Baltimore Baseball

While 30 fourth- and fifth-graders in baseball uniforms eagerly awaited their turn in the batting cage at the All-Star Preview Center at Camden Yards, the Orioles yesterday announced their continued support of the Baltimore Baseball League.The league has doubled in size since last year's inaugural season. This year, there are more than 960 children participating 48 elementary school teams."Expansion in the major leagues or at any level only happens when something is healthy and successful," Orioles president Larry Lucchino said.

The Baltimore County baseball coaches released their 2013 picks for top players, coaches and all-county teams earlier this week. The full list is below. 2013 Baltimore County baseball awards Baltimore County Player of the Year: Sam Stark, Towson, senior Baltimore County Pitcher of the Year: Matt Evans, Eastern Tech, senior Baltimore County Offensive Player of the Year: Kris Ewers, Dulaney, senior Divisional Coaches of the Year: Division I -- Rich Hambor, Catonsville; Division II -- Brad Eastham, Towson; Division III -- Brian Powell, Dundalk Sportsmanship Award: Division I -- Hereford; Division II -- Loch Raven; Division III -- Chesapeake-BC All-Baltimore County first team Pitcher: John Klein, Catonsville, junior Pitcher: Matt Evans, Eastern Tech, senior Pitcher: Aidan Miller, Towson, senior Infielder: Kyle Kershner, Towson, senior Infielder: Tyler Silbersack, Franklin, junior Infielder: Sam Stark, Towson, senior Infielder: Kris Ewers, Dulaney, senior Infielder: Tyler Smith, Western Tech, senior Infielder: Jay Patti, Hereford, senior Infielder: Logan Countryman, Loch Raven, senior Infielder: Cody Gwinn, Eastern Tech, junior Outfielder: Ryan Silcott, Franklin, senior Outfielder: Bobby Donald, Dulaney, senior Outfielder: Paul Walter, Eastern Tech, senior Outfielder: Robbie Wheelton, Catonsville,...

TO GO WITH our new diamond at Camden Yards, the Orioles have adopted two new monograms, or logos.In one 1992 logo, a properly beaked and feathered oriole perches on the dot of the letter "i" in Baltimore -- the city name missing in recent seasons. For whoever in the high command restored it, many cheers.The second logo's central figure is a uniformed, right-handed batter. The ornamental letters B B C enfold him: Baltimore Baseball Club. From wide belt to flowing penmanship, the figure bespeaks antiquity.

Here's a roundup of what other media outlets are saying about the Orioles: ** Jon Paul Morosi of FoxSports.com lists Orioles outfielder Chris Davis as one of baseball's unlikely heroes who could shine in September, especially with Nick Markakis out of the lineup : Despite the Orioles' resiliency this season, the injury to Markakis may be the one thing they can't overcome. Markakis has been the team's most consistent offensive force lately - with a .335 batting average in the second half - before a broken left thumb ended his season Saturday night.

Sandi McFadden stresses Academics, athleticsWhen commencement speaker Sandi McFadden addresses the fifth-grade class of Dr. Rayner Browne Elementary School next month, she will stress the importance of integrating mind, body and spirit into one vital entity."

DICK HALL, 63 next month and semi-retired from his accounting firm, still cuts a handsome, impressive figure. He stands there at one of the entrances to Oriole Park, helping out on a here's-your-free-whatsis day.The tallest one of all, throughout his nine years as an Oriole, he still has his hair and his athletic build; for the start of lines on face and neck, blame not his 19 years altogether in the big leagues, or his three stressful World Series, but...

YEARS AGO, Lipman Pike of the Baltimore nine was famous for his speed at beating out grounders.So one day when no game was scheduled, at old Newington Park in West Baltimore, the front office put on a footrace -- Pike versus a trotter named Clarence -- and hundreds of fans paid to watch.The mark of a student of Baltimore baseball has long been the ability to pronounce "Elite" correctly, as in Baltimore Elite Giants. (That is, Ee-lights.)A tougher challenge is to name some other local teams made up of black players.

BOSTON -- Yesterday's rainout means that Orioles righthander Mike Mussina won't have to be a road warrior for the first month of the season.Mussina, who was scheduled to pitch last night, is slated to start tomorrow afternoon against the Tigers. "He's excited to get a chance to pitch in our new park," said manager Johnny Oates. "The way it was he wouldn't have pitched at home until next month."Come to think of it, it was that way for him in spring training, too. I don't ever remember him pitching a game when we were home down there.

Utilizing the Camden Railroad Station, truly one of the most historic buildings in Baltimore, into the baseball complex that serves the Baltimore Orioles is an appropriate undertaking. It could be a perfect fit, a bonanza of an idea.Camden Station, where Lincoln paused to and from his trip to deliver the Gettysburg Address, fronts the property where the Orioles play. Not to be confused with the ponderous Camden Warehouse, it's an unused railroad depot, 137 years old, that's in need of rehabilitation and a new purpose in life.

IN A SEASON earmarked to turn around the disgraced Orioles and reinvigorate their long-suffering fan base, the stakes were far higher for Peter Angelos than where the team finished in the American League East standings. Maybe that's why Angelos chose to put rookie manager Lee Mazzilli on the hot seat, which is essentially what Angelos intended when he said: "We made a commitment to bringing these fans a winner, and the responsibility for making it come true rests with the professionals in charge."

It was a sight to warm any Baltimore baseball fan's heart: In the top of the eighth inning of the All-Star Gameon Tuesday, with the eyes of the sports world fixed on Kauffman Stadium in Kansas City, fully one-third of the players on the field were sporting Oriole uniforms. Unfortunately, center fielder Adam Jones, catcher Matt Wieters and reliever Jim Johnson were not able to do much to boost the prospects of the American League team, which fell to the National League by a lopsided 8-0 in the Midsummer Classic.

As soon as my husband walks through the front door, I usually can tell whether the high school baseball team he helps coach has won a game. A slow shuffle into the kitchen means a loss. A hearty hello means a win. But lately, wins by double digits have left him feeling defeated. His team is participating in the second annual President's Cup, a tournament in which nine of Baltimore's public high school baseball teams compete against seven private city school teams, with the championship game to be held next Saturday at Camden Yards - pretty heady stuff for any kid. The goals of the tournament, initiated by Baltimore City Council PresidentBernard C. "Jack" Young, are to reignite a passion for baseball among the city's youth, raise money to renovate city ball fields (as of March 24, it had raised $166,000)

Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake and Councilman Brandon M. Scott announced Tuesday that beginning this year, the Baltimore City Public Schools baseball championship will be held at Camden Yards. The title game will take place at 2:05 p.m. on May 5. Admission is free. Gates will open at 1 p.m. with parking available in lots B and C. "Playing the biggest game of the year at the greatest baseball stadium in the country is a priceless opportunity for our student-athletes," Rawlings-Blake said in a news release.

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James Hall Bready, an Evening Sun editorial writer for more than three decades and originator of the "Books and Authors" column that was published in The Baltimore Sun for nearly 50 years, died Saturday of renal failure at Gilchrist Hospice Care in Towson. The Homeland resident was 92. Mr. Bready, whose parents were staff members of the old Philadelphia Ledger, was born in Philadelphia and raised in southern New Jersey. He was a graduate of Woodbury High School and Moorestown Friends School, both in New Jersey.

Generations of kids have spent summer evenings pounding their cleats and sliding into home on a West Baltimore baseball field. Now, a longtime youth baseball organization is hoping to refurbish the fields on which it has instilled teamwork and responsibility in those children for more than half a century. James Mosher Baseball, Maryland's oldest continuously operating league for African-American children, started in 1960 to keep kids occupied in the summer. But after decades of play, its fields need help.

Columnist should write about O's, not their foes On April 10, the Orioles won the rubber game of a three-game series against the Yankees in New York. On April 11, instead of a column about the series, readers of The Sun were treated to a puff piece about the life and oh-so-hard times of ultra-rich Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez, courtesy of Yankees-obsessed columnist Laura Vecsey ["Lord of the non-rings, Yanks' Rodriguez is trying harder"]. Included in this column were numerous references to various Yankees and Boston Red Sox players, not to mention Rodriguez's infant daughter.

Here's a roundup of what other media outlets are saying about the Orioles: ** Jon Paul Morosi of FoxSports.com lists Orioles outfielder Chris Davis as one of baseball's unlikely heroes who could shine in September, especially with Nick Markakis out of the lineup : Despite the Orioles' resiliency this season, the injury to Markakis may be the one thing they can't overcome. Markakis has been the team's most consistent offensive force lately - with a .335 batting average in the second half - before a broken left thumb ended his season Saturday night.

The Orioles' 5-1 start has reinvigorated baseball fans in Baltimore, leading some to speculate that the Orioles will take over the city from the Ravens if they are playoff contenders down the stretch. "Baltimore is a baseball city," is what I keep hearing from hosts and callers on sports talk radio. Baltimore has a rich heritage in both baseball and football. The Orioles were a top-notch franchise for decades, winning a World Series title in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, and coming close a couple of times in the 1990s.