Tony-OH

Yikes man, just my opinion, but that is totally and utterly an awful plan. Baseball will be played for real by July and although there may be some kind of social distancing when it come to seats available, fans will be allowed in the games. Perhaps testing will be involved, but I doubt players are going to be tested very often if healthy. I guess we'll see, but MLB would be wise to just scrap the season before trying anything like this plan.

C'mon man, you can't be serious about number "juking" and then post an article from the NYTimes. haha... I can't even fathom the thoughts process that think the COVID19 deaths are under reported. But you know what, I actually can at this point because almost everything we get nowadays from just about every source is tainted in some way. That's why I fall back to our rights. Let people make their own decision on how they want to protect themselves. If you wanna stay home, order your food in, and wear your mask 24 hours a day, feel free. If you wanna wear no mask, go to bars and restaurants or the ball game, feel free. People have to make a decision on whether they want to live their life like a recluse or enjoy freedom. For me, it's not even a question. Besides, how is our freedom making you or anyone else less safe if you are all wearing masks, social distancing and quarantining? This is one of those situations where again, some people are always willing to give up their freedom and rights for a little perceived safety. Benjamin Franklin said it best, ""Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."

If they want to test everyone great, but I don't believe for a second it's needed or warranted. I realize that some of you feel the great death plague is upon us and that by just looking at another human being you will infect them, but once we get out and about people are going to find that they are just as safe as they've always been. Those that will get infected, the vast majority will not even have symptoms worse than a FLU or typical yearly virus. As I stated already, my wife and I probably already had it and we had two totally different experiences with it because that's how humans work. As "Ripken" has stated much more eloquently than I have, the other problems of the Quarantine and closures will have much more affect than the virus.

This I agree with 100%. A lot of businesses will understand it's able to operate with some kind of teleworking. I love the idea of people teleworking if possible because that's less traffic and traffic is a huge issue in the DMV area as I'm sure you know. There has to be balance of course because social interaction can help communication within your business, but I could see people being allowed to telework for parts of their week from here on out if businesses think it will help their bottom line. As for elective surgeries, Hogan just lifted that ban yesterday so that should get some people out of pain and some people back to work, which is a good thing.

I'm fine for the rest of this school year, but this can't keep lingering into next school year. I do think seniors should be allowed to have a socially distanced graduation though. If people can go into Walmart and shop, they can certainly allow seniors to have some kind of graduation.

I'm glad you are better as well, but your last statement is part of the problem in this country if you ask me. They have people conditioned now to be ready for the next wave or the next disease. They proved during this virus that some Americans will very easily give up their rights for a little bit of perceived safety. I won't get political, but if anything frightened me during this thing it is how easily people are swayed by the information they are fed and how that information is controlled by five major companies that own 90% of the media. Ether way, I just hope we can get back to some kind of normalcy and that includes baseball.

Weird how places with the strictest quarantine rules seem to have the biggest rise in cases and deaths, isn't it? Cases have been going up because of the availability of testing. As for deaths, it's widely being reported that hospitals have a financial stake in reporting deaths as COVID19-related, when many of these deaths had underlying and serious problems before they passed. I'm sure the initial social distancing measures slowed the virus, but what is not being considered in my opinions are all the other things that have most likely spiked due to these quarantine measures due to the length of them. Suicides, alcoholism, drug abuse, physical and sexual abuse are certainly on the rise with people stuck together with very little outlets. All in all, it's time to open things up and get back to normal in my opinion. AS for baseball and fans, James Earl Jones said it best in Fields of Dream. "People will come Ray. The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game: it's a part of our past, Ray. It reminds us of all that once was good and that could be again. Oh...people will come Ray. People will most definitely come.”

This is tremendous. Anyone who thinks this virus has a true 6% mortality rate has bought into the madness hook, line and sinker. First, many more people have had this virus then have been reported. Most had very little symptoms or had symptoms they fought and won at home before COVID19 was a known thing. I'm fairly convinced my wife and I had after our trip to Nashville in late January. We both became sick right afterwords with about every symptom we now know about COVID19. We went to the urgent care and both came up negative for the FLU or STRIP or ear infections. My wife ended up getting worse than I did and after a couple of weeks, had to go back only to find out she now had full blow pnemonia. She had several breathing treatments but thankfully, in January, they didn't rush to put her on a vent which is what is happening now. It was rough for her, but for me, I had about a 1-2 week rough patch and within a month I was back to 100%. She ended up defeating it after the anti-biotics beat down the pneumonia, but I'm guessing if this happens a month or two later, she would have be hospitalized and potentially put on a vent, which nurse will tell you i certainly not a good thing, particularly if you are on one for a long time. Now we both tried to quarantine ourselves away from our two sons that live with us, but neither end up getting sick. Now maybe we had it, or maybe we had something else with the exact same symptoms, but whatever virus we had sucked, but our immune systems did what they were designed to do and beat it. So yes, this virus is dangerous, and yes it can be deadly, particularly for those vulnerable to viruses that attack the respiratory system, but FLU is deadly every year as well. I'm ok with using common sense social distancing for bit longer, and those who are vulnerable, work or live with the vulnerable should take extra precautions, but for the rest of us who are healthy they need to open things back up and allow people to live their lives. This means letting those players and personnel who choose to come back and play, play. Those who choose to stay quarantined should be allowed to do so. We need to get back to allowing Americans to make their choices. If I choose to "risk" watching a game in Camden Yards, it does not make it unsafe for anyone else who is quarantining. If you wanna wear your mask forever, feel free. If it makes you feel safe to social distance and not go to restaurants or bars, that's your choice and I support that 100%. But I also support those who want to open back up and get back to normal life.

Kids die every year of FLU and many diseases every year. It's awful, but it's part of life. It certainly doesn't make it easier for the families who have someone who have perished due to this virus, but you can't quarantine ourselves all the time over everything over every possible virus.

Why would testing need to happen? The demographics of the baseball players and their support staff suggest they have a very little chance of contracting the virus and even if they did, the chances are so minimum of them having serious consequences due to the virus that it really doesn't make a ton of sense to have to test everyone first. Of the athletes that have come out as having this virus, none had significant complications like 99.9% of the other people who come in contact with this virus.

https://www.orioleshangout.com/2020/05/07/orioles-trade-for-ian-hamilton-sim/

I'm trying very hard to stay out of this thread because I have some very strong opinions about all of this. Saying that, baseball and the other professional leagues will return this year. It will not cause any problems and life will begin to look somewhat like normal again. At the very least socially distanced seating and TV revenue will enable the sport to continue. Heck, I've been socially distance seating for years when I can because I don't like someone sitting next to me cramping up my space as a I watch the game! While some people may choose not to come, and I would expect a significant decline overall in attendance, there is a large group of people that will have no problem sitting in Camden Yards, drinking a beer, and watching a ball game this summer. This used to America where we were allowed to choose what was best for us. If you choose to stay away, that is your right and I respect that, but I'm betting baseball will be played by July 4th!

Pretty much every good starting pitcher we have totally sucks in this sim. Saying that, as I've said before, OOTP has never been known for it's minor league ratings. I feel they underrated many prospects and are just wildly inaccurate on others. While kinda of fun to simulate, I would take absolutely nothing from any minor league simulations based on wonky ratings.

https://www.orioleshangout.com/2020/05/06/bluejays-take-series-5-3-win/ Kohl Stewart has been disappointing as a starter.

https://www.orioleshangout.com/2020/05/05/orioles-hold-on-for-4-3-win-over-bluejays/

Haha. he was coming off a 2-for-4 homer game and Ruiz seems struggle when batting above the 6th spot. Not a ton of choices and i like to balance my lineup as mush as possible back and forth with righties and lefties.

That was a hell of "fu#*%$%" audio glitch!

BwAHAHA..

Why would you not include our Top 30 prospects?

Not to get too far off subject, but Sony's Betamax failed because they would not license anyone else to produce the player or tapes while JVC did allow for other companies to acquire a license to produce VHS. This flooded the market, which drove down the price. When you could get a VHS for $100 and a Betamax may cost 3x t0 4x that, that hurt sales even with the slightly better quality. Also, the lower cost of producing VHS tapes did allow for the porn industry to pick it as the preferred method which was basically the death nail to Betamax.

https://www.orioleshangout.com/2020/05/04/sesaw-battle-ends-in-bluejays-9-8-win/ The Orioles drop to 12-23 on the season, dead last in the AL East and tied with the Tigers for the worse record in major league baseball. The are 3-15 in their last 18 games. LF Yusniel Diaz went 3-for-6 in his major league debut. DJ Stewart went 3-for-6 with a home run (4) and is batting .350 on the season so far.

It's honestly fairly sad that I'm looking forward to this. Then again, I found two ants yesterday in my house, put them both in a bowl and watched to see who would get out first. So yeah, this lack of competition to watch is getting bad!

Maybe see if Willis Otanez would come out of retirement and play again. I'd go watch him!

Let me re-emphasize this, if you have such a poor relationship with someone on the board that you must hurl personal insults at each other, then I suggest you put them on the ignore. We have a strict policy on no politics and no personal insults. If you are incapable of following the rules and the moderators have to keep jumping, then we will have no other choice then to give the poster or posters some time off. While this subject can skirt along political lines along with all of the shutdowns, I'd rather it focus on the news/rumors coming out then your personal opinions on whether baseball should resume with fans. I think we all have stated those opinions and they are well documented on where people stand. Let's just hope we get baseball back at some time, sooner than later in my book whether fans attend or not.

https://www.orioleshangout.com/2020/05/03/orioles-drop-another-4-1-to-chisox/