Baseball

Pitchers and catchers are reporting, which means it's time once again to ask how much longer fans plan to put up with what baseball is doing with performance-enhancing drugs. Maybe this is the year, and this is the moment, they stop, with Alex Rodriguez's failed drug test stinking up spring training. But if last year wasn't it - after the Mitchell Report, after the Roger Clemens circus, after Barry Bonds' numbers still taunted everybody even as he was being blackballed from the game - then it will never happen.

The Orioles used a different leadoff hitter last night, a decision that arrived to them as second baseman Brian Roberts left Camden Yards. Roberts drove away from the ballpark around 3:15 p.m. after complaining of flu-like symptoms. He had made an appearance in Columbia earlier in the day and continued to feel worse as he headed to Baltimore. "We'll try to keep him away from our guys," manager Sam Perlozzo said. Corey Patterson replaced Roberts atop the lineup after batting seventh once and eighth on 12 occasions this season.

FORT LAUDERDALE, FLA. -- You know his swing, so short, sweet and powerful that it prompted one baseball lifer to say that Nick Markakis could become one of the Orioles' best hitters ever. But everything else about Markakis is hidden. He gives few clues to teammates, reporters and fans, who imagine the 23-year-old outfielder as the organization's cornerstone for the next decade. Out of uniform, he is almost always in sneakers, jeans and a T-shirt, most advertising baseball equipment companies.

When his record-setting clout against the Washington Nationals landed around midnight Eastern time Tuesday, San Francisco Giants slugger Barry Bonds officially became baseball's reigning home run king. But hours, days, maybe years after Bonds' 756th home run reached the AT&T Park seats, questions about the validity of Bonds' accomplishments - and really, of any of those who played in the recent, so-called steroids era - will continue to linger. "I don't know how we are going to look at it or what's going to come out of this decade.

Nashville, Tenn. -- One of the unseen benefits of holding Major League Baseball's winter meetings last week at the gigantic Opryland Resort is that there was plenty of space to accommodate the elephant in the middle of every meeting room. Perhaps as soon as midweek, the result of the independent investigation of performance-enhancing drug use in baseball - dubbed the Mitchell Report after lead investigator and former Sen. George Mitchell - will be released. Baseball is holding its collective breath while assuming dozens of current and former players will be implicated, creating further embarrassment for a sport that has been entangled in steroid controversies for most of the decade.

DEAR CAL -- How do you feel about the mercy rule or slaughter rule in baseball? Kathy Owens, Elkton DEAR KATHY -- I think my answer depends on the age group. As players get older and the games become competitive, the focus turns more toward winning and losing. This is natural and is part of the progression of competitive sports. At that point, when scores really matter and the kids are mature enough to handle the concepts of winning and losing as well as their overall record for the season, the mercy rule becomes necessary.

Cooperstown, N.Y. -- A 2,632 game streak and a record-breaking work ethic can hardly be chalked up to destiny alone. Cal Ripken Jr. does recognize, though, how the path of the Susquehanna River mirrors his journey to the Baseball Hall of Fame. The longest river on the East Coast stretches from near Ripken's birthplace in Havre de Grace to Otsego Lake in Cooperstown, N.Y. His way to the Hall was a winding, emotional one, and when it concluded yesterday, even Ripken seemed shocked at just how many people had made the voyage with him. And when Ripken took the podium to deliver his induction speech, we finally saw Baltimore's Iron Man melt.

WASHINGTON -- Congress, which has examined steroid policies in baseball, football and basketball in the past few years, must now address allegations of "rampant" steroid use in professional wrestling, says a Florida lawmaker. "Between 1985 and 2006, 89 wrestlers have died before the age of 50," Republican Rep. Cliff Stearns said yesterday. "Of course, not all of these deaths can be attributed to steroid use. However, this abnormally high number of deaths of young, fit athletes should raise congressional alarms."

IF THE ORIOLES were winning, Peter Angelos' machinations wouldn't be so annoying.The owner of Baltimore's beloved baseball team seems to have been this way for as long as he has been in the public eye: He was headstrong and impulsive when he sat on the City Council in the 1960s.He was that way when he emerged from virtually nowhere to return the Orioles to local ownership in 1993. And, he was that way when he sensibly bucked other owners during the baseball strike and practically willed an historic, exhibition series with Cuba.

SAN DIEGO -- This apple -- not at all green, but somewhat sour -- did not fall far from the tree. Jerry Crawford, president of the Major League Umpires Association, their union, has been a National League umpire since 1977, two years after his father, Shag Crawford, ended his 20-year umpiring career.Mr. Crawford, unlike about two dozen colleagues, will keep his job, partly because it would be unseemly for Major League Baseball to accept the rescinded resignation of the union's head, but primarily because he is good.

The Woodlawn Middle School gym, with its basketball hoops, scoreboards and banners touting school pride, served as a backdrop Saturday for a memorial service honoring Lonnie L. Hill III, a 13-year-old alumnus. About 300 mourners sat before tables filled with photos of a smiling Lonnie posing in various baseball stances, one in front of Ripken Stadium in Aberdeen. "We are not in church, but we are having church right here," said Lonnie L. Hill Jr. "My son is not lost. He is in heaven." With words and soulful hymns, dozens of family, friends and teammates paid tribute to the boy who drowned in the Atlantic Ocean July 23 in South Carolina, while a attending a baseball tournament at the Ripken Experience complex in Myrtle Beach.

Not to be overly cynical, but what message, exactly, were the students of Milford Mill Academy supposed to take away from Tuesday's surprise anti-steroid talk by the New York Yankees star Alex Rodriguez? He came to the school to discourage students from taking steroids by sharing his story, which goes something like this: From 2001-2003, starting just after signing a contract with the Texas Rangers that made him the highest-paid player in the history of Major League Baseball, Mr. Rodriguez took steroids.

Hubert Van Wyke "Bert" Simmons, who pitched and played outfield for the old Negro Leagues' Elite Giants and later became a Baltimore public school educator and mentor, died Wednesday after cancer surgery at Seasons Hospice at Northwest Hospital Center. The Woodlawn resident was 85. "I believe that Bert was the last surviving Elite Giant living in Maryland, and that was because he played in the team's later years," said Shawn M. Herne, chief curator of the Babe Ruth Birthplace and Museum and the Sports Legends Museum at Camden Yards.

I find it interesting, amusing and a little sad that what Greg Dunn today describes as "magic" we once would have described as routine, common, everyday - a way of life, really. I'm talking baseball and what happens on the rare occasions when kids get together, pretty much on their own, and start a game. This happened last week in Baltimore, and these days that's something worth writing home about. And it gave me an idea. But first, let's hear from Mr. Dunn, whose company, The Crew Works, stages, manages and staffs concerts, film productions and other such events.

Erick Zarzecki Pikesville, lacrosse Zarzecki, a second-year starting goalie, anchored the Panthers' run to the Class 2A-1A state title with 12 saves in an 8-7 win over two-time defending state champ Glenelg in the state semifinal and followed it up with 17 saves in a 6-5 win over Queen Anne's. Zarzecki will attend Cabrini College in Pennsylvania next year to play lacrosse and study business and marketing. Others considered: : Kenneth Bivens, St. Frances, baseball; Jeff Crosswhite, River Hill, baseball; Kelly Dayton, Friends, baseball; Matt Gregoire, South River, lacrosse; Dylan Taylor, Severna Park, baseball; Mike Trionfo, Calvert Hall, baseball Kourtney Salvarola Broadneck, softball The junior pitcher led the No. 1 Bruins to their first Class 4A state championship, getting a 5-2 win over North Carroll in Saturday's title game, to complete a 20-0 season.

'Beyond Baseball' 8 p.m. [MLB Network] This look at "what some players are doing outside the game" probably does not feature Sidney Ponson (left). But that's just a guess.

Pitchers and catchers are reporting, which means it's time once again to ask how much longer fans plan to put up with what baseball is doing with performance-enhancing drugs. Maybe this is the year, and this is the moment, they stop, with Alex Rodriguez's failed drug test stinking up spring training. But if last year wasn't it - after the Mitchell Report, after the Roger Clemens circus, after Barry Bonds' numbers still taunted everybody even as he was being blackballed from the game - then it will never happen.

Come on, what baseball fan was genuinely surprised by superstar Alex Rodriguez's admission this week that he used steroids while playing for the Texas Rangers from 2001 until 2003? Probably just those who believed the Yankees slugger when he previously said he'd never taken a performance-enhancing drug. It's a small universe of the eternally naive - die-hard fans and the SEC. This much can be said in A-Rod's defense - he's got a smarter sense of public relations than Roger Clemens, Mark McGwire, Barry Bonds and those others who believe it's useful to deny, deny, deny the evidence of drug use no matter how overwhelming.

Ido not feel bad for Alex Rodriguez. Let's get that out of the way before I explain why baseball and the players union have no business revealing the other 103 players who tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs in 2003. Rodriguez knew that because of his greatness and his contract, he would always face more scrutiny than anyone else in the game. He knew he had taken performance enhancers when he went on 60 Minutes in 2007 and said he had not. So he should have known that some serious shame lay ahead.

After a 21-year major league baseball career that took him from Baltimore to Cooperstown, Cal Ripken Jr. says he's still amazed at where the sport continues to lead him. Ripken will make his second trip for the U.S. State Department as an American Public Diplomacy Envoy next month when he and former Orioles teammate Dennis Martinez tour Nicaragua on a goodwill mission that will use baseball as an international handshake. "Never in a million years would I have expected to be doing something like this," Ripken said yesterday.