Indians

There was bound to be a day under manager Buck Showalter when the Orioles showed little spark and were shut down by a pitcher whom they figured to do more against. Still, Thursday night screamed of a missed opportunity to win five straight games for the first time all season, sweep their first three-game series in Cleveland since 1987 and take another step toward securing their first winning road trip in 2010. Veteran starter Kevin Millwood mostly did his part, allowing three runs over seven innings to continue the fine run by a resurgent rotation.

Before the Texas Rangers' Josh Hamilton did it Tuesday night, the Cleveland Indians' Rocky Colavito was the only player to hit four home runs in a game against the Orioles. Colavito went deep four times at Memorial Stadium on June 10, 1959. Here's a story The Sun ran 30 years later, reflecting on the slugger's feat.   June 18, 1989 ROCKY IV 30 years ago, Rocky Colavito ended a slump by becoming only the third player to hit four homers in four consecutive at-bats in a nine-inning game Rocky Colavito clicked his way down the tunnel from the visitors clubhouse and emerged in the Cleveland Indians dugout carrying his K-55 bats -- 33-ounce models that most hitters would consider light when compared with the weight of a 3-for-28 batting skid.

Albert Belle will stay in the Cleveland Indians' lineup while th American League decides how to punish him for hitting a fan with a baseball.Belle, who spent 10 weeks in an alcohol-rehabilitation program last summer, threw a ball at a heckler in the left-field stands Saturday, hitting him in the chest. The heckler, Jeff Pillar of Cleveland, had jokingly invited Belle to a keg party.Indians president Hank Peters said he would leave it up to manager John McNamara to decide whether Belle plays while the league investigates.

After 15 years, Mango Grove shut its original Columbia location last August and reopened nearby on Valentine's Day. That's only six months — a quick turnaround in restaurant time — but it must have felt like much longer for fans of Mango Grove's terrific Indian cuisine. Vegetarians must have been especially desolate. For them, Mango Grove was a serene retreat, with an atmosphere just fancy enough to qualify as a date night. Just think: six months without those well-tempered vegetable curries and all that time without a single dosai.

University of Minnesota athletic director Rick Bay was named yesterday to succeed the retiring Hank Peters as president of the Cleveland Indians.Bay, 48, will become executive vice president of the Indians on Oct. 1, then will become president when Peters, 67, retires Jan. 1.John Hart, 42, director of baseball operations for the Indians, will become general manager and vice president of baseball operations, Peters said at a news conference.* PADRES: Right fielder Tony Gwynn, who was chasing his fifth NL batting title, underwent arthroscopic surgery on his left knee and likely will be lost for the rest of the season, team doctor Jan Fronek said.

Some milestones in the treatment of Native Americans in Hollywood movies: 'Ramona'' (1935) -- This archaic romance was one of the first talkies to present an important star as an Indian. Loretta Young, as the daughter of a powerful Spanish landowner, marries a --ing Indian, played by Don Ameche. Of course, Ameche must die tragically so that Loretta (after an amazingly brief period of mourning) can properly marry a white aristocrat. Although it pretends to treat Indians sympathetically, the script condones its heroine's second marriage with a fervor that suggests racism.

The Orioles can't have it either way. The first couple weeks of the season, they found that everything revolved around pitching. The last three days, they found that pitching isn't everything.The high-scoring Cleveland Indians managed just seven runs in three games at Camden Yards over the weekend, but yesterday's soggy 3-1 victory gave them the series and left the Orioles to wonder just what it's going to take to get off the floor in the American League East.Seven runs. That's less than the Indians averaged per game when they arrived in town, but it still was good enough to take two of three games from a team that was expected to be one of the strongest teams in baseball's toughest division.

At Jacobs Field, ClevelandDay .. .. .. .. .Time .. ..TV .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. ..StartersTonight .. .. ...7:05 .. .HTS .. .. .. ..Scott Kamieniecki (9-5, 4.06).. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. ..vs. Orel Hershiser (13-5, 4.54)Tomorrow .. .. ..7:05 .. .13, 50 .. .. ..Rick Krivda (3-0, 6.75).. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. ..vs. Chad Ogea (6-8, 5.57)Indians updateThe underachieving Indians were virtually handed the AL Central race when the Chicago White Sox disarmed shortly before the July 31 trade deadline.

CLEVELAND -- About 2 1/2 hours before every game at Jacobs Field, the Cleveland Indians' rubber bands are unleashed.Fitting, because the Indians are not your average team, so these are not your average rubber bands.They are huge.They are red.And they are used by the winningest team in major-league baseball to stretch hamstrings, backs, thighs, arms and nearly every other muscle that a player might pull while playing."They're just a part of the flexibility program that we installed in spring training," said Fernando Montes, the Indians' strength and conditioning coach.

All of a sudden it's as though the Orioles and New York Yankees aren't even in the same division. And not just because of the 3 1/2 games that separate them in the American League East.The probability of a strike, and the uncertainty of its consequences, substantially increases the importance of what happens before the work stoppage takes place. Assuming there will be a settlement, which could be a major assumption, the division races could be dramatically altered by the games that would be left unplayed.

The top-ranked McDonogh girls have relied heavily on depth to grow into the area's dominant track and field team the past few years. But unranked Franklin surprised the Eagles with that same formula Saturday. Franklin didn't take first in a single event at the Pikesville Track Classic, but the Indians earned top-three finishes in nine of the 18 events to win with 84 points. McDonogh won seven times, but that wasn't enough, as the Eagles (72 points) settled for second. No. 8 Mount Hebron finished third with 70 points, as Michaela Wilkins won the 400 meters and 800 meters and the Vikings also took the 1,600 relay.

Franklin senior pitcher Matt Goodman and his new catcher, junior Jackson Thornton, worked together for two months in anticipation of this baseball season. Wednesday afternoon at Atholton, everyone saw how the hard work paid off. With Thornton calling the pitches, Goodman threw a two-hit shutout as the Indians defeated the No. 7 Raiders, 6-0, in the season-opener for both teams. In the process Goodman matched his career high with 10 strikeouts. "It feels great to come out here and beat a team of this quality," said Goodman, who was 4-2 with a 2.18 ERA last season.

Every McEachern High football player is required to wear a specially numbered jersey to practice each day, and if a player loses that number, a post-practice session of running hills is mandated. Kyle Hockman , the head coach at the Powder Springs, Ga., school, enacted the punishment to instill discipline in his squad. But senior wide receiver Amba Etta-Tawo , a Maryland commitment, was an unlikely violator of that rule one day last fall. “A sophomore [forgot his number]

Former Oriole outfielder Felix Pie is officially leaving the organization for another American League club. Pie has agreed to terms on a minor league deal and spring invite with the Cleveland Indians, according to an industry source. The 26-year-old Pie could make $1 million in salary and performance bonuses in the majors. He also would be able to opt out of the contract if he doesn't make the Indians' Opening Day roster. Pie spent three seasons with the Orioles, batting .259 with 14 homers in 268 games.

A couple of bands that played Virgin Mobile FreeFest are returning to the area on tour next year. The Black Keys will perform at the Verizon Center March 9 as part of their tour to promote new album "El Camino. " The band closed the festival in September with a muscular performance on the main stage. Tickets, starting at $40, go on sale December 9. The album is released three days before. And two days before the Black Keys show, on March 7, Bombay Bicycle Club , the British folk rock five piece, will perform at 9:30 Club in DC.The show is part of their first headlining US tour.

A year ago, Franklin's Ian Thomas had a career night in a victory over Catonsville, and D'Andre Lane was on the Comets' junior varsity squad. Friday night Lane, a junior, was Catonsville's featured back, and Thomas - who caught four touchdown passes and had 213 yards receiving in last season's meeting - was the focal point of the Comet defense. On a rain-soaked field, Comet defenders strapped on their chin straps, traded their snorkel gear for mouth pieces, and hunkered down to hold Thomas without a touchdown as the Comets rolled to a 35-7 victory.

With the Cleveland Indians coming in tomorrow night to begin a weekend series with the Orioles, we are reminded of one of sport's most important truths:It all starts at the top.That's right -- success begins not on the playing field or in the dugout or on the coaching lines; it starts at the ownership level.The Indians are easily the most glaring example of this in baseball, a conclusion author Terry Pluto develops well in his book "The Curse of Rocky Colavito," subtitled "A Loving Look at a 30-year Slump."

Americans who live and work in the Chiapas highlands where Mexican Indian peasants have waged a bloody four-day insurrection say the same thing.They're not surprised that the Indians -- most of them poverty-ridden, landless, uneducated and marginally employed -- have resorted to violence as their only solution. But the Americans, mostly scholars, are astounded by the level of sophistication and wide scope of the uprising."What surprised me about this is that it happened all at once, all over the place," said Jan Rus, an anthropologist who works for a private foundation in San Cristobal de las Casas, one of six cities that the self-styled Zapatista National Liberation Army took over on New Year's Day."

It would be hard for Orioles fans to not notice that the nearby seats at Camden Yards have become more and more vacant over the past decade. But according to a study from 247wallstreet.com, it might be worse than you think. Michael B. Sauter crunched attendance numbers for each team in the four major American professional sports leagues, and the Orioles are high on a list of a dozen teams that have lost the most fans since 2001. Using attendance records provided by ESPN, Sauter determined that attendance at Camden Yards has dropped 44 percent in the past decade . Only the Cleveland Indians (56.1)

No. 15 Franklin played six frustrating quarters to start the 2011 football season. Reggie Ellis and Corbin McClary made sure it wasn't eight. The host Indians used a 59-yard pass from quarterback Jackson Thornton to Ellis and a 39-yard interception return by Corbin McClary in the third quarter to overcome a lackluster first half in and beat Eastern Tech, 13-2, in a key Class 3A North game. "We just wanted to come out [after the half] and keep working," Franklin coach Anthony Burgos said.