What's in a name? For O's, plenty

November 2, 2008

News item: The Orioles will hold a rally this month to introduce the team's new uniforms for the 2009 season. The road uniform is expected to have "Baltimore" on the front of the jersey.

Recent columns

• Even with Teixeira, odds against Orioles

  November 1, 2008

  This is the time of year when well-meaning people of reasonable intelligence begin to think with their hearts instead of their heads, which leads to the if-and-when mentality that allows teams such as the Orioles to keep selling season tickets after 11 consecutive losing seasons.

• Loewen defection? No dejection

  October 26, 2008

  News item: Former top Orioles pitching prospect Adam Loewen passed up a minor league deal with the club to continue his comeback as a position player with the Toronto Blue Jays.

• Rays' feel-good story will have happy ending

  October 22, 2008

  Now, this is the kind of change you can really believe in.

• Peavy to the Orioles? If only

  October 19, 2008

  News item: San Diego Padres pitcher Jake Peavy is being shopped and would look really good in the Orioles' rotation.

• Fret over Ravens? Why? NFL stands for 'not for long'

  October 15, 2008

  If you're a pro football fan, it's hard not to get swept up in the emotion of the moment, which explains why so many fans jump on and off their respective bandwagons on an almost weekly basis.

• Nice to not meet you, Dwight

  October 12, 2008

  News item: Ravens rookie Joe Flacco will get an up-close look at superstar QB counterpart Peyton Manning today when the Ravens play the Indianapolis Colts at brand-new Lucas Oil Stadium.

• Ravens lifted hopes; now fans feel let down

  October 8, 2008

  The more I watch the Ravens in their first season under coach John Harbaugh, the more they remind me of what happened to the Orioles this year and the more they validate my philosophy of life, so I hope you're ready to be enlightened:

• Hey, Collins, McAlister is open

  October 5, 2008

  News item: The Ravens hope to bounce back from their tough Monday night loss when Kerry Collins and the undefeated Tennessee Titans visit M&T Bank Stadium this afternoon.

• Cubs are goats once again

  October 4, 2008

  It has been 63 years since local tavern owner William Sianis and his pet billy goat were asked to leave Wrigley Field during the last World Series to grace its friendly confines, but the legend it spawned refuses to die.

• Mets fans won't forget the roars

  September 28, 2008

  News item: The New York Mets and their fans will bid farewell today to Shea Stadium, no doubt to somewhat less fanfare than accompanied the final game at Yankee Stadium last weekend.

• The Ray way

  September 24, 2008

  The Tampa Bay Rays know what it feels like to be the Orioles, and Rays manager Joe Maddon knows what it feels like to be Dave Trembley. Perhaps that should provide some consolation around here as the Rays prepare to pour champagne over one another and celebrate their first American League East title sometime in the next few days.

• Ravens take bad with the good

  September 22, 2008

  There are times when the bad defines the good, which is as good a way as any to look at the Ravens' 28-10 victory over the Cleveland Browns at M&T Bank Stadium.

• Pettitte-Waters? Pretty weak

  September 21, 2008

  News item: The New York Yankees will allow fans onto the field for a three-hour period today before ceremonies begin to celebrate the final game ever played at Yankee Stadium.

• Sliding O's positioned to climb higher than Ravens

  September 16, 2008

  Welcome to life in the parallel universes of Baltimore's professional baseball and football teams.

• Maryland shows its good side against Cal

  September 14, 2008

  There's probably a perfectly rational explanation for all this. Maryland struggles against a Football Championship Subdivision team in its home opener and loses to Middle Tennessee State. This is not normally the kind of past performance that leads you to believe the Terps will throttle their first Top 25 opponent.

• O's plan may need tweak

  September 10, 2008

  This isn't exactly the way Andy MacPhail mapped things out. He could have done without the injury that turned Adam Loewen from one of the club's most promising starting pitchers into a long-shot Rick Ankiel wannabe. He never imagined that the rotation would come so unraveled that there was a point last week when the Orioles had to call Brian Burres back up from Triple-A Norfolk to have one pitcher remaining from the Opening Day rotation.

• In 12 seconds, Flacco stirs excitement, apprehension and pride

  September 8, 2008

  Keep in mind that Joe Flacco was barely two hours into his regular-season NFL debut when he broke away on a quarterback keeper, dodged a couple of Cincinnati Bengals and fought his way into the Ravens' record book.

• Where have we seen this before?

  September 7, 2008

  News item: Rookie quarterback Joe Flacco makes his regular-season NFL debut today in the Ravens' season opener against the Cincinnati Bengals.

• Days as 'Johnson' were numbered

  August 31, 2008

• What are O's waiting for? It's Trembley's time to sign

  August 27, 2008

  Dave Trembley says it's a nonissue.

• Phelps golden with the media, too

  August 24, 2008

• Ravens' footing surest with Smith

  August 23, 2008

  Ravens coach John Harbaugh made a lot of sense when he explained why he has designated Troy Smith as the starter for tonight's Game3 of the preseason against the St.Louis Rams. Kyle Boller already has a long paper trail, and the Ravens have limited time to evaluate Smith, who played only a couple of games last year compared with Boller's 42career starts.

• Just like yesterday for '83 O's

  July 24, 2008

  They came back, almost all of them, and it was easy to see why they were so good for so long.

• Steroid era lessens achievements of sluggers like Ramirez, Robinson

  May 31, 2008

  If you were not paying close attention, you probably missed much of the countdown to Manny Ramirez's imminent entry into the once-exclusive 500 Home Run Club.

• New drug policy puts Mitchell Report in rearview

  April 12, 2008

  It would be great if we could say that Major League Baseball put a big punctuation mark on the sport's long-running steroid scandal, but I'll settle for the right decision at the right time for the right reasons.

• Mora role model for young O's

  March 20, 2008

  For established major league veterans, dodging the long exhibition road trips is one of the rites of spring.

• Hear lyin' roar

  February 14, 2008

  OK, it's all becoming clear now.

• Harbaugh's Day One energy good sign as Job One nears

  January 20, 2008

  New Ravens coach John Harbaugh said all the right things during his introductory news conference yesterday, but the most important thing came out sounding like a well-worn cliche rather than a call to arms.

• Bisciotti gets back in game

  January 19, 2008

  So much for the mistaken notion that the Ravens did not have a Plan B.

• Remember '08?

  December 31, 2007

  In my continuing effort to show how sophisticated I am, I'd like to quote the French poet Paul Valery: "The trouble with our times," he said, "is that the future is not what it used to be." Never mind that he uttered that cynical little gem several generations ago; no truer words have ever been spoken, particularly when 2007 is going to be such a tough act to follow.

• Clemens' denials get boost from Grimsley affidavit

  December 22, 2007

  If the original release of the infamous Jason Grimsley affidavit - with the names of the alleged steroid and amphetamine users blacked out for public nonconsumption - helped pull the cover off baseball's performance-enhancement scandal, the release of the unredacted version Thursday might have been an even bigger blow to the integrity of the sport.

• More O's woes

  December 17, 2007

  The great hope that blossomed around the Orioles organization with the arrival of new president Andy MacPhail was that - finally - it appeared there was a real sign owner Peter Angelos recognized that the revitalization of the franchise would require a totally new way of doing business.

• Elusive football lets baseball take steroid hit

  December 15, 2007

  During the news conference Thursday in which former Sen. George Mitchell unveiled his 409-page report on baseball's performance-enhancement scandal, I kept waiting for him to announce that he had been hired by the NFL to perform a similar investigation to root out the cheaters in America's most popular television sport.

• Baseball will long be haunted by steroid era

  December 14, 2007

  Not to get all biblical on you, but if the just-released Mitchell Report is any indication, the truth will not necessarily set you free.

• Modell's Hall snub has analogy in baseball's O'Malley

  December 10, 2007

  Though it didn't garner giant headlines in Baltimore, the news last week that the late Walter O'Malley will be inducted into baseball's Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y., in July couldn't help but make me wonder anew when they'll get around to enshrining Art Modell in the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio.

• Schmuck: O's run of the Hall about to hit a wall

  July 31, 2007

  There are several possible reasons Sunday's Hall of Fame induction ceremony drew an estimated crowd that was 50 percent larger than any other.

• Schmuck: With glow, hope for a brighter day

  July 30, 2007

  Soon after Tony Gwynn and Cal Ripken Jr. overcame their fear of public speaking, somebody tried to usher them back into the sad reality of sports in today's society.

• Schmuck: With Ripken, Gwynn, town has true legends

  July 28, 2007

  It is the pleasant nature of this quaint little upstate village that makes it so easy to overlook the disconnect between truth and legend that allowed it to become the hometown of baseball history.

• Schmuck: Ripken joy is a respite amid list of scandals

  July 26, 2007

  Orioles president Andy MacPhail has always looked young for his age, but don't mistake that for being short on perspective.

• Schmuck: A life in the spotlight

  July 22, 2007

  It must have been terribly frustrating. Cal Ripken Jr. spent his entire Hall of Fame career trying to convey something that was so basic we all just assumed there had to be more to it.

• Baseball's hallowed ground no shelter from steroid talk

  May 11, 2007

  Cal Ripken Jr. seemed to enjoy his orientation trip to upstate New York this week, but even in the idyllic small-town setting of the National Baseball Hall of Fame, he could not escape the big-city questions about the troubling state of the game.

• Bonds' excuses positively pathetic

  January 12, 2007

  Of all the days of all the weeks of all the months that have been tainted by baseball's performance-enhancement scandal, Barry Bonds had to stumble back into the drug spotlight on the same day that new Hall of Famers Cal Ripken and Tony Gwynn were taking their post-election bows at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in Manhattan.

• For fans in '95, Ripken's pen was mightier than his bat

  January 10, 2007

  Cal Ripken Jr.'s career speaks for itself.

• McGwire might not mind being skipped in Hall's order

  January 7, 2007

  Sometime in the early afternoon on Tuesday, Cal Ripken will pick up the phone in Baltimore and Tony Gwynn will pick up the phone in San Diego, and it won't be to make a bet on the AFC championship game.

• Throwing off players association, Grimsley hurls hGH into spotlight

  June 11, 2006

  Welcome to the worst nightmare of the Major League Baseball Players Association.

• Dry spell over as juicy story hits home

  June 9, 2006

  Don't know about you, but I was feeling a little bit left out while Barry Bonds bore down on Babe Ruth the past couple of months. How could you help but pine for those halcyon days when Baltimore was -- for a couple of months -- the center of the steroid universe.

• Hendricks' 'Oriole Way' gone, current O's are just wayward

  December 30, 2005

  It was an appropriate sendoff. Elrod Hendricks was remembered fondly by his family, friends and former teammates in a heartfelt and spiritual memorial service yesterday that drew 1,000 mourners to the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen. What else would you expect for a man so loved and respected in this close-knit community?

• By reaching out to others, Hendricks touched us all

  December 23, 2005

  Maybe Elrod Hendricks could only have happened in Baltimore, where our heroes don't have to be bigger than life. They just have to be like us ... or, in Elrod's case, they just have to like us as much as we like them.

• In a ballpark divided, reactions from fans provide potent mix

  August 15, 2005

  IT WAS the anabolic equivalent of "Tastes Great!" ... "Less Filling."

• Wasted words hang over return and leave little worth hearing

  August 12, 2005

  HE COULD have had us at "Hello" ... but that was 10 days ago.

• Silence speaks volumes in age of lost innocence

  August 11, 2005

  THE GREAT THING about being innocent is that you never have to make up a story to prove it.

• Palmeiro didn't provide hard truth, but Congress asked soft questions

  August 7, 2005

  WHILE WE WAIT for Congress to figure out what it is going to do with Rafael Palmeiro and Major League Baseball's flawed drug policy, it might be a good time to point out something very important.

• He may not fit the bill, but he will pay price

  August 2, 2005

  THE IMAGE still lingers. Rafael Palmeiro, called to testify before a congressional committee on March 17, pointed his finger at committee chairman Tom Davis and denied that he had ever used illegal performance-enhancing drugs.

• Robinson still knows how to bring heat when needed

  June 16, 2005

  SO MUCH FOR the myth of the mellow Frank Robinson. So much for the kinder, gentler Washington Nationals manager who used to have every kind of sharp edge as a player -- and a few in his early incarnations as a manager -- but was widely believed to have gotten in touch with his softer side.

• Orioles' Bancells earns huge save for waving Hendricks to hospital

  April 18, 2005

  IT WOULD have been so easy to make the wrong decision. The Orioles were getting ready to return home from St. Petersburg, Fla., on Thursday night, and longtime bullpen coach Elrod Hendricks just didn't feel right.