Wednesday night was legislative appreciation night at the Orioles' first night game, and most of the General Assembly was there.

But unless fans attending the game had taken in the day's newspapers or other media, chances are they didn't know their elected leaders were present.

Reason? A legislative leader asked the Orioles not to make any announcement. And the ballclub didn't, either by loudspeaker or on its computerized, center field scoreboard -- which, as usual, did note the presence of many other special groups.

"I just didn't think they [the legislators] needed to be mobbed by a bunch of people," said House of Delegates Speaker R. Clayton Mitchell Jr., who asked the Orioles to forgo an announcement.

With the game coming only two days after a bitterly divided legislature failed to pass a state budget, the crowd's greeting for the lawmakers may well have been less than favorable.

Forced to stay in Annapolis to finish their work, several legislators were grumbling this week that their image was suffering.

Legislators were given four free tickets each and served dinner in the stadium's bullpen area,a stadium authority spokesman said.