Baseball Fans

With his mechanical pencil and clipboard, his tortoise-shell glasses and his earnest expression, Joe Buccheri might be a chemist completing a lab report. How carefully he observes his subject and makes cryptic marks on sheets of paper. How dutifully he files the sheets, culling them later for the sake of personal memory and historic preservation.Look for Buccheri not in a university or corporate laboratory but in the upper deck of Oriole Park at Camden Yards. Eighty-one games a season he commands a view from on high behind the plate, a solitary figure with a clipboard in his lap practicing the ancient rite of baseball score keeping.

John Lanahan Jr. was spending Sunday afternoon at St. Agnes Hospital with his father, who was recovering from an allergic reaction. The two Orioles fans planned to watch the game against perennial favorite Boston Red Sox. Then disaster struck. As the game went into extra innings - ultimately, 17 in all - WJZ interrupted the broadcast at 7 p.m. to show "60 Minutes. " The hospital did not offer the cable station MASN, which carried the remainder of the game. The father and son missed out on the culmination of what is arguably the most memorable game of the O's season so far - in which designated hitter Chris Davis pitched two scoreless innings and the Orioles won, 9-6. "We were both pretty disappointed that we couldn't watch the end of the game," the 36-year-old accountant said.

It is spacious. It is functional. It looks fabulous. It has all the spectator comforts imaginable for baseball fans and a lot of luxury for the affluent on the mahogany-paneled Club Level. But perhaps the grandest tribute we can give to Oriole Park at Camden Yards is that for once government has spent taxpayers' money wisely: On April 6, officials will deliver, on time and at the promised cost, a top-quality, nationally recognized architectural gem that could prove as big a bonanza for Baltimore -- and Maryland -- as the Inner Harbor.

No major sports event is worth its admission price without a good argument about it. Fans can have their choice on the eve of the 64th All-Star Game. One is exemplified by the fact it is called just the All-Star Game. Not the Baseball All-Star Game. That goes without saying. There may be an all-star game played by guys in shorts and tank tops creeping up in the television ratings. Or one played on skates. Or one played in somnolent Hawaii after all but the most rabid fans have tired of the season.

Baltimore baseball fans have an internal clock that normally tells them to shut it down by this time of the summer and turn their rooting interest to the Ravens and the NFL. A decade of losing seasons at Camden Yards has had its effect, though the 2008 Orioles have done a better job of holding fans' attention. But there's certainly no postseason in the offing. However, before you pack away the diamond dreams for the season, you might want to check in on the Maryland representatives in the Little League World Series.

Donna M. Greenwald used to perform in dinner theater musicals to audiences of only a couple hundred people.Now the Columbia resident is performing the national anthem in baseball stadiums across the country to crowds of more than 40,000. Labeling it her "National Anthem Tour," Ms. Greenwald's objective is to sing the Star Spangled Banner at every ball park in the country."Singing at Camden Yards [last summer] was truly the beginning of my National Anthem Tour," said Ms. Greenwald, who described herself as an avid baseball fan in her mid-30s.

WHILE it's certainly terrific that the Orioles are shattering records right and left for baseball crowds, it's a little unsettling to consider who's filling those precious seats at Camden Yards.L The Orioles may not have as many baseball fans in the standsas they think.Consider this:It's opening night at the Yard. Mike Mussina is starting what would turn out to be a masterful pitching performance that's wasted in extra innings."Why are there security guards in the middle of the field?" asks the woman sitting next to me in a prime seat in the upper deck behind home plate.

Baseball is back at Memorial Stadium . . . for the summer a least.Word is that a minor league team from Bowie will be playing in the stadium for four or five months, starting mid-April. Although plans for the Bowie team to occupy the stadium are not yet final, the prospect of having baseball back in Waverly has some avid baseball fans smiling."It'll be great to have a little minor league action here," said Colleen Connelly, 32, a bartender at Stadium Lounge on Greenmount Avenue. "I worked at the stadium for almost six years and would hate to see them tear it down."

IT'S OFFICIAL: The Montreal Expos are headed to the nation's capital. The announcement yesterday by Major League Baseball means that Washington is back in the major leagues as of today, almost precisely 33 years after the Senators' final home game. It's an exciting moment for D.C.-area baseball fans but an oddly melancholy one for those 40 miles to the north. It means that the Baltimore Orioles - a team that has brought together two cities made proximate by precious little other than geography - have forever lost a bit of stature and quite possibly an important competitive advantage.

So long, Spider-Man. You were a real conversation piece - for about 25 hours. If only the cicadas promised to disappear this fast. Let's get this straight: The "leaders" of baseball, who were clueless and foolish enough to sell the game's soul and its pristine white bases to a movie studio for a few measly advertising dollars, are the same "leaders" who have now canceled the goofy and ludicrous advertising campaign because a tsunami of negativity engulfed...