Randy Milligan

MIAMI BEACH, Fla. -- Attention, Randy Milligan: Don't start learning French. Don't start crooning, "I Love L.A." The Orioles aren't trading you to Montreal or Los Angeles. The way things are going, they aren't trading you anywhere just yet.In what is becoming an annual ritual at the winter meetings, rival clubs are mocking the Orioles with low-ball trade offers. It happens when you lose 95 games. And it happens when everyone knows you're desperate to deal a Randy Milligan.Manager John Oates understands all this, but midway through a second day of fruitless talks, he could not contain his frustration.

Ask Orioles outfielder Mike Devereaux how much success he has had against the California Angels' Chuck Finley and the response is short of heartening."

SEATTLE -- The Orioles can only wonder how good the club might be with an everyday Glenn Davis, but for now they must settle for an occasional flash of his substantial talent.Davis hit a pair of two-run home runs in Tuesday night's 13-8 victory over the Seattle Mariners, raising hope that he was about to re-assert himself as one of the premier power hitters in the game. But he was not in the lineup yesterday."He was a little stiff this morning, so I wanted to get him a day off after the night game," manager Johnny Oates said.

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- Relief ace Gregg Olson, firs baseman Randy Milligan and outfielder Mike Devereaux, none of whom was eligible for arbitration, headed toward today's renewal deadline without signed contracts for 1991.The Orioles can renew each player at a salary determined by the club, usually the last offer on the table. Club president Larry Lucchino was trying to avoid the renewal process, but hadn't resolved any of the cases by late last night.It is not expected that any of the three unsigned players would leave camp, as some other major leaguers did last week.

On a frosty night when there was no such thing as a routine pop fly, the elements appeared to conspire against the Orioles.There was Randy Milligan's fourth-inning cannon shot to centerfield, an almost certain home run until it hit head winds of 20 mph and dropped softly into Chicago outfielder Lance Johnson's mitt.An inning later, there was Scott Fletcher's twisting drive to right-center, a ball that hung in the air a long time before falling safely between Orioles outfielders Mike Devereaux and Dwight Evans for a two-run double.

Lady Luck finally joined Jose Mesa last night after jilting Randy Johnson.Mesa, a victim of 2-0 and 1-0 defeats, pitched through constant ** trouble and Johnson's no-hit bid for a 2-1 Orioles victory at Memorial Stadium that broke Baltimore's seven-game losing streak to the Mariners.Talk about the breaks starting to even out.Johnson, who pitched the first no-hitter in Mariners history June 2, was on his game through 5 2/3 hitless innings while protecting a 1-0 lead.But his wildness, a two-hopper by Bob Melvin that turned into a single, the Orioles' first hit of the game and an appeal that denied a tying run to the Mariners combined to change the complexion of the game.

The Orioles left town Wednesday in last place, dispirited and dismayed. Gregg Olson, their ace in the bullpen, had let them down, and some of the fans actually booed him, although it was like booing an earthquake. The world exploded for Olson, who lost at Memorial Stadium for the first time ever. You boo a guy you've seen lose once in three years?It was ugly and sad, and the booing can be explained only in the frustration of another lost day and the fact that the Orioles' 10-22 start at home is their worst ever, including the black hole known as 1988.

They let Randy Milligan out of the hospital yesterday. He was finally blessed with the right kind of luck.Everyone knows what happened to him Wednesday night in Kansas City. It was a terrifying sight. He chased after a ground ball hit between first and second and collided head-on with Bill Ripken.It was a moment that just got worse and worse and worse.Your first instinct was that it wasn't that bad. Couldn't be that bad. This was baseball, not football: Mike Utley does not happen here. Moose's collision with Ripken was violent, but no less violent than those that make you laugh on blooper reels.

Now that it's over, Roland Hemond considers the National League expansion draft a positive experience.Not because of the $190 million that was dumped into thbaseball economy ($95 million from each of the two new teams). And not just because the Orioles survived with out heavy losses -- under the circumstances that was expected.With the flexibility gained by Glenn Davis' waiving his no-tradclause and the advance knowledge that neither of the new clubs was inclined to take veteran players, the Orioles didn't figure to sustain a serious casualty.

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. -- Contrary, that's the word that best describes Phil Bradley. When his team is winning, he questions it. When his situation is settled, he unsettles it.Bradley, 33, isn't a harmful presence, he's just different. But the Montreal Expos are his sixth team in six seasons, if you count the Yomiuri Giants, his employer last year in Japan."I'm one of those guys that people aren't sure they want around," Bradley says. "But after I'm gone, they say, 'He wasn't such a bad guy.' I always hear, 'Wish you were still here.