Tony-OH

It's a nice step. It was a good year overall but they need to be able to least get to the level of that second tier of Big-10 teams to be successful over the next few years. There really is some nice talent on this team.

Hey, all you needed to do was tell them you're an Orioles fan and you would have been fine! lol Well, MD look like they will have their first winning season since 2014 and only second in the Big-10.

What's the crowd like? I'm shocked anyone would go into that city but it appears you did.

Good riddance. Maybe he'll get in shape and fulfill some of his talent but good lord that guy was out of shape last year.

Honestly, it's the Pinstripe Bowl since they are playing in Yankees Stadium. I guess getting back to any bowl is a step in the right direction and there is some offensive talent on this team, but until they can start to get the quality big boys up front on both sides of the ball, they are going to have a hard time competing with the Big boys in the Big-10. I'm working from home today so I'll probably watch. Don't know much about VT this year but I'm sure @SteveA does!

We've beaten this dead horse a million times but hell, why got little to talk about right now so why not. MacPhail did provide a decent base, particularly with the Bedard trade that netted Jones and Tillman and of course acquiring JJ Hardy for nothing and Chris Davis for Uehara. The Orioles were 69-93 in MacPhail's last year. The only player under 28 that were on the team in 2011 that would play a big role in the future were Wieters, Jones, Markakis, Davis Britton (relief), Tillman, and Matusz (relief). In one offseason, DD acquired Miguel Gonzales (3.0 WAR), Jason Hammel (2.8 WAR), Win-Yin Chen (2.6 WAR), Wilson Betemit (0.8) brought up 19-year old Machado (1.6 WAR) and Nate McClouth (0.9 WAR) in season and the Orioles ended up 93-69, a 24 game improvement. By 2014, when DD was still in complete control of baseball operations, he added Steve Pearce (5.8 WAR), Nelson Cruz (4.5 WAR), Bud Norris (2.1 WAR), playoff hero Delmond Young (1 WAR), Brad Brach and the Orioles had a World Series winning-caliber team. So in three years DD built a World Series caliber team from a 93 loss last place team. So while MacPhail did acquire some of the players that were key (Jones, Tillman, Davis), DD basically rebuilt the starting pitching staff and acquired impact position players to take the team to the next level. As for how it all went bad, I suggest you read my piece from 2008. https://www.orioleshangout.com/2018/05/09/orioles-game-of-thrones-and-the-way-forward/

Thanks for the synopsis.

Will do. I highly recommend your place to all. We just had the Lasagna yesterday for Christmas dinner.

Merry Christmas to one and all. Hope you all had a great day with your family and friends. Here's to hoping we have something to talk about next month at some point.

Thanks for the suggestion. I'm going to try and make a decision next week. I need a solution that will do the migration, dns setup and provide some kinds solutions for updates throughout the year.

On here I am because of the rules we instituted so we can focus on what brings us together, the Orioles. I can tell from these two posts where you fall on the spectrum, but you know what, it doesn't matter on here. Enjoy the sight and have a Happy Holidays.

Trinacria on North Paca streets. Their Lasagna is really outstanding and this is coming from someone very picky about his Italian food after growing up with authentic Italian food.

Koby Perez told me "He's right up there with the (Hernandez and Basillo) as prospects. I'd like to see how he does in the FCL before getting too up on him but he's a nice interesting player for sure.

It wasn't a wordpress issue or that they were attacking my site, it was a server farm issue. Their entire group of servers were attacked.

Hey, I tried very hard to not make any political points.

I've always thought there was a lot more to that story. I have a hard time thinking anyone would have told the plane to leave if Ripken was 5 to 10 minutes out and was late because of traffic. That doesn't pass the make sense to me even for a run of the mill player, but to do that with an icon makes me think there was a lot more to that story.

No, I was not, but that was a long time ago. The city has changed. I once loved Baltimore. My Grandfather lived in Little Italy and it was basically my second home growing up. Now, I only go into that violent, drug invested, dangerous, corrupt city when I absolutely have to. I once would defend Baltimore, but it has come to the point where it can no longer be defended any longer. Ever driven through the city lately? In the last two months I've had to take my father to a downtown hospital and then pick him back up after his surgery (I was not allowed in because only one person could be with him), drove my wife into the city to get some Italian food from a great Italian market and took my oldest son to see WWE at the Royal Farms Arena. Travelling through the city, there were homeless people and squeegee people at almost every intersection. Homeless men were everywhere and you had to walk through groups of young men who were blocking sidewalks or trying to hawk you something. At one point there was a screaming match near the entrance of my parking garage and what sounded like some kind of fight but I was able to get into my vehicle and get out of there before anything we down. It's just not a comfortable experience. The Roads? Apparently the city forgot that roads should be paved, even, and without pits everywhere. The traffic lights? Can't go a block without hitting one even if there are no cars going the other way because they haven't spent any money trying to synchronize them or put in technology that allows for the lights to know the traffic. Now Camden Yards is just off the highway so it's not too bad if you can park in one of the lots on site, but the only game I've gone to in the last two years I ubered up and back because it was just safer and easier. I did go over the Pickles/Sliders after the game but almost no one was there. When I was younger, I probably would not have cared as much, but at 51 years old, I can't protect myself and my family physically like I used to and Baltimore has made sure to keep good guys from having guns to protect themselves. Even if I did CC, I would not trust that I would get a fair trial if God forbid something happens and I needed to use it to protect myself and or my family. Also, since the former corrupt mayor (no not the previous corrupt mayor, the corrupt mayor before her) once allowed mobs to attack people and destroy property, it doesn't feel like it's a place where you can safely enjoy time with your family. So If the Orioles move, I would continue to be an Orioles organization fan for sure. My love for Baltimore has long passed and while I will probably always be a fan of Baltimore teams, if for some reason the Orioles did leave, it would not be the end of my fandom for the franchise. I've been an Orioles fan all my life so I can't see anything stopping me from continuing to be so. And I hate to say it, but I've been to Nashville and it's a pretty nice city where I felt safe walking the streets.

Really good detailed piece though they got one thing wrong. From everything I heard, it was Frank Wren that made the call to leave left Cal Ripken behind, not Johnson. Supposedly the ire of Ripken led to Wren's departure after just one year. Overall though, it's an interesting story of a many who became a local "hero" for keeping the team in Baltimore but yet who became a villain because he couldn't get his ego out of his own way. It's not surprising how much money he gave for political influence only to turn around and screw over the "worker" at every chance he got. Whether it was low balling players or reneging on agreement to pay his clean up workers a "living wage," a deal that would have cost him "an extra $880 per game, or $71,280 for an entire season," it is very clear the man was about himself. Heck, the fact that he made hundreds of millions of dollars off asbestos victims and then made sure to do the same for cigarette smokers truly makes him a profitable "ambulance chaser". I don't think for a second he did it because he cared about these people, but rather it he's like the Lonestar character in Space Balls - "We're not doing it for the money, we're doing it for a shitload of money!" I'll be honest, I love the Orioles, but whether they play in Baltimore, Nashville, or a safer Baltimore area suburb really doesn't matter much to me anymore. I'm just hoping to see a team that is competitive year in and year out with an owner that provides first class TV/radio broadcasts, and the money to sustain a payroll that can compete with the Yankees and Red Sox year in an year out.

We're preparing to move to a new hosting platform so there will be ups and downs over the next few weeks.

I'll give them a look, thanks.

I'm moving from them anyways. Moving the message board to an IPS run server so they will do all the upgrades and then I'm looking for a new server for just the Wordpress site and images. Just looking for a cheap option since the wordpress site doesn't draw much resources and traffic is much lower than the message board.

Distributed Denial of Service attack. Basically it's when a someone or several someone's send out commands that instruct many computer to attempt to ping critical nodes (IP addresses) in order to overwhelm them and take them offline. I don't know who my current server host also hosts, but for someone reason they were attacked taking all of their sites offline. I doubt they were targeting an Orioles fans site. lol

Been awhile since that happened!! lol

No, I'm looking for a new solution as we speak. Think I found a home for the message board but need to find something for the WordPress site.

I did nothing but bother my hosting company asking them WTF? I think I have a new solution for the site soon though.