The Orioles appear to have lost their way

The Baltimore Sun

Mike Hargrove quit as manager of the Seattle Mariners the other day. You remember Hargrove. He was here once. He used to manage the Orioles. No, really. Same guy. I looked it up. He was here for four consecutive seasons, between 2000 and 2003.

Don't feel bad, if your memory is fuzzy on this.

Hargrove's record as Orioles manager was 275-372. In three of his four seasons, the Orioles finished 30 or more games out of first place.

So, if you can't remember the details of the Hargrove years, it's probably because you only paid attention to the Orioles out of the corner of your eye. Let's face it: Losing is part of life. But that much losing is as depressing as a weekend with Dick Cheney.

Baseball is a long-haul journey, a series of peaks and valleys, with some happy days and some sleepless nights, some smiley faces and some grumpy gills, some good metaphors and some bad ones. One year you're sitting pretty on a sunny veranda, sipping margaritas and getting back rubs. The next year, you're diving into Dumpsters, eating cardboard and talking to yourself.

Life is like that. Baseball, too.

All human beings experience ups and downs. Even Paris Hilton.

A little bit of losing - that happens to everyone.

But, my fellow Baltimoreans: We've had too much of a bad thing now - nine losing seasons in a row and only seven winning seasons out of the 24 since the Orioles' last World Series appearance.

The last time the Orioles finished in first, 1997, Bill Clinton was president and the nation had not even been introduced to Monica Lewinsky. The Orioles did so well that season, the owner of the team fired the manager.

Next season, the Orioles finished 35 games out of first.

Did you see where Jim Palmer was in the bullpen the other day, helping the Orioles pitcher Daniel Cabrera with his delivery? That's nice. But it's depressing. You know why?

Assuming you are, say, 30 or older, what does Palmer remind you of?

I mean, besides underwear ads and Mr. Nobody commercials.

Winning.

Palmer was a winner. The teams he played on were winners. Palmer won 268 games. He won three Cy Young Awards. He was on the first Orioles team to win a World Series - in 1966 - and the last - in 1983. Every time we hear Palmer's comments during broadcasts, we are reminded of better times, now very distant in memory.

I know: Only a decade ago, the Orioles went wire to wire in the American League East.

We should feel lucky we don't live in other major league cities - Philadelphia, for instance - where things have been worse. (The Phillies, the last team the Orioles beat for a world championship, will soon become the first pro sports franchise to record 10,000 losses.)

But, look, at a certain point in a baseball team's history, things have to swing back the other way - or a franchise crosses the magical line from "storied" to "sordid."

It's 2007, the all-star break. The 10 years since the last playoff appearance seem like 20. The 1983 World Series? Something from the first Reagan administration.

Even the patient have lost patience.

I recently heard a teenage boy, born and raised in Baltimore, express the wish that the Orioles could make another run for the American League pennant. He likes the team, likes the players, and thinks they should win more than they have. In his lifetime, they've had too many forgettable seasons - like those of the Hargrove years, and like 2007 so far. "I want to follow the Orioles," he said. "I wish they would win more."

I'm familiar with and appreciate this feeling. The lad wants to know what it's like to have your team in the playoff hunt at the all-star break. Once upon a time - and I think it's still true - nothing made a summer more exciting.

Guys my age who grew up in Baltimore - they had that experience. They had Brooks and Frank and Boog. And then came Eddie and Cal, and at least another decade - the 1970s into the early 1980s - when the Orioles were always considered serious contenders for a playoff berth. Orioles Magic, the Orioles Way - those things were real.

But there's been a whole generation of kids now who've come up in Maryland with only one baseball story to follow, and that was the career of Cal Ripken. OK story, but that was all about a player, not about a team.

Boys and girls need to have their hometown baseball team do well - at least once every few years. It just needs to be that way.

Living and dying by your team - that might have been good enough for an earlier generation. Back in the day, we didn't have satellite TV, the Internet or Paris Hilton - there weren't so many things competing for our attention and our hearts.

It's different now.

A baseball team has to win big once in a while not only to be financially sound but to win young fans for life - so that they don't all become Yankee fans or members of the Red Sox Nation, or switch to the NFL and never look back.

The teenage boy who expressed regrets about the Orioles' perennially losing ways - I think he would be satisfied, if they just came close again. And this season, that wouldn't be so bad.

dan.rodricks@baltsun.com

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