Sadly, this was the only Oriole artifact anywhere in the area that had any resale value. (As you can see in this pre-desecration picture, there has to be at least $4 worth of melted scrap there.) The good news is that the bandits were not hard to catch, because they were driving around town drawing noise complaints from residents—while the "statue" sat in the back of their pickup truck.

The four Dillingers were all underage and—surprise!—drunk as boiled owls. (Yes, that's a saying!) They were also caught on surveillance cameras ripping the sculpture out of its base. The citizenry is obviously horrified.

It is a theft both brazen and unimaginable in a city where residents revere Ripken, the Aberdeen native who won two Most Valuable Awards, was selected to 19 All-Star teams and obliterated Lou Gehrig's record by playing in 2,632 consecutive games. The Orioles put the statue up in October 2001, a month after Ripken retired.

"Every day, I hear things on the news and I think, 'Who in the world would do something like that,' and I have no idea," Ripken's mother, Vi, said in a telephone interview. "Maybe they thought, 'We'll get attention if we do this.' I wouldn't even venture a guess as to what motivates people."

It's like watching Johnny Unitas kill that hobo* all over again.

Ripken's No. 8 statue stolen [Baltimore Sun]

*May not have happened.

This wise young fella was apparently dared—to the tune of $1,000—to run from the third base foul pole to the Southwest sign in centerfield and back before the cops could reach him. This leads to the question ... what's the going rate for a disturbing the peace charge and a night in jail? I think a good lawyer will cost you at least two grand, so there's your profit margin right there.

If you need more evidence, there's a couple of extra views on YouTube, including one that claims this rube is an elementary school teacher. Say no to drugs, kids!

* * * * *

Stay tuned for the Late Show with Barry P. This week will end some time. It has to, right?

HOKey: This is the patient zero of Major League Baseball's neo-retro epidemic, an era that took for its guiding philosophy the notion that you can make anything in a ballpark, even luxury boxes, seem quaint and old-timey if you surround it with enough brick and get George Will to wax rhapsodic about the sociospatial asymmetries of the john. Baseball, more than any other sport, is afflicted with a pathologically inflated sense of its own historical value, and Camden was, and remains, a very expensive symptom. The ballpark was completed by Populous (then HOK Sport) in 1992 and modeled after the same firm's Pilot Field, a minor-league stadium in Buffalo that opened in 1988. It's little-remembered now, but the retro craze was largely a Rust Belt phenomenon, a product of an age when cities across the Northeast were hemorrhaging manufacturing jobs and their once-robust tax base. Local politicians were thus particularly vulnerable to the specious idea, pushed by the lords of baseball, that a new, publicly funded stadium was just the thing to revitalize their decaying urban core.

Within a few years of Camden's opening, stadiums were springing up across the country, full of ersatz quirks and odd angles (just like Fenway or Ebbets!) and other vague, cutesy allusions to local history. Of course, none of this was real history, any more than Epcot is actual human civilization. Take Baltimore's famous B&O Warehouse beyond right field, now home to the team's offices and a private club. According to Joanna Cagan and Neil deMause's Field of Schemes, the northern end of the warehouse was lopped off to provide better views of the skyline from the seats behind home plate. There's a metaphor in this: Those old quirks and odd angles now imitated by modern ballparks were a function of wedging baseball into an urban environment. The game, in other words, had to accommodate the city. Now, large pieces of the urban environment are lopped off to accommodate the game.

Land sharks: Outwardly, the park may have been a nod to the old stadiums of yore, but probably the biggest influence of all was, weirdly, Joe Robbie Stadium (now Land Shark Stadium), which in the late 1980s demonstrated for the entire sports world the enormous benefits of premium seating — executive suites, club seats, etc. The Orioles seized on this idea and stuffed their new home full of luxury boxes, which in itself might not have been so offensive had Maryland not raised the money for a stadium it did not need through a state lottery — a regressive tax, essentially, to fund a corporate playground. What's more, as Cagan and deMause note, Memorial Stadium was a perfectly serviceable venue anchoring an integrated middle-class neighborhood, a rarity in Baltimore. Now the team plays in the midst of a government-sponsored tourist trap known as Inner Harbor, which caters to anybody but all those poor souls who bought all those losing lottery tickets and thereby built the Orioles their pretty new stadium.

The view from the stands (everything sic'd): "I found a dog (yes, a dog) roaming around the MIDDLE CONCOURSE one night at a Game between Milwaukee and the O's late IN 1996. Just roaming around, chilling, hanging with people and what-not. I bought a pair of orioles shoelaces, made a makeshift leash,and still have the dog to this day. Well my ex in-laws do. Ex wife was a Brady Anderson fan, and since he had just hit a Grand Slam, we named the dog Brady. That bitch." (Joe S.)

"My lone time at this park was July 1994 during the baseball strike. I went on a tour and in the dugout, I opened the bullpen phone to see that they had the number for Pizza Hut written down. No wonder the Orioles were awful; too busy crank calling Pizza Hut." (Dan S.)

"I once was given a free Rafael Palmeiro bobblehead. Truly horrifying." (Patrick B.)

"I am 27 years old and live in Philadelphia. Before Phillies games, I tend to enjoy a few grown up sodas in the parking lot. My roommate and I were on a road trip and hit an Orioles-Yankees game on the way through Baltimore. We grabbed a six pack because we didn't have much time before the game started, but we didn't see anyone else drinking in the parking lot. When we asked the attendant, she told us that you weren't allowed to tailgate for Orioles games. NO FUCKING TAILGATING. It's Un-American. We had to duck behind a dumpster like 17 year olds to kill the sixer." (Kenny R.)

"1) 'Prime' Games. You have to pay extra for the privilege of having the Red Sox and Yankees come in and whoop the O's ass. 2) Everything is too expensive from the seats to the food. 3) The nasty sense you get from team management and ownership that even though it's been 11 straight losing seasons, you should somehow be appreciative for paying too much to watch bad baseball." (Dan W.)

"Seat jumping is a time-honored baseball tradition that mostly holds true at Oriole Park. However, I wouldn't recommend trying it in the lower sections behind home plate, where the ushers are some of the coldest bastards you'll ever see. There is one in particular that spots seat jumpers within a couple minutes of their arrival and makes them leave without mercy, usually after making a spectacle of asking them to produce tickets they don't have. I've seen this guy (we've nicknamed him The Hawk) make a father with his young son, both in full Orioles gear, turn around and go back where they came from in the late innings of game in which the Orioles were losing (shock) and the entire section was deserted. Just brutal." (Chris S.)

"'Fenway Park at Camden Yards': There was a time where Red Sox fans would visit, buy a round or two, hold an intelligent conversation about the game and commiserate over having mutual ballclubs who never quite made it past the Yanks. Those days ended around 2003. Old men who had seen Johnny Pesky & Ted Williams play gave way to Loyola (MD) co-eds in pink ballcaps and their profane boyfriends with freshly minted Johnny Damon alternate unis. Remember that episode of 'Family Guy' when the New Yorkers come north to watch the leaves change? That's what the past several years have been like." (The Ghost of Floyd Rayford)

Next up: Busch Stadium. Got any horrible experiences to share? Send them to craggs@deadspin.com.

After a raucous capacity crowd booed the living daylights out of their wayward native son during Monday's opener, Orioles fans decided to pace themselves in Wednesday's second game by not showing up. I don't mean to be a pessimist, but the Yard was half full Wednesday, at 22,856, for their Game 2, 7-5 spanking of the Yanks. Of course, it was fun for Baltimore fans to sit at home and watch this graphic. If only the stock exchange would rise like that.

Game 3 gets underway in a few minutes, and I would suggest the Yankees try to win this one if they don't want to return home next week to find their new stadium burned to the ground.

Meanwhile, Teixeira attempted to clear up the controversy over whether he was a Yankee fan or an Orioles fan while growing up (which seems to be a main point of contention in Baltimore).

"I rooted for Don Mattingly, though, whenever he came here,"Teixeira said. "He was my favorite player growing up. When the Yankees came to town, that's who I rooted for. I loved him. He was my guy. I wore No. 23 every chance I got. So the only time I was allowed to wear Yankees stuff was when Mattingly was coming to town and playing the O's."

So every other day, you were in Orioles' gear?

"Oh yeah. My favorite team was always the Orioles. I've always said that," he said. "But when the Yankees were in town, I'd wear a Mattingly T-shirt and a Yankees hat and root for him."

Hope that clears it up.

Clarifying Teixeira's Childhood Loyalties [Baltimore Sun]
Game Two: Baltimorons, Mascot Taunting & A Late Rally [Fack Youk]

As Dash mentioned earlier, there's already panic in the Bronx after Baltimore's 10-5 spanking of New York on Monday. But things couldn't be lovelier in Crab City, which enjoyed the following cosmic justice, albeit only for a day.

• Johnny Damon appeared to have a shot at catching Cesar Izturis' fly ball in the eighth, until an Orioles fan bumped his glove in a battle for the ball at the top of the left field wall. It ended up as a two-run homer that gave the Orioles an 8-5 lead. Call it "Avenging Jeffrey Maier.'' Although the fan in Baltimore didn't appear to reach over the fence, as the 12-year-old Maier clearly did in the 1996 postseason to turn Derek Jeter's fly ball to rightfield into a key homer, the same two teams were involved. And this time it went Baltimore's way. "I thought I had it," Damon said, "and then the fan's glove looked like it got in my way.". Note: The fan IS reaching over the fence, isn't he?

• Joe Biden had better control than CC Sabathia.

• Maryland native Mark Teixeira, who signed with the Yankees in the off season, was 0-for-4 with a walk and left five men on base. He was booed with a vitriol usually reserved for Barry Bonds or Bernie Madoff, and afterward seemed to be curiously in denial about it: "I expect to get booed in every visiting stadium," Teixeira said. "We're the Yankees." OK then.

But most of all, the 48,607 fans who packed Camden for once didn't remind us of the Yankees, Maryland Chapter. The great majority were in orange and black, causing Sun columnist David Steele to note that they had finally "taken back Camden Yards." That may have been mostly to boo Teixeira, which means its temporary. But one hopes not.

Meanwhile, on the Orioles blogs:

I've thought for a while that Girardi's Yanks are soft and play with a smug sense of entitlement. Not the confidence of a champion but the pretentiousness of a spoiled child.

And a commenter chimes in:

About Teixeira
I saw a post game interview with him on MLB Network where he said the boos didn't get to him because it reminded him of when he was a kid and he'd come to the Orioles games and boo the other teams himself! Did you do that when WEARING YOUR YANKEE CAP TO THE GAME AND HAVING ALL THE O'S FANS GIVE YOU A HARD TIME the way you said they did when you became a Yankee? What a douche.
— by Stacey on Apr 7, 2009 4:36 AM EDT

Oh, and Tim Lincecum is scheduled to battle Jeff Suppan here at AT&T at 1:05 PST, but as I peer out the window it's raining. Curse the gods!

Yanks Can Ease Recession Blues [Fox Sports]
Irked Orioles Fans Send Angry Message To Native Mark Teixeira [New York Daily News]
Bird Droppings: Opening Day Hangover Edition [Camden Chat]
Fan Battles Damon For Drive, Helps Turn It Into HR [Newsday]
Orioles Fans Reclaim Camden Yards [Baltimore Sun]

In fact, the Teixeira hate has already begun. From the Baltimore Sun:

At 1:40 p.m., Mark Teixeira emerged from the Yankees dugout to do an onfield interview for the YES network. There weren't many fans here, but those gathered around the Yankees dugout made themselves known. "You're a sell-out, Mark!" one screamed. "We hate you!" said another.

That should only be the beginning for Teixeira, who chose to sign with the Yankees over his "hometown" Orioles over the offseason. So peeved are O's fans at Teixeira that there has even been a song written for the occasion. The Boooog Powells have written "Boo Teixeira," a ditty which includes the stirring line:

Now Yankee fans think that they can take us,
But guess what chumps, we've got Nick Markakis ...

Video below.

At least all of this Teixeira hate takes the heat off of Joe Biden.

A fun Teixeira quote to leave you with:

"In a perfect world, the Orioles would've won the World Series every year I was alive, and I'd be an Oriole right now," Teixeira said. "I have so much love for this city, for this organization. But in the business world, in the baseball world, sometimes you have to make difficult decisions. When it came down to it, the Yankees were a better fit for me."

I won't comment on that: I'll leave it up to you.

Mark Teixeira Has No Regrets About Choosing New York Yankees Over Hometown Baltimore Orioles [The Star Ledger]
Teixeira: In A Perfect World, I'd Be An Oriole [Baltimore Sun]

Sunday's game between the Orioles and Mets was halted by weather after just one inning, but was resumed and completed after the delay. However, the Baltimore radio station, 105.7 The Fan, never came back to the game and when Orioles officials checked the booth to see what was up, they realized no one was in there. A report that started on a New York Post blog said the O's radio team, Joe Angel and Fred Manfra, told their bosses that the game had been called off and simply went home. Not that anyone would blame them since it was a preseason game against the Mets. (The Orioles won, as if that matters.) Still ... so unprofessional right?

In his defense, Angel sent out a message this morning explaining how it wasn't his fault:

To ALL Orioles Fans.....Fred And I had nothing to do with the decision to discontinue the broadcast on Sunday March 29th. It was completely out of our hands ... On Sunday,....we filled for about 40 minutes and then we were told to discontinue the broadcast and simply sign off. The engineer left, the equipment went with him. Fred And I did NOT make that decision......we are not in a position to make that decision.

Fred Manfra and I would much rather have preferred to stay and finish the broadcast after the rain delay. That's why we were there...to keep you informed and entertained. We consider ourselves to be professionals and would never abandon a broadcast as some would seem to perceive.

The decision to end the broadcast was made by the decision making level at our flagship station. It didn't come from us.....and certainly not from the Orioles. Thanks for listening........There's a lot to look forward to with Orioles baseball. Fred and I are grateful and privileged to be your Orioles baseball companions. See you on the radio!

Unless we aren't there, that is!

Mets Blog [NY Post]
Joe Angel on Sunday's 'rainout' [Baltimore Sun]
[Photo via]

The Red Sox? I thought that John Henry said that was off? He lied to us!

While the source declined to discuss specifics, there are strong indications that the Red Sox will announce that they have landed the highly-coveted slugger, who has been courted this off-season by several major league clubs, including the Angels, Orioles and Nationals.

The Red Sox have been considered one of the lead contenders in the Teixeira sweepstakes, but it was unclear whether the team would be able to meet the asking price from agent Scott Boras, who had hoped to land a contract for as much as $200 million over ten years. Last week, Red Sox owner John Henry told reporters that the team was no longer pursuing the player, but the statement was widely seen as a negotiating maneuver.

Word has it that the Nationals were going hard to the hoop; an eight-year deal worth between $178 and $184 million. And since Tex is a Maryland native, the Orioles were hopeful (they were even going to throw in the Orioles door knocker).

By the time this is over, it'll be time for Brett Favre to start deciding if he's going to retire.

Teixeira Announcement Today [Washington Times]

But back to Johnson, or Miss Westlake Village 2007, to her friends. She was also one of 15 finalists at the 2007 Miss California pageant.

Michael Phelps' New Girlfriend? [Mojo In The Morning]

Hence, this:

Personally, we think "Ice Is Workin' It" would have been more embarrassing. Work it ... Ice ... Yeah ... Come on work it, baby.

At this point it should be mentioned that not only did we own a "To The Extreme" cassette when we were 15, we actually listened to it on a constant loop. (Yep Yep.) This probably does not surprise you. Though clearly someone was buying that album; that sumbitch sold seven million copies of that thing. It wasn't just us. In fact, it was probably a lot of you. Don't lie.

Kevin Millar's New Look [Bromoblog]

We're not sure anyone other than Kevin Millar is in on the joke here, but alas: Here's "Orioles Magic," the new/old/new theme song for the Baltimore Orioles, sung by the Baltimore Orioles, rocked out by the Baltimore Orioles.

The Orioles are only two games out of first — behind the Rays! — in the American League East, and they seem to be having fun. Enjoy it while you can, aging O's. We would love to see every team redo old team songs; seeing Ankiel and Pujols dance out to Glenn Frey's "The Heat Is On" from 1985 would be pretty awesome.

Home plate umpire and crew chief Kerwin Danley took a 96 mph Brad Penny fastball to the jaw in the 4th inning of the Dodgers 11-3 win over the Rockies last night. The game was delayed 18 minutes and Danley had to be taken off the field in an ambulance. A Dodgers spokesman said Danley lost consciousness briefly, but was coherent again by the time he was loaded into the ambulance.

At that point the Dodgers were already up 10-2 and not much changed the rest of the way. Penny maintained composure after the incident, allowing three runs on four hits over seven innings. Matt Kemp apped a 10-run first inning with a grand slam off Mark Redman.

Victor is the victor: A 9th inning bases loaded single by Victor Martinez plated Grady Sizemore to give the Indians a 4-3 win over the Yankees. Losers of three straight, the Yanks wasted a four-hit performance by Johnny Damon, now falling a game and a half behind the Rays for 4th place in the AL East. Meanwhile, the Tribe has won five in a row to return to .500.

Marlinspike: Florida's surprising stranglehold on the NL East is getting more and more tenuous as the Marlins see near unhittable reliever Renyel Pinto surrender the deciding home run to Prince Fielder in the 8th inning of a 4-3 Brewers win. The Phillies drew within half a game of Florida with their third straight victory, a 8-4 win over the Pirates. Ryan Howard looks to emerge from a poor start with his first career home run against the Bucs.

Oddly, Ripken actually denied the story on NPR this week, making it clear he has not, in fact, ever punched Kevin Costner. We love that Ripken actually discussed it on the national airwaves.

For fun, here's the best part of the tale:

Cal told [the Orioles owner] it would be impossible to come in, so there went the streak. The owner told him not to worry, he would take care of it. That night, the game was canceled because of "electrical failure," even though hotels and restaurants that were a part of Camden Yards were fine and running.

Cal and his wife are still together, and the story is false. That didn't stop it from coming on NPR. As we said: We love urban legends.

Ripken Denies Beating The Crap Out Of Kevin Costner [The Foul Pole]
The Cost(ner) Of Love [Snopes]

Hill dined on a Steve Trachsel curve in the third for a three-run homer, as Toronto collected 16 hits in an 11-3 win over Baltimore. Hill is looking good in that 2 spot, is he not? Every Blue Jays starter had at least one hit; David Eckstein with three. It's all good news for Jays fans, who desperately need to update their banner collection.

Of course with all of the gala Jackie Robinson Day festivities throughout the majors, it only makes sense that Major League baseball's official blog site, MLBlogs, makes no mention of it on its front page whatsoever; instead featuring a post about Alyssa Milano's blog as its lead story this morning.

• The Meteoric Fall Of The Black And Gold. The aforementioned Dodgers rode the arms of Esteban Loaiza and Hong-Chih Kuo to an 11-2 win over the Pirates, ending Pittsburgh's four-game winning streak. But Pirates fans should be reminded that things could be a lot worse. Jeff Kent — who has to be older than John McCain, right? — and Russell Martin had home runs. And all of this despite the fact that Andruw Jones won't let anyone else near the buffet table.

• Tigers On Sizzling Two-Game Winning Tear. Miguel Cabrera had two-run homer in the eighth as Detroit stopped Minnesota 6-5. Magglio Ordonez homered and drove in two runs, and Gary Sheffield and Carlos Guillen also hit home runs for Detroit, which scored six in the eighth.

• Dusty And The Blustery Day. Dusty Baker's first 2008 Wrigley Field win was windy and boo-infested, just the way he likes them. Chicago won 9-5 in his second game back versus his old team (anyone remember the Cubs' last-place finish in 2006?), although he was booed each time he left the dugout. Derrek Lee had his fifth homer of the season for Chicago (wind-aided), and teammates Mark DeRosa and Ryan Theriot also homered. The latter was batting for the injured Alfonso Soriano. Ken Griffey Jr. hit his 595th homer for the Reds.

• Jason Varitek; Secret Pinch-Hitting Weapon. Boom goes the dynamite!

So the O's sweep the M's to go 5-1 and take first place in the AL East. That's their first four-game sweep since 2004, and their best start since 1999. What? The season is only two weeks old? Do not rain on the Orioles' parade with your calendar! This is Huff's day! Of course all Orioles' fans recall when, in the preseason, Mr. Huff called Baltimore "a horseshit town" on Sirius Radio's Bubba the Love Sponge show, then revealing in the same interview that, when on the road, he often wakes up hung over and "jacks off."

In Huff's defense, who hasn't appeared on the Bubba the Love Sponge Show and blurted something controversial? But Orioles' fans never seemed to forgive him, booing Huff lustily in the home opener, and even razzing him a bit on Monday when he came up in the eighth. But after his homer, all now seems forgiven. George Sherrill pitched a perfect ninth for his fourth save (third in the series) and Adam Jones scored the tying run to set the stage for Huff (and the kerosene-soaked relief stylings of Seattle's Eric O'Flaherty). You may recall Sherrill and Jones from the big 5-for-1 deal that sent Erik Bedard to the Mariners. Bedard, by the way, has only pitched one game this season.

And now on to my big question: What's with the attendance at Camden Yards? Only 10,744 on Monday afternoon — the second-smallest crowd in the park's 17-year history. What gives? First-rate ballpark; first-place team; horny, hung over star player; why wouldn't people show up?

• What About Bob? Mike Mussina has tied Bob Gibson for 44th on the career wins list. OK, Gibson won 20 or more games in a season five times, and Mussina has never done it. And Gibson could peel paint from a wall just by staring at it. But Mussina gets to pitch against Tampa Bay several times per season, so it all evens out. Mussina went six innings and Bobby Abreu homered and went went 3-for-3 as the Yankees prevailed against the Rays 6-1. Oh yeah, Derek Jeter is out indefinitely with hurt feelings gender confusion a strained quadriceps.

• Hockey Chants At Your Home Opener? Nice. Fun graph from the Chicago Tribune's game story on the Cubs and Pirates at PNC Park: "It was so ugly early on that the sellout crowd of 37,491 was chanting "Let's Go Pens" during the Cubs' six-run third, a reference to the Penguins' quest for the Stanley Cup, which begins at home Wednesday." The Cubs went up 7-0, of course lost the lead and then came back to win 10-8 in 12 innings. Aramis Ramirez's sacrifice fly off Evan Meek brought home Ryan Theriot with the winning run. Also: Chicago's Kosuke Fukudome, who entered the game hitting .500 and is currently hitting .458, is still batting fifth. WTF, Lou?

• Hunter Harnesses Mysterious Monkey Powers. Torii Hunter left the Twins for a five-year, $90 million contract with the Angels in November, then started the season 0-for-10 at the Metrodome. But back in Anaheim — where keeps a stuffed Rally Monkey toy in his locker — he's 11-for-23. That includes a walkoff grand slam and an eighth-inning solo homer in the Angels' 6-4 win over the Indians on Monday.

• Your First-Place Florida Marlins. Dan Uggla's solo homer in the sixth and Robert Andino's two-run shot in the ninth led Florida to a 10-7 in over Washington, as the Marlins took sole possession of first place in the NL East. It was the fifth straight loss for the Nationals after a 3-0 start. Paid attendance for the second game at brand new Nationals Park was 20,487 (capacity is 41,888). Also, the $611 million scoreboard malfunctioned through most of the first inning.

• Big, Big Opener. Anyone going to the Royals' home opener today? Mark Mangino is throwing out the first pitch, so I hear. Also it's the debut of the CrownVision video board, which at 84-by-105 feet is the largest in the world!

Every weekday until the start of the season, a different writer will preview his/her team. We asked a gaggle of writers, from the Web, from print, from books, to tell us, in as many or as little words as they need, Where Their Team Stands. This is not meant to be factual, or dispassionate, or even logical: We just asked them to riff on why they love their team so much, or what their team means to them, or whatever.

Today: The Baltimore Orioles. Your author is Tom Scocca.

Tom Scocca is a writer for The New York Observer and is currently writing a book about the 2008 China Olympics. His words are after the jump.

——————————————————

Remember those inspirational 2007 Colorado Rockies? How they plodded through the summer around .500, then pulled together to put on a thrilling 14-1 finishing kick, sending them sprinting to the pennant?

Well, the Baltimore Orioles do that every year. Only backwards. Beyond plain categories of optimism and pessimism live those of us who see a sparkling half-glass of water and know for sure that the Orioles are eventually going to take a crap in it.

People who don't pay attention to the O's — and why would you? — might look at the uninterrupted decade of lousy finishes (nine in fourth place, one in third) and assume the team has been steadily, hopelessly terrible. The truth is far more humiliating: The Orioles are quitters. Year after year, there comes a moment at which the Birds look up and down the standings, scan the clubhouse and collectively decide that whatever combination of talent, enthusiasm, and guts it takes to get through 162 games, they don't have it. So they stop trying.

Pick a season.

July 18, 2005: After a surprising run in first place for most of May and June, the Orioles are still hanging on in second, only half a game out. Over their next 15 games, they go 1-14, then toss in stretches of 2-11, 1-10, and 1-11 the rest of the way for good measure.

August 23, 2002: The Orioles reach .500, at 63-63. They then go into a 1-18 freefall, after which they close out the season with a separate 12-game losing streak.

Managers and lineups change, but the O's can always be counted on to put the dog in Dog Days: 0-12...0-8...0-9...2-18. Last year was a two-for-one special. They struck earlier than usual, opening June with a 2-14 swan dive, which served to get manager Sam Perlozzo fired. Two months of adequate baseball followed, and the front office announced that Perlozzo's interim replacement, Dave Trembley, would manage the team in 2008. The team immediately went out and submitted to one of the worst beatings in baseball history, a 30-3 clubbing by the Rangers — the first game of a 3-18 skid.

But this year is different. This year, under the leadership of Peter Angelos' general-manager-type-executive-of-the-moment Andy MacPhail, the whole franchise has decided to quit before the season started.

Officially, the name for this is "rebuilding." Here's how it works. Let's say your team has two All-Stars in the middle of the infield, a budding young star in right field, and the most gifted starting pitcher fans have seen in a generation. But the rest of your lineup, particularly the power spots, is clogged with aging veterans who were never any good to begin with, and your bullpen is infested with washouts and arsonists. Hypothetically speaking.

So the way you rebuild the team is: You get rid of three of the four guys who are any good. It's a measure of how emotionally and psychologically damaged the fan base is that people are declaring themselves to be happy about this.

Sending shortstop Miguel Tejada to the Astros was at least a defensible move — even a bit of a thrilling one, given that MacPhail somehow managed to move Tejada hours before the Mitchell Report was due to drop. Tejada was the best hitter in the Orioles lineup, but it was hard to shake the feeling that his MVP slugging skills and joie de vivre were both sagging under the twin crackdowns on steroids and greenies. And Luke Scott, who arrived in the grab bag the Astros sent to Baltimore, may finally force the Orioles to stop giving people like Jay Payton hundreds of at-bats at positions like left field.

But MacPhail's ongoing effort to sell off leadoff man and second baseman Brian Roberts is churn for the sake of churning. No one else on the team is a second baseman, and no one else can hit leadoff.

And then there's Erik Bedard. The Bedard trade was almost universally hailed, and why not? In return, the Orioles got the most dominant strikeout pitcher in the league, entering his prime — a big-game pitcher who can match zeros with anyone, the kind of talent the late-Torre-era Yankees died away because their money couldn't buy.

Oh, wait, that's what the Orioles gave up. In return, they got a minor-league outfielder.

I know I know I know, Adam Jones is a guaranteed superstar. He hit .246 in Seattle last year, but that's because he was only 15 years old and his legs were tired from riding his bicycle to the ballpark every day. Now that he's got his driver's license, everybody says they can pencil him in to hit .350 with 40 home runs. Put him together with Nick Markakis and you've got a pair of young outfield talents like nobody's seen since — well, technically, since any two of the last five 21-year-old superstars that the Tampa Bay Devil Rays have put out there. Or whatever that team is called. The last-place team.

Nonetheless! Andy MacPhail is the savior. It's a funny sort of housecleaning that leaves Aubrey Huff and Kevin Millar at DH and first base, but that's the kind of unhealthy obsession with the present that the Orioles are trying to get beyond. McPhail is about the future. He is going to trade and trade and build the 2010 Orioles into a dynasty to rival those world-champion Cubs teams he built in Chicago.