Exhibition Game

NORFOLK, Va. -- The Orioles ended their first game in their new Triple-A affiliate's park by doing something they couldn't manage often last season: holding a late lead. The Orioles' bullpen, which gave up 321 runs in the sixth, seventh and eighth innings last season, came through in the ninth inning yesterday, as the team edged the Washington Nationals, 6-5, in an exhibition game at Harbor Park. The Nationals cut a 6-4 Orioles lead in half in the ninth, but Chris Ray struck out the game's final batter with the tying run on third.

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- The Orioles may write the next chapter in the history of sports diplomacy when they visit Havana for an exhibition game on March 28, but their international goodwill mission isn't meeting with universal approval.Soon after Major League Baseball officially announced yesterday that a deal had been reached to stage the home-and-home exhibition series with a team of Cuban all-stars, demonstrators representing several anti-Castro groups converged on the Orioles' Fort Lauderdale spring-training complex in an attempt to dissuade the club from visiting the communist nation.

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.

One of baseball's oldest axioms holds that left-handers, quite apart from the way they throw the ball, think, shall we say, differently than others, and former Orioles southpaw Mike Flanagan is certainly a breed apart.For instance, when Flanagan, the lead analyst on Orioles television broadcasts, thinks of the Cuban all-star team that will invade Oriole Park Monday night, he thinks of the Galapagos Islands, the homeland of those giant tortoises.Now, before you call out the non-sequitur police, hear Flanagan out. In his mind, the Cubans, who were a vital part of baseball until the Castro revolution, have become shrouded in mystery, much like the Galapagos and their inhabitants.

Orioles owner Peter Angelos showed grace under fire, even if his team only grudgingly showed up for the second game of its historic goodwill exhibition series against a team of Cuban all-stars."

The bad news, for local sports viewers, is that because Friday afternoon's Ravens-New York Giants exhibition game is not a sellout, it will not be seen live. But the good news, for local soap opera fans, is that "The Young and The Restless" won't be pre-empted after all.Team officials announced yesterday that 2,000 tickets remained unsold for Friday's game, which starts at noon. Under NFL rules, any game that fails to sell out at least 72 hours before kickoff cannot be shown live in that market.

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.

HAVANA -- The sun did not rise on a democratic Cuba yesterday, but there was little doubt that Sunday's goodwill exhibition game between the Orioles and selected members of the Cuban National Team had an impact on the strained relationship between the United States and one of its closest neighbors.The day after the Orioles became the first American major-league team to play on Cuban soil in 40 years, the streets of Havana were buzzing with talk of more American visits, and the president of the Cuban Parliament seemed ready to take baseball diplomacy into extra innings.

With Cuba agreeing to an exhibition game between its national team and the Orioles in Havana, Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke continues to pitch cultural exchanges between the city and the Communist country.Proposed events include a chess match, tennis exhibition and Baltimore-to-Havana yacht race. An agreement on the baseball game, which had recently been in doubt, was confirmed by The Sun yesterday. Talks continue about a second game at Camden Yards.Schmoke's interest in Cuba grew last year when he visited the nation as a guest of the Center for International Policy, a Washington-based advocacy group pushing to end the U.S. embargo.

Quote: "It was an exhibition of how not to pitch. I just couldn't find the zone." -- Danny Patterson of the Rangers, who walked four in the eighth inning, the most in his 80 major-league games.It's a fact: The White Sox started left-handed pitchers in all three games against the Cubs, a team with an NL-best 12-4 mark vs. left-handers.Who's hot: The Cubs' Sammy Sosa has 10 homers in his past nine games.Who's not: The Astros' Jeff Bagwell is hitting .205 (9-for-44) with runners in scoring position.

JUPITER, Fla. -The Orioles appeared to be headed for a garden-variety exhibition loss yesterday when top prospect Matt Wieters arrived at the plate with two outs and a runner at second base in the bottom of the ninth inning. Wieters came into the game hitting .429 with three doubles and a home run in six exhibition appearances. He is living up to every bit of his billing as Baseball America's top prospect. But it was an exhibition game, and so the in-game strategy is not quite the same as it would be during the regular season.

Now that the Ravens and other NFL teams have their first exhibition games under their belts, it's time to seriously talk about shortening the preseason. After the first quarter of last night's game, did you have any idea who some of these guys were? It's true that some rookies (i.e. Joe Flacco) need as many repetitions as possible in exhibition games. But judging by his performance Thursday night, there won't be enough exhibition games on the schedule to get Flacco ready. So let's cut one exhibition game and add it to the regular season.

College Park -- Maryland senior forward James Gist, the team's leading returning scorer and rebounder, and sophomore forward Landon Milbourne will be suspended for the Terps' regular-season opener at 8 p.m. Sunday against North Florida, coach Gary Williams said yesterday. Gist and Milbourne, both projected starters for tonight's 8 p.m. exhibition game against Concordia, participated in one day of the Maryland State 5-on-5 Tournament in Ocean City in April. By playing, they violated NCAA bylaw 14.7.

Today: Ravens report to Best Western Motel in Westminster for the opening of training camp. Surprised to find all Baltimore sports fans have left the state. Tomorrow: Billick confirms that he again will call all the offensive plays this year ... and vows to be less conservative. To prove it, he endorses a single-payer health care system. Tuesday: When it becomes obvious the Orioles will do nothing at baseball's trade deadline, the Ravens announce that they have traded pending free agent Terrell Suggs to the Texas Rangers for Mark Teixeira.

NORFOLK, Va. -- The Orioles ended their first game in their new Triple-A affiliate's park by doing something they couldn't manage often last season: holding a late lead. The Orioles' bullpen, which gave up 321 runs in the sixth, seventh and eighth innings last season, came through in the ninth inning yesterday, as the team edged the Washington Nationals, 6-5, in an exhibition game at Harbor Park. The Nationals cut a 6-4 Orioles lead in half in the ninth, but Chris Ray struck out the game's final batter with the tying run on third.

The San Francisco Giants are seriously interested in bringing back Barry Bonds, despite the notion that the club might prefer to part ways with the aging slugger. The team has been exchanging offers with Bonds' agent, Jeff Borris. "I don't know where the story line came from that we didn't want him back," Giants general manager Brian Sabean said yesterday at the winter meetings in Lake Buena Vista, Fla. "We've had a long-standing conversation and offer out there that we've adjusted a number of times.

All but nine of the Orioles 162 regular-season games during the coming season will be broadcast regionally, the Orioles announced today. Comcast SportsNet will air 90 games, including three spring training contests, beginning with a March 27 matchup with the Florida Marlins. The Mid-Atlantic Sports Network will televise 65 games through stations on the Orioles Television Network, including the regular-season opener on April 3 against the Tampa Bay Devil Rays at 3 p.m. Games in the Baltimore area will be shown on WNUV-TV (40 games)

Maryland coach Gary Williams pounded his heart with his right fist last week, indicating where he believes defense comes from. It is, he said, a "pride thing," and junior guard D.J. Strawberry definitely has it. Williams is just waiting for it to become contagious. "It's a team attitude where you want to stop people," he said. "You can teach fundamentals of defense, stance, getting away and toward a ball, but if you don't want to play defense, you can have all the fundamentals you want.

OKLAHOMA CITY - Three of the Orioles' most impressive players this spring combined to give them a 3-1 win against the St. Louis Cardinals in their last exhibition game in Oklahoma last night. With the score tied at 1, hot-hitting Jay Gibbons led off the ninth with a single. Pinch runner David Newhan stole second and scored on Luis Matos' triple. Matos, who is batting nearly .400 this spring, dashed home when the relay throw from second baseman Mark Grudzielanek bounced off Matos' back and rolled away.

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- The last time the Orioles played a team from Washington, D.C., Frank Robinson hit a home run and Memorial Stadium was more than half empty. If there was a trace of excitement in the air, it must have been passing through the city on its way to someplace else. Yesterday's rematch took almost 34 years, and it unfolded in a modest setting -- an exhibition game in early March. But the stands were mostly full at Fort Lauderdale Stadium, and the relocated Montreal franchise, now known as the Washington Nationals, struck the first blow with a 9-6 victory over the Orioles.