Jim Beattie

If it appears that the Orioles are trying to decide which top-name free-agent catcher to sign to a multi-year contract, it actually may be the other way around. The club has made offers to Ivan Rodriguez and Javy Lopez and - at least for the moment - is waiting to see which one chooses to play in Baltimore. Welcome to baseball's new economic reality, where it is now possible to paraphrase an age-old philosophical question: What is the sound of one team bidding? "We've made very substantial offers to the guys we want," said Orioles executive vice president of baseball operations Jim Beattie.

Inside the Orioles' clubhouse, there's a sad air of inevitability to it all now. Vice presidents Jim Beattie and Mike Flanagan have said nothing to suggest otherwise, so it's almost assumed that the season will end next Sunday in New York, and shortly into the next week, the club will announce that manager Mike Hargrove has been fired. Why? The Orioles aren't saying. Beattie declined to comment again Friday when asked about Hargrove, whose contract officially expires Oct. 31. Flanagan isn't talking either.

It's a tall order for Orioles interim manager Sam Perlozzo to return this struggling franchise to past dominance. But baseball history shows diminutive guys can reach managerial heights. Perlozzo is 5 feet 9 "when I've got my high shoes on." In the world of successful managing, though, height is not a prerequisite. Of the 25 winningest managers in baseball history, 18 are listed at under 6 feet. And eight - nearly a third - were 5-9 or shorter. That includes Earl Weaver, the most successful manager in modern Orioles history.

Lowlights adding up for Beattie, Flanagan I was amazed by a recent Laura Vecsey column that suggested now is the time to give the Orioles' co-general managers - Jim Beattie and Mike Flanagan - contract extensions as a reward for their good job ["Now, spotlight turns to O's, who look ready to enjoy it," May 22.] I'd like to know what criteria Vecsey is using to grade Flanagan and Beattie. The lowlights of their tenure: In July 2003, they traded Sidney Ponson (who was 14-6 at the time)

As a third generation baseball executive, Ed Kenney has several vivid memories of growing up around the game, like the time in 1970 when his father took him out for pizza with a promising Double-A catcher named Carlton Fisk. Thirty years later, Fisk would enter the Hall of Fame as one of the most prolific offensive catchers in baseball history, but at the time he was a big, strong kid with impeccable defensive skills batting .229. Kenney, who was 13 that summer, remembers saying, "I hope he can hit because if he can hit, he's going to be good."

On the same day that three key members of the Orioles' organization met with an investigative committee looking into performance-enhancing drugs in baseball, the club's former top executive detailed a conversation he had with an Orioles player in 2004 about human growth hormone. Jim Beattie, the Orioles' executive vice president from December 2002 until he was demoted to a consultant's position last October, told The Sun yesterday that former Orioles first baseman David Segui informed him on Sept.

Here's the first sign that the Orioles might be turning some kind of organizational corner under new president Andy MacPhail and manager Dave Trembley: They actually signed a guy who had other opportunities. New pitching coach Rick Kranitz was Baseball America's Major League Coach of the Year after getting great results from a youthful Florida Marlins pitching staff in 2006. He interviewed with the Seattle Mariners over the past couple of weeks and was offered a place on Dusty Baker's new coaching staff with the Cincinnati Reds.

Former Orioles first baseman David Segui, who revealed over the weekend that he is one of the players named in Jason Grimsley's affidavit on drug use in baseball, said yesterday that he informed the club in 2003 that he had obtained a prescription for human growth hormone. However, one team official said last night he wasn't aware that Segui, who retired a year later, had received the medication through a physician. "He never revealed to us or the medical staff that he had a chronic condition that required human growth hormone," said Mike Flanagan, executive vice president of baseball operations.

The offseason is off to a pretty good start for the Orioles, for what that's worth. The Boston Red Sox apparently have lost boy wonder general manager Theo Epstein - an unmistakable blow to one of the Orioles' chief rivals. Former Orioles GM Pat Gillick - the best in the business, in my opinion - was looking for a job but didn't sign with the Red Sox or New York Yankees, instead taking on the task of turning the Philadelphia Phillies into a playoff team. (He will.) The Los Angeles Dodgers first fired their manager and then fired their general manager in the middle of his search for a new manager, proving that the Orioles, even after eight straight losing seasons, don't own the copyright on organizational dysfunction.