The Orioles equipment is already on the way down to Sarasota."WhiteFanposts Fanshots Sections Commentary & AnalysisOrioles ProspectsOrioles Game RecapsOrioles News and RumorsCamdencastBird DroppingsThursday Bird Droppings: Where the trucks are headed for spring trainingNew Jack Morris Jersey ,749commentsThe start of spring training is twelve days away. The Orioles equipment is already on the way down to Sarasota.ESTShareTweetShareShareThursday Bird Droppings: Where the trucks are headed for spring trainingJonathan Dyer-USA TODAY SportsHello, friends.There are 56 days remaining until the next Orioles game. Calendar math being what it is, that means that Opening Day is exactly eight weeks from today. Pitchers and catchers report to spring training in a mere twelve days. The trucks left from Camden Yards yesterday, bound for Sarasota.It has now been nine days since Mike Mussina was elected to the Hall of Fame and the Orioles have not made an announcement about retiring his jersey or putting up his statue.Barring a surprise over the next month or so, it seems like the team is going to be built from competitions among the players who have already been assembled. Most of those are holdovers from last season’s 47-115 season, which, as I really can’t stress enough, means that things are going to suck a lot this year even if they might start to point towards a more exciting eventual future.One way this challenge may be visible is the fact that it’s the last day of January and the O’s still haven’t announced the promotions and giveaways schedule for the year. Who is even left for them to promote? There are few candidates for bobbleheads or even t-shirts. Any veteran with value might be gone by August. Any veteran without value might be dumped from the roster even sooner.Manager Brandon Hyde is new. He’s probably not in garden gnome territory yet, although if we’re lucky, maybe he’ll get one in a few more years. Right now they don’t even know which young prospects are going to make their way up to MLB, or when. Maybe the giveaways will just be a lot of different Oriole Bird-themed things. They could do worse.Around the blogO’sphereStruggling slugger Chris Davis goes back to his Rangers past for help (Dallas News)His Rangers past led Texas to think they were better off trading him than keeping him http://www.bluejaysfanproshop.com/authentic-curtis-granderson-jersey , but there’s no doubt he has to try something different than last season.A reunion between Adam Jones and the Orioles is looking like a long shot (Baltimore Sun)Doesn’t take much parsing of the quotes from FanFest to realize that Mike Elias isn’t going to be re-signing Adam Jones. Hopefully he gets an MLB deal somewhere.Stewart and Hays working to get into outfield competition (School of Roch)DJ Stewart was honeymooning in Grenada and cut short the plans to get started on his baseball work.Brocail’s history made him a good fit for O’s (Orioles.com)Apparently, Andrew Cashner is a big fan of pitching coach Doug Brocail.Trumbo hoping for injury-free 2019 (Baltimore Baseball)In an ideal world, the only thing he’ll be hurting in 2019 will be baseballs thrown by opposing pitchers.After strong Double-A year, Ryan Mountcastle is closer to the majors (Steve Melewski)Now, they just have to figure out what position he’s going to be able to play.Birthdays and anniversariesOne lone former Oriole has a birthday today: 1998 two-game reliever Joel Bennett.Is today your birthday? Happy birthday to you! Your birthday buddies for today include: shogunate founder Tokugawa Ieyasu (1543), preamble to the Constitution writer Gouverneur Morris (1752), composer Franz Schubert (1797), baseball Hall of Famer Ernie Banks (1931), actress Minnie Driver (1970), actress Kerry Washington (1977), and pop star Justin Timberlake (1981).On this day in history...In 1606 Aaron Loup Jersey , Gunpowder Plot ringleader Guy Fawkes was executed for his plot against Parliament and King James.In 1801, John Marshall was appointed as the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.In 1865, Congress passed the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which, once ratified, abolished slavery in the United States.In 1915, during World War I, Germany became the first to use poison gas in a large scale, deploying the weapon against the Russians in the Battle of Bolimow. However, due to prevailing winds, the gas blew back on German lines Matt Adams Jersey , though lucky for the Germans in the trenches, the cold weather made the gas ineffective.In 1943, the German Field Marshal Paulus surrendered to the Red Army at the Battle of Stalingrad, effectively (though not yet officially) ending the five month battle.**And that’s the way it is in Birdland on January 31 - or at least, unless something happens later, which you never know, it might. Have a safe Thursday. Start your day with some of the best Astros links around"Astros NewsFor Ben Reiter, the second time was not the charm in 2018 (Sports Illustrated)For those on the Twitters, they may have seen this mysterious tweet about Altuve calling it quits (The Sports Daily)Which elicited number of reactions on social media (Houston Chronicle)But fortunately for Houston fans, it all turned out to be a marketing campaign (Twitter)The Astros have filled out their 2019 coaching staff (Climbing Tal’s Hill)A staff that includes former Tigers scout and utility man Don Kelly as 1st Base coach (The Detroit Free Press)As well as Troy Snitker, son of the Braves’ manager Brian Snitker Kevin Long Jersey , as co-hitting coach (Gwinnet Daily Post)When it came down to it, the Astros chose Forrest Whitley over James Paxton (Call to the Pen)Astros players were part of a charity blitz this Thanksgiving (Astros.com)Around the LeagueSpeaking of Thanksgiving, here are the players each team should be thankful for (MLB.com)Someone I used to be thankful for is Seg Mejdel, who joins Mike Elias in Baltimore as Assistant GM for Analytics (Houston Chronicle)There are ways for teams to win at free agency this offseason without signing the big names (The Ringer)Though there are a number of teams, including Houston, who are kicking the tires on J.A. Happ for their 2019 rotations (Bleacher Report)There are also five teams, also including Houston, that should take a look at trading for Noah Syndergaard (Yahoo Sports)C.J. Cron got straight up Dickersoned by the Rays (Fangraphs)Here are the 10 most accomplished GMs, by the numbers (Baseball America)According to Alex Rodriguez, London is open for both business and baseball (BBC.com)Jose Bautista has been immortalized appropriately after having a species of tiny weevil named after him (ESPN)