either that, or you know people here give you the gears if you don't update the blog at least once every four hours.

One thing I won't assume is that MacPhail's hands are tied by ownership if Moore gets sent to Norfolk. That's the easy assumption but I think it's more complicated than that.

I don't know anything about Jay Gibbons personally. I do feel badly for him, though, because baseball can't be much fun for him when you're aware most people despise you. He needs a fresh start in a new city if he wants to revive his career. Yes, he may be a one-dimensional player who "cheated" by taking steroids. (BTW, how many of us have never cheated in one apsect of our private or professional lives?) And he may be one of the most overpaid players in the game. Like others have mentioned, he didn't exactly extort the team for that contract... it was readily offered to him by management at the time. Ironically, he's become a prisoner of the deal because the economics of any business dictate you don't throw $12 million into the wind.

Gibbons knows that if he doesn't perform out of the gate, he'll be sent packing. My only concern is that I'm not sure if he has much incentive to turn on the jets. Either way, he gets his money. If he doesn't do a good job, he'll be turfed out of here that much quicker, and he knows that's best for him if he wants to start fresh.

I know a lot of fans believe he already has no integrity. I'm kind of hoping he proves he does, and puts in a strong effort during his remaining days with the organization. Then the Orioles may salvage something from their investment and Gibbons can walk away with his chin just a little bit higher.

Tracking balls in ML lit stadiums will be far easier then in the high skies & bright sun of Fla. I won't even mention the almost always steady wind too. I dread bright sunny days down there during our tourneys... I am glad when I see it's cloudy for instance. You can account for alot of those blown catches on the elements.

Thanks for the updates on FanFest Roch. Can you tell us how many foo...um I mean fans attended? I won't trust the O's PR release on the numbers.... You shouldn't even need your toes to count them.... that way your feet can stay warm at least. I know that upper 40's must feel like 20s to you after 7 weeks in S Fla. :-)

The Nats sold out their opener in 16 min. when they released tix sales.... the O's are still advertising seats available... quite telling.

Its easy to get frustrated with the current roster and slow rebuilding pace. But at the same time, a look at the 25 man roster shows 5 new players from the Tejada and Bedard trades (Scott, Albers, Sarfate, Jones, & Sherill). Then there are Aquino, Bierd, and Quiroz, 3 more new guys. This means about one third of the active roster has been overhauled already. That's not that bad. Also, some of the remaining parts are keepers.

TerryP, I would take Ramon Hernandez out of your group of bad contracts. He's a pretty good player if you take out last year. He'll be hitting well and batting cleanup before long. You should definitely ADD Baez to your group though.

We shouldn't worry too much. If you don't want Gibbons on the roster, he'll be injured soon anyway. It'll kill us if its always back stiffness and he's unavailable but doesn't go on the DL. But more likely, he will be spend most of the season on the DL (if kept).

Probably would feel more weird for people if they actually drove a rental car for six weeks.

Just saying.....

Roch,
The car SHOULD feel weird. Remember, I drove it one day while babysitting it for you. Seat and steering adjusted for my 5' 3", 103 lb frame. The music? That was Mozart . . . but you knew that! Welcome home.
Love,
Your sister

I'm a little concerned about Jones and Scott's OF play. Guess they can't be any worse than Gibbons and Payton.

Is there any chance Roch that they will release Jay Gibbons and keep Moore in Baltimore? And do you consider this a litmus test situation on the rebuild and new direction for the club?

Roch-

What time was your flight supposed to depart? In addition to being an O's fan I'm a Southwest employee and I will pass along the feedback. Sorry for the inconvenience.

On another note, from reading your blog and the Sun sports pages almost religiously for years now, I get the impression there are some subjects too painful to be addressed objectively. For example, it seems no one wants to question O's management's decision to throw John Maine into the Benson trade a few years ago. With all the impatience throughout the years (until perhaps McPhail), trading away someone who in retrospect clearly could've been a cornerstone of the rotation represents another case of mortgaging the future along the lines of the Schilling, Finley, and Harnisch for Glenn Davis trade. Giving away Maine looks like a disaster now. How did Flanagan and co. miss so badly on him? And he wasn't the only good young O's farmhand who has prospered on other clubs (remember Garret Stephenson?) The issue of O's management misjudging players in their own farm system seems like one that sportswriters are afraid to bring up. Your thoughts?

First of all, Roch --

Welcome back to Maryland, like the sign says on the road. Second, I would have given Jones the same score, but only if he had caught the ball at the same time.

You should really consider changing airlines, if Southwest is really going "south-west" on ya, but I digress, if they offer breakfast that early.

And for the team, I really hope they will be able to put correct fielders in the outfield, so we don't have to watch them become "Angels in the Outfield" anymore. Can anybody say Matthew McConaughey?

Finally, welcome to the 2008 Season, where we just hope we don't get no-hit, score 30-3, get massacred, and so on. Just kidding. I really hope we do pull out a pretty good season out of the hat.

Wonder how many players will be exempt from that long bus ride.... After exposing the veterans to jet lag yesterday the team shouldn't rush them.... With opening day about 48 hours away, you can't be to careful....

Andy please release Gibbons. He is the poster child for the last 10 years.

A little chilly is it, Roch? Welcome back to the REAL world! LOL (Of course, having lived in south Florida I know that in a month or so it takes its turn at being the real world for the summer: a daily dose of 85-95 degrees and 90% humidity.)

I know a lot of people don't want to hear this kind of talk, but my guess is that the Orioles are going to let Gibby have a chance to save his job. If so, he'll have a very short rope--deliver or depart. I don't think that means he's going to be starting much, though, not when there's Scott and Payton (who acquitted himself pretty well at the plate this spring), so he'd better be hitting the cover off of the ball when he gets the chance.

One thing about playing in the brand new Nats stadium....it's brand new.
I saw the new JumboTron or whatever it's called now and it does look impressive even on television. That in itself may be the biggest acquisition this year.
I don't want to hear your whining about coming back to Maryland after being on spring break for two months. Your just sad cause you left all those college girls and came back to reality. I figured that's what you were doing when you weren't keeping us updated after 3 or 4 pm. We would get lonely for baseball news up here in the middle of winter.
Well anyway I'll play a little Welcome Back Kotter theme music for you on youtube and I'm glad you made it home safely.

Lineup follows:
Roberts 2b
Mora 3b
Markakis RF
Millar 1b
Scott DH
Payton LF
Hernandez C
Jones CF
Hernandez, L SS

Loewen is pitching

Roch , I heard fan-fest was a cold bust , under 3000 fans showed up , is that true?

MLB.TV is showing the game as a free preview for those folks, like myself, that arn't local.

Nothing to log into or sign up for, just a couple plug ins.

Luis Hernández has another error. Why is he starting?

Roch it was fun to be at the stadium. My Step-Brother and I wanted to sit by the home dug out so we could ask questions. But it was waaaaay too cold so we sat in the sun.

Overall it was a good time (I got sunburnt) to go along with 7 signatures. So it was worth it.

Not sure how many people showed up. But I can say in the 2 hours the O's signed stuff we only got to get into 2 lines. Neither of those lines were B.Roberts or Markakis. Which were much longer.

Best face lift. Kenny Rogers, Joan Rivers , Burt Reynolds or announcer Dick Endberg?

So I woke up this morning, ran my errands for the day and got home to rest and was able to watch FanFest on TV. Looked a little empty, but as I was watching, I couldn't help but smile. BASEBALL IS BACK! THANK GOD! I was so sick of spring training.

Can't wait for opening day. I really don't care if we lose an a$$ load of games, just as long as we do it in a respectable fashion. Like a post earlier... no 30-3's, massacres or no-hitters and I'll remain a fan.

i know that despite having fanfest tix... i chose not to make the drive from cleveland. this is what happens when i "shop" online after a couple glasses of wine and well after midnight... bad decision-making on my part. sober or otherwise.

i'm sure i'm not the only one who decided hypothermia was not something worth bringing home from an event like that. the o's will undoubtedly release "paid attendance" versus "people who bothered to show up". that said, maybe i should have gone... the autograph lines couldn't have been too long and my nephew would have been tolerable under those circumstances....

I hope the bats come alive soon. They ALL looked overmatched today against a couple of Nats average pitchers. Even BRob looked like he wanted to get back in the dugout as quickly as possible.

For the three people in Maryland that really care; Jerry Hairston Jr and our good buddy Jim Brower of the Reds were re-assigned today to minor league camp. I thought Hairston had a terrific spring.
Jeff "Screetch" Fiorentino was optioned by the A's.
Author Rhodes (O in 91-99) went to the minors for the Mariners.
Kirk Birkins of the Rays went on 15 day DL.
Chris Richard also with Rays (O in 00-02) was re-assigned.
Mike Timlin of Red Sox (O in 99-00) is on 15 day DL.
Chad Paronto (O in 01) was outrighted by the Astros.
Kris Benson, re-assigned to minor league camp, is going to need more time after coming down with biceps tendinitis and it could be late May before he makes his return for the Phillies. Last week he was playing catch but not throwing.

Almost former. While I lumped Hernandez in there, I really don't think he was a bad signing. He looks even better compared to the others. He did tank it a bit last year but I think he'll bounce back this year.
I left Baez out because I am trying to forget him!! I was also focusing on the age of the position players but it goes without saying that Baez was a HUGE mistake!

I guess Jay Gibbons will be even colder at the plate now that he's in Baltimore.

Does anyone know what all these terms mean;
A) Sent to AAA
B) Reassigned to AAA
c) Outrighted to AAA
D) Optioned to AAA

????

Trade Payton to a team that needs a veteran fourth or fifth outfielder, keep both Scott and Gibbons and hope that Jay hits enough to get something in a trade. His contract is too large to cut and he could hit with some power if he gets it together.

"The first ball, he drifted on it," Trembley said. "T-Bone [first base coach John Shelby] addressed that the other day. You've got to run to the spot. You can't try to time it."

Is anyone else as concerned about this as I am? I mean, we are talking about major league (OK, professional) baseball players here, right? I realize fundamentals have gone downhill in the last 10 years, but this is ridiculous...

Maybe Trembley or T-Bone should try "I reminded Daniel that he'll be more successful if he throws the ball in the strike zone" or "We told Jay that he'll probably hit better if he holds the thinner end of the bat and tries to hit the ball"...

Roch,
My major problem with the O's this year is they need to have more, young unproven players in the field. if they want to be a rebuilding team there needs to be more young players in the field.

Contract or not, if you are committed to rebuilding, Jay GIbbons has to go, and you have to make some more moves before the trade deadline.

Does any find it just bizarre that the A's and Red Sox started the season in Japan and then followed that by playing more spring training games??? That has to be a first.

I am on board for what lies ahead for this team , but please don't get caught up in all this positive talk that everybody does before the first pitch on opening day. This team will lose over 100 games and be so far out of the race by the all star break that there will be fewer then 5000 fans that show up in the real dog days of august. All these fudamentals that dave has had these guys work seem like a complete waste of time. They again lead the entire major leagues in walks in spring training. Please somebody tell me any difference in what you see out there I will do my very best to stay positive but i again can only wonder how in the world did this once proud organization ever get in this situation..As for jay gibbons they need to just cut there ties regardless of salary and just play somebody younger. He won't help this club at all.

Yay for an off day while other teams have THEIR opening days! This means, dare I say, we have NOT been mathematically eliminated YET!

And it looks like CLE will not have another Snowpening Day. Yay for TWO positives!

"i" is for irrational thinking here in cleveland.

Congratulations to Peter Angelos, Andy MacPhail and Dave Trembley for releasing Jay Gibbons. His time had arrived. I now fully believe this club is committed to rebuilding the right way.

Breaking News!

Gibbons has been finally released! Cut! Sliced n' diced!

Now we can keep Moore and Redman. All is right in the world. Hernandez needs to focus now that he is the starting SS, and needs to know that now. Keep your mitt down, Luis, and all will go well.

Holy mackeral! It's the end of the Gibbons era. I really didn't think it would happen. So what does it all mean?

First, for anyone who still believes MacPhail has been hogtied by ownership, this is overwheming evidence against it. It was nearly a consensus that Gibbons could no longer contribute here, and MacPhail acted accordingly.

In terms of PR, this move scores major points. I'll be honest in saying I don't know if I would have had the nerve to make the move, but the upside is it should generate a number of positive responses from the fans and give them more hope for the future.

And it's a guarantee that you won't be seeing anymore needless and expensive long-term signings. At this point, the only one I'd be on board with is a long-term contract with Markakkis.

Wow, I was convinced this wasn't going to happen, but I agree it's a big step forward. Expensive, but big.

Bill in Elkton....thanks for the updates on former Os....although I'm not in MD, I do care to find out about these players. I collect autographs(mostly through the mail) and have sigs from all but one of those players. Again, thanks for the info!

I hope Gibbons finds a team that can use him.....he needs a fresh start.

Heat Lamps. Are you freakin' kidding me???