Major League

The Orioles announced their minor league coaching staffs for the 2012 season, most notably making official the hiring of longtime minor league manager Ron Johnson as manager of Triple-A Norfolk. Johnson was the first base coach for the Boston Red Sox the past two seasons. Also of note, the team announced that former Orioles player Mike Bordick, who this month joined MASN as a color analyst, will remain with the organization as special assignment instructor. Ex-Orioles pitcher Scott McGregor, formerly the pitching coach at short-season Single-A Aberdeen, will be the minor league rehabilitation coordinator working out of Sarasota, Fla. Former Orioles pitcher Alan Mills will take over McGregor's spot in Aberdeen.  Former Norfolk manager Gary Allenson will be the manager at Aberdeen.

Dylan Bundy might be the future of the Orioles' rotation, but the future is now for the High-A Frederick Keys, who have pulled out all the stops for the 2011 first-round pick's Carolina League debut Saturday night against the Salem Red Sox. The team opened the gates to Harry Grove Stadium early after a sparsely attended concert by the Milkshakes, a local Grammy-nominated children's group, and with about 45 minutes remaining before the first pitch,...

Top position prospects Manny Machado and Jonathan Schoop joined the major leaguers for drills on Wednesday and brought a few smiles to the face of manager Buck Showalter. "It's exciting to see them," Showalter said. "You give them as much as they can take. There are so many coaches here that have been with them. It's fun to watch them. It's as much for us as it is for them. It makes us feel good about the future when you see L.J. (Hoes) and Xavier (Avery) and those two guys and Dylan (Bundy)

Orioles second baseman Brian Roberts will begin an injury rehabilitation assignment Wednesday night at Double-A Bowie, which means that he has up to 20 days to work his way back into the major league lineup. That's happy news - considering that he has spent a grueling and frustrating year recovering from the compound effects of a pair of concussions - but the announcement just before game time Tuesday night only amplified all the questions that remain about his future and the impact of his potential return on the first-place Orioles.

The future has arrived for the Nationals. In the midst of its best start since moving to Washington from Montreal, 19-year-old phenom Bryce Harper will make his much-anticipated MLB debut for the Nationals on Saturday against the Los Angeles Dodgers. Washington will place third baseman Ryan Zimmerman on the 15-day disabled list to make room for him on the roster. "We thought that we needed to bring in an impactful left-handed bat," said Nationals general manager Mike Rizzo of Harper.

The Orioles' roster-move revolving door continued before Sunday's 9-8 series-finale loss to the Tampa Bay Rays. As expected, the club purchased the contract of outfielder Xavier Avery from Triple-A Norfok. In two corresponding moves, the Orioles optioned right-handed reliever Stu Pomeranz back to Norfolk to make room on the 25-man roster and also designated Norfolk infielder Matt Antonelli for assignment to clear space on the organization's 40-man roster. The 22-year-old Avery made his major league debut Sunday, batting leadoff and starting in left field.

CHICAGO - Nolan Reimold admitted his uneasyness in stepping into the leadoff spot in the Orioles batting order - unsure how he'd be able to adapt in an unfamiliar role -- but over the past few games, he certainly seems more than comfortable there. Over his past four games, the 28-year-old Reimold has sparked the Orioles offense -- hitting home runs in each of those games -- his latest a two-run shot that broke a scoreless tie in the sixth and helped the Orioles to a 3-2 win over the White Sox at U.S. Cellular Field.

Major league baseball's sort-of commissioner spent part of last weekend watching a football game. Its hot-shot labor negotiator watched a tennis match. So much for High Noon in the baseball strike. Last Friday's "final deadline" for a settlement that would salvage the once promising 1994 season passed. Neither the owners nor the players blinked, but neither did they acknowledge there's hardly anything left to salvage.What seemed impossible even when the strike started Aug. 12 now seems likely.

The Baysox may take a detour to Hollywood before they reach Bowie.Team owner Peter Kirk met this week with executives of Morgan Creek Productions to discuss plans for the filming of the sequel to "Major League" at Memorial Stadium and said, "It looks real good."We've made a proposal to them and if they accept, filming would begin in August. I'd say it's 95 percent certain this will happen.""Major League II" would be shot on location around Baltimore and executives have explored Frederick and Hagerstown as possible settings for scenes.

MAJOR-LEAGUE baseball players had a chance to become working class heroes but they blew it.When the players first talked about going on strike, they had some legitimate grievances. It was true that team owners were trying to roll back their salaries and make it harder for players to move from team to team.This was worth a bit of sympathy from other workers, but not a lot. Baseball players already made so much more money than the rest of us that we had trouble understanding why they wanted even more.

Kevin Hickey, the quirky left-handed reliever who pitched parts of three seasons for the Orioles including the storybook 1989 "Why Not?" season, died Wednesday at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago . He was 56. A Chicago native who spent three of his six major league seasons with his hometown White Sox, Hickey had been a pregame instructor/batting practice pitcher with the that club since 2004. He was discovered unresponsive in his hotel room before Chicago's Opening Day game in Texas this April.

The ball from his first major league hit sat in his locker, and Orioles rookie outfielder Xavier Avery promised he'd give it a good home. “Put it in my trophy room at home, back in Atlanta,” Avery said. “I'm going to hold on to it, and I'm never going to lose it.” And the memories of a night of firsts will also last forever. In the Orioles' 8-5 loss to the Yankees, Avery tallied his first hit - a leadoff double in the first inning - and drove in this first run with a fifth-inning triple that scored Robert Andino.

Orioles rookie left-hander Wei-Yin Chen had passed all the early tests, facing good major league teams, pitching well, showing poise and not once getting saddled with a loss in his first six big league starts. Tuesday, however, presented a different challenge. Chen wouldn't just be pitching against the mighty New York Yankees, but he would be seeing them for the second time -- his first repeat performance against an opponent. Like the rest of this early season for the Taiwan native, Chen had little trouble, throwing seven strong innings in the Orioles' 5-2 victory.

The Orioles' roster-move revolving door continued before Sunday's 9-8 series-finale loss to the Tampa Bay Rays. As expected, the club purchased the contract of outfielder Xavier Avery from Triple-A Norfok. In two corresponding moves, the Orioles optioned right-handed reliever Stu Pomeranz back to Norfolk to make room on the 25-man roster and also designated Norfolk infielder Matt Antonelli for assignment to clear space on the organization's 40-man roster. The 22-year-old Avery made his major league debut Sunday, batting leadoff and starting in left field.

The Baltimore Sun has been part of my family since my earliest memories. We eagerly awaited the paper's arrival on our doorstep -- The Sun in the morning and The Evening Sun in the afternoon. Growing up in the mayor's house, we would get the early "bulldog," then later editions; it was part of our routine. Getting the papers throughout the day gave my brothers and me an early experience in 24/7 news -- locally, nationally and globally. The news was certainly of interest, but I fondly remember also reading reports of ships coming into the port of Baltimore, the times of sunrise and sunset, the phases of the moon and, of course, the comics.

After Wednesday's game at Camden Yards was postponed -- forcing a doubleheader Thursday -- the Orioles needed both games against the Rangers, and quality starting pitching, to salvage a series tie. And the Baltimore bats were ready to partake in a slugfest early, while making history in the process. The Orioles hit home runs in their first three at-bats of the game -- getting solo shots from Ryan Flaherty, J.J. Hardy and Nick Markakis -- as part of a five-homer game in a 6-5 win in Game 1. It marked the first time in AL history that a team opened with three consecutive homers and the fourth time overall, the previous time coming when the Milwaukee Brewers did it Sept.

The 26 major-league baseball clubs have pulled out of this year's winter meetings in Los Angeles because of a contractual dispute between Major League Baseball and the National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues.Major League Baseball officials announced Wednesday that they would not take part in the annual meetings, scheduled for early December in Los Angeles. Instead, MLB is attempting to set up an alternate major-league meeting at another site -- probably Dallas or Chicago.The meetings traditionally have been a joint venture, at which the NAPBL plays host, but the winter meetings gain national attention largely because they have long been the hub of trading activity.

Mike Bielecki feels so good that he's "frustrated."The 34-year-old Crownsville resident has been a major-league pitcher for the past eight years, but is anxiously awaiting a phone call that will give him a shot at a ninth season.His right arm feels "great, better than ever," and his confidence is back after a season of anxiety that almost ushered in his retirement.Coming off arm surgery, Bielecki, a 6-foot-3 and 200-pound right-hander, struggled through a 1993 season with the Cleveland Indians and the Orioles' Triple-A team, the Rochester Red Wings.

Making history is becoming a habit during the 2012 baseball season. We're little more than a month into it, and we've seen both a perfect game and one so imperfect that it ended with two position players as the pitchers of record Sunday in Boston. So why should anyone be surprised that Texas Rangers center fielder Josh Hamilton slammed four home runs Tuesday night at Oriole Park to etch his name into the record books? Hamilton, whose story of drug addiction and redemption is the stuff of sermons and script writers, hit two home runs off Orioles starter Jake Arrieta, one off newly arrived reliever Zach Phillips and one off sidearmer Darren O'Day to become the 16th player in major league history to go deep four times in a game and only the second to do it against the Orioles.

Texas Rangers slugger Josh Hamilton had 10 homers coming into Tuesday's game, including one Monday night. By the eighth inning Tuesday, he had 14 on the season. Yes, Hamilton had four homers - all of the two-run variety - on Tuesday. It's the 16 th time that has happened in major league baseball history and only the second involving the Orioles. The first was  June 10, 1959, when Cleveland's Rocky Colavito hit four at Memorial Stadium. Hamilton also had a double in his five at-bats for 18 total bases, which sets an American League record, one behind the 19 total bases recorded by the Los Angeles Dodgers' Shawn Green in 2002.