Dave Trembley

"I would like to express my gratitude and appreciation to Peter Angelos and Andy MacPhail for the opportunity to serve as manager for the Baltimore Orioles for the past three years. The results on the field were not what any of us would have hoped for, and I understand that the organization felt the time was right to move in a different direction. While I am disappointed at the outcome, I feel it was a privilege to wear the Orioles uniform each day and I thank all the fans for their tremendous support.

Entering Monday night's series opener against the Twins, the Orioles are a season-high 30 games below .500. Buck Showalter's squad has to go 16-22 from here on out to avoid hitting the century mark in the loss column. Thirty. That number has a lot of significance today. Four years ago, on August 22, 2007 -- the same day the team announced that manager Dave Trembley would return for the 2008 season -- the Orioles endured one of the lowest points in franchise history when the Rangers scored 30 runs on them at Camden Yards . In scoring those 30 runs on 29 hits, the Rangers became the first MLB team in 110 years to score 30 runs in a game.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE June 4, 2010 ORIOLES NAME JUAN SAMUEL INTERIM MANAGER The Orioles today announced that third base coach JUAN SAMUEL has been named as the club's interim manager, replacing DAVE TREMBLEY. Samuel will be introduced as interim manager in a press conference today at 2:30 p.m. in the Auxiliary Clubhouse at Camden Yards. Samuel, 49, is in his fourth season as third base coach on the Orioles' coaching staff and 27th year in professional baseball. Prior to joining the Orioles, Samuel spent the 2006 season as manager at Double-A Binghamton in the New York Mets system, leading the team to a 70-69 record and second-place finish in the Eastern League.

Asked recently to describe his first year at the helm of the Orioles, manager Buck Showalter searched for the perfect word or phrase. Has it been frustrating? Exhilarating? Draining? A mixed bag? "It's been, 'Under construction,'" Showalter eventually said. Tuesday marks the one-year anniversary of when Showalter sat at a Camden Yards' dais and was introduced as the club's newest skipper — the Orioles' 19th overall, sixth since 2003 and third last season, following Dave Trembley and interim manager Juan Samuel.

Dave Trembley, who was asked to the lead the Orioles through the early stages of a massive rebuilding project, has been fired less than two months into his third full season as the team's manager. Orioles president of baseball operations Andy MacPhail made the announcement today, with the team saddled with a major league-worst 15-39 record and off to the worst start since the 1988 team began 0-21. Third base coach Juan Samuel will take over the club on an interim basis, while MacPhail is expected to begin the search for Trembley's long-term successor immediately after the 2010 season.

Fired by the Orioles last June, former skipper Dave Trembley -- or Crazy Uncle Dave as I enjoyed calling him during his last weeks in Baltimore -- has landed with the Braves this spring as their minor league field coordinator. He was recently interviewed by David Laurila about the firing, and Trembley gave excellent insight into what it is like for a major-league manager to get fired. He spoke about getting a phone call on an off-day from ESPN's Tim Kurkjian as he drank a cup of coffee at the Whole Foods at the Inner Harbor, and how national writers in the Yankee Stadium press box were wishing him luck in his future endeavors before his final game as Orioles manager.

There were times in the days after his firing that Dave Trembley woke up in the middle of the night and turned on the television to see whether his former team had won or lost. Those days have ended, but he still regularly watches highlights, glances at box scores and reads game recaps. He also still gets the itch at about 6:45 every evening, the time he used to walk from the manager's office at Camden Yards, through the home dugout and down to the right-field line to shake hands and sign autographs for Orioles fans, young and old. It has been 12 weeks since Trembley was fired about two months into his third full season as Orioles manager.

YOU CAN CATCH HIM on the field or riding his bicycle along the sandy shores of Daytona Beach, Fla. When Orioles' manager Dave Trembley's schedule is not filled with baseball, he is definitely thinking or talking about it. "It's my life," said Trembley. The 56-year-old manager spent two decades coaching in the minor leagues before being elevated last year to the majors as the Orioles' on-field coordinator. Within weeks he became the bullpen coach and last June he was named manager. Trembley says the secret to managing a successful team is communication.

Despite being in the midst of their worst losing skid of the season, the Orioles announced yesterday that manager Dave Trembley would lead the team again in 2009. "I think I have a responsibility to be fairly objective about the level of talent the manager has, and the degree of difficulty," club president Andy MacPhail said. "And try to assess the areas the front office, and I, need to improve. The team record is not a 100 percent function of the manager." Trembley, in turn, said he has invited his entire coaching staff back for 2009.

Dave Trembley isn't running a boot camp. He wants that understood. He's the Orioles' manager, not their drill sergeant. But watch how his players march to the back fields during spring training, which begins with the first workout for pitchers and catchers today. Listen closely as Trembley barks commands, sending in motion a collection of pitchers and hitters who are joined together for the common cause. Notice how crisply everyone moves from one station to the next beneath the hot South Florida sun. This is the way Trembley has envisioned his first spring in charge of the Orioles since the 2007 season came to a merciful end and he has been allowed to start planning ahead.

Chris Jakubauskas will start Tuesday's game against the Oakland Athletics at Camden Yards, the first time he has started in the majors since April 2010, when he was carted off the field after getting hit in the head with a liner. This one is expected to go a little more smoothly. "Obviously, there's going to be a bunch made out of what I did in my last start in the big leagues, but I'm ready to go," said Jakubauskas, who is 0-0 with a 6.39 ERA in five relief appearances for the Orioles this year.

Buck Showalter doesn't walk on water. We know that now. He's not some sort of magician, either. He can't just wave his arms and fix the Orioles. It's going to take time to do that. And money, which they don't seem to want to spend. And good players, which they don't have — at least not enough of them. I bring up Showalter today because Friday marked the one-year anniversary of the firing of Dave Trembley, which led to the hiring of Showalter and the ushering in of yet another "new era" for this franchise.

The wait is over. Six months ago, Buck Showalter’s Orioles ended the 2010 season on a tear that left us asking fellow bird watchers on neighboring bar stools and office chairs, “Where has that been all these years?” The anticipation built throughout the winter as the organization got busy with its offseason overhaul. When Buck’s Birds migrated to Sarasota for their first spring training camp under their mean-mugging new manager, Baltimore buzzed about the upcoming season.

They sat for hours, discussing the mutual acquaintances they've made over many years in the game, their philosophies on building a roster and what had become of the once-proud Orioles franchise. In a secluded cabin situated on a golf course about 45 minutes from where the floundering Orioles were playing a road game against the Texas Rangers last July, Andy MacPhail and Buck Showalter, polar opposites on the surface, found common ground. MacPhail, the Orioles' president of baseball operations whose rebuilding project was bursting at the seams, wanted a manager with a big persona and a lot of swagger, somebody to get the attention of a youthful and underachieving roster and inspire a defeated fan base.

There hasn't been a peep out of Luke Scott this spring, either at the plate or in front of his locker. The Mountain Man, as former manager Dave Trembley liked to call him, has remained largely under the radar since he made national headlines — and gave the Orioles public relations department a giant headache — by telling a reporter at the Baseball Winter Meetings that he didn't believe president Barack Obama was born in the United States....

The Orioles cling to the belief that veteran first baseman Derrek Lee will be ready to start the regular season on time, but manager Buck Showalter didn't hesitate when he was asked who would likely open at first base if Lee's sore wrist prevents him from getting enough at-bats this spring. It's the same guy who would have been the designated hitter if the Orioles hadn't signed Vladimir Guerrero, and the same guy who arrived in camp as the likely left fielder after the O's signed Guerrero and Lee. Luke Scott, of course.

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- When a player gets called into the manager's office in spring training, the news tends to be bad. Cuts are made, late arrivals are reprimanded, feelings are hurt. It's the worst time to be singled out. Orioles manager Dave Trembley broke with tradition this week. To open up the lines of communication, he decided to go behind closed doors. One by one, Trembley approached his veteran position players before Sunday morning's workout and ushered them into a meeting, where he laid out the travel schedule for the exhibition games and revealed the lineups he has already written.

Without fear of argument, I think we can say there are better ways to start the season than how the Orioles have. Let's look at what's happened so far: They lost 5-2 today and were swept by the rebuilding Toronto Blue Jays in the first home series of the season. Their All-Star second baseman – the guy with the tricky herniated disk in his back – has an abdominal strain that's expected to land him on the disabled list Monday. Their new $12-million closer is getting hit like a piñata and blowing saves and is now being kept out of pressure situations so he can work on his mechanics -- and, presumably, his psyche, too. (Keeping a closer out of pressure situations – that's like keeping a member of the bomb squad out of pressure situations, isn't it?

Fired by the Orioles last June, former skipper Dave Trembley -- or Crazy Uncle Dave as I enjoyed calling him during his last weeks in Baltimore -- has landed with the Braves this spring as their minor league field coordinator. He was recently interviewed by David Laurila about the firing, and Trembley gave excellent insight into what it is like for a major-league manager to get fired. He spoke about getting a phone call on an off-day from ESPN's Tim Kurkjian as he drank a cup of coffee at the Whole Foods at the Inner Harbor, and how national writers in the Yankee Stadium press box were wishing him luck in his future endeavors before his final game as Orioles manager.

Phillies third base coach Juan Samuel didn't get to finish the 2010 season as interim Orioles manager, and negotiations to return him to the O's coaching staff broke down over the winter, but he had nothing but good things to say about the organization Wednesday morning at Bright House Field. "I thought I was heading back [to Baltimore], but it didn't happen to work out," he said. "We couldn't get on the same page. " Still, Samuel said that he was very happy — and grateful to Andy MacPhail — for the opportunity to get some managerial experience, and he bears no ill will torward the O's. He is one of two former Orioles managers on the Phillies coaching staff, along with Sam Perlozzo . Samuel was replaced by Buck Showalter after managing the Orioles to a 17-34 record as the interim replacement for Dave Trembley , but he said he wasn't surprised that the club turned a corner during the final two months of the season.