Club Officials

Whether intended as a prank or a protest, Orioles right fielder Albert Belle created an organizational swirl last night by posting a petition at his locker to boycott next Monday's exhibition in Rochester.Belle's handmade sign said simply: Petition to Boycott Exhibition Game in Rochester on Monday, 6/28/99. Below were spaces for players to register their support. Belle was the first to sign, and later on Scott Erickson's signature appeared underneath. Club officials apparently were not amused.

Jean H. Reisenweber, a former secretary who was an active member of the Dulaney Valley Woman's Club, died Sunday from complications of dementia at Lorien Mays Chapel Health Center in Timonium. The longtime resident of Towson's Campus Hills neighborhood was 86. The daughter of an engineer and a volunteer, the former Dorothy Jean Hobson was born in Baltimore and raised in Roland Park. After graduating from Western High School, she went to work as a secretary for the Maryland Casualty Co. She was married in 1948 to Daniel F. Reisenweber, a chemical engineer, who died in 2005.

The agent for Orioles first baseman Jeff Conine met with club officials for about an hour yesterday in a preliminary round of discussions aimed at keeping the seven-year veteran in Baltimore.Michael Watkins said the meeting, which included executive vice president John Angelos and director of player personnel Syd Thrift, was both cordial and encouraging."My perception was it went pretty good. We got along well. We had a good conversation," said Watkins, who had expressed frustration on Wednesday after failing to hear from Thrift during the general managers meetings in Dana Point, Calif.

The Orioles will attend a three-day workout for top Dominican shortstop prospect Miguel Angel Sano this month, another sign that the organization is considering making a serious run at signing the coveted international free agent. Sano, a 6-foot-2, 190-pound 16-year-old who has drawn comparisons to Florida Marlins star shortstop Hanley Ramirez, worked out for the Orioles at their Dominican baseball academy June 5. Orioles director of player development David Stockstill said he was very impressed but the club wants to get a more extended look at the player who is reportedly seeking a signing bonus of about $5 million or $6 million.

ANAHEIM, Calif. -- Orioles first-round draft choice Darnell McDonald will bypass the University of Texas and get a jump on his professional baseball career. He has tentatively agreed to terms on a contract with the club that will pay him a signing bonus worth a face value of $1.9 million.McDonald, who originally had told the club that he intended to play both football and baseball at the University of Texas unless he got a record signing bonus, abruptly changed his mind this week and traveled to Seattle, where he and family advisor, Vance Larimer, apparently put together the deal with club officials early yesterday.

Cal Ripken Sr., a member of the Orioles organization for 36 years, has been removed as third-base coach and asked to take a minor-league position, club officials said yesterday.The decision to replace Ripken, who joined the major-league club in 1976, apparently was made shortly after the regular season. Club officials said they are awaiting word from Ripken on whether he will accept a demotion to minor-league instructor or retire.General manager Roland Hemond refused to confirm Ripken's dismissal as third-base coach yesterday, but he and manager Johnny Oates said club officials have spoken with Ripken about moving to a different job."

A strip club on The Block has been ordered to shut down for five days and fined $8,000 after the city's liquor board concluded that a 16-year-old girl danced there for a week. The owner of Club Pussycat, William G. Wantland Sr., declined to comment yesterday. The club has previously been cited for similar infractions. Club officials told the board that the girl fooled them into thinking she was 18. Police discovered her during a routine check of the club in July. They said she was a runaway from Baltimore County.

Cal Ripken Sr., a member of the Orioles organization for 36 years, has been removed as third-base coach and asked to take a minor-league position, club officials said yesterday.The decision to replace Mr. Ripken, who joined the major-league club in 1976, apparently was made shortly after the regular season. Club officials said they are awaiting word from Mr. Ripken on whether he will accept a demotion to minor-league instructor or retire.General manager Roland Hemond refused to confirm Mr. Ripken's dismissal as third-base coach yesterday, but he and manager Johnny Oates said the club has spoken with Mr. Ripken about moving to a different job."

Poor Jimmy's, the beleaguered off-track betting parlor in Cecil County facing shutdown Dec. 31, received a conditional, three-month reprieve yesterday from the Maryland Racing Commission.Commissioners agreed to let the OTB operation, managed by the Maryland Jockey Club in a separately run North East steakhouse, operate until the club's lease expires March 31 if certain repairs are made and furnishings are upgraded quickly.Several commissioners and jockey club officials will meet at Poor Jimmy's during the first week of January to agree on a list of desired improvements.

A man dubbed Washington's "Sultan of Sleaze" has ended his legal cease-fire with a Crownsville nudist camp, charging officials there slandered him during a police investigation in Florida that ended with his arrest on a child pornography charge.Dennis Sobin, a self-proclaimed "sexual libertine activist" whose sexually oriented businesses have included escort services, an adult bookstore, "dial-a-porn" phone lines, massage parlors and "nude touchy-feely clubs," filed a $100,000 suit against Pine Tree Associates, operators of the Pine Tree Nudist Community, yesterday in county Circuit Court.

Maryland Jockey Club officials hope a post-Derby bump after a stunning upset Saturday in Kentucky by Mine That Bird will boost sluggish Preakness Stakes ticket sales, but they are bracing for a more subdued scene at Baltimore's famously raucous horse race. The recession has dampened spending habits of ordinary spectators and corporate party hosts at the middle leg of racing's Triple Crown, with advance infield ticket sales down about 17 percent compared with this time last year. Mobile device BlackBerry is the race's first "title sponsor" in recent memory, but corporate underwriting revenue overall is down about 10 percent, or $75,000, because of the loss of such sponsors as UPS, Heineken and the Maryland State Lottery, jockey club officials said.

While a picture-perfect afternoon greeted an announced 5,253 on the opening day of the 2008 Pimlico spring meeting yesterday - 600 more than last year's opener - the climate wasn't nearly as friendly for the recently concluded winter meet at Laurel Park. Total wagering at Laurel this winter was down 17.3 percent from last year, dropping from $3.56 million per day to $2.943 million, according to figures released yesterday.

It is a traditionalist's nightmare, the nine-game Orioles homestand that began last night against the Colorado Rockies, and that's not the half of it. The three teams that will visit Camden Yards didn't exist in their present form the last time the Orioles were in a World Series, and none of them is even in the American League. But through the commingled miracles of expansion, relocation and marketing gimmickry, the Rockies, Washington Nationals and Arizona Diamondbacks will visit Baltimore at what could be a watershed juncture in the recent history of the Orioles franchise.

Not long after receiving the best news of his young professional career, Adam Loewen sat alone on a bus. Leaving his Bowie Baysox uniform behind, the 22-year-old pitcher boarded a bus in Altoona, Pa., to catch a flight in Pittsburgh the next morning. He was headed to Seattle, where he would make his major league debut for the Orioles the next night against the Mariners. The two-hour ride would give Loewen time to notify family and friends that he had finally gotten the call. But the driver got lost trying to navigate through the Pennsylvania night, leaving Loewen four hours to wrestle with his emotions.

Launching an effort to raise the profile of the Boys and Girls Club in Baltimore, club officials held a lunch yesterday at a swanky downtown restaurant to garner support to open a center in Park Heights this year. More than 50 of the city's movers and shakers attended the Capital Grille luncheon hosted by the Boys & Girls Club of Harford County and Neil Katz, CEO of Corridor Reznick LLC, a commercial real estate firm. Katz and the Harford County group split the $2,500 cost of the lunch.

There really are only two ways to go with the Miguel Tejada saga. Either the Orioles are in denial about their superstar shortstop, or the rest of us should never again believe our eyes. Tejada is leading the team in batting average, home runs and RBIs, so there's certainly no reason to panic, but the change in his demeanor over the past year has been so obvious that it's difficult to understand why club officials don't think it's anything to worry about. "He's doing what he's supposed to be doing," manager Sam Perlozzo said yesterday.

Competition for recreation and playing fields in Howard County has forced members of the Savage Boys and Girls Club to crowd onto small and often unmaintained fields that the program's coordinators say can't handle the more than 1,000 children in club programs.Club officials are considering sending some of their soccer league players as far away as Bowie to play on teams there. And they have offered to pay for maintenance of any fields the county would offer to the club at Laurel Woods Elementary School.

Saying that he regretted asking for a trade and was embarrassed by all the attention his request drew, Orioles All-Star shortstop Miguel Tejada told team vice president Jim Duquette yesterday afternoon that he wants to remain with the club and help it become a winner. "He told me that this has been bothering him since he said it and he felt bad about this," said Duquette, who spoke to Tejada in a three-way cell phone call that was organized by third baseman Melvin Mora, one of Tejada's closest friends.

The Orioles' standoff with Miguel Tejada reached a third day, as the All-Star shortstop spoke publicly for the first time since suggesting he would benefit from a change of scenery. In an interview with Comcast SportsNet, Tejada said he never asked for a trade, but he wants to win immediately. "I never said I wanted to be traded; I said I want to see a better team," said Tejada, who spoke via phone from the Dominican Republic. "I don't want to keep losing like we have the past two years.