Eye of the storm

May 13, 2008

This might be hard to remember with everything that's going on these days, but there was a time when the Preakness was just a famous horse race that drew thousands of revelers to Pimlico and set one Saturday aside each year for Baltimore to be the center of the sporting universe.

Recent columns

• Swing and miss on Cabrera

  May 11, 2008

  News item: The Orioles are 6-1 (plus an incomplete suspended game) in the eight starts this season by Daniel Cabrera, who pitched a three-hit complete game Thursday night in Kansas City.

• Collusion talk way off base

  May 10, 2008

  When the Major League Baseball Players Association confirmed the other day that it's investigating whether the 30 big league clubs are conspiring to keep Barry Bonds out of the game this year, I couldn't help but laugh.

• Despite losses, O's making progress

  May 8, 2008

  The Orioles have completed the second stop on their road trip back to reality, which has featured five losses in six games and a number of fine pitching performances delivered for naught.

• Gump was right

  May 6, 2008

  I'm pretty sure that if you got yourself a big federal grant and did a study, you'd find that professional athletes are not - on average - any less intelligent than the general population, but you'd never know that by the headlines.

• Bowls are way over capacity

  May 4, 2008

  News item: The NCAA has approved two more football bowl games - including one in Washington - to bring the total number of postseason bowls to 34.

• O's tired of defending good play

  May 1, 2008

  During the recent road series between the Orioles and Chicago White Sox, two former Orioles Cy Young Award winners were having a conversation about the surprise team in the American League East.

• Clemens in self-destruct mode

  April 29, 2008

  The next time you watch American Idol and fantasize about being a big celebrity, go stand in line at your local supermarket and think about how that's working out for whoever is on the cover of this week's edition of the National Enquirer.

• No. 1 pick not No. 1 thrill of watching this year's draft

  April 27, 2008

  News item: The Miami Dolphins drafted Jake Long with the first pick of the NFL draft yesterday.

• Loewen should just sit back

  April 26, 2008

  The Orioles placed prized left-hander Adam Loewen on the 15-day disabled list yesterday, and I'm guessing everybody is thinking pretty much the same thing I am right now:

• Hank Steinbrenner a chip off the old Boss

  April 24, 2008

  It's time to add another item to the growing list of things that point toward a new competitive era for the Orioles:

• MacPhail hitting next phase

  April 22, 2008

  I am happy to report the "brutal honesty" phase of Andy MacPhail's rebuilding project is apparently over.

• Despite Woods' bum knee, Slam talk not on last legs

  April 20, 2008

  News item: Tiger Woods will need up to six weeks to rehabilitate after undergoing arthroscopic surgery on his left knee for the second time in six years.

• McNair made the right call

  April 18, 2008

  Steve McNair played it right out of the Superstar Retirement Handbook. He said the right things. He did it the right way. He retired on his own terms and - best of all - walked off into the sunset without a noticeable limp.

• O's sticking to the plan with Loewen

  April 17, 2008

  Barely five minutes into the first inning last night Chicago White Sox slugger Jim Thome launched a towering three-run homer to center field and signaled that this was not going to be the night Adam Loewen chased away the concern that has been growing up around him for the past two months.

• Digging in, Yanks take no chances with Ortiz jersey

  April 15, 2008

  When they unearthed the David Ortiz jersey Sunday that was buried under the new Yankee Stadium, this is the first thing that popped into my mind:

• Floyd will bring hot hand to homecoming against O's

  April 13, 2008

  News item: Severna Park's Gavin Floyd (Mount St. Joseph) took a no-hit bid into the eighth inning against the struggling Detroit Tigers yesterday on the way to his second victory of the young season.

• New drug policy puts Mitchell Report in rearview

  April 12, 2008

  It would be great if we could say that Major League Baseball put a big punctuation mark on the sport's long-running steroid scandal, but I'll settle for the right decision at the right time for the right reasons.

• O's fans living in the moment

  April 10, 2008

  If there was ever any doubt about the forgiving nature of Baltimore sports fans, it did not survive the first week of the baseball season.

• O's to pundits: Don't write us off

  April 8, 2008

  When the Orioles shock the world and reach the World Series this October, we'll look back on April 7 as a watershed day in club history.

• O's officials should get ready for full season of empty seats

  April 6, 2008

  News item: The Orioles drew an announced crowd of 10,505 on Wednesday night - by far the smallest in the history of Camden Yards.

• Good deal of warmth as O's, M's reunite

  April 5, 2008

  Former Orioles manager Sam Perlozzo held court in the visitors' dugout yesterday, trying hard to put his separation from the team last June in a perspective that would allow him to be honest about his feelings without sounding bitter about his dismissal.

• Control issues for Cabrera

  April 3, 2008

  We're still waiting, but what choice do we really have?

• O's fans take ticket to hide

  April 1, 2008

  The Orioles announced a sellout for their regular-season opener yesterday at Camden Yards, which probably evoked a measure of skepticism from anyone looking for companionship in the upper deck above left field.

• Don't look for happy ending to 2008 saga

  March 30, 2008

  The past few months have been spent in almost constant analysis of the way Orioles president Andy MacPhail has reconfigured the roster and set the team in a new direction, which might or might not lead to a new era of competitive baseball in Baltimore.

• After 10-day reprieve, no simple solution to setting 25-man roster

  March 29, 2008

  Major League Baseball didn't do the Orioles any favor by postponing the 15-day suspension of outfielder-designated hitter Jay Gibbons, because the 10-day reprieve only complicates the club's uncertain roster situation during the final weekend of spring training.

• Avoiding penalty could speed up expensive decision

  March 27, 2008

  Here is all you really need to know about the Jay Gibbons situation:

• He knows the score

  March 25, 2008

  On the first day of spring football practice, new Navy football coach Ken Niumatalolo was still answering the same questions that greeted him the day he was hired to replace Paul Johnson.

• Big tickets in the Big Apple: Yanks, Giants no cheap thrill

  March 23, 2008

  News item: The top price for a ticket at the new Yankee Stadium that opens in 2009 is $2,500. The team touts the elite 122 front-row seats and other premium areas as "an exclusive experience for those with discerning taste who seek the very best that life has to offer."

• Mora role model for young O's

  March 20, 2008

  For established major league veterans, dodging the long exhibition road trips is one of the rites of spring.

• Club set to go, but Dodgertown still Dodgers' town

  March 18, 2008

  It was St. Patrick's Day, so "Dodger Bob" Scholl and his wife, Patty, wore some green to mark the occasion and added black armbands to mark the passing of an era.

• Chinese might not realize there's no tying in baseball

  March 16, 2008

  News item: The Los Angeles Dodgers and San Diego Padres played to a 3-3 tie in the first of their two historic exhibition games in Beijing.

• Roberts deal can wait

  March 15, 2008

  If you believe everything you read -- and, in this tough newspaper environment, I certainly hope you do -- Orioles second baseman Brian Roberts will be headed to the Chicago Cubs or another contending team in the not-too-distant future.

• Throwing in towel on Cabrera

  March 13, 2008

  Daniel Cabrera is understandably frustrated, though apparently not with his consistently inconsistent performance on the mound.

• L. Hernandez coming up short?

  March 11, 2008

  Not long before the Orioles took the field for yesterday's exhibition game against the Los Angeles Dodgers, the conversation among the visiting scouts in Fort Lauderdale Stadium's media lunch room turned to the Orioles' shortstop situation.

• Dodgers give Torre license to chill

  March 10, 2008

  The New York Daily News dubbed him "Clueless Joe" the day after George Steinbrenner hired him to manage the New York Yankees in 1995, something Joe Torre could laugh about a year later while he was holding the first of his four world championship trophies.

• Ponson delivers latest bid for return to major leagues

  March 9, 2008

  News item: Former Orioles pitcher Sidney Ponson worked out for six major league scouts Thursday in hopes of making a comeback after being released by three teams over the past three years.

• MacPhail preaches patience with Patton

  March 8, 2008

  No doubt, there will be some teeth-gnashing about Troy Patton, the centerpiece of the Miguel Tejada deal who will undergo surgery to repair a torn labrum and miss the entire 2008 season.

• Positive first week for O's

  March 6, 2008

  Inside the fishbowl that is spring training, it's easy to look at some young pitching prospect and imagine greatness is ahead of schedule or watch a late-inning comeback and fool yourself into thinking there is more on the field than meets the eye or the scouting report.

• Feeling blue in Dodgertown

  March 4, 2008

  The sign at the entrance still welcomes you to "Dodgertown," but it's fair to wonder what it will say next year.

• Third Holyfield-Tyson fight would not be appetizing

  March 2, 2008

  News item: Evander Holyfield revealed in an interview with The Guardian in London last week he is considering an offer from Mike Tyson for the two forty- something heavyweights to fight a third time.

• Pressure falls on Orioles to ensure Jones is successful

  March 1, 2008

  The first few days of competition in an Orioles uniform have been, to say the least, an adventure for new top prospect Adam Jones, so let's review:

• Probe might be just what 'Rocket' wanted all along

  February 28, 2008

  Roger Clemens had to know it would come to this. He had to know his high-stakes game of chicken with steroid investigator George Mitchell and the steroid grandstanders in Congress would end with a perjury investigation and maybe a federal indictment.

• O's youth movement not confined to field

  February 26, 2008

  Orioles president Andy MacPhail has pointed the franchise toward the future with a large infusion of young on-field talent, so why should anyone be surprised that his new director of baseball operations is a twentysomething Ivy Leaguer with relatively little experience in baseball operations?

• Support for Goodell shows NFL's protection schemes

  February 24, 2008

  News item: The eight members who make up the NFL's competition committee have come out in full support of commissioner Roger Goodell and his handling of the Bill Belichick Spygate controversy.

• Orioles' Jones plays it cool

  February 23, 2008

  New Orioles center fielder Adam Jones is keeping his head down, which is no small task when you come into spring training on a pedestal.

• O's veterans must adjust to rebuilding

  February 21, 2008

  The lockers along Recognition Row are about a foot wider than the others in the Orioles' spring clubhouse, a small courtesy to the handful of veteran players who remain on a roster that seems to get younger by the day.

• Roberts sits tight

  February 20, 2008

  In a perfect world, Brian Roberts would have jumped out of his bed yesterday and made the short, cross-town drive to Fitch Park in Mesa, Ariz., where the Chicago Cubs opened full-squad workouts yesterday.

• Patriots' not-so-super filming and some other news of note

  February 17, 2008

  News item: The NFL and attorneys for former New England Patriots video assistant Matt Walsh have run into a snag in negotiations to cover Walsh's legal liability if he agrees to provide information about the team's alleged filming of a St. Louis Rams Super Bowl practice session in 2002.

• Hardin swings, misses badly

  February 16, 2008

  Roger Clemens has played out his hand in the sad steroid saga that has - no doubt - permanently stained his great career. Now, all that's left for him to do is move on and hope he has done enough to erode the credibility of former personal trainer Brian McNamee and discourage the Justice Department from pursuing a perjury case.

• Hear lyin' roar

  February 14, 2008

  OK, it's all becoming clear now.

• Steroid supplier's sentence shows no system to justice

  February 10, 2008

  News item: Former New York Mets clubhouse attendant Kirk Radomski will spend no time in jail for his part in baseball's far-reaching steroid scandal. He was fined and placed on five years' probation after cooperating with the federal government and Major League Baseball investigator George Mitchell.

• Super Bowl sideshow

  January 30, 2008

  I'm a sucker for a wedding dress.

• Harbaugh's Day One energy good sign as Job One nears

  January 20, 2008

  New Ravens coach John Harbaugh said all the right things during his introductory news conference yesterday, but the most important thing came out sounding like a well-worn cliche rather than a call to arms.

• Bisciotti gets back in game

  January 19, 2008

  So much for the mistaken notion that the Ravens did not have a Plan B.

• Remember '08?

  December 31, 2007

  In my continuing effort to show how sophisticated I am, I'd like to quote the French poet Paul Valery: "The trouble with our times," he said, "is that the future is not what it used to be." Never mind that he uttered that cynical little gem several generations ago; no truer words have ever been spoken, particularly when 2007 is going to be such a tough act to follow.

• Clemens' denials get boost from Grimsley affidavit

  December 22, 2007

  If the original release of the infamous Jason Grimsley affidavit - with the names of the alleged steroid and amphetamine users blacked out for public nonconsumption - helped pull the cover off baseball's performance-enhancement scandal, the release of the unredacted version Thursday might have been an even bigger blow to the integrity of the sport.

• More O's woes

  December 17, 2007

  The great hope that blossomed around the Orioles organization with the arrival of new president Andy MacPhail was that - finally - it appeared there was a real sign owner Peter Angelos recognized that the revitalization of the franchise would require a totally new way of doing business.

• Elusive football lets baseball take steroid hit

  December 15, 2007

  During the news conference Thursday in which former Sen. George Mitchell unveiled his 409-page report on baseball's performance-enhancement scandal, I kept waiting for him to announce that he had been hired by the NFL to perform a similar investigation to root out the cheaters in America's most popular television sport.

• Baseball will long be haunted by steroid era

  December 14, 2007

  Not to get all biblical on you, but if the just-released Mitchell Report is any indication, the truth will not necessarily set you free.

• Modell's Hall snub has analogy in baseball's O'Malley

  December 10, 2007

  Though it didn't garner giant headlines in Baltimore, the news last week that the late Walter O'Malley will be inducted into baseball's Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y., in July couldn't help but make me wonder anew when they'll get around to enshrining Art Modell in the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio.

• Schmuck: O's run of the Hall about to hit a wall

  July 31, 2007

  There are several possible reasons Sunday's Hall of Fame induction ceremony drew an estimated crowd that was 50 percent larger than any other.

• Schmuck: With glow, hope for a brighter day

  July 30, 2007

  Soon after Tony Gwynn and Cal Ripken Jr. overcame their fear of public speaking, somebody tried to usher them back into the sad reality of sports in today's society.

• Schmuck: With Ripken, Gwynn, town has true legends

  July 28, 2007

  It is the pleasant nature of this quaint little upstate village that makes it so easy to overlook the disconnect between truth and legend that allowed it to become the hometown of baseball history.

• Schmuck: Ripken joy is a respite amid list of scandals

  July 26, 2007

  Orioles president Andy MacPhail has always looked young for his age, but don't mistake that for being short on perspective.

• Schmuck: A life in the spotlight

  July 22, 2007

  It must have been terribly frustrating. Cal Ripken Jr. spent his entire Hall of Fame career trying to convey something that was so basic we all just assumed there had to be more to it.

• Schmuck: Enough facts are known for indefinite suspension

  July 19, 2007

  Welcome to the ultimate test of the Roger Goodell Doctrine.

• Landis' excuses make for wild ride

  May 23, 2007

  What does it say about the state of international sports - and maybe society as a whole - when the Floyd Landis arbitration hearing is far more interesting and exciting than the Tour de France that spawned this drawn-out doping controversy?

• Baseball's hallowed ground no shelter from steroid talk

  May 11, 2007

  Cal Ripken Jr. seemed to enjoy his orientation trip to upstate New York this week, but even in the idyllic small-town setting of the National Baseball Hall of Fame, he could not escape the big-city questions about the troubling state of the game.

• BALCO probe fallout is downright baffling

  February 18, 2007

  The news that a Colorado attorney could get two years in prison for leaking grand jury testimony in the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative investigation might be the final proof that we now live in the sports version of Bizarro World.

• Bonds' excuses positively pathetic

  January 12, 2007

  Of all the days of all the weeks of all the months that have been tainted by baseball's performance-enhancement scandal, Barry Bonds had to stumble back into the drug spotlight on the same day that new Hall of Famers Cal Ripken and Tony Gwynn were taking their post-election bows at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in Manhattan.

• For fans in '95, Ripken's pen was mightier than his bat

  January 10, 2007

  Cal Ripken Jr.'s career speaks for itself.

• McGwire might not mind being skipped in Hall's order

  January 7, 2007

  Sometime in the early afternoon on Tuesday, Cal Ripken will pick up the phone in Baltimore and Tony Gwynn will pick up the phone in San Diego, and it won't be to make a bet on the AFC championship game.

• This sportswriter can relate to Barbaro's snacking habits

  June 30, 2006

  Can't tell you how great it was to hear that Barbaro is up and around and - according to a report in The Sun yesterday - getting protective of his snacks.

• When did Bay Area relocate here?

  June 20, 2006

  It just keeps hitting home.

• Throwing off players association, Grimsley hurls hGH into spotlight

  June 11, 2006

  Welcome to the worst nightmare of the Major League Baseball Players Association.

• Dry spell over as juicy story hits home

  June 9, 2006

  Don't know about you, but I was feeling a little bit left out while Barry Bonds bore down on Babe Ruth the past couple of months. How could you help but pine for those halcyon days when Baltimore was -- for a couple of months -- the center of the steroid universe.

• Hendricks' 'Oriole Way' gone, current O's are just wayward

  December 30, 2005

  It was an appropriate sendoff. Elrod Hendricks was remembered fondly by his family, friends and former teammates in a heartfelt and spiritual memorial service yesterday that drew 1,000 mourners to the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen. What else would you expect for a man so loved and respected in this close-knit community?

• By reaching out to others, Hendricks touched us all

  December 23, 2005

  Maybe Elrod Hendricks could only have happened in Baltimore, where our heroes don't have to be bigger than life. They just have to be like us ... or, in Elrod's case, they just have to like us as much as we like them.

• In a ballpark divided, reactions from fans provide potent mix

  August 15, 2005

  IT WAS the anabolic equivalent of "Tastes Great!" ... "Less Filling."

• Wasted words hang over return and leave little worth hearing

  August 12, 2005

  HE COULD have had us at "Hello" ... but that was 10 days ago.

• Silence speaks volumes in age of lost innocence

  August 11, 2005

  THE GREAT THING about being innocent is that you never have to make up a story to prove it.

• Palmeiro didn't provide hard truth, but Congress asked soft questions

  August 7, 2005

  WHILE WE WAIT for Congress to figure out what it is going to do with Rafael Palmeiro and Major League Baseball's flawed drug policy, it might be a good time to point out something very important.

• He may not fit the bill, but he will pay price

  August 2, 2005

  THE IMAGE still lingers. Rafael Palmeiro, called to testify before a congressional committee on March 17, pointed his finger at committee chairman Tom Davis and denied that he had ever used illegal performance-enhancing drugs.

• Robinson still knows how to bring heat when needed

  June 16, 2005

  SO MUCH FOR the myth of the mellow Frank Robinson. So much for the kinder, gentler Washington Nationals manager who used to have every kind of sharp edge as a player -- and a few in his early incarnations as a manager -- but was widely believed to have gotten in touch with his softer side.

• Orioles' Bancells earns huge save for waving Hendricks to hospital

  April 18, 2005

  IT WOULD have been so easy to make the wrong decision. The Orioles were getting ready to return home from St. Petersburg, Fla., on Thursday night, and longtime bullpen coach Elrod Hendricks just didn't feel right.

• Of course, Phelps should grab pot of gold; why settle for anything less?

  August 15, 2004

  NOW THAT Michael Phelps has won the first of a possible eight gold medals, isn't it time to dispense with the ridiculous notion that the expectations surrounding America's top Olympian are more inflated than the Goodyear Blimp? I read Kevin Cowherd's column on that subject the other day, and I have only one thing to say, baby: