Road Trip

There must be something funny about "Road Trip." Well, there is a talking dog, and hungry snake. Come to think of it, the animals in "Road Trip" are pretty hilarious; as a five-minute short on cable TV's Animal Planet, this film would be a stitch. Breckin Meyer ("Go") is Josh, an underachieving college freshman who's loved Tiffany (Rachel Blanchard) since they were infants. He becomes convinced she's no longer interested in maintaining their relationship -- he's in New York, she's in Texas -- so he he succumbs to temptations of the flesh with the lovely Beth (Amy Smart)

Fresh off two wins over the New York Yankees, center fielder Adam Jones and the Orioles decided to have a little fun with fashion for their late-night trip to Canada, where they play the Toronto Blue Jays on Thursday. Before catching a plane after Wednesday night's 6-3 win, Jones and several Orioles players, including Manny Machado, Tommy Hunter and Brian Matusz, donned denim-on-denim outfits and posed for a couple pictures . If you have ever seen the fine film “ Super Troopers ,” the all-Levi look is jokingly called a “Canadian Tuxedo.” If you want to rock the same look, here is a helpful denim guide . Of course, the Orioles are no strangers when it comes to having fun with their wardrobes on the road (and they are certainly not the only team to play dress-up )

Fresh off two wins over the New York Yankees, center fielder Adam Jones and the Orioles decided to have a little fun with fashion for their late-night trip to Canada, where they play the Toronto Blue Jays on Thursday. Before catching a plane after Wednesday night's 6-3 win, Jones and several Orioles players, including Manny Machado, Tommy Hunter and Brian Matusz, donned denim-on-denim outfits and posed for a couple pictures . If you have ever seen the fine film “ Super Troopers ,” the all-Levi look is jokingly called a “Canadian Tuxedo.” If you want to rock the same look, here is a helpful denim guide . Of course, the Orioles are no strangers when it comes to having fun with their wardrobes on the road (and they are certainly not the only team to play dress-up )

Baltimore Sun reporters Don Markus and Jeff Barker and editor Matt Bracken weigh in on the three biggest topics of the past week in Maryland sports. Given the 2014 schedule announced Thursday by the Big Ten, how tough will Maryland's road back to respectability become? Don Markus: Maryland's $52 million exit fee from the Atlantic Coast Conference after next season seems exorbitant, but its indoctrination into the Big Ten is pretty steep in its own right. Everyone knew the Terps would be stepping up in class in football by switching leagues.

POP CULTURE KILLING YOURSELF TO LIVE: 85% OF A TRUE STORY By Chuck Klosterman. Scribner. 256 pages. Chuck Klosterman is smart enough to recognize the shortcomings in much of the writing of his own generation. It's self-referential, gimmicky and insincere. Too bad Klosterman, 33, can't overcome those weaknesses in his own book, Killing Yourself to Live, an account of his road trip to places where rock musicians died and a history of his own dysfunctional relationships with women. The conceit of the book -- that dying is the best career move a rock star can make -- is nothing new, and Klosterman makes little effort to prove the point, anyway.

The Major League Baseball Players Association filed a grievance yesterday in an attempt to block the Houston Astros' 26-game road trip next season caused by the Republican National Convention.The Houston Sports Association, which owns the Astrodome and the Astros, rented the stadium to the Republican National Committee for four weeks. HSA chairman John McMullen did not ask for permission from the National League before renting out the stadium.The Republican convention is scheduled for Aug. 17-20, but organizers say they needed additional time to set up facilities.

From the Beat Generation's On the Road to MTV's Road Rules today, it is hard to think of a narrative more basic to American popular culture than the road trip. East to West, ocean to ocean, across the great expanse, it seems as if each generation comes of age using the road trip to test itself - re-enacting in microcosm our national experience of taming the frontier. Coast to Coast, a new Showtime movie starring Judy Davis and Richard Dreyfuss, takes that fundamental storyline and adapts it for an older generation facing a different kind of life passage - a middle-aged couple apparently headed for divorce.

The Houston Astros will play all their home games at the Astrodome in 1992, but likely will have a 28-day road trip to accommodate the Republican Party's National Convention.Astros vice president Ted Haracz met with the National League scheduling committee in Chicago on Wednesday.Haracz told the Houston Chronicle the league was against playing any home games in New Orleans or other places while the GOP takes access to the Dome from July 27 to Aug. 24 to set up and tear down the convention.

BOSTON -- He was standing to the right side of the mound, one pitch from a certified catastrophe. The home fans were on their feet and shouting at Fenway Park, tingle-toed at the prospect of a ninth-inning win."You have really gotten yourself into one this time," Gregg Olson said to himself, staring at the ball in his right hand and trying to summon the stomach to get back up there and throw a pitch everyone knew was coming.Not his best pitch, either. Not one of the famous Olson curveballs.

All things considered, the road trip just concluded by the Orioles was as good as possible. Which, considering the high degree of expectation and the current climate, probably means it wasn't hot enough.When they left town 11 days ago, the Orioles had lost five of their past six games, a stretch they would extend to seven of eight. They were caught in a horrendous batting slump that was causing nervous reactions all over the 75-mile drawing radius.Brady Anderson and Mike Devereaux, the top two hitters in the lineup, had just started to give indications of shaking their doldrums.

Here's an interesting story for your Friday lunch hour, one that includes a reference to former Orioles outfielder Luke Scott, whose quotes never cease to amaze. Under manager Joe Maddon, the Tampa Bay Rays have made traveling fun in recent years, with the entire team wearing certain themed outfits for road trips. They all dressed in grunge outfits on a trip to Seattle, were decked out in all white on a trip to play the Marlins in South Florida. They dressed like cowboys on their way to play the Rangers.

Buck Showalter doesn't bite often on the “big win, good win” questions. It's a 162 game season, after all, and Showalter is a big believer in one game doesn't mean much more than the other. But he's also talked about how difficult it can be to come back from a long road trip and not be flat in the first game at home. So how important was it to keep the momentum going on Tuesday night at home? “It wasn't more important [than the road trip], that was an important road trip for us. Any time you go to the West Coast and play that many games in a row,” Showalter said.

I was asked before the Orioles left for their 11-game, three-city swing out west what would constitute a successful trip. I said 6-5. Luckily I wasn't asked to amend it after the Orioles won three of four in Oakland. They ended up 7-4. And that has to be considered a success even if they were just 4-3 in their last two cities, Seattle and Los Angeles. It's tough to travel out west and bounce in and out of several cities and come out above .500. The Orioles did that. What's most impressive is that they are winning without consistent, quality starting pitching.

ANAHEIM, Calif. - The first five weeks of the Orioles' season has included more than its share of hotel rooms and plane rides, ending with a marathon 11-day, 11-game stretch to the West Coast. And while it's still early in the 2013 season, the Orioles' strong showing during a trip that took them through Oakland, Seattle and Anaheim undoubtedly made for an easier cross-country flight back to Baltimore. With their 8-4 win over the Los Angeles Angels on Sunday, the Orioles finished their trip with a 7-4 record going into Monday's highly anticipated off day. And they did so with the same lunch pail mentality that defined last year's team.

ANAHEIM, Calif. - In this Southern California landscape full of highways, Orioles right-hander Chris Tillman grew up just about 15 miles away from Angel Stadium. As a kid, he rooted for the Angels. And despite having 56 major league starts under his belt over parts of five big league seasons, Thursday night's against the Angels was his first one in a long drive back home. It was worth the wait. In Tillman's homecoming, he turned in one of his most dominating starts of his big league career, allowing just three hits over eight scoreless innings to lead the Orioles to a 5-1 victory over the Los Angeles Angels in the opener of this four-game series.

Orioles second baseman Brian Roberts went 1-for-3 with an RBI, a run scored and two stolen bases in his first road game of the spring Tuesday. Roberts, who was limited to 115 games the past three seasons because of injuries, is returning from hip and sports hernia surgery in 2012 and concussion symptoms that have plagued him in the past. With less than two weeks remaining in spring training, he will begin to see more regular playing time to prepare for the grind of the regular season.

In the past 20 years, I have taken more road trips than Lewis and Clark. And stayed in worse places. I have eaten seafood in Nebraska and Chinese food in Arkansas. I have seen Shakespeare performed in Mississippi. Regrets? I have a few. The moo shu pork, for one. But our road trips, taken mostly with three kids in the back seat, have provided memories that last a lifetime, even if some long days weren't all smiles. "It's all about finding the out-of-the-way places," says Jamie Jensen, author of Road Trip USA, which covers 35,000 miles of back-road jaunts.

When Scott and Jackie Dunkel left Millersville last weekend and headed south to New Orleans, two Super Bowl tickets in hand, they took all the comforts of home with them, including satellite TV, Internet hookups, a king-size bed and the kitchen sink. Actually, these veteran recreational-vehicle road warriors didn't leave "home" at all - at least not their vacation home. They made the 1,000-mile jaunt in their 45-foot, 45,000-pound, seven-miles-per-gallon Holiday Rambler Navigator.

BOSTON -- The Orioles are returning home for their final homestand of the regular season coming off a tough 2-1 loss Sunday at Fenway Park, but the O's still saw their three-city, nine-game road trip to Oakland, Seattle and Boston a success after compiling a 6-3 mark. “Yeah, it was a tough long one, especially going to the West Coast at the end of the year,” said first baseman Mark Reynolds, who drove in a team-high eight runs on the road trip. “The A's play good at home. We got to Seattle and swept them, which was huge for us, but coming to Boston taking two of three, I don't care what kind of team we're playing or how we're playing.