Camden

So, the endless post-season scenarios have put your plans up in the air? Think about Josh Distenfeld, executive chef at Oriole Park at Camden Yards. Distenfeld has to make ordering, prepping and staffing decisions for what could turn out to be anywhere from zero to four games in the next five days. On Wednesday afternoon, here's what Distenfeld knew -- exactly what everybody else knew. "We're just like everybody else," said Distenfeld, who oversees all of the food operations at Camden Yards.

So it's way past midnight and I still haven't packed for my 7:30 a.m. flight to Tampa Bay. Heck, I can sleep in the offseason. The Orioles sealed their first postseason bid in 15 years tonight, capping a bizarre and surreal day, one that most long-suffering O's fans will remember for years. The image that will last in my mind is one of the Orioles players giving high fives on the field after their 6-3 win over Boston, then staying on the field to watch the final inning of the Angels-Rangers afternoon game.

It could have been one of the coolest scenes in Baltimore baseball history. Players and fans cheering together at Camden Yards as the Los Angeles Angels lost to the Texas Rangers and gave the Orioles their first playoff berth since 1997. It was still pretty cool, but it didn't work out as neatly as hoped. The Angels came back on the Rangers and closer Joe Nathan, scoring two runs in the ninth on a Torii Hunter double to give the Angels the lead. They won it in the ninth, to keep the Orioles' postseason clinching celebration at bay at least until later Sunday night when the Angels and Rangers face off again.

On an exquisite Sunday afternoon at Camden Yards, while the home team completed a lovely weekend sweep of the Boston Red Sox, we popped the question among the beer-fisted on the sun-splashed flag court above right field: When did you start to believe - really believe - that the Orioles would make the American League playoffs for the first time in 15 years? We had to yell the question to be heard above the raucous, happy crowd that celebrated the Birds' drive for at least a postseason wild-card berth, which they clinched when the Los Angeles Angels lost the second game of a doubleheader to the Texas Rangers Sunday night.

The Orioles announced Sunday's attendance at 41,257. That gives the Orioles 2,102,240 fans for the season, the best attendance at Camden Yards since 2007. And it is a 19.8 percent increase from last year's 1.76 million. And you can put a happy-face asterisk on this year's attendance, if you like. Because of rainouts, the Orioles had two games turned into one-gate doubleheaders. So they've only had 79 home gates this year in comparison to 80 or 81 in past seasons. In fact, they haven't had fewer than 80 since the strike-shortened 1995 season (72)

Typical Brooks. Everybody who was anybody in Orioles history showed up to honor him when the Orioles unveiled his statue on the center field plaza Saturday at Camden Yards, and all he wanted to do was thank everybody else and turn his ceremony into a celebration of this year's amazing, surprising, contending team. “How 'bout them O's?" he said, to a huge ovation from the thousands of fans who crowded around the plaza and lined every terrace and exposed walkway with a view of the last bronze in the Legends Celebration Series.

Technically, our curiosity, as Orioles manager Buck Showalter likes to say, was satisfied on Sunday, when uber-phenom Dylan Bundy faced two batters and retired both in his big league debut. But, for what was left of the announced crowd of 30,205 at Camden Yards on Tuesday, there was plenty of curiosity remaining when Bundy took the mound against the Toronto Blue Jays in the ninth inning for his home debut. He faced four batters and threw 22 pitches, only 12 for strikes. He went to a three-ball count on three of the four batters he faced and afterward called his fastball command “brutal.” Yet he didn't give up a run, thanks to Colby Rasmus' decision to swing on a 3-0 pitch, hitting it to J.J. Hardy for an inning-ending double play.

The O'Malley administration has chosen a Canadian company to operate two MARC commuter train lines, passing over a competitor whose critics have tied it to Nazi Germany and avoiding a potential fight with Holocaust survivors. The Maryland Department of Transportation is expected to seek Board of Public Works approval Oct. 3 for a nearly six-year, $204 million contract with Bombardier Transportation Services to run the Camden and Brunswick lines. The lines are now owned and operated by CSX Transportation, which has long wanted to get out of the business of running a commuter railroad.

Monica Barlow hates being asked whether she is a former smoker. To her it doesn't matter. To the people she meets who hear she is battling Stage 4 lung cancer, it seems the only possible explanation. "The answer is no, but that kind of frustrates me, because that's not to say that if I did smoke I deserved cancer," said Barlow, 35, director of public relations for the Orioles. The stigma behind her disease is one reason she is participating in the Breathe Deep Baltimore 5K Walk/Fun Run around the warning track at Oriole Park at Camden Yards on Sept.

As of 7:30 a.m. Thursday, traffic was slow on Ruxton Road near I-83, due to an accident. Accidents were slowing traffic on Harford Road near Joppa Road in Baltimore County, Route 10 northbound near Furnace Branch Road in Anne Arundel County, and Padonia Road near Broad Avenue in Baltimore County. Monument Street is closed between Wolfe Street and Patterson Park Avenue in East Baltimore, due to sinkhole repairs. Maryland Transit Administration bus 35 has been diverted. Until further notice, the No. 14 bus stop located northbound on Crain Highway at Furnace Branch Road has been temporarily relocated due to construction.