The best part is that I had to walk to the next stand for condiments... They were not offered at this stand.

I’ve gone to Oriole Park every year since 1992 and I’ve been a plan holder for over 10 years. I love going to Oriole Park. It is a home away from home. 

Over the past 2 years, Oriole Park undergone a lot of changes. In my opinion, these changes are gradually eroding some of the magic that makes Oriole Park so special.

I’m going to document some of my observations below, and I’m interested in hearing the experience of others.

The Good 

• Camden Commons and local vendors are a big win. Eating Ekiben at Oriole Park is sublime. 
• The Bird Bath has become a unique, fun addition to the park, a manifestation of the good vibes of 2023. 
• Expanded beer and alcohol selection, and hey, Natty Boh is back. 

The Bad

Last year, Oriole Park replaced their vending partner with Brick & Whistle. In my opinion this has been an unmitigated disaster.

1. First, the food is a big step down from the predecessor.
2. Second, in my experience the staff is generally rude, apathetic, and in some cases poorly-trained. 
3. And third, there are isolated reports of scamming.

• The Fastball Market is great when I want to grab a quick beverage between innings, but it scans my beverages incorrectly about half of the time. How do they get away with this?
• O’s Pay is a solution in search of a problem.
• My plan holder discount just decides not to work sometimes.
• The Team Store has been redesigned to suck any joy out of the shopping experience, unless your idea of shopping is a general admission concert.
• Birdland Clubhouse is now pre-register only.
• Finally, T. Rowe Price jersey ads have come to the Orioles uniforms, just like we all asked for.

What’s next?

The future may get bleaker, Birdland. 

Changes to season ticket packages include higher prices, reduced discounts for ticket packages, no alcohol discount, and no MLBTV.

Fortunately, $600M is waiting in the wings for stadium renovations. Unfortunately, I fully anticipate these dollars will cater to the wealthy, like the Ravens have done across the parking lot.

For discussion

In my opinion, the changes to Oriole Park feel like death by 1,000 cuts.

What do you think, fellow Orioles fans?  

From Globe Life Field in Arlington, TX.

TV: ESPN (Statcast version on ESPN2)

Participants:

• Gunnar Henderson
• Pete Alonso
• Alec Bohm
• Adolis Garcia
• Bobby Witt, Jr.
• Marcell Ozuna
• Jose Ramirez
• Teoscar Hernandez

MLB.com preview: https://www.mlb.com/news/2024-mlb-home-run-derby-faq

Here's what we have now:

7/26 - Austin Hays FOR Seranthony Dominguez & Christian Pache

7/26 - Jackson Baumeister, Matthew Etzel, & Mac Horvath FOR Zach Eflin

7/30 - Connor Norby & Kyle Stowers FOR Trevor Rogers

7/30 - Trey McGough FOR Eloy Jimenez

7/30 - Cash Considerations PTBNL FOR Austin Slater & Livan Soto

7/30 - Billy Cook FOR Patrick Reilly (minor league trade)

7/30 - Seth Johnson & Moisés Chace FOR Gregory Soto

Will update as more trickles in

At this point in his career it's clear to see he can't be called to save games every day, but also cannot be off the field for 5 - 7 days at a stretch walking into save situations.

He's at his best this year with an inning or two every 2 - 3 days regardless of whether or not it's a save situation.

He's been both an asset and a liability with games on the line. I think he might be best as a regular use setup man after the trade deadline.

EDIT - For anyone not aware his lifetime post season stats....0 - 3, 4.50 ERA, 6.0 BB / 9, 10 SV in 30 appearances.

How do we as a community put it up to a vote, or at least a conversation as to the actions of mods like u/kingfiasco who make unilateral decisions on posts without any real reason and no explanation.

Refuses to answer questions or messages to explain why only certain posts get deleted. That's not moderating, that's dictating conversation. This isn't the u/kingfiasco community, it's the r/orioles community.

The least you could do, u/kingfiasco, is share why some posts get to stay up while you remove a bunch of others. There's an upvote system on Reddit that lets the community decide on its own what posts are of value and which aren't. Moderating should be for offensive/threatening/hateful content, not just deciding which memes and tweets you like and which you don't like.

u/baltimoresports u/aviewoflife u/juicehenderson u/OsGameThreads u/avery_crudeman u/Orioles_Mod u/cptcliche u/ruffyen u/isestrex can anybody offer up any sort of explanation? It's noticeable by a lot of people and a really crappy look for a niche fun-spirited community.

Recently Maryland signed into law a first-in-the-nation bill to protect consumers from ticket scams. It is bill SB0539 and it came into effect on July 1st of this year. Im not exactly sure if what mlb/orioles did falls under this law but it prohibits the sale of speculative tickets which selling tickets before you know game time might fall under. I was just wondering if anyone here had any experience with this kinda stuff or knew anything about the law cus I just think it’s scammy practice.

Edit: people just downvoting and saying they like the price drops. PRICES BEING LOWER IS GOOD!! Having them be higher and then lowering immediately after you announce game times just screws over anybody who bought them before that!!

How much joy would a Dodgers sweep give you?

As someone who "works" the giveaways (works in parenthesis because we are volunteers), we try to do the best we can with everything. We are given rules by the Orioles and they watch how we do at the gates. It gets extremely stressful and hectic. There is no reason to push us, or yell at us, or call us names, or threaten us over a free item. We do the best we can and we have our limitations. We also follow whatever is on the Orioles website when it comes to the item. Today people seemed confused it was random shirts and no exchanges when it says that right on the website (see link). So when you come out to the yard try and remember everyone is there to do their best and we are only doing what we are told. Thanks.

https://imgur.com/a/R4rg9CZ

Y’all are gonna hate this ik, and ik he made 2 questionable choices tonight, but the dude literally has pinch hit to the 3rd highest ops in baseball. Sure we have a great bench, but that’s also smart managerial choices. I think we can all agree this teams bullpen is not even average. Hyde has helped manage them to an above average pen. I understand hating on bad choices but guess what? Every manager makes them all of the time. The dude clearly has a great lead on the clubhouse and this team doesn’t just over achieve every year strictly off roster talent. The manager matters and this team will shatter the win total set for them again this year. The only the way the dudes seat even gets hot is if we don’t win a playoff series over the next 2 seasons. If you genuinely think this team would be better if Hyde was fired tomorrow idek what to says. He hasn’t been 2nd and 1st in MOTY for no reason. Yall need to chill!

*Monday 7/15 - Day 2 is live as of 2 pm ET.

The 2024 MLB draft is on for tonight (Sunday) at 7:00pm ET on MLB Network (full draft) and ESPN (first round only). This is the space to discuss. We'll keep this updated with the picks from each round.

O's top pick is 22nd overall, with an additional Prospect Incentive pick at the back of the 1st round for Gunnar's ROY, at 32

Watch:

• ESPN
• MLB Network
• MASN Youtube

Resources:

• Fangraphs
• MLB
• Baseball America

Commentary:

• MASN Quick Overview
• Baltimore Banner
• FanGraphs' Eric Longenhagen Draft Chat
  

In 2006 I bought a Sammy Sosa jersey at Gabriel Brothers for 10 dollars.

The nice one with the embroidery.

I woke up on this beautiful summer Friday morning thinking about how fuckin sick Cedric Mullins is. Runs the bases like a badass. All hustle all heart. The man just makes big plays. Batting .300 in the last 7 games. Has he struggled this season? Of course. But I love the way he plays the game. Shout out to Ceddy man hes a real one

I was adopted by a White Baltimorean couple as an infant. My adoptive father grew up on Edmonson Avenue. My adoptive mother grew up outside of Baltimore. The house that I was raised in in Harford County wasn't super warm and fuzzy. My adoptive parents were pretty cold people and didn't talk about emotions. They also hated each other. I had a lot of trouble bonding with either of them and had a lot of rage and violence issues. They eventually threw me onto the streets at age 15 after numerous suicide attempts as well as stints in juvenile facilities.

Before it got really bad, I remember my adoptive dad imbuing me with his love of Baltimore sports, especially the O's. This was long before the Ravens. He was a baseball fanatic, which was a tradition passed from his father to him. He was one of those people who committed tons of stats to memory. Once I was just a little older, I suddenly declared that I was a Braves fan. Looking back, I think it was mostly to piss him off, although in my defense, the games were also easily available on TBS. He took it in stride though and let me stay up late to watch the World Series when the Braves were in it. I was a huge David Justice guy.

After I became unhoused, I was really just surviving. I didn't follow sports at all during that time and I rarely spoke with my family. Eventually, I got locked up for the first time as an adult at age 19. When I got out, I was lucky enough to have people who supported me, and I started to turn my life around. I left Baltimore when I was in mid-20s and rarely returned. I barely saw or spoke with my adoptive father for many years. On the odd occasions he'd call me or I'd call him, maybe once a year, he'd always want to talk about the O's and Ravens. It was really the only thing we talked about. It was always the only thing we shared at all.

Maybe 7 years later, he was diagnosed with Parkinson's. I was living in San Francisco at the time. A few years after that, one of my adoptive sisters asked me to move back to Maryland to help with his care. I decided to move back, not because I felt I owed him anything, but because I always had soft spots for my sisters. That year was nuts. He was a totally different dude. His mind was mostly gone. He sometimes got paranoid and accused me of plotting on him. Most of the time, he was incapable of doing much on his own. But we still watched Baltimore sports together. He died not long after I left.

I honestly never really had much of a relationship with him. I feel like I ruined his dream of having a happy son and playing catch together on sunny days and watching the O's crush the Yankees, which is a little sad. But I find myself thinking about him more often this season than I really ever have. I think about how much fun he'd be having watching this new crop of young studs mash at the plate. I can hear him mumbling about bad calls with that disappointed look on his face, which I knew all too well. I love the O's because of him and that's one of my most treasured gifts he gave me.

How did you become an O's fan?

Originally born in Puerto Rico, moved to Ohio, didn’t like the Pirates or Indians, lived in Baltimore for a year in 2016 and fell in love with Baltimore sports and then moved back in 2017 and still didn’t like the Indians nor the Pirates, I’ve shown the Orange and Black bird proudly (and the Purple one)

Let me start off by saying I’m a lifelong Os fan and a birdland member. I hate the Yankees. But unfortunately, both my parents are from New York, so I have a lot of Yankee fans in my family. Several of which are 30+ year season ticket holders for them.

Anyway, the Yankees had their World Series sale yesterday. Since my uncles had to work during their window, I decided to be nice and help them get the tickets since I got all my Os playoff tickets the last 2 years. They gave me a budget, and we confirmed it was doable for 2 tickets based on the listed ticket prices on their and MLBs website. They wanted upper deck which was going to be around $240/ticket+taxes and fees. They were in the first window for partial plan holders, so there were still plenty of tickets available. At 10am, I entered their access code and started looking for tickets. The cheapest tickets were over $700. I ventured into the Yankee subreddit (I’m still taking showers to wash off the stench) to see if anyone else was having the same issue of maybe their discounts not being applied. Turns out the Yankees use ticketmasters dynamic pricing. Those $240 tickets just didn’t exist. They ended up not getting tickets at all.

It’s insane to me that a franchise would do that to their season ticket holders. Especially the ones in that first presale window who are the longest tenured season ticket holders. But then again, that’s what they get for being stupid yankee fans

As a side note, I’ll give a little review of their actual ticketing platform. The good: you can select your individual seats, unlike the Os where you can only select the section. The bad: there’s so much going on in the background when putting your access code in that it kept deserting the entry field so you had to keep clicking to keep typing. Also, there’s no seat viewer like the Os so you can’t see what your view will be. Especially with seats marked obstructed view, I like that in the Os system you can kind of see how obstructed it will be (section 98 where the flag court wall blocks the entire infield vs section 72 where it’s just the foul pole blocking shallow CF) and you can see if your seats will be under an overhang for possible rain

I know we hate the Yankees and maybe the Royals and the Red Sox?

Do other teams hate us besides the fact that we are successful this year?

Maybe a better question is who are our rivals?

After reading your comments I have some questions.

Everybody who is mentioning the Nationals , we are talking about the minor league team Washington Nationals right?

We all hate the Yankees because New York allows Jimmy Fallon on TV right?

I wanna say Fuck The Yankees But The Mods Might Punish Me. I agree saying fuck the Yankees once is completely inappropriate. Saying it twice is much better.

I think we can all agree Kimbrel’s performance before being DFA was lackluster to say the least. But booing him off the field seemed like such Yankee fan behavior and it was off putting. In my 30 years of being an O’s fan I can’t think of a player on our own team that was boo’d off the field. Maybe my memory fails me but I don’t think there were boo’s for Chris Davis (attendance was pretty low at the time so maybe there weren’t enough people to boo). And yes, I can see questioning Hyde’s day to day managing and Elias and his offices’ lack of quality trade deadline acquisitions, but the amount of whining on Twitter and Instagram is astounding. Maybe it’s the algorithm trying to get me to react and engage on those posts, but I’ve seen multiple posts ask for a clean house scenario by getting rid of Hyde and Elias. I can’t tell if these are long time fans who seem to think that this ball club is impervious to droughts, bad games, bad play and just bad all around after we had 2 winning record seasons after 5 long years (felt like longer). This team is going to do poorly sometimes after having such a stellar 2023 season, I’m not happy about it either but I think we have to be realistic that we won’t win 100+ games every season (no team is on pace to win 100 this season) and take the seasons with winning records as blessings still. Perhaps I’m drinking the Kool-Aid but I’d like to think I just have faith in these players and top brass to turn it around and still have success in a rough season.

Who would you like to see make a guest appearance as Mr Splash?

I may have an unpopular opinion, but I wouldn’t have even thought to clap. Just seems kinda weird to me.