Dear Camden Chatters, today is my last day as a writer for this blog. I\u2019ve been writing here since the 2019 season, though I was a fan way before that. I definitely won\u2019t stop being a fan of this site, but I\u2019m hanging up my cleats as a writer today.<\/p>\n
I want to say thanks. Back in 2014, when Adam Jones circled Oriole Park carrying the AL East Champions flag after the team clinched, then pied a bunch of people<\/a> in the face, I felt a real urge to share the joy somewhere. Same, too, with the Delmon Young double\u2014could you believe how noisy the stadium was? Same, a few years later, when John Means pitched a no-hitter. And when the O\u2019s won the division title in 2023 and Gunnar Henderson was named Rookie of the Year. And many others. Those moments are special because you have people to share them with, like this community.<\/p>\n I loved being a part of it as a writer. Now, I won\u2019t deny that I wasn\u2019t always a good writer. There have been some very bad takes on my part in seven years. I thought utility superman Stevie Wilkerson<\/a> should get regular playing time. I believed in the Shintaro Fujinami reclamation project<\/a>. I got on the Spenser Watkins<\/a> bandwagon, if such a thing even existed.<\/p>\n There were times it was hard to write, because the on-field product sucked. I did a whole piece<\/a> on whether the 2021 Orioles, who finished 52-110, were the worst O\u2019s team in history. (They have a strong claim. Maikel Franco played a bunch, we tried to fix Matt Harvey, and Pat Valaika was an infield fixture. Blech.)<\/p>\n The team never did win a single playoff game while I was a writer here. I\u2019ve been frustrated by some of the recent changes I\u2019ve seen. I hope the term \u201cliftoff<\/a>\u201d is soon forgotten, because if it\u2019s remembered, I think it will be ironically, meaning the Orioles will continue to be bad. I wish Heston Kjerstad had panned out. I wish the team hadn\u2019t traded Trey Mancini, or Ram\u00f3n Ur\u00edas, and especially not Adley Rutschman this year, I don\u2019t care what the return was. Brandon Hyde getting fired in May 2025 felt like a real admission of internal chaos, and so many internal changes this offseason suggest this remains true.<\/p>\n But even so, it\u2019s always made me happy to write about baseball. In my day job, I teach law and write long articles with 400 footnotes. Do people enjoy reading them? I hope someone does, but writing about baseball is another thing altogether.<\/p>\n I love telling a good story, and baseball is full of them. In seven seasons, I got to recap some great moments. There was a 6-3 win on Camden Yards\u2019 30th anniversary<\/a>, a day that saw Brooks Robinson, Mike Mussina and Eddie Murray all come back to town. More recently, I wrote about Colton Cowser\u2019s ridiculous home-run robbing catch<\/a>, maybe the best thing I\u2019ve seen him do in his whole career. I got to pay homage<\/a> to backup catcher James McCann getting hit in the nose with a fastball, then staying in the game. I recapped Kyle Bradish\u2019s first start<\/a> back from Tommy John surgery and his MLB debut<\/a> years before. Speaking of debuts, Gunnar Henderson homered<\/a> in his, and Adley Rutschman\u2019s was a 6-1 loss to the Rays where he hit a triple<\/a>. I can still remember getting chills from the way he introduced himself.<\/p>\n