The Orioles, the media and the Hangout

[VICIOUS]

Ruined his career? Trembley was a career minor league manager, he wasn't the Next Big Thing that the O's scored a major coup to get. It is entirely possible, even likely, that the O's were the only chance he would have ever had to manage at the major league level.

If DT wants a job in baseball next spring, I am sure there will still be options available to him.

Yea they really gave him a shot with this team.

[Peace21]

Why hasn't someone interviewed Trembley? My bet is he could answer all or most of the questions. This team has ruined his career. I bet he is itching to let loose.

Probably because he probably has something in his contract that states he can't bad mouth the team on the outside.

[mcgraw238]

Why hasn't someone interviewed Trembley? My bet is he could answer all or most of the questions. This team has ruined his career. I bet he is itching to let loose.

DT is currently under contract with the O's so it would not be wise to start mouthing off while he still collects a check from them. Second, baseball is a pretty tight fraternity and, right or wrong, your job prospects will suffer if you start mouthing off every time your cut lose.

Finally, your assertion that his career is ruined is absurb. DT got the privilege to manage in the bigs leagues for several seasons. Not many coaches get that opportunity. Granted it was not under ideal circumstances but its on his resume. I've heard DT's name associated with the Notre Dame coaching gig. Does DT get any consideration if he's still managing AAA clubs?

[SilentJames]

Yea they really gave him a shot with this team.

Joe Torre had three HORRIBLE years with the Cardinals before landing in NYC.

DT will find a job somewhere in some org. I liked the guy to, but this is how baseball works.

[TGO]

Joe Torre had three HORRIBLE years with the Cardinals before landing in NYC.

This would be true if it was, well, true. He was three games under .500 with the Cards, and in his three full seasons he was 11 games over. Before that, he was well over .500 with the Braves.

This "Torre was a terrible manager before NYY" meme has gone on way too long. He was only really a bad manager in his first gig, with the Mets, which he started while he was 36 years old and still a player. You can say he was .500-ish before going to NY but let's not act like he was Dave Trembley.

[SilentJames]

This would be true if it was, well, true. He was three games under .500 with the Cards, and in his three full seasons he was 11 games over. Before that, he was well over .500 with the Braves.

This "Torre was a terrible manager before NYY" meme has gone on way too long. He was only really a bad manager in his first gig, with the Mets, which he started while he was 36 years old and still a player. You can say he was .500-ish before going to NY but let's not act like he was Dave Trembley.

Sorry, I did mean to say the Mets. I use the analogy because it was his first managerial gig and what not.

You are right he was mediocre-good with the Cards and Braves.

[ScottieBaseball]

OK. I suppose at this point I have to explain the concept of "Citizen journalist."

There are staff members of the O's hangout. I am not sure which of them get paid.

My assumption is that the editors get paid something as do the support and tech staff. whatever that staff may be.

I do not know if they all get paid enough to make this their full time gigs.

My assumption is that the managing editor gets paid something and that John used to get paid but now does this more on a volunteer basis. And Tony gets paid as well. He is the publisher, selling the ads, this is his business. My assumption is that it is not a full-time gig for the managing editor.

Tony gets paid here for running a business, not for his reportage. Let's just make that clear. And he has built a nice product. This is not an attack on Tony or the hangout. I love the hangout.

Greg or Scott, well. I am sure they get paid for coordinating the content on the site and making sure things are as readable as possible. But they don't get paid to report.

But the actual reporters -- doc shorebird, avencil, Paul Folk, those guys. My assumption is that they do not get paid. They get to go to games for free, get a press pass, and get to have a lot of fun watching and writing about baseball. And most likely are using this as a stepping stone to a job that actually pays something down the road with another publication. That is not a knock against them at all. This is part of working your way up in journalism. And it is a symbiotic relationship between Tony, who gets free copy, and the writers who get a forum on which to write.

Still. They are amateurs, working their way up to become professionals, some of them show some mettle for this and hopefully for them they will make it.

Then you have this whole world now of news known as "citizen journalists." Those are the unpaid bloggers, the folks writing the stuff on the Huffington Post that you never read, or contributing to The Faster Times stories they wrote for free in hopes that the story will get enough clicks that they will make a few bucks, and in general the people posting "news" to blogs and chat sites that they didn't actually report out, but that they might have heard about third hand somewhere from faux sources.

I will call the staffers here pro-ams. The real amateurs, the citizen reporters, are those on the hangout who pass along "news." The take is FWIW crowd, who are pretty much wrong 9 times out of 10.

You sure do make a lot of assumptions, and you know what they say about assumptions...

Before you disparage our staff any further, I'd like to point out that five of our -ahem- "pro-am" writers (as you called them) have or are nearly finished their four-year degrees in Journalism, Media Communications, or some other discipline. Their education coupled with the press credentials afforded them by the teams they cover not to mention the professional, ethical manner in which they approach their jobs here certainly takes 'amateur' out of the picture.

Tony and I? Baseball guys. Eat, breathe, live, sleep, and die baseball. I minored in English and was encouraged by a teacher/professor or two to pursue writing, but I went a different direction. I digress...

Tony laid the ground work, started a one-page 'blog' (before anyone had coined the word), gained a little credibility because of his baseball intellect, and that translated into a press pass for him many years ago. Obviously the site has evolved to the point where I was able to ride the Orioles Hangout's collective coat tails into an awesome gig that allows me to take a break from my mundane 9-to-5 job and apply my loves (and dare I say 'knack'?) for writing and baseball into...well...what I do here. I won't name names and I'm sure it happens to Tony more often than me, but I've had (insert name of local media member) approach me on the field or in the press box to pick my brain about prospects they've seen me write about here, whether on our front page or the message board. I have no idea who they were, but I once watched Tony get pinned down in the O's press box by three guys with "MLB Scout" credentials hanging around their necks. I didn't eavesdrop, but they definitely weren't talking about where they were going to eat after the game.

If you don't think the Orioles and their minor league affiliates, MLB and independent scouts, and most members of the local (and even some national) sports media don't view us as a notch or two above 'pro-am', then you'd be mistaken.

[Frobby]

Why hasn't someone interviewed Trembley? My bet is he could answer all or most of the questions. This team has ruined his career. I bet he is itching to let loose.

Trembley is way too classy to want to be quoted as saying anything negative about the Orioles. But I would say that (1) considering Tony's relationship with him, Trmebley would probably talk to Tony off the record (and may well have done so already), and (2) Tony will never, ever admit that he has talked to Trembley in preparation for his article.

[ScottieBaseball]

And to be clear. Getting paid to be a journalist does not make one a good journalist.

There are lots of hacks out there. Our old buddy ken rosenthal comes to mind.

That's better. Despite previously qualifying it all with the word 'assumption' (which smacks of 'no offense, but...' from "The Ballad of Ricky Bobby"), now you're expressing a fair opinion. Before you seemed to speaking as though it were a 'fact'.

I agree...getting paid to do something doesn't make you good at it. You're free to think we're all hacks here, but as I wrote in my previous post, on the whole we're hardly 'pro-am' status.

[clarence]

I really don't think JackO was attacking or making disparaging remarks towards anyone that writes on here. I think he was talking more about us posters and some of the past "insiders". I'm sure some quotes could be pulled to build a case against him, but the way I read his tone (which is hard to do on the internet) I took it that way. He and I were disagreeing about some things but I really don't think he meant anything at all offensive to the staff here.

[ScottieBaseball]

I really don't think JackO was attacking or making disparaging remarks towards anyone that writes on here. I think he was talking more about us posters and some of the past "insiders". I'm sure some quotes could be pulled to build a case against him, but the way I read his tone (which is hard to do on the internet) I took it that way. He and I were disagreeing about some things but I really don't think he meant anything at all offensive to the staff here.

Well then shame on him for not being able to distinguish between who posts to the message board and who provides front page content for this site.

What do you do for a living clarence? Would you bristle at being called an amateur despite your qualifications, background, performance, and integrity? I would. Not so much with what I do here, but if someone called me an amateur at my full-time job? Hell yeah...I'd take 'em to task.

I'm sure the members of the staff to whom my comments applied (educated, ethical, etc.) would let the 'pro-am' comments roll off their backs like water off a duck's back, but it's in my nature to put my proverbial foot down in situations like these.

[tvz1997]

Trembley is way too classy to want to be quoted as saying anything negative about the Orioles. But I would say that (1) considering Tony's relationship with him, Trmebley would probably talk to Tony off the record (and may well have done so already), and (2) Tony will never, ever admit that he has talked to Trembley in preparation for his article.

I think you are right about this, but I do hope that Trembley would be willing to speak candidly to Angelos and any incoming manager - if asked. I am becoming more and more convinced that DT and maybe even Flanagan could be instrumental to turning this thing around if Angelos decides to go with another GM. God knows he would need help choosing candidates for the job, and I think Trembley and Flanny would do a great job to prepping a candidate list as well as a preliminary evaluation of what immediate needs exist throughout the organization.

[Going Underground]

I think you do a fine job on here. People should realize the difference between an article and message board posts. On posts you can say whatever you want within reason. An article is suppossed to have jounalistic intergrity unless you are doing an editorial. People say alot of stuff on the boards that are just rumor and overheard rumor and they run with it. Sometimes it is right and sometimes it is wrong. i think the O's are waiting for your piece to come out. Also how do we know some of Tony's sources are not jounalists who have heard things and need more sources to verify the story. I think one of the sources could be a media memeber.:laughlol:

[Nigel Tufnel]

Well then shame on him for not being able to distinguish between who posts to the message board and who provides front page content for this site.

Didn't Buzz Bissinger have the same problem? For whatever reason, maybe "professional journalists" actually do have trouble making that distinction.

[DrungoHazewood]

Maybe this has nothing to do with anything, but I think this is kind of related to the conversations I often have with casual or non-baseball fans. When the subject of the minor leagues come up they'll ask when so-and-so is "going to turn pro" or if he has any chance to "go pro". I'll tell them that minor leaguers are professionals, and that many of them, especially at the higher levels, are as good as or better than some major leaguers. At that point they just look kind of confused or their eyes gloss over.

I look at most* of the Hangout staff as guys playing in a really good indy league, who just don't get all of the respect they deserve because they don't have that Big Print Media (i.e. major league journalism) job on their resumes.

* I only say most because I know when I was on staff I didn't even pretend to be a real journalist, just a guy who was happy to write occasionally about stuff I liked.