Orioles Fans

ANNAPOLIS -- Six weeks before Opening Day, Orioles season-ticket customers still are talking about misplaced orders, unreturned phone calls and seat assignments that don't live up to the team's long-standing promises.But now they've found a new ear -- the Maryland General Assembly. About a half-dozen disaffected fans took their cases to the House Ways and Means Committee yesterday, testifying in favor of a bill that would offer them powers to fight their new and, they contend, unjust seat assignments.

Each night they come by the tens of thousands, as abidingly faithful in their attendance as parents trooping to a grade school pageant. They take their seats, thumb through programs and then watch in anguished embarrassment as their delinquent children commit further barbarous crimes against baseball.Here it is, only Memorial Day weekend, and the desolate prospect of a summer in the cellar already looms for Orioles fans, with nowhere to hide from the gloom.Even the most splendid of mornings brings last night's score to ** the doorstep.

On a brutally cold Sunday morning, Charlie Bowers was hot.The Ellicott City accountant stood on a concrete step in the right field grandstand. He glared at the soon-to-be playing field at Oriole Park at Camden Yards. And he spoke of promises made and, he said, promises broken."I call it the 'Irsay-ization' of the Baltimore Orioles," Bowers said. "What they've done is to take the real fans for granted. I'm not happy about it."There are few knives that cut as deeply as a comparison to Robert Irsay, who showed Baltimore fans what he thought of them by taking his team out of town in a moving van. But Bowers was mad. So were some, but not all, Orioles season-ticket holders milling around the new ballpark yesterday.

THIS IS HOW you know you live in one of the great American sports cities, where home-team loyalties run deeper - and far wider - than the Inner Harbor: In the flood of e-mails decrying my overzealous whacking of Sammy Sosa last week, one writer took particular exception to my use of the lyrics from the hit song, "Love Machine," especially the part where I suggested Sosa is a "Love Machine" and he won't work for nobody but ... Peter Angelos, the Orioles...

Toronto's Sheraton hotel is betting that the Blue Jays have a playoff spot locked up -- even though the Orioles are closing fast on first place. And that burns some Orioles fans.The hotel, within walking distance of the Blue Jays' SkyDome home, is offering "Grand Slam" discount room rates during the playoffs and World Series to lure fans. Celebrants would pay a special rate of $108 U.S. per room from Oct. 5 through Oct. 23, a break from standard rates of $135 to $155.But some Orioles fans think the Blue Jays will fade.

With its mostly green pitching staff, unproven starters at several key positions and a cleanup hitter who hasn't slugged even 20 home runs in each of the past four years, the 2008 Orioles - who kick off their season at Camden Yards at 3:05 p.m. today - might need some serious sleight-of-hand to become true contenders in the always-competitive American League East this year. Few expect manager Dave Trembley to yank a rabbit that size out of his orange-and-black cap - all the more reason, perhaps, for long-suffering Baltimore fans to cling to the one shell game they've learned never lets them down.

Gus Triandos, a brawny slugger who won the hearts of Orioles fans starved for someone to cheer for in the 1950s, died Thursday at his home in San Jose, Calif. He was 82. "My father died in his sleep," his daughter, Lori Luna, said. "He'd been dealing with congestive heart failure for 10 years. It was hard for him to get up. "His heart just gave out. " A catcher and four-time All Star, Triandos played with the Orioles from 1955 through 1962 and was inducted into the team's Hall of Fame in 1981.

Brian Roberts-- Orioles fans probably could have done without that dive into first.

These can be lonely times for an Orioles fan in New York City. But just like the team they love, Orioles fans always find a way. Orioles fans enisled on Manhattan have started flocking to the Horsebox, a two-and-a-half year old bar on Avenue A in the East Village. "I was born in Baltimore, grew up in Annapolis," said The Horsebox's owner David Pettebone. "And my partner, Noel Foley, who's from Carlow, Ireland, fell in love with the Orioles, too. We always have on our O's caps behind the bar. " Patrons, some of them Marylanders attending New York University, took notice.

Charlie Zill, the popular long-time usher at Camden Yards who entertained Orioles fans with his “Zillbilly” dance during the seventh-inning stretch, died late Saturday night of lung cancer. He was 56. Zill, who had been diagnosed with cancer three and a half years ago, attended his final Orioles game April 17 as a guest of the club.  Wearing an Orioles cap and jersey over his trademark “Zillbilly” overalls, he threw out the first pitch from his wheelchair before the Orioles took the field against the Tampa Bay Rays.