Baseball Teams

Let the wild card go to a team worthy of the postseason, a team that seizes the moment, a team that isn't terrified of its own success. Let it to go anyone but the Orioles, a team that need not fool itself any longer.On paper, the Orioles should be ahead of each of the six teams they trail in the wild-card standings. In reality, they deserve to be 4 1/2 games behind Texas, deserve it with every bit of their underachieving hearts.Oh, they're still in it, but who isn't? The three leading wild-card contenders -- Texas, Seattle and Milwaukee -- are baseball's answer to Larry, Moe and Curley.

Jackie Robinson apparently was not the first African American to play in the major leagues. In baseball's early years, some 40 to 50 African Americans played on white teams. And even after league owners reached their "gentleman's agreement" not to let blacks play, some managers kept trying to sneak them onto the field, having them pose as American Indians or Cubans, ethnic groups considered less controversial.I learned all this from Ken Burns' "Baseball," the nine-part, 18-hour documentary on America's favorite pastime that has been running on PBS since Sunday.

Major-league baseball teams' cash-flow problems stemming from the players' strike can be a boon for collectors.Ball 4 Sports in Jarrettsville specializes in uniforms purchased from major-league teams. Barry Wolfsheimer and Ed Starleper correspond with teams in the off-season, then travel to Florida for spring training, where they buy the uniforms for their inventory. Wolfsheimer says that teams sell 2-year-old uniforms, saving the previous year's for emergencies.This year, teams are calling Ball 4.Shortly after the season was called off, Pittsburgh Pirates equipment manager Roger Wilson called Wolfsheimer, offering to sell him the team's 103 jackets and 200 jerseys.

City College's softball and baseball teams each came up with no-hitters yesterday in identical 10-0 victories.Freshman Maren Sautter, in her second varsity start, struck out one and allowed one walk as the softball team (3-0) beat visiting Poly (3-2).Lisa Smith went 2-for-3 with two RBIs and Julie Friedman had a two-run triple in the first inning.In the baseball game, junior Pat Mowray had three strikeouts and two walks, as the Knights beat host Mount Carmel. Mowray also had a double and an RBI.

If everything goes as expected, there should be some very exciting baseball games in Easter tournament finals tomorrow.In the Arundel Tournament in Gambrills, the No. 3 host Wildcats (1-0) defeated Oakland Mills of Howard County, 10-2, yesterday while top-ranked Calvert Hall (2-0) should handle Queen Anne's at 10 a.m. tomorrow.If the Cardinals win in the morning that would set up a 3:30 p.m. finale between No. 3 and No. 1 at Arundel High.A Wildcat/Cardinal showdown would be a classic, matching two outstanding clubs and two fiery coaches in Arundel's Bernie Walter and the Cardinals' Joe Binder.

TWO hours after being cheered for signing the most lucrative baseball contract in history, Cal Ripken Jr. was booed -- loudly -- after he grounded out in a double play. Six-million-dollar men are not permitted to do ordinary things.This is the Law of Heightened Expectations that dogs all of baseball's multi-millionaires. It got so bad for Mets outfielder Bobby Bonilla, holder of what is now baseball's second fattest contract, that he now wears ear plugs at home games, the better to be spared the slings and arrows of unsympathetic New Yorkers.

Now, it's serious.They wanted a few of our movie studios, OK. They wanted Rockefeller Center, fine. Pebble Beach, be our guests. Heck, we wish they'd buy Macy's.But not, not, NOT, no sir, never, one of our baseball teams.They're trying, though. You probably heard Nintendo of Japan actually wants to buy the Seattle Mariners. Is nothing sacred?Before you could say Sadaharu Oh, they'd be pushing sushi instead of hot dogs at the ball yard. That wouldn't be so bad, except did you ever try to put mustard and relish on raw fish?

Dick Brown is a 71-year-old baseball man. He knows a final score when he sees one."Baseball is not just losing its grip in the black community," he says. "Baseball has already lost its grip. The deal is done."Brown is the baseball coach at Dunbar High School. His team had to forfeit its last few games this season. Ran out of players. Not enough kids were interested."It's not just us, either," Brown says. "Southwestern had to postpone a game with us last year. Their coach was running around scrounging up players.

Once upon a time, baseball teams chose their uniform colors without hiring design consultants.The Detroit Tigers got a good deal on blue and orange socks, so they wear blue and orange. The Baltimore Orioles wear orange and black, to match the plumage of the bird.Nowadays, however, there's big money to be made in selling caps and jerseys and jackets to fans. If baseball's predictions are right, the National League's two new expansion teams, Denver and Miami, will sell so much merchandise in the next year, the revenue would pay their fees for admission to the league -- before they ever field teams.

The National League trimmed the list of cities in the running for expansion franchises to six yesterday, and among the survivors were investors who want to own baseball teams in Washington and three Florida cities.In an announcement that ended the bids of a few cities, but held no major surprises, the NL's expansion committee revealed a short list of contenders from which two expansion teams will be selected to begin play in 1993.The list had investors from Buffalo, N.Y., and Denver, as well as Washington and the Florida finalists -- St. Petersburg-Tampa, Orlando and Miami.

Major League Baseball teams are finding the recession is a tough out. Seven weeks into the season, more than half of baseball's 30 teams, including the Orioles and particularly the Washington Nationals, are seeing smaller crowds than a year ago. The dips come at a time of year when attendance is relatively low anyway because kids are in school and the weather is iffy. Through 22 home games this season, the O's have drawn an average of 21,833 fans, a decline of 2,579 compared with their first 22 contests of 2008.

On the agenda for a recent two-week pilgrimage I made to Las Vegas was a totally wholesome event in which I participated along with a buddy who also committed journalism here at The Sun and now works at USA Today. The two of us were entered in a tournament featuring a decades-old baseball board game. Seventy devotees of something called the APBA baseball game gathered at the Palace Station in Vegas - site of O.J. Simpson's gimme-the-memoribilia event several months ago - to vie for the board-game championship playing with great teams of the past.

Hal Sparks, a Mount St. Joseph Hall of Fame member who hasn't coached since 1980, will become coach of Northeast's football team. Eagles athletic director Marianne Shultz will make the announcement today. Sparks, 66, replaces Mike Cotham, whose contract was not renewed after seven seasons. "I'm excited to get back, " said Sparks, who has worked in fundraising and real estate the past 27 years after leaving Mount St. Joseph, where he was a coach and physical education teacher. "This is something I've wanted to do, and when I saw that Northeast had an opening, I decided to apply.

I don't really know baseball. I never even went to a professional game before coming to Baltimore. So when asked if I would like to spend seven straight days eating, breathing, sleeping and sweating baseball, my answer was a definite, hesitant ... yes? Now, 1,500 miles, seven stadiums (counting Camden Yards), 3,222 still images and a half-eaten deep-fried Twinkie later, we have ourselves a weeklong minor league baseball series in the paper. I am proud, if exhausted. My chief concern, aside from juggling a new video camera I had little idea how to use, was making sure I got enough distinctive photos from the various stadiums, so you, our faithful reader, wouldn't think that each day of the series was Groundhog Day. That didn't turn out to be as much of an issue as I feared.

Three of the Orioles' minor league affiliates have been sold by Comcast-Spectacor. The Maryland Baseball Holding LLC group, headed by Ken Young, president of the Triple-A Norfolk Tides, has purchased the Double-A Bowie Baysox and Single-A Frederick Keys. Seventh Inning Stretch, a California-based company, has purchased the low Single-A Delmarva Shorebirds. Comcast-Spectacor will remain a consultant to the Baysox and Keys, according to company president Peter Luukko. None of the affiliates is expected to change locations.

MONTREAL - With the arrival of spring and Opening Day, a young man's thoughts turn to ... something other than baseball. Especially here. If it were baseball, the Expos would still be in town instead of in Washington as the Nationals. With the arrival of spring, Montrealers' thoughts usually turn to the Stanley Cup playoffs. But there will be no such playoffs this spring. Who knows when there might be again? I work in a cigar store, Davidoff's. With the beginning of the lockout of NHL players, and even through the announcement that the season had been canceled, hockey fans who came into the store were angry - at the players, at the league, at everyone who conspired to deprive us of our national pastime.

The Capitol Hill hearings that recently captivated baseball fans with their all-star lineup of witnesses had special resonance in Baltimore. On one side of a long table sat the Orioles' newest star (Sammy Sosa), potentially the next Oriole after Cal Ripken Jr. to be inducted in the Hall of Fame (Rafael Palmeiro) and an Oriole lost years ago in the worst trade the team ever made (Curt Schilling). On the other side sat Rep. Elijah E. Cummings of Baltimore, among the inquisitors on the House Government Reform Committee.

With today marking the 50th anniversary of the Baltimore Orioles' first opening day, many O's fans can't help but recall the great teams of the past, while also looking ahead to the team's future. But with the Orioles on the road, where can fans get a taste of their team besides on television? The answer is right here: the Babe Ruth Birthplace and Museum. If you haven't made your way to the museum, there is no better time than now. Today the exhibit Bird Watchers: A Fan's Eye View opens, celebrating the anniversary.

COCOA, Fla. -- Two hundred miles north of the Orioles' Grapefruit League home in Fort Lauderdale, another baseball team from Maryland is going through the sunny, sweaty paces of spring training. The Mustangs of Bishop McNamara High School, a Catholic school in Forestville, are spending spring break immersed in a rigorous schedule of practices and games against high school teams from other states. They practice for three hours in the morning, play games in the afternoon and work in a batting cage at night, then make an 11 p.m. curfew, sleep for seven or eight hours, get up and do it all over again.

BASEBALL COMMISSIONER Bud Selig has antagonized fans and players all winter with his ham-fisted handling of baseball's financial and labor woes, so it's no surprise he'd eventually anger one of his own. Orioles owner Peter Angelos must have blown a gasket when he heard Mr. Selig remark recently that "relocation is coming" and Washington is the "prime candidate" to get a new franchise. Publicly, Mr. Angelos has walked a fine diplomatic line on this issue. With as many as a quarter of his customers coming from Washington and its environs, he doesn't want to appear to be the Grinch who prevents them from getting their own team.