About 20 minutes before his introductory press conference as Orioles manager on Tuesday, Craig Albernaz crouched like the minor-league catcher he once was, facing north on Eutaw Street behind the Camden Yards scoreboard under construction.

His 2-year-old daughter, Gigi, wearing orange bows in her hair, walked as quick as she could toward him. Mom, Genevieve, trailed behind, dressed up too. Albernaz, in a fresh black suit, eventually hoisted his youngest of three children in the air, looking like he was simply celebrating life and a new beginning.

The 43-year-old is the 21st manager of the Orioles, arriving from the Cleveland Guardians organization, where he was bench coach for reigning A.L. Manager of the Year Stephen Vogt the past two seasons, both division-winning years.

“This is a dream come true for me,” Albernaz would say later.

Arriving in Baltimore with glowing references and experience as an assistant coach with three MLB organizations (Cleveland, the San Francisco Giants, and the Tampa Bay Rays), as well as a stint coaching in Australia, this is Albernaz’s first managerial role since 2017—when he led a Single-A team in the Rays’ minor league system.

He’s now tasked with guiding a big-league A.L. East team that had an injury-plagued, 87-loss 2025 campaign. It was a departure from the trajectory of a young, talented core that led the O’s to the playoffs in 2023 and 2024, though they exited both without a win.

On Tuesday, Albernaz sat on a stage set up in the Warehouse Bar and Restaurant between O’s owner David Rubenstein and president of baseball operations and general manager Mike Elias. He fielded questions from reporters for about 45 minutes.

With his daughter, two sons, and wife—as well as his former boss and close friend Vogt—in the front row, Albernaz acknowledged his emotions. “Alby,” as his close friends know him, cracked a few jokes too, some at his own expense, showing a glimpse of who he is and what Birdland can anticipate.

“I just can’t wait for the fans to come out to watch our boys compete because we’re going to play a very exciting brand of baseball,” Albernaz said. “It’s going to be a great bounce-back year for this group.”

Here are a few top takeaways from his Baltimore introduction:

Get used to the Bahston accent.
Albernaz left home in New England (Fall River, Mass.) at age 17 to play baseball at Eckerd College in Florida, but his thick native accent hasn’t left him. A few moments into his opening statement, we heard “paht,” meaning “part,” and “Gahdians,” referring to his former team. A few weeks ago, when news broke of the hire, some funny people on the Internet speculated Albernaz was a mole for the Red Sox. But nobody will question that, nor care what he sounds like, if the Orioles have a strong season.

Albernaz’s personality isn’t lacking.
While clearly trying to hit the right notes upon introduction, he also let his personality shine, mostly when making jokes (about his height, 5-foot-8) and working with Elias on their offseason wish list. “Whatever Mike wants to cook up. I trust Mike,” Albernaz said. “That’s not my job. That’s Mike’s job. He’s pretty good at it. Actually, really good at it.” He added: “Please, Mike,” which drew a laugh and grin from the typically guarded GM.

When asked how many current O’s players he’s spoken to, Albernaz recognized an opening and referred to the viral “6-7” social media trend, which his sons—8-year-old CJ and 6-year-old Norman, sporting orange-and-black Air Force 1 sneakers that matched their parents and sister—wanted him to mention. “I’ve probably reached out to 6, 7 of them to be honest with you,” Albernaz said.

This wasn’t quite Buck Showalter’s wistfulness and charm in the 2010s (the last time the team won a postseason game), but Albernaz will be entertaining in his own way. Take it from his friend, Vogt, the Guardians manager, who talked to Baltimore reporters after the press conference Tuesday. “He’s going to keep everyone relaxed,” Vogt said. “He’s going to have personality. You got to give it back to him.”

He could be the right guy at the right time.
For all the high expectations for this Orioles team—and talks of future multi-million-dollar contracts for Gunnar Henderson and Adley Rutschman, or Colton Cowser and Jordan Westburg—they’re still young and maturing. I mean, get to Camden Yards early enough, and you can see Henderson riding into the clubhouse parking lot on an electric scooter. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but an older player concerned about injury would at least drive.)

Last season, injuries mounted all over the roster and pressure built early, leading to then-manager Brandon Hyde’s firing. Elias wanted the team’s young core to get back on track while justifying the coaching change to interim manager Tony Mansolino. Albernaz will be another new voice at Camden (Yahds), but his hire isn’t a huge departure from Hyde’s pedigree. Both were hired as first-time, young-ish managers, who never played in the majors, but are receptive to analytics and were part of former Rays and Cubs manager Joe Maddon’s coaching tree. But Albernaz appears to be a more playful version of the gruffer Hyde.

“I’m going to keep it loose. It’s baseball,” he said. “We’re with each other 162 games in a season, and more than our families. Guys play at their best when they’re having fun and just playing the kids’ game.”

That may be just what this team of Lego-loving young stars needs for a “bounce back” year in 2026. Yet Albernaz said “tough conversations” are necessary for improvement as well. He quoted Maddon: “You tell the player the truth, he might be mad at you for a day. If you lie to them, you lost him forever.”

“It was clear that this was a really good fit all-around,” Elias said. “The places he’s worked, the philosophies that he’s developed, I think his personality and personal style will be a really good fit for what our group needs, but also in this town and in this market.”

He understands the business.
One of Albernaz’s comments suggests he grasps a point that’s more important to professional athletes and winning teams than many fans recognize: “All players want to make as much money as they can,” Albernaz said, “and they want coaches in their corner, and people in their corner, that can help them do that. It also helps the team they’re with win a lot of games.”

This isn’t something you often hear professional coaches say publicly, but it’s an absolutely true dynamic. Managing personalities and motivations are as important as filling out the lineup.

And speaking of business, Rubenstein offered his offseason outlook and roster changes, saying they have “no particular restraints” on payroll and want to add complementary players, while deferring to Elias on the details.

“We have an investor group that’s pretty deep-pocketed,” Rubenstein said. “We’re able to do what we need to do. Mike has a lot of authority to go out and find the best players that we can get…We don’t feel we need to break [payroll] records, but we want to get good players who want to be part of an organization that is very cohesive.”

He’s all about family.
Gigi, Albernaz’s daughter, ended up stealing the show at the press conference, at first making noise from the front row—as a 2-year-old does when tasked with sitting still for long.

Eventually, Rubenstein suggested she come up to Dad on stage, and the O’s owner handed her to Albernaz, leading to this cute and touching exchange:

Albernaz said you’ll see his family at games. Though they’ve lived many different places, his wife—a former Philadelphia Phillies ball girl—says she’s excited for her family to embrace a new accent: Bawlmer.

It wasn’t all the way back to normal, but it was close.

Finally, around 2 p.m. on Thursday afternoon, more than 18 months since fans were last allowed into Camden Yards, the ushers opened the black gates around the stadium again, breathing life back into the beautiful place.

People—real people! strangers!—wearing Orioles jerseys, t-shirts, and hats (and masks) strolled down Eutaw Street. Some lined up for food and drink while others snapped smartphone pictures of the scenes they used to know, and have longed to see.

Noise bounced off the brick warehouse and echoed in the concourse. The smell of cooking hot dogs and spicy sausages moved through the air. And the green seats around the stadium slowly started to fill, though exclusively in groups of two and four. Pod seating, as it’s called, is hopefully a final remnant of the social distancing era.

On this Opening Day—just like last year’s without any fans at all—no long, wide orange carpet lay across centerfield for O’s players, coaches, and staff to run across during introductions. Instead, a shorter, smaller version led from the home dugout toward home plate. “Because of COVID,” Orioles manager Brandon Hyde said before the game.

The grand treatment wasn’t quite appropriate yet anyway. For any other home game, we’d report that only 10,150 people showed up to watch the O’s play the visiting Boston Red Sox. But in this case, the attendance marked a sellout—the max capacity being 25 percent lower than usual—as COVID-19 vaccines continue to hit arms and the world tests the waters on large public gatherings again.

“Welcome home!” local sports broadcaster and pregame ceremonies emcee Rob Long bellowed around the stadium. That was the common sentiment of the day.

The good news is that, in a world that seems like it’s been completely upended because of the pandemic, the charm of Camden Yards has not worn off since the end of the 2019 season—the last time anyone other than players, employees, and media saw the place.

As I walked the concourse after the gates opened, it felt almost like old times again. You can feel it for yourself, hopefully 81 more times this year barring outbreaks, variants, or whatever else. (Maybe even more if… playoffs?!)

However, some things have changed.

Masks are still required, and perhaps the most pertinent new information is about the reduction of “touchpoints,” the team says. There are no more paper tickets, for instance. You need to use a digital device and the stadium’s free Wi-Fi, if needed, to get in. To speed up entry, no bags are allowed this year, unless for medical or childcare reasons. You can also skip lines and pre-order food and drinks via an app or QR codes now.

The stadium has also gone fully cashless. Get used to using “Reverse ATMs” instead, which give you a plastic card in exchange. And we miss hearing former play-by-play announcer Gary Thorne’s voice, via the MASN television feed, narrate everything that’s happening out on the field  while going to buy something or hitting the bathroom.

Despite all of the COVID changes, the stage, setting, and gathering place—which, we think, people realized they desperately needed throughout the last year—are all still there.

“It’s good to be back,” one usher told me spontaneously on Eutaw Street. “When you’re not here, you feel like you’re missing your second home.”

Some of our favorite furniture is still around, too.

Fan favorite Trey Mancini is back at first base and taking swings a home plate, just about a year after the 29-year-old was diagnosed with Stage 3 colon cancer and underwent months of chemotherapy. Fans and the Red Sox gave him two standing ovations, once during pregame introductions and again before his first at-bat. You probably couldn’t see Mancini crying between the brim of his hat and the blue surgical mask on his face during the first occasion, but he said he was.

“It was nothing short of what I expected. We have the best fans in baseball here,” Mancini said after the game. “It meant the world to me. Even though it was 25 percent capacity, it felt like a full stadium out there. I have goosebumps thinking about it still.”

“That was a really emotional start to the home season,” Hyde said. “The ovation was awesome. I know Trey really appreciated it. That was an incredible moment by our fans, how loud they got. It was an awesome start to the day.”

Thankfully, we also spotted the Oriole Bird from afar, waving a big flag from his perch for the year in the bar in centerfield. We thanked God we were country boys in the seventh-inning stretch, and watched ketchup win the first animated hot-dog and condiment race of the year.

West Baltimore native Zadia sang the National Anthem. And we even heard a few good ole’ boos, too, as former Boston mayor and current Secretary of Labor Marty Walls threw out the ceremonial first pitch next to Baltimore mayor Brandon Scott (whose pitch was just a little outside, but not bad). Ironically, it was billed as a sign of unity between the cities.

And, oh yeah, the results of the game are almost the footnote in all of this, though not for those on the field.

New signage around Camden Yards reminds people to “Wear Your Mask,” wash your hands, and stay six feet apart. But early in the game, Hyde was in no mood to comply. There he was, in the fourth inning, angrily pacing the first baseline dirt and yelling in the faces of a pair of umpires with his black mask pulled down around his neck. He was arguing an unclear hit-by-pitch call that went against third baseman Rio Ruiz.

Based on Hyde’s description of the confrontation afterward, his fury didn’t quite match Earl Weaver’s hottest level.

“I was just asking, ‘How could you see that as a swing?’” Hyde said. He had a point, but still, home plate umpire Jeremie Rehak ejected him, surprising Hyde. “According to Jeremie, I asked one too many times, I guess,” Hyde said, sounding like he was still fuming after being forced to watch the rest of the game on TV from his office. “That’s the quickest ejection I ever had.”

The Red Sox won, 7-3, scoring the game’s final five runs after catcher Pedro Severino hit his first home run of the season to put the O’s up 3-2 in the fourth. Opening Day starting pitcher Matt Harvey, once the focus of many a New York newspaper tabloid when he was with the Mets, looked decent in the latest stop on his career rejuvenation tour. The talented Ryan Mountcastle had a Ryan Mountcastle day, slapping an opposite field home run to deep right center and overthrowing Ruiz at third on a throw from left field—a position Mountcastle is still learning to play. Centerfielder Cedric Mullins made a beautiful diving catch.

Importantly, after taking a few deep breaths toward the end of an emotional day, Mancini got a hit in his last at-bat, which he hopes will help him climb out of an ugly 5-for-28 hitting start to the season. But, most meaningful, if you ask us, is that the crowd cheered again when it happened.

“There is definitely more emotion in the game with fans,” Hyde said. “Our players really fed off the energy early. Unfortunately, we couldn’t hold on. But it was a good feeling to hear the fans back in Camden Yards.”

He wasn’t doing it intentionally, but something Orioles manager Brandon Hyde told reporters (via Zoom) this week perfectly illustrated just how different this baseball season—if it even happens as planned—is for everyone involved.

“We’ve done a nice job of staying apart,” Hyde said, looking into a laptop computer on his office desk at Camden Yards, where 47 players, coaches, and other staff have gathered to prepare for an unprecedented, pandemic-shortened 60-game season.

Following an abbreviated three-week summer training camp, the O’s season is scheduled to begin July 24 against the Red Sox in Boston in front of no fans—one of the many standard operating procedures in place to bring pro sports back to life while hopefully not causing a further spread of COVID-19.

Hyde, the Orioles second-year manager, spoke to the media each day this week from his office right near the O’s locker room, which is kind of a sensitive area these days. Those inside must wear masks and keep social distance.

Out on the field, the stay-six-feet-away protocol is a bit easier to manage given the environment. As outfielder Austin Hays put it, “The great thing about baseball is it’s a very big field.” But even outdoors, on Camden Yards’ typical beautifully manicured green grass, scenes are different than they ever have been before.

Handwashing stations have been placed near the dugouts, and leather-bound baseballs are being cleaned and recycled. Staying apart—and clean—has become the new team bonding experience. When third baseman Renato Nunez hit a home run during an intra-squad game Wednesday night, he air-handshook teammate Rio Ruiz as he rounded the bases. “It was kind of weird,” Nunez said. “But it’s great to be here and playing the game we love.”

Indeed, after longer-than-expected negotiations between Major League Baseball’s owners and its players union throughout the last few months—the fine details of an appropriate paycheck in a shortened season being the unfortunate primary sticking point—baseball is back, for now.

The question of whether all the safety protocols will work well enough to prevent what’s proven to be a highly contagious, invisible, airborne virus from invading an entire team—and thus likely ending the entire league’s season—is still a legitimate one. But O’s staff, coaches, and players seem to be doing everything that can be practically and logistically done so that they’re not the ones to make any headlines.

Upon their return to Baltimore last week, all players started to get tested for COVID-19 every other day—though results have been slow to arrive, a common problem, pro baseball or not. Temperature screens are routine. Every piece of team apparel has been personalized so there aren’t any mix-ups. Players have rotated through day-long practices in smaller groups. On the first day of camp, position players sat in one dugout and pitchers in the other.

“The sport is making an effort to get going,” Orioles general manager Mike Elias said. “It’s tough circumstances. There’s a lot of challenges involved, but I think we’re doing a great job.”

Here are five things you should know about this unique attempt at a baseball season.

1. It’s a busy schedule (and a lot of games are against the Yankees and Red Sox…)

The Orioles are scheduled to play 60 games in 66 days starting with the season opener on July 24 in Boston, the first of 20 games the O’s will play against either the Red Sox or the Yankees.

That’s by design by Major League Baseball. In this shortened pandemic season, teams will mostly play division opponents, so the bulk of the schedule is against division opponents in the A.L. East.

In interleague games, the O’s will play the N.L. East, including games against the Washington Nationals. It might be one of the toughest schedules ever faced.

2. There will be no fans (yet)

The O’s new home opener is scheduled for July 29 against the Miami Marlins, but for fans, the designation is sort of an unfortunate footnote. Only players, coaches, team staff, and media (we think, we hope) will be allowed in Camden Yards.

Though all of the green seats in the stadium will be empty for now, it will still be nice to see the Warehouse in the background of games on TV. And, in general, live competition and commentary from MASN’s Gary Thorne and Jim Palmer will be welcome entertainment for us all watching at home and on our phones.

“It’s going to be weird,” says All-Star pitcher John Means, “but the weirdest part is all these games count more than they ever have, and you’re not going to feel the energy of these games coming from the fans. It might take some getting used to.”

When the O’s announced their new schedule on Monday, they left open the possibility that fans will be allowed in person at some point this year, but whether that happens—and in what form (half capacity, or a quarter, for example) depends on the decisions of state government officials, the Maryland Stadium Authority, and pro baseball leadership.

3. A short season might work in the O’s favor

From a competitive standpoint, a shorter than normal schedule—rather than the usual 162 games—makes the outcome of every game even more significant in the standings and playoff positioning.

Say one underdog team (cough, the Orioles) goes on a brief winning streak against a few division opponents (like the Blue Jays and Rays). Suddenly that team could be in contention for a spot in the 10-team postseason.

“It’s going to be a season like no other,” Means said. “We feel like we’re in it. We feel like we have a chance.”

On the flip side, something like a 10-game losing streak could end a team’s motivation pretty quickly. Either way, it’s never been better to be a team with low expectations, mathematically speaking.

“This is a sprint. Anything can happen in 60 games,” Hyde says. “We’ve talked about going out and shocking people and winning some games.”

4. We’ll get a nice look at the Baby Birds

While Major League Baseball is back, Minor League Baseball is not. That is certainly a blow to the O’s long-term rebuilding plans—which are focused on developing talent within the farm system in places like Bowie, Aberdeen, and Frederick, and funneling it to the big leagues.

As a result, we might see a huge sampling of players this year, and at the very least, playing time for a lot of Baby Birds. Rosters have been expanded, and the O’s currently have 47 players in their player pool (of a maximum 60).

Top prospects such as 2019 No. 1 overall draft pick Adley Rutschman, 2020 first-round pick Heston Kjerstad, and others could be added in the coming weeks. And at the start of the season, look for all kinds of relief pitchers to get time as starters work back into game shape.

Potential Opening Day starter Means, for instance, is working on getting comfortable throwing four and five innings during this abbreviated summer training camp, and most of all the possible starting pitchers are in the same situation.

5. Change can be good

Few things about this baseball season will be normal. But strange times can also lighten things up for a lot of people. Take Davis, a former home run champ who—after putting on 25 pounds of muscle since the end of last season—looked good during spring training in Florida before COVID-19 hit.

Davis said earlier this year that he was “physically and mentally” drained after last season, during which he took all kinds of criticism and notably expressed frustrations in the dugout. This week, he spoke to reporters via Zoom wearing a green camouflage mask. He mentioned how he kept in shape with the home gym he set up in the winter even before the pandemic (“I guess that was a good move,” he said), and he seemed content.

On the field, Hyde said Davis has been launching balls onto Eutaw Street during batting practice. We’ll see if that continues, and what happens with everything else, once (fingers crossed) the games begin.

The day he heard that the NBA was shutting down, Orioles pitcher Branden Kline knew that coronavirus lockdowns were catching up to professional sports, but he didn’t realize just how quickly they would come for spring training.

“That day we had a game,” he remembers. “We were on the bus going to Fort Myers to play the Twins. About 10 minutes later they turned the bus around to go back. That’s when it sunk in: Oh crap, this is real.”

Major League Baseball had also shut down. Kline hung around the Sarasota facilities for a week or so and then realized there was no point in staying. He went home to Augusta, Georgia, to be with his wife, Sarah, and almost 3-year-old daughter, Adalyn (or Addy).

Kline has relished the time with his “girls,” as he calls them—the greatest silver lining of this whole pandemic. He’s been cooking more—learning marinades, Instant Pot recipes, and mastering his best dish, a chicken thigh wrapped in bacon with sweet potato—and cleaning, too. He’s also been amazed at how much destruction a little 2-year-old girl can do.

Kline calls himself a coffee connoisseur—“or coffee snob, if you prefer”—and has been learning more about different kinds of beans, from different roasteries and regions. He’s also getting into wine, learning about how factors like sun, temperature, and time of harvest can affect the taste.

“That’s the kind of thing that fascinates me, in a nerdy way,” he says.

Despite living in Augusta, home of the Masters, he says he’s not a great golfer—yet.

“If you saw me play right now you would throw up,” he cracks. But he’s determined to get good. It’s the competitor in him (his father and brother-in-law are both pretty decent golfers).

For entertainment, he and Sarah just finished Netflix’s The English Game, about the early days of soccer, which he recommends. And they’ve taken on a massive undertaking: rewatching every Marvel film, from the beginning.

“That’s been time consuming,” he admits.

Mostly, he’s been hanging out with Addy, whom he says is always sunny and happy, and lifts his spirits “except for when she’s tired or hungry,” he chuckles. “Then she can be a little bit of a monster.”

Addy even became something of an online sensation when she was featured in the Orioles “Story Time” video series. The mop-topped cutie, dressed in dinosaur jammies, sat on her father’s lap us he started to read Lizzie the Lioness.

“Mama’s gonna read book!” she announced.

“Mama’s going to read book later,” Kline replied.

He subsequently got to the bottom of it:

“We found out that my wife would also sing her a couple of lullabies [after story time],” he says. “So I looked up the lyrics to some of her favorite lullabies [and sang them to her]. Ever since then, she’s had no problem saying Daddy Reads Books!”

Kline, who stays in touch with his teammates through video calls, has even managed to find some creative ways to stay in shape while cooped up at home.

“I’ve used Addy herself as gym equipment,” he says. “I’ll put her on my back to do some squats and pushups, just some core stuff. She has a field day with it.”

He’s also incorporated his lab-shepherd mix, Zoey, into the routine. In one video that he posted to Instagram, Kline does squats while holding the large, heavy dog, who dangles gamely. (He even added the hashtag: #NoGymNoProblem.) Kline says he was lucky to capture that moment on film.

“Ever since then, I can’t hold her for more than 20 seconds without her going ballistic on me,” he says.

As Kline waits to hear when MLB will start back up, he has been thinking a lot about his teammate Trey Mancini, who is undergoing treatment for colon cancer.

“I love the guy,” says Kline. “I always will. The biggest thing that [his teammates are] expressing to Trey is that we’re always with him. He’s not in this fight alone. He’s such a high-spirited young man. It’s incredible. Even with this devastating news, he’s still looking at the positives. I look forward to being able to see him again. Hopefully, when this is all said and done, we can be back to talking about Trey Mancini on the baseball field.”

Trey Mancini was still woozy from the anesthesia, and when he woke up in the doctor’s office in Florida, his girlfriend, Sara, was squeezing his hand.

Then the doctor began to speak, matter-of-factly—as the 27-year-old Mancini describes it in a first-person essay he published in The Players’ Tribune this week— about the results of the emergency colonoscopy he’d just undergone.

He started by eliminating all the possible things it could have been…Before he even said the word cancer I was thinking to myself, there’s no way that he’s about to say what I think he’s about to say.

And then he said it: They had found a malignant tumor in my colon. My dad’s an OB-GYN. I’m familiar with the way doctors talk. I knew immediately that this was real.

That doesn’t mean it wasn’t shocking.

This was in February, just weeks after Mancini—the Orioles most established player and biggest fan-favorite on the current roster—arrived in Sarasota seemingly healthy for his seventh spring training with the team. He was coming off the best year of his pro career.

Stage three cancer? In his 20s? He had felt a bit more sluggish than usual during practices in Florida, but didn’t think anything was seriously wrong. He had already chalked his tiredness up to old(er) age, though he was excited, too.

Even the doctors, before the colonoscopy, paired with an endoscopy—where they thread a tiny camera down your throat and into your intestines—said they were expecting to most likely confirm that he had celiac disease, based on a pair of blood tests that showed he had low iron levels.

And less than a month before all that, Mancini was enjoying the last bit of the off-season in Miami with friends for Super Bowl week in late January. We spoke with him then, for a story in the April issue of Baltimore, and talked mostly about the ins and outs of the O’s data-driven organizational overhaul.

But, as we finished, we chatted casually about non-baseball matters, too. Health was not one of them. Was the O’s first baseman and outfielder actually going to the big game? “No, no,” he said, almost stunned at the suggestion. “I think the cheapest ticket is like five grand. I like watching on TV anyway, so I think I’m just going to do that.”

The response was typical, humble, and down-to-earth Mancini. He probably wanted to see the commercials as much as the game itself. The $5 million per year deal he signed in January—a huge upgrade from a $575,000 per year salary in 2019—clearly hadn’t changed his outlook on life.

And, without any hyperbole or exaggeration, cancer still hasn’t warped his view. “I want everybody to know I’m O.K.,” he said in his essay.

A week after the colonoscopy, Mancini had surgery to remove the tumor. He then started receiving chemotherapy treatments on April 13, and will do so every two weeks for six months at a Baltimore hospital. “I would say I’ve been handling the chemo pretty well so far, so hopefully it stays that way,” he told us in a text on Thursday, after we shared a message of support.

But even if baseball were to return in 2020—if the COVID-19 pandemic eases in the weeks and months ahead, and large public gatherings are allowed again—Mancini says he would probably still miss the entire season. What’s more, during the social-distancing era, he can’t have any visitors in the room with him during treatments.

As he wrote:

I know reading everything and seeing that I had a malignant tumor removed from my colon, it’s a lot to absorb—believe me, I know.

I’m not really big on social media, but I posted a video on Instagram after my surgery because I wanted people to see that I looked like myself and I was in good spirits. And I have no doubt that, even when I’m doing chemo, I can work out and do some things. So, whenever the time comes for me to come back to baseball, I’ll be ready.

But I just want to make sure that I am physically fine before I go out there and start trying to perform again at a major league level. Don’t get me wrong—I have bad days. I ask, “Why me? Why now?” And that’s when Sara’s been really good about kicking me in the rear. But she doesn’t have to do that too often, because I truly know how blessed I really am.

Mostly, Mancini is thankful. He was already appreciative to the team that drafted him out of Notre Dame before all this. He’s repeatedly pledged his commitment to the Orioles’ rebuilding project over the last few seasons, even as he was paid close to the Major League Baseball minimum salary after finishing third in American League Rookie of the Year voting in 2017.

As the organization has transitioned from a veteran-heavy Buck Showalter-guided playoff contender to Baby Bird-flavored rebuild under new leadership of manager Brandon Hyde and general manager Mike Elias—no player, in fact, has been as publicly loyal to the franchise as Mancini has.

He was finally rewarded in January, with the more than $4 million raise, and says he still wants to be around for the long-haul.

“Of course, of course,” he said in January, when we had asked if he was happy to be with the team, in the wake of other valuable players like Jonathan Villar and Dylan Bundy getting traded in the offseason. “I’ve always, always loved my time in Baltimore and even in the minor league system from the second they drafted me, I’ve always loved it.”

And, practically speaking, without a routine pre-season physical ordered by the O’s, including blood tests, the cancer would have been even worse if discovered anytime soon at all. “There was really no indication that anything was wrong other than me just feeling a little more tired than normal,” he wrote in The Players Tribune. “Everything that comes up when you Google colon cancer? I didn’t have any of it.”

For that reason, Mancini—of course, with the perspective that he had—is already talking about becoming a spokesperson for for things just as simple as getting regular physicals. First, though, he has treatments of his own.

“I’ve got other things to worry about right now,” he says. “I know that. But still, every once in a while I catch myself thinking ahead—to when chemo is over, to when they remove my port, to when I can start going full-speed again.”

In the scheme of things, like oh, I don’t know, a global pandemic, tattered economy, eerily empty streets, that sense of “WTF” that’s just hanging in the air like a bad smell, should we even bother to lament the loss of Orioles baseball in Baltimore this spring?

Let’s.

In normal times, even normal hard times, you could count on baseball as a daily distraction this time of year.

But not this year. Oh no. No Opening Day. No daily box scores. No games on TV. No Orioles to fret over, complain about, or see in person at Oriole Park at Camden Yards. Tom Hanks’ character in League of Their Own famously said, “There’s no crying in baseball!” But dare I ask, is there crying when there’s no baseball?

What to do? Like with most things related to the coronavirus crisis, there’s not much we can do but stay home. But since we’re stuck at home, let’s do what baseball fans do best: complain! Without further ado, here’s a list of baseball and Orioles aspects of life I’m missing most right now:

Stolen Memories from Opening Day 2020

The season was set to begin on Thursday, March 25, 2020, with a 3:05 p.m. first pitch against the Yankees. The Yankees! That day was crisp and clear. Sun in the sky and a high of about 60. Every year, I close my office on Opening Day and bring the team down to celebrate the start of the season and the start of spring. Baltimore’s downtown streets and bars would have been packed, full of life, and, dare I suggest, optimism? I know the Orioles weren’t predicted to be very good, but there would have been a sense of hope in the air—along with a whole lot of alcoholic beverages.

The Day-in, Day-out Routine of Following The Orioles

True story: A few years ago, I took a client to an Orioles game. This client, let’s call him, Jason, because that’s his name, was not a big baseball fan. But he was a sports fan, and as we settled into our seats, he asked me, “Greg, do you watch a lot of the Orioles games?” And I said “Jason, I watch all of the Orioles games.”

I’m not completely insane or a masochist. I don’t watch every pitch of every game. I definitely did not follow every game the last two seasons when the Orioles were brutally bad. But I do keep tabs on most games, whether on TV or on the MLB app or the radio. There’s a comfort in having the game on TV as background noise. You don’t have to watch every pitch, but it’s just there, waiting for you.

Going to the Games

Let’s be honest. Baltimore has become much more of a Ravens town throughout the last 20 years. The Orioles own the nostalgia and the history, the Ravens own the passion.

That said, baseball is different in that there’s a game nearly every night. During an Orioles homestand, the downtown area begins to simmer with energy in the late afternoon as the outdoor vendors set up, and the fans start to walk along Conway, Pratt, and Eutaw Streets. Fans from visiting clubs emerge from nearby hotels in their jerseys. The calls of “Five-dollar-hats!—get your five-dollar-hats here!” ring through the air. But not this year. There’s no “cheaper-on-the-outside” hot dogs and icy cold beverages. It’s just quiet.

Obviously, the bars and restaurants around the stadium are hurting—like bars and restaurants everywhere—as are the Orioles’ seasonal employees such as vendors, ushers, and security personnel. As is true for everyone who works in the hospitality industry, these are challenging times. For all of us.

Stadium Food

A subset of missing going to the game is missing the ritual of stadium food. Whether your pleasure is a juicy Boog’s BBQ, funnel cake, Boardwalk fries, a grilled sausage with the works, a crabby mac and cheese dog, tacos, nachos, crab dip-smothered waffle fries, chicken tenders, icy cold draft brews, or flagging down Clancy or Howard the vendor for a canned beer, or cooling off with soft serve in a helmet cup, or… (I could do this for a while)—if you’re anything like me, you miss stadium food.

And it’s not just the food. It’s the planning and talking about what snacks you’re going to get. In my family, if I wasn’t able to tell the 15-year-old (not a huge baseball fan) that he’s getting some tenders and fries and soft serve at the stadium, I’d have a much harder time getting him out of the house.

Bonding Time

All of these experiences—watching on TV, going to the game, talking about the Orioles, texting about them, following them online—create bonds and opportunities for connection with friends and family. Taking my wife and two boys to the game is a good reason to do something together.

Our 12-year-old is a big baseball fan, and the ebb and flow of the season gives us daily opportunities to connect. Last season, for example, we both became big Hanser Alberto fans, as the young infielder found a home with the Orioles and improbably made a run for the batting title. Whenever he came up to hit, one of us would say, “It’s your boy, Hanser Alberto!”

I’ll end with this. Baseball is about family for me. My dad is a huge fan, as was his dad, who left us way back in the mid ’90s. My grandfather took his boys, my father and his brother, to the parade downtown in 1954 to celebrate the Orioles’ arrival from St. Louis. For the last 65 years, Orioles baseball has been a staple of spring in this city. And it will be again, we just have to wait it out, kind of like a very long rain delay.

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Greg Abel is the founder and CEO of Abel Communications, a Baltimore public relations firm. He can be reached at greg@abelcommunications.com

University of Maryland sophomore Jalen Smith, the 19-year-old former Mount St. Joseph’s star, typed out a message yesterday in an attempt to process the shocking news he’d just learned.

March Madness, the whole thing, cancelled.

It is, and the feeling applies to a lot of us at this point.

As novel coronavirus fears and prevention measures sweep the country, the NCAA—the national governing body of college athletics—made the unprecedented move on Thursday to cancel the 68-team men’s basketball tournament as part of a decision to end competitions in all spring sports.

It’s the first time in the 80-year history of the bracket-busting tournament that it won’t be played—and the news came quick. On Wednesday, it was announced March Madness games would be played without fans, which was weird enough to think about.

A day later, hundreds of thousands of college kids like Smith were digesting a sudden end to their seasons, and their entire playing careers, in some cases, like Terps senior captain Anthony Cowan, Jr. And Smith, too. He might test the NBA waters and enter the draft.

Business as usual in the U.S. is suspended for the time being. Many government officials have taken measures to limit public gatherings in an effort to stop the spread of COVID-19—for which there’s no vaccine and specifically impacts those over the age of 60 and those with underlying medical conditions.

That goes for events like weddings, court trials, conferences, and schools. After the Big Ten conference cancelled the rest of its spring seasons earlier on Thursday, Maryland coach Mark Turgeon released a statement saying that “the health and safety of our student athletes and entire program is paramount. This is an unprecedented situation that is much bigger than basketball.”

It sure is. In the local sports world alone, Orioles opening day, as directed by Major League Baseball, has been pushed back for at least two weeks. Spring training games in Florida have been cancelled, though the team will still practice and continue precautions they began last week.

And the postseason hopes of teams from colleges like Maryland, Loyola, Johns Hopkins, Towson and many others are now over before players even took the field. Same goes in the ranks of public schools throughout the state, which will be closed for at least the next two weeks.

Mancini has tumor removed; Awaits test results

Meanwhile, all the coronavirus news has overshadowed another big piece of news with the Orioles this week.

Trey Mancini, the team’s most established figure and a fan-favorite, had surgery yesterday to remove a malignant tumor from his colon. He expects lab results back next week, and there’s no timetable for a recovery yet. He left the team last week after a colonoscopy revealed the tumor.

Mancini, 27, shared his thanks with everyone who sent messages and notes of encouragement. “The outpouring of love and support I have received has made an extremely tough week so much better,” he said. “I have the best family, friends, fans, and teammates imaginable.”

Yanda retires from the Ravens

Finally, longtime Ravens offensive lineman and potential future Hall-of-Famer Marshal Yanda formally announced his retirement—and look, his buddy Joe Flacco returned to Owings Mills for the press conference at the Ravens practice facility…

The Ravens have already announced that Yanda will be inducted into the team’s Ring of Honor at M&T Bank Stadium. Until then, we’ll remember the scene of the grizzled, sweaty, and frustrated 13-year-pro in the Ravens’ locker room after their shocking early playoff exit against the Tennessee Titans in January. That showed the type of person he is.

Yanda was adamant at calling out Titans rookie defensive lineman Jeffery Simmons for allegedly spitting in Yanda’s face during the game. “I just want to put him on notice in the media,” Yanda said. “I’ve never done this in my career, but I just wanted to let you know there’s a right way and a wrong way to play football, and that guy did not do it the right way today.”

Turns out the notice was a parting gift.

A few weeks ago, Orioles manager Brandon Hyde spoke to us by phone from his home in Illinois (where he used to work for the Chicago Cubs) and—especially considering the snow falling outside his door—he said he was already picturing the images of spring training.

Ah, sunny Florida. Baseball all day on beautifully manicured fields. The crack of wooden bats. Technology like motion-capture video cameras capturing pitchers’ every throw. And, generally speaking, all of the things that will go into year two of the Orioles’ ballyhooed rebuilding project.

“After the first of the year, your mind always starts racing,” said Hyde, 46, who has been coaching in major league organizations since 2005 and is now in his second season as O’s manager. “You start thinking about spring training and the season a lot. So I’m definitely ready.”

There’s a lot to think about this year, as hope springs anew.

A generous group of 66 players has been invited to the team’s preseason facility in Sarasota this year. The new front-office regime, led by former Houston Astros scouting director Mike Elias and director of decision sciences (real job title) Sig Mejdal, now have a full season behind them—one with 108 losses. They’re just now really putting their stamp on the organization.

The big picture includes stocking the Orioles’ minor league rosters with talent. Catcher Adley Rutschman, last year’s No. 1 overall draft pick, is the most notable.

And it means building for the future, like when this offseason Elias traded second baseman Jonathan Villar and pitcher Dylan Bundy, who had been one of the longest-tenured O’s, for pitching prospects.

Rebuilding also means figuring out what to do with the second overall pick in this summer’s draft, as well as investing in an analytics operation and international scouting efforts in places like Venezuela—which were behind the times under previous front-office leadership.

And doing all that while, hopefully, putting a respectable team together on the field in the present.

“We’re looking at this season through a player development lens,” Elias said during a recent interview for a story slated for an upcoming issue of Baltimore, “but we also want to have a good atmosphere at the major league level.”

In the meantime, before we start thinking about deep playoff runs and reliving the glory days of 2014, there’s a lot of games to be played. To be precise, 162 a season plus nearly two months of spring training games and practices—which are just kicking off. Pitchers and catchers, and a few other position players like the team’s most established and visible figure, Trey Mancini, arrived in Sarasota this week.

Other names are likely off the casual fans’ radar, but some may crack the lineup at some point this season—particularly infielder Ryan Mountcastle, left-handed pitcher Keegan Akin, and California native pitcher Dean Kremer, who was part of the trade that sent Manny Machado to the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2018.

“I think you’re going to start seeing some of our farm guys break through to the big leagues,” Hyde said.

And there’s others who got seasoning at the top level last year and are back for more, like outfielders Austin Hays, Anthony Santander (subject of the U.K. Boy Scouts’ fan club), and infielder Hanser Alberto.

There’s plenty of big questions, too. Most notably, who will be the team’s starting catcher, how will the O’s pitching hold up, and what does Chris Davis look like this year? (Please don’t boo him on Opening Day, people.)

As for the highest-profile of prospects, that’s Rutschman, who this time last year was in college at Oregon State. But he’s already becoming a visible face of the O’s rebuild. In roughly a month last summer, the O’s promoted him twice up the minor league system, and he impressed with the Aberdeen IronBirds and Delmarva Shorebirds. Over the last week, he was part of the O’s preseason caravan across the Baltimore area, engaging with fans and even serving drinks, to the best of his ability…

Rutschman recently got the TMZ treatment (he looked slightly peeved, do these guys even introduce themselves?) at Reagan Airport in Washington, D.C., and told the paparazzi he wants to play in Camden Yards as soon as possible. Elias said he’s been very impressed with Rutschman, and is looking forward to having him at spring training.

“I think it will be nice for the big league staff to get a look at him, but also it will be good experience for a young guy like him,” Elias said. “He still has the entire minor league career ahead of him. There’s ups and downs and every pick is different, but we’re excited to have him. He’s got a great head on his shoulders.”

Elias has done this before, being part of build-by-numbers and scouting projects with Houston and the St. Louis Cardinals. His previous employer, the Astros, of course, have become the subject of scrutiny and attention—even beyond baseball—for a sign-stealing scandal during their 2017 World Series-winning season and the early part of 2018.

Elias and Mejdal were both part of the organization at the time. But as we reported a few weeks ago, neither were mentioned in major league baseball’s report that punished the Astros’ general manager, Jeff Luhnow, and manager A.J. Hinch, and set off a media firestorm that seems to only be intensifying as the preseason begins.

Asked if he knew about the situation when he was in Houston, Elias told us, “My work and focus was with the Astros’ was the minor leagues, the international scouting department, the domestic scouting department, and I’ll leave it at that,” he said. “It’s an issue that I’m glad baseball is rectifying.”

In the wake of the news of Kobe Bryant’s tragic death in a helicopter crash that also took the life of his 13-year-old daughter, Gianna, as well as seven other passengers Sunday, shock and sadness have reverberated throughout the sports world and beyond. As the nation grieves the legendary Los Angeles Laker and his aspiring WNBA star daughter, “GiGi,” people are undoubtedly hugging their loved ones a bit tighter, and reexamining what it means to truly live life to the fullest.

Many have taken to social media to mourn the devastating loss, including several athletes, celebrities, and community leaders from Maryland. Here are some of their reactions:

I idolize Kobe. I always looked up to him. He was the reason I was a Lakers fan. And just knowing that we lost that type of legend and that type of leadership in this community, in this world, it hurts a lot.” —University of Maryland Terrapins forward Jalen Smith to 247 Sports.

This is one of those 24-hour news cycle, pop-culture scandals in which you hope you don’t know anyone involved. People are getting fired. Reputations are being tarnished. Dubious labels have been ascribed to those implicated, and it’s all trending on Google.

Meanwhile—ho hum here in Baltimore. Despite our circumstantial connections to the ordeal, we’re just sitting back and watching it all happen.

The news broke in the sports world Monday and started to go mainstream, because since when has the public not enjoyed a juicy scandal? The Houston Astros—a team we’ve become familiar with given that the Orioles poached ex-Astros executives Mike Elias and Sig Mejdal to run the O’s front-office at the end of 2018—used an elaborate, technology-driven, and illegal sign-stealing scheme to gain an advantage during their 2017 World Series-winning season.

In a nine-page report released to the public, Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred outlined the circumstances and shared the details. After interviewing 68 witnesses and 23 current and former Astros players, as well as chasing down team email, text, and Slack communications, Manfred said the league determined that the scheme—which involved a dugout television, team video employees, and hitting a garbage can with a bat—was “player-driven.” And yet, he handed out punishment to everyone but those who take the field because they knew, but did nothing to stop it.

The Astros were fined $5 million and will lose multiple draft picks over the next two years. Jeffrey Luhnow, the team’s general manager (aka the guy who picks the players), and manager A.J. Hinch were suspended for one season each. The team’s owner went another step further and fired both later on Monday.

We read the details of the MLB report closely since Elias, hired as Orioles general manager in November 2018, and his top aide, former NASA engineer Mejdal, worked closely with Luhnow and Hinch for years with the Astros – before arriving in Baltimore with plans to turn around our dear franchise with their analytics-driven approach.

From the “no news is good news” department, neither Elias or Mejdal’s names—nor those of the several other ex-Astros employees now with the Orioles—were mentioned in the ominous, single-spaced, Times New Roman, size- 12 “Statement from the Commissioner” report, which you can read in its entirety here.

It makes sense. Elias and Mejdal with the Astros were primarily focused on scouting, player selection (the draft), and development. They weren’t necessarily involved in the everyday pitches and strikes operations of the team during the season, though they could have seen trends in on-field performance and had been wondering what was going on.

But they certainly weren’t in the Astros dugout at Minute Maid Park during games, where and when this all went down. In fact, Mejdal was on the bench of the Astros minor league teams during the 2017 season. But the ex-Astros closeness to the situation does have some O’s fans on edge. They’re wondering, in the words of those talking-head lawyers on TV: Who knew what and when?

Manfred reportedly has told teams not to discuss the story publicly. But in November, after the allegations of cheating were levied by former Astros pitcher Mike Fiers in a story for sports website The Athletic, Elias defended the Astros organization in comments made at the league’s winter meetings.

“I hate to see those accomplishments and those people disparaged just by association with a couple of weird episodes,” Elias told the Baltimore Sun in November. (He declined comment to the paper on Monday.) “We’ll see how it all shakes out, but there are a lot of positives—the people who run that place and the operation as a whole that just unfortunately is being overshadowed by some negativity right now…We’ll see where the league takes it. But I hope for the best.”

So do we. Since then, everyone named by the commissioners’ office in its public report is now unemployed, even those who had left to go to other teams, like former Astros bench coach and Red Sox manager Alex Cora and former Astros player Carlos Beltrán—allegedly the player brain behind the operation. He was hired as the New York Mets manager in November for his first pro coaching job, but was let go on Thursday before even managing one game.

Luhnow, Elias, and Mejdal go way back. The now former Astros GM gave Elias his start in pro baseball, hiring the 24-year-old former Yale pitcher to be a scout with the St. Louis Cardinals in 2007. Luhnow had also hired Mejdal for his first job in 2005.

In any case, the fallout hasn’t reached the Orioles, an organization that’s put its faith in a potentially long rebuild and organizational overhaul just starting with a few former Astro minds at the control. In addition to Elias and Mejdal, there’s Orioles director of pitching Chris Holt and director of baseball development Eve Rosenbaum, hired in mid-November as the highest-ranking female front-office official in baseball, who were also with the Astros in 2017.

As for the saucy details of “sign-stealing,” much of what we do know is what Major League Baseball has shared — and the operation is almost comical as it is illegal. Also, importantly and lost in the headlines of the story, it resembles a centerfield-camera involved process commonly thought to be used by as many as six teams as late as the 2018 season, according to veteran baseball writer and broadcaster Tom Verducci.

During home games throughout the 2017 season, Astros players observed the game live using a television monitor in the hallway of their dugout. Specifically, they used a centerfield camera view from behind the pitcher, which is used primarily for player development (legal then, not now), to figure out an opposing catcher’s signs—the gestures made with his hands indicating fastball, slider, curve, whatever. Certain players, and Astros video employees, then matched up the catcher signal they saw on TV with the pitch that was ultimately thrown on the field.

Once their opponents’ signs were “decoded,” according to MLB findings, one or more players watched the live view of the catcher during the game. And in the dugout, “a player would bang a nearby trash can with a bat to communicate the upcoming pitch type to the batter…Generally, one or two bangs corresponded to certain offspeed pitches, while no bang corresponded to a fastball.”

Manfred’s report said witnesses presumed that anyone near the dugout could hear the banging of a trash can—and that Astros video employees were also running a similar cheating scheme that relayed pitch information to a runner on second base, who could then share it to their teammate standing in the batter’s box so he knew what type of pitch was coming. There’s also a conspiracy theory involving a “buzzer” system.

The funny thing is, sign-stealing is within the rules in pro baseball. But using electronic equipment during games to do so, isn’t. We can easily imagine Beltrán, the former Astro and now fired-before-coaching-a-game Mets manager said to have conceived the idea of using the live TV feed, rationalizing that the technology is available to every team, and that people have always stolen signs. And indeed, during the same 2017 season, the Red Sox and Yankees were fined for similar methods.

(Related, Beltrán’s ability to similarly use video—between games, totally legal—to pick up on opposing pitch-selection tendencies were actually previously revealed in detail in Ben Reiter’s book Astroball, which chronicled the rise of the franchise’s analytics-driven approach and the 2017 World Series winning season. It’s very interesting reading now, in hindsight.)

The truth is, when reporting on this situation, words need to be chosen carefully. Saying anyone was “spared” or “avoided” punishment from the ongoing scandal, as we first considered, implies that there was guilt along the line and people got away with it. That’s not what we want to suggest.

We’re just thankful all’s quiet on the Birdland front.

The Baltimore Ravens are giving purple pride an entirely new meaning this season. The Lamar Jackson-led flock—which has been undefeated since October and subsequently inspired a heightened sense of hometown pride—is heading into its first playoff game against the Tennessee Titans on Saturday, January 11. Of course, there will be plenty of “Big Truss”-themed watch parties and food-and-drink deals on game night. But if you’re looking to get into the spirit well ahead of time, the team is hosting a number of community rallies leading up the first AFC divisional round. So throw on a jersey, crack open a beer, and celebrate the Ravens’ stellar season at these community events and purple parties this week.

FLOCK FESTIVITIES

1/8: Car Stenciling in Canton
Pull up to the Safeway on Boston Street from 6-7 p.m. to have your car decorated with an official Ravens decal. Former players Adalius Thomas and Cary Williams will also be on hand to sign autographs and hype up the crowd.

1/9: Flock Party at White Marsh Mall
Beginning at 4 p.m., the section of White Marsh Mall near the Macy’s Home Court will transform into a full-blown Ravens headquarters—complete with spirited cheerleaders, former players, marching band performances, and a visit from Poe himself. Snap selfies with all of the attendees while entering into contests and giveaways.

1/9: Ravens “Pup” Rally at Checkerspot Brewing Company
In what we’re sure will be one of the most adorable Ravens events ever, Checkerspot Brewing—located just a stone’s throw away from M&T Bank Stadium—is hosting this “pup” rally for dogs to come decked out in their purple bandanas, bowties, and jerseys. From 5-8 p.m., pups will enjoy dog treats from Sweet Paws Dog Bakery while running around on their own mini football field. Plus, humans can take advantage of $5 pints of Checkerspot beer and shop signature Dogs of Charm City merch. A portion of all proceeds will be donated to The Humane Way Animal Rescue and its work for dogs in need.

1/9: Bud Light Rallies in Federal Hill
Former Raven Jarret Johnson will be bouncing around bars on South Charles Street in Federal Hill on Thursday night from 6-8 p.m. Head to spots including Ropewalk Tavern, Wayward Smokehouse, The Charles, Mother’s Grille, Bandito’s Bar + Kitchen, and Don’t Know Tavern on Light Street to catch the legendary linebacker and enter to win tickets to Saturday’s playoff game. There will also be bar bingo, autographed merchandise, and, of course, discounted Bud Lights.

1/10: Purple Friday Fuel Up
Start your Purple Friday off right with this morning tailgate in Lot D at M&T Bank Stadium. From 6-10 a.m., enjoy car stenciling, food, and a live broadcast with 98 Rock’s morning show. Former players Edwin Mulitalo and Chris McAlister will be on site to give away a pair of tickets to the divisional round.

PLAYOFF PARTIES

Alexander’s Tavern: Starting at 7:15 p.m., one hour before kickoff, this Fells Point staple will be backing the birds with tons of drink specials. Watch the game on one of the many big screens while taking advantage of $3 Bud Light drafts, $15 hard seltzer and microbrew beer buckets, $5 wings, and half-priced orders of Alexanders’ famous tots.

Purple Postgame at The Admiral’s Cup: Depending on the final score, prepare to celebrate a victory or dance away your sorrows at this post-game party in Fells Point. Local cover band In Too Deep will take the stage following the game at 11:15 p.m. to perform its roster of early-aughts hits by the likes of Weezer and Blink 182.

Cardinal Tavern: What’s a Ravens watch party without flowing pints of Natty Boh? Gather with fellow fans at this Canton corner bar to enjoy $4 Boh drafts, as well as $4 rail drinks, $6 appetizers, and $6 craft drafts during all-night happy hour. There will also $3 Narragansett and Bud Light beers and $10 Bud Light buckets if you’re drinking with a crew.

Charles Village Pub Towson: Grab a spot at this popular Towson haunt to share discounted beer buckets while digging in to an array of tailgate-themed food specials. Among them are $5 buckets of fries or tots, $8 boneless Buffalo bites, and $10 crab pretzels, chicken tender baskets, and all-American burgers.

The Charmery: It should come as no surprise that this fan-favorite ice cream shop has dreamed up a whimsical flavor to celebrate the team. Stop by one of the locations in Hampden or Towson to sample the “Lamarshmallow Twirl,” a tribute to our MVP featuring Nutella, graham crackers, and cereal marshmallows.

Playoff Purple Patio at Mother’s Grille: Mother’s in Federal Hill is starting game day with brunch service at 9 a.m. before opening its famed Purple Patio at 12 p.m. Show up early to grab a grape-flavored “Ravens Crush” and claim your spot in front of the massive outdoor projector. The bar’s popular all-you-can-drink package starts at 4 p.m.

Nacho Mama’s: Both the Canton and Towson locations of this Elvis-themed cantina will be offering cleverly named specials in honor of the playoff run. Chow down on nachos and quesadillas while sipping $5 “Lamar-garitas,” “Gus ‘The Bus’ Crushes,” and “Judon Juices.” To make the evening even more fun, bartenders will also be pouring free shots for every Ravens touchdown.

Ottobar: If you’re planning to cheer on the birds from Remington, head upstairs at the Ottobar to sip discounted drinks while watching the game on a giant HD screen. In true tailgate style, there will also be a potluck—so come equipped with your favorite game-day dish.

Papi’s Hampden: Belly up to the bar at this Falls Road hangout to enjoy a combo of three crunchy-shell tacos and a draft beer for $8 during the game. Other specials will include $1.50 Naturdays cans, $3.50 Loose Cannon IPAs, and $5 Ravens bombs that mix Deep Eddy’s lemon vodka with blueberry Red Bull.

The Sporty Dog Pop-Up Party at Safari: Hot dogs are essential at any tailgate, and local pop-up The Sporty Dog will be slinging its signature franks with outside-of-the-box toppings at this game-day takeover in Canton. Stop by to dance to live DJ music and get in the spirit with the “Ravens Dog,” which is topped with sautéed mushrooms, caramelized onions, and red cabbage curry slaw to give it a festive purple color. Other party highlights will include raffles, open bar access, and “Lamar-velous” swag by This Sporting Life.

Sitting across from us at a two-person table in the typically busy Stone Mill Bakery on a recent Friday morning, former Orioles prospect Steve Bumbry—looking as trim and healthy as a 31-year-old former baseball player-turned-yoga instructor should—acknowledges the obvious about the topic of our conversation.

“It’s a buzzword now,” he says of CBD, or cannabidiol, perhaps America’s most popular, and most Googled, extract that—if it were derived from anything other than marijuana plants—would probably be as uncommonly known as any term you’ve forgotten from a middle-school science class.

But hear him out. The fashionable acronym is just part of the story.

Bumbry, son of Orioles Hall-of-Famer, Al, is a familiar local name. He starred as a fast and strong high school outfielder at Dulaney, where he was named Baltimore County Player of the Year as a senior. He later went on to play the outfield for Virginia Tech and was selected by his hometown O’s in the 12th round of the 2009 Major League Baseball draft.

But as he pursued dreams of being part of a big league clubhouse—like the ones in Camden Yards and Fenway Park in Boston, where his father also played and where a young Bumbry hung around in as a kid—many injures piled up, and never made it out of the unglamorous minor leagues.

Today, Bumbry and his wife, Janice Ingson, live in Baltimore and are the owners of a burgeoning local health and wellness business that includes Bee Balanced Therapies, a hands-on yoga, massage and mindfulness training company, and Bee Well Living, a line of hemp-based CBD products such as muscle balms, capsules and water-soluble formulas that Jim Palmer endorses.

Bumbry credits these methods and products with “saving his life” after his baseball career came to a painful end—and he has now turned his attention to spreading the word about them. “I’ve been piecing together this all-encompassing wellness business based around those things that I’ve used personally,” he says.

This all started in earnest in 2014. The Orioles had already released Bumbry, a decision made easier by a herniated disk in his lumbar spine, when he suffered his fourth baseball-related concussion while playing with the independent York Revolution. He took a knee to the face that knocked him out while sliding into second base, attempting to break up a double play.

That incident, paired with a concussion during his college days when he woke up on a baseball field to teammates looking down at him, understandably rattled him. “My brain was already sensitive from having three previous concussions, and I was still in my mid-20s,” Bumbry says now. “I needed to re-evaluate the way I was taking care of myself.”

He decamped to his family’s winter home in Arizona to recover physically and mentally.

Playing the game he’d been part of since he could hold a tiny bat—he remembers watching his dad play basketball with Orioles teammates at Cal Ripken Jr.’s house, getting a phone call from former Red Sox star Manny Ramirez on his birthday, and receiving a custom glove from Yankees pitcher C.C. Sabathia as a gift—was now no longer an option. He was suffering from post-concussion syndrome symptoms, including sensitivity to light, and found it difficult to be outside.

And, off the field, the structure of the baseball schedule and routine, as well as the familiarity and comfort with teammates, was gone. “I was struggling,” Bumbry says. “That time was all a blur. I didn’t know what was going on. I had lost a lot of friends.”

Bumbry saw doctors and specialists and was prescribed drugs for mood, pain, muscle spasms, as well as attention deficit disorder. But he slowly found more satisfaction in natural remedies, and gravitated toward things like yoga, meditation, and self-message of his tight feet and legs.

“I just started to piece things back together,” he says, “But it started with repairing my body. Every day I started to feel a little bit better and then I realized those tools were something that I could not only help me, but help other people.”

In other words, out of an unwanted ending, came an unexpected beginning.

Bumbry decided to become a yoga instructor, then a licensed massage therapist, and he and his wife, who has taught yoga privately for a decade, started building a business highlighting what they use. In the last two years, that’s included CBD products, which seemingly overnight have gone from unknown and outlawed to available at gas stations and online from websites like Bee Well’s.

Bumbry said his father, now in his 70s, and his longtime friends and former teammates—like Palmer and golfing buddies Ken Singleton and Ross Grimsley—are among the users of his products. They’ve been known to rub some CBD on their achy parts before a round.

And beyond treating physical pain, some studies have shown the potential benefits of CBD—a nonpsychoactive component of marijuana (as opposed to THC)—to alleviate symptoms of nervous system-related conditions like seizures and anxiety. Plus, regulations have loosened. The production of hemp, which Bee Well’s and many CBD products are created from, was legalized by Congress in 2018 under the “Farm Bill.”

Still, as fashionable as the three letters are, there’s a lot of confusion and uncertainty about the legitimacy and effectiveness of CBD-related products. Bumbry can tell his story with confidence, but he recommends doing your research and talking to your primary care doctor or any specialists you see before trying anything on your own.

“It’s safe if you find someone who has a reliable product and system,” Bumbry says. “And it can help people in many, many ways. We’ve helped people with Alzheimer’s, cancer, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s. I want to be very, very, explicit…We’re not curing any of these things, but we’re helping clients manage symptoms, and chronic conditions.”

He’s even helping himself.

Unless he knows something about Fort McHenry’s future that we don’t, John Angelos—the Orioles top executive and son of Peter, the team’s principal owner—appeared to put all of the rumors of Baltimore’s beloved baseball team moving out of town someday soon to bed last week.

“No, no,” Angelos—the Baltimore native, a trial lawyer like his father, who is in charge of the Orioles day-to-day business—went on record saying from a big comfy chair during a panel discussion at Visit Baltimore’s annual meeting at M&T Bank Stadium. It was as good a time as any to refute the speculation.

“As long as Fort McHenry is watching over the harbor, the Orioles will be in Baltimore,” Angelos said in his first public comments since last month’s buzz that the team was either looking to relocate (and even had a likely new home in Nashville or Las Vegas) or would be for sale (which, reading closely, wasn’t ruled out in Angelos’ wonderful anthropomorphic statement.)

The questions stem from a confluence of uncertainties including 90-year-old Peter Angelos’ reported declining health and an unknown (at least publicly) ownership succession plan; the rebuilding state of the club; the ongoing legal dispute over television rights fees with the Washington Nationals; and, most prominently, the fact that the Orioles haven’t yet signed an agreement to play at Camden Yards after their current lease runs out in two years.

Those still scarred from the Colts’ middle-of-the-night move to the Midwest more than 30 years ago might say they’ve heard a claim like Angelos’ before, only to experience the opposite.

“I have not any intentions of moving the goddamn team,” the Colts’ then-owner Robert Irsay said during an infamous press conference, standing alongside former mayor William Donald Schaefer in January 1984 at BWI Airport. “If I did, I will tell you about it, but I’m staying here.” Two months later, fearing state seizure of the team, the Mayflower trucks packed with Colts gear and office equipment rolled out of town amid snowflakes, leaving the city sensitive to relocation rumors.

But the present circumstances are different and not as immediately concerning. Both the Colts and Orioles were seeking a new, joint stadium back then—the O’s already have a beautiful, fully capable home now, which ultimately arose from those talks—though the future, again, is uncomfortably unknown.

The Orioles’ lease with the Maryland Stadium Authority states the team can’t move from Baltimore until the current 30-year term ends in 2021, and the team has a five-year renewal option. But negotiations on a new agreement have been held up, according to a letter Governor Larry Hogan sent to Major League Baseball last year, due to the O’s never-ending multi-million dollar legal battle with the Nationals over the rightful owner of a years’ worth of MASN revenue.

Despite the money and politics involved, many fans are optimistic. It’s hard to imagine anything other than baseball happening at Oriole Park at Camden Yards, aside from a few concerts. And color me skeptical that general manager Mike Elias and assistant GM and former NASA engineer Sig Mejdal would have taken jobs here if they knew they’d be moving anytime soon. Their aptitude for gauging probabilities and risk-reward ratios is too good for that.

In any event, and thankfully, season one of this nascent, ballyhooed build-by-numbers revival is now finished. The O’s long baseball year ended on Sunday with a 5-4 loss to the Red Sox in Boston. Fifty-four wins. One hundred and eight losses. The team would have ghosted into the offseason, had it not been for this Steve Wilkerson spectacular catch, navigating one of Fenway Park’s sharp old-timey features while taking away a home run in centerfield. “Greatest HR robbery ever,” dude.

The play speaks to one major takeaway from this year: We can’t say the 2019 edition of the Orioles quit, even if players sometimes felt like they wanted to.

Sure, there was the Chris Davis mid-game blowup in the dugout (after a fielding gaffe, of all things). Davis would have done something he’d later regret to first-year manager Brandon Hyde had big Mark Trumbo and hitting coach Don Long not intervened. “That was really kind of the breaking point,” Davis said later, and frankly, we don’t blame him. His season started with a chorus of boos, a historic hitting slump, and ended with 139 strikeouts, a .179 batting average, 12 homers, and continued talk about his albatross of a contract, which has three years, $51 million (and $42 million in deferred payments in the 15 years following) still to go.

There were also the MLB-record 305 home runs that the Orioles pitching staff allowed, a number that demolished the previous mark of 258 (and a rate of almost two per game.) The Yankees’ Glayber Torres hit 13 of them, and the Astros’ Carlos Correa hit the longest homer tracked in Camden Yards history, 474 feet to centerfield.

The Baby Birds’ weekly transaction report resembled a yo-yo of players to and from Baltimore and the minor league affiliates in Norfolk, Bowie, Frederick, wherever. The O’s used 38 pitchers this season. In the statistics that most non-analytics folk are familiar with, only John Means finished with a winning record (12-11) and a close-to-respectable earned run average (3.60). Wilkerson threw five innings, and he was not the only position player to take the mound. Which is to say, the O’s are still looking for help at the game’s most important spot.

But—and this might be the optimists’ view—wasn’t this season not as bad as you thought?

The Orioles somehow won 54 games. That was anywhere from one to five less than the Las Vegas sportsbooks’ preseason predictions, but the overall record was better than last year’s brutal, franchise-worst 47-115 number. And that team had expectations of another potential Buck Showalter-led playoff run.

There’s some more good news: One of the few holdovers from the Buck era, first baseman Trey Mancini, is still with us. So is second baseman Jonathan Villar, the only Oriole to play in all 162 games. Means was a surprise all-star. Stories and possible parts of the rebuild emerged like outfielders Austin Hays and Anthony Santander (San. Tan. Dare.), who famously entertained a group of about 4,000 kids from the United Kingdom in leftfield in the dog days of summer. The Brits are apparently more grateful for a free ball than us. (Speaking of that, good for the O’s for extending foul-ball netting into the outfield.)

There’s hope you can believe in, too, namely in catcher Adley Rutschman, who the O’s drafted first overall out of Oregon State University in June. His highlights in the minor leagues made this summer somewhat bearable as the big club’s losses piled up, but also embodied the idea that this Oriole-ball project is going to take time.

Only recently did Elias begin to make sweeping front office personnel changes, as expected, firing 14 people last month (including Showalter’s son, Nathan, who was somehow still on staff as a scout), and hiring his own people like new director of player development Matt Blood. “I anticipate many more hires and additions to our baseball operations department as we proceed into the offseason,” Elias said.

Mancini, the most defined of the O’s puzzle pieces, told us something last year that continues to ring true. “It’s a process,” he said of the rebuild. “It’s not going to happen overnight. You have to get some of the right guys, people have to click, and unfortunately, it might take a couple years. That’s usually the case.”

Unfortunately, is right. Losing more than a hundred games a year, no matter how much you’re paid to play, coach, or watch a kids’ game, isn’t easy on anyone’s health. Take one night a few weeks ago, the O’s fourth to last home game of the year. It was around 10:30 p.m., and at the start of the bottom of the ninth inning, the Orioles led the Toronto Blue Jays by four runs. Maybe a thousand fans were left in the stadium. It felt almost like an open practice.

With the game’s outcome seemingly decided and a newborn baby at home, I left the press box, and headed down the stairs to get to the team’s clubhouse a little early. The Oriole Bird had the same idea. The mascot soon emerged from a nearby staging room in the bowels of Camden Yards with a big black-and-orange flag that he or she waves after wins, and the feathered animal of joy jogged down a hallway toward the field.

But soon, as I watched on a small television with a few team employees and stadium security guards, relief pitcher Miguel Castro had walked the bases loaded. One run scored first. Then, someone named Randal Grichuk hit a crushing, two-out grand slam into the mostly empty left-field stands that put the Blue Jays ahead 10-9.

In a sad yet terribly appropriate and telling image, the Bird came running back down the hall. The O’s ended up losing by 11-10 in a game that took more than four hours to finish. It was as demoralizing a defeat as we’ve ever seen, and a reminder of how much time there might be before the O’s consistently win again.

When the beloved Brooks Robinson, now 82 years old—a Baltimore treasure who hears “the greatest third baseman of all-time,” whenever anyone introduces him—arrived at Frederick Douglass High School on Tuesday morning, he saw three students walking outside. The kind soul he is, he figured he’d introduce himself.

“I gain a little humility every day I walk this earth,” Robinson said, starting to recount the story. “I said, ‘Hi, I’m Brooks Robinson.'”

The kids were probably just 70 years younger than him. And curious why the white-haired man wearing a blue blazer, collared shirt, and white pants was heading in the direction of the new baseball field behind the school.

“They’re naming a field after me,” Mr. Robinson said.

“After you?”

“Yeah.”

“Then they just kind of looked at me and headed off,” Robinson said.

So began the welcome for old No. 5—the human vacuum cleaner and autograph signer to all—to the place that will bear his name as long as they’ll play baseball and softball at Frederick Douglass High School. Brooks Robinson Field at Group 1001 Park, a multi-million dollar facility in West Baltimore built by the Cal Ripken Sr. Foundation, is a field worthy of a title sponsor and approval from the Hall-of-Fame headliner himself.

“If this is not the Field of Dreams,” Robinson said, “I don’t know what is.”

In an intimate gathering under a white party tent erected on the field, another one of our local heroes, Cal Ripken Jr., and the foundation he and his brother Billy created in their father’s honor, unveiled the state-of-the-art synthetic turf diamond (the kind that has redish turf in place of real dirt). It’s the third field they’ve built in West Baltimore in recent years, 13th in the city, and 88th nationwide since 2009.

It’s a place for kids to play, sure, instead of “maybe getting into trouble someplace else,” the Ironman said. But the first thing you notice upon arrival is the inspiring scenery—a wonderful view of the downtown skyline in the distance below centerfield. The tops of the city’s tallest buildings peak above the black chainlink home run fence that wraps around the field. Someone with imagination might also see a resemblance to Camden Yards, with the fronts of the brick houses on Windsor Avenue behind right field standing in for the Orioles’ iconic warehouse.

It took a few years and a greater-than-expected $2.5 million, but it’s now a reality—a huge upgrade from the asphalt parking lot that the school’s baseball and softball teams used to take infield practice—and the culmination of an idea the Ripken Foundation hatched in the wake of the riots after Freddie Gray’s death in 2015 to build five fields in West Baltimore. “It just didn’t seem right what was going on,” said Steve Salem, president of the foundation. “The problem is so big and so overwhelming. What could we do?”

They could do what they do. “We want to help kids, and we want to partner with people who want to help kids,” Cal said. “We want them to play, work together, take some responsibility in their lives, and learn how to be a teammate. We know the value of sport. We know the lessons it can teach. By putting a field right here, we give a lot of kids the opportunity to learn them.”

Since its inception, the Ripken Foundation has partnered with hundreds of youth development programs around the country. Its signature “Badges for Baseball” initiative, created in conjunction with the U.S. Department of Justice, encourages police officers to volunteer as youth sports coaches. The charity evolved into building fields, now in 23 states and Washington, D.C., after “we started to realize with some of our programming is that there wasn’t a safe place for it to happen,” Cal said.

The ribbon-cutting ceremony at Frederick Douglas attracted a cadre of notable guests, like mayor Bernard C. “Jack” Young, city council president Brandon Scott (who announced last week he’ll run for mayor), Hall-of-Famer Eddie Murray (who has a field named after him at James Mosher Elementary School), and private donors and supporters of the project. Among them are Kohl’s department store founder and former Ripken Foundation board chair Jay Baker and former Maryland senator Frank Kelly. It seemed nearly everyone in attendance had a direct or emotional connection to the construction.

“This is about giving people an opportunity,” said Tony Reagins, executive vice president of Major League Baseball, which donated $450,000 the project. “Sometimes all you need as a young person is a chance. This creates it.” Reagins got emotional while reflecting on his first visit to Frederick Douglass a year ago, when he spoke with baseball coach Jim Foster and saw kids practicing on blacktop instead of grass or turf.

The Ripken brothers spoke about the love for their dad, and for Robinson (“Brooks was my hero,” Cal said). Robinson shared his admiration for the former O’s manager before delivering a priceless moment for any baseball fan with a heart. The greatest third baseman of all time started talking about what many, including he, describe as the greatest baseball movie ever, Field of Dreams. He explained how and why the field that now bears his name reminds him of the film.

“I don’t go to movies much, but I saw it twice,” Robinson said. “Both times I had a little tear in my eye right down my cheek. The last part of that movie really got to me, and reminded me so much of my dad.”

He’s, of course, referring to the scene when the character played by Kevin Costner asks his father if he wants to play catch, just before the old-time Yankee heads back into an Iowa cornfield. Robinson’s dad, a semipro baseball player from Arkansas, asked his son the same question regularly. (And we are all thankful.) “My dad was my hero,” Robinson said. “He showed me what baseball is all about—how to act, how to play, give it your best all the time. I think about him all the time. That’s what I’m thinking about when I see that field here.”

As Cal pointed out, any field is only as valuable as those that use it: “When I think about this field, it’s great. The pomp and circumstance is great. But the real value of this field is those relationships that are built and the lessons that are taught on this field. We don’t even know what kind of effect that will have in the future, but we do know it’s going to be a good one.”

A few kids, if they happened to Google Brooks Robinson after meeting him outside their school this week, should have already learned a lesson in humility.

Like all of us, Billy Joel is only human. At 70 years old, the bushy black hair he once had on his iconic 1970s and 1980s album covers is long gone, and he’s now married for the fourth time. His body is a little bit rounder, his voice just a little more gravely, and his high notes a little lower—though he’s said that he’s never considered himself a great singer anyway.

Of course, critics have always tried to take shots at the man who is one of the best-selling artists of all-time, who has made 12 studio albums, and has been nominated for 23 Grammys, as well as inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He’s too pop, they say, and some of his lyrics are cheesy. Just a few months back, one Twitter user even went viral for asking: “Is Billy Joel good or bad?”

To that we say, sing us a song, please, he’s the Piano Man.

After seeing Joel at Camden Yards over the weekend, the first-ever standalone concert in the ballpark’s 27-year history, I can safely say that, even to this millennial, he’s still got it. He’s not jumping around the stage like a wild man anytime soon and hasn’t recorded a hit song in two decades, but, man, can he tell a meaningful story, and sing a catchy tune, from his seat at the piano.

What’s more, Joel’s two-and-a-half hour, two dozen-song performance on Friday night did us all a favor that lasts beyond one show. It proved that the home of the Orioles is a capable big-time live music venue for more concerts in the future.

Now, I can’t go on without telling you: I’m from Long Island, originally, so in addition to having bagels and pizza in my blood, I feel as if I’m related to Billy Joel, who grew up 25 minutes from where I did. He’s like the embodiment of my homeland, famously telling the world everyman stories of our Italian restaurants, teenage years, and New York states of mind as only a proud son can. I’d have been happy to hear him play piano and sing in the seediest bar or darkest alley you can imagine.

And I typically attend Orioles games either for work or as a fan, so when it was announced that Joel would be performing at the stadium this summer, I immediately knew that I wasn’t going to miss the chance to join the approximately 40,000 others in attendance who listened to him deliver hit after hit with his ebony and ivory instrument—rather than hearing the crack of the wooden baseball bats that usually do the work in Oriole Park.

The stage in centerfield. The speaker towers on the infield. The bright lights turned off for the evening. Guys selling concert T-shirts outside. It was groundbreaking stuff for the venue—an “I was there,” event that grew in enjoyment as the hands of the Orioles’ scoreboard clock turned in the night.

Perhaps the most indelible moment came during the most signature of Joel’s ballads, when against the backdrop of the darkened stadium dotted with light from just enough smartphones, the a capella voices from the crowd sang the lyrics of “Piano Man” back to him: “We’re all in the mood for a melody. . . ” The communal experience felt needed, and this was before the president’s Saturday morning tweets about this city.

Maybe, in the grand scheme of things, the event was a reason to get people to the stadium during the summer of a less-than-compelling baseball season. And maybe Joel was a safe pick for the occasion—a seasoned headliner who is basically a performer-in-residence at Madison Square Garden—who would no doubt attract fans to the city on a Friday evening. There are definitely flashier performers who skew younger and can do more than twirl a microphone stand when they’re not seated at the piano.

But, so what?

“Welcome to the first concert at Camden Yards!” Joel bellowed after playing his second song, “Pressure.” After that, he transitioned into a brief cover of “Bohemian Rhapsody,” acknowledging the renewed popularity of the Queen opus thanks to the recent movie of the same name, and then told a story about opening for Hall & Oates in the 1970s in Baltimore, which led to an impromptu cover of “Rich Girl.”

From there, it was mostly him, running through his own deep catalogue of tunes like “The Entertainer,” “Vienna,” and “Movin’ Out.” And as he typically does between songs, Joel delivered funny, tried-but-true asides, like a spot-on impersonation of Elton John, and one-liner quips like “This song’s from 19-who-the-hell knows” and “It might be a good time to go to the bathroom” when he played the relatively lesser-known “Big Man on Mulberry Street.” The joy in the stadium was palpable.

Now, not everything about the night was perfect. Anyone who struggled to move on the overcrowded concourse or along the packed aisles before the concert’s scheduled 8 p.m. start time would tell you that. (Unsolicited recommendation for next time: create more paths to funnel floor-seat ticketholders to the field faster, as that bottleneck seemed to fuel the backup.) Those who were told to check their bag as a result of a surprise strict policy weren’t happy either, especially anyone who had to wait until near midnight to retrieve their belongings afterwards.

But, logistical nightmares aside, it was a fun night, the type that could happen again at Camden Yards, possibly by next year, according to Orioles spokesperson Greg Bader. The team’s vice president of communications and marketing was among those enjoying himself that night, standing on the temporary white flooring about 40 rows back from the stage, right about where Adam Jones used to line up in centerfield.

“You’ll certainly see other events like this at the ballpark,” says Bader. “It was great to see so many people downtown, wandering around the area, eating at restaurants and staying over in hotels. And then selling out the concert. It was a great, great night.”

Joel’s talented band also gave a few nods to Baltimore. Backup singer Crystal Taliefero belted a passionate cover of “Dancing in the Street,” including the cheer-inducing line “Baltimore and D.C. now.” Drummer Chuck Burgi wore a No. 19 Orioles’ home jersey with his last name on it during the show. Trumpet player Carl Fischer donned a black Os jersey during the five-song encore that started with 1989’s Grammy-nominated, “We Didn’t Start the Fire.”

By then, the crowd was juiced, but alas, it was soon time to go. Fantastically, though, as we headed back to the parking lot, I heard one more song that set a romantic scene. In the distance, sounding like it was coming from the Hamburg Street light rail station, a lone saxophone played the notes to none other than “Piano Man,” once again.

And, in my mind, I hummed to myself—critics and any ridiculous cheesiness be damned:

“And you’ve got us feeling all right.”

The gesture was small in the grand scheme of things, and a ceremonial and promotional stunt all wrapped into one: Lamar Jackson throwing out the first pitch at an Orioles game, on the eve of the start of Ravens’ training camp. But the mash-up did what it was supposed to do, and caused us to wonder about Baltimore’s 22-year-old quarterback of the present and future.

Maybe it was because of the charm of Jackson’s boyish mannerisms as he bounced around Camden Yards on his first trip to the stadium, wearing an Orioles jersey with his—and Cal’s, of course—number eight (“Legendary,” Jackson said in respect), while doing stuff like eating a Boog’s turkey sandwich and meeting guys like Trey Mancini and Chris Davis in the Orioles clubhouse.

Or maybe it was how Jackson, like a good student, appeared to quickly pick up the whole pitching concept. He took instructions from outfielder Dwight Smith, Jr. (lower your shoulder, this isn’t football; but use the threads on a baseball for grip like laces on a pigskin), and practiced a few throws in the batting cage beneath the stands while waiting out a 90-minute pregame rain delay on Wednesday night.

Finally, after the skies cleared around 8:30 p.m., Jackson, now the guy, trotted out toward the pitcher’s mound, and waved his arms to excite those of the announced 20,786 paying fans still in attendance. When it was time to throw, he pretended to shake off a few signs from Smith, his stand-in catcher, then cocked his right arm, and tossed a hard, fast strike. It was just what everyone, we presume, wanted to see.

Jackson flexed and smiled as he walked from the field. “I loved it,” he said. “I had to show up and show out.” The outcome was exactly what he wanted, too, which was to not embarrass himself throwing a baseball—like rapper 50 Cent once did. (Just a bit outside!)

Cue the jokes about the Orioles needing a pitcher. . .

But O’s manager Brandon Hyde said he’d first try out Jackson somewhere else, like centerfield, shortstop, or second base given his speed and baseball teams’ premium on strength at those “up the middle” positions.

Jackson agreed. “Probably,” he said about playing centerfield, when he met with the media before the O’s played the Nationals, “but I’m a Ravens quarterback right now, so I’m good.”

Yes, he is. That might be the biggest takeaway of this week’s football-baseball crossover act. In just his second pro season, Jackson begins the year as the undisputed starting quarterback of his Ravens—the first time in a decade that anybody besides Joe Flacco can say that.

That’s why this Ravens QB—one who’s endearing, yet still maturing (aren’t we all?) and is as relatively unproven as a pro quarterback (yes, despite his 6-2 record as a rookie starter) as his skills are unconventional—was asked to come to Camden Yards in the first place thanks to our two pro sports teams getting along. And it’s why he stood in front of reporters and answered questions, covering a variety of topics and touching on his development as a billboard-status face of the franchise.

He addressed his disappointment with his Madden video game rating, 24th-best among NFL quarterbacks, and low on passing ability. But his speed and agility? No. 1. “I don’t make Madden,” he said. “It’s them.” He talked about how he’s spent the offseason (he worked out some, throwing footballs with Ravens backup quarterback Robert Griffin III and wide receivers like Willie Snead, which should be a positive signal to fans who want to see improvement there). On the Baltimore summer heat, he said being a Florida native is no solace. “I’m one of those people complaining I was sweating a lot,” he said. And he even discussed how he prefers to top his hot dog.

Because in addition to Jackson’s pregame appearance reminding us that Ravens training camp starts next week, National Hot Dog Day was observed at Orioles Park on this night, too. In a season of many fantastic fan giveaways, the O’s had one of their best, offering ketchup, mustard, and relish t-shirts—a creative nod to the famous and kid-friendly between-innings hot dog scoreboard race.

“I don’t really eat mustard,” Jackson said about his preference, “so ketchup and relish. I go from there. Pretty standard.” Like we said, charming.

At 1:04 a.m., as Tuesday night bled into Wednesday morning in Cleveland, the Orioles’ 26-year-old rookie pitcher John Means thumbed five short words and attached a family photo to a tweet that put the previous few days into picture-perfect perspective.

There he was, dressed in a red, white, and blue American League uniform, alongside his fiancée, parents, and younger brother, standing on the field before the Major League Baseball All-Star Game—the unlikeliest of places for a guy with his story.

Means started his baseball career in the Kansas flatlands as a puny 5-foot-4 high school freshman on the “D” team, two levels below junior varsity, his father, Alan, told the Sun. Four years and a footlong growth spurt later, Means was originally drafted by the Atlanta Braves in the 46th round, so deep in the process that the round doesn’t exist now.

He’s a guy who, three offseasons ago, tried his hand at substitute teaching to help pay the rent. He grinded in the unglamorous minor leagues for so long, that he almost gave up baseball altogether. Last year, while with the Bowie Baysox for the third season and making $3,000 a month, he updated his LinkedIn profile for a real job search. His skills: critical thinking, problem solving, a drive for success.

So, although Means didn’t even end up taking the mound in the All-Star Game on Tuesday night—the pinnacle of professional baseball when it comes to individual honors—you can probably imagine why he was still happy to just be invited. “I don’t think disappointed is the word,” he said after the game. “[I was] just living it out and trying to soak it all in.”

It was, after all, a surprise, as recently as 10 days ago when Means sat across from Orioles manager Brandon Hyde in his office at Camden Yards and Hyde told him he was picked as an All-Star reserve as a pitcher. “You’re joking,” Means said, generally the quiet, unassuming type. “This isn’t that funny.”

The O’s of course were pushing fans to vote for Trey Mancini into the nationally-televised summer classic, but he fell short of the results needed for a starting spot. With plenty of outfield and first baseman depth on the American League roster—and a requirement to put at least one person from every team on an All-Star Game roster—Means was chosen as the O’s representative based on peer balloting and the discretion of MLB decision-makers.

Frankly, having a relatively unknown all-star was the appropriate choice for a team in such a state of extreme rebuild like the Orioles, one with the worst record in baseball. But Means was also deserving.

Of pitchers who have thrown at least 80 innings this year, his 2.50 earned-run average—a longstanding key metric grading pitchers’ performance—ranks second in the American League. He began the year as a reliever before becoming a starter in April and has a 7-4 record.

Now, he and his path to semi-stardom is known. (On Monday night, he’ll be at the Guinness Brewery in Halethorpe for a fan meet-and-greet and drink.)

Without any college offers out of high school, Means matriculated to Fort Scott Community College in Kansas, on the recommendation of the Braves scout who helped draft him. Then, he pitched for the Mohawk Valley Diamond Dawgs in a summer league in New York in 2012, where he impressed with a 6-foot-3 frame and effective change-up. By chance, he got an offer to play for West Virginia University. A coach saw Means while he was evaluating another player the school had signed.

The Orioles picked Means again the draft in the 11th round (331st overall) in 2014. Looking back, it was a slow and steady rise from there. He played for the Delmarva Shorebirds, the Frederick Keys, and the Baysox. He was promoted to the Norfolk Tides last year and was the last minor-leaguer called up to the O’s, making just one appearance.

This is where the Orioles new analytics-driven management team comes into play with helping write this success story. This offseason, Means decided to adjust his own approach to fit the new leadership. He spent parts of the offseason training in St. Louis, working on biomechanics, and getting the most out of his body at P3 Premier Pitching and Performance. Means has never been a power pitcher. But after the offseason work, his fastball increased to 94 miles per hour from the high 80s, and he slowed down his change-up to keep hitters off-balance.

No. 67 arrived at spring training with nary an outside expectation, but his improvement was noticeable, and he made the O’s roster as one of the last players selected. In a season that was relatively a clean slate, where anyone in the organization would have the opportunity to prove themselves, Means took advantage, and set the stage for the position he put himself in this week in Cleveland.

There, he took questions on media day at the hotel, sitting in front of placard with his name on it. He soaked in the Home Run Derby as a field-level spectator on Monday night, and the next day shared the locker room and bullpen with more established players with a multi-million dollar net worth, who he joked would have no idea who he was.

Maybe this was the most lasting impression: On his way to the All-Star Game red carpet pre-game festivities, he sat with his fiancée, Caroline, a former pro soccer player, in the bed of a white Chevy Silverado pickup truck. They rolled down the street outside Progressive Field, and waved to onlookers as if they were in a high school parade.

It may have felt a little bit like Kansas, but Means’ was right. He wasn’t there anymore.

Out of a nearly empty Camden Yards and into the familiar humidity of a Baltimore summer night stepped Manny Machado, conqueror of his former home, in pursuit of a pre-planned victory feast: a pile of crabs from L.P. Steamers. Can’t leave here without them, he said earlier, “so we’ll be having some of that tonight.”

He came, we saw, and—in the San Diego Padres’ 8-3 win over the Orioles, a game that marked Machado’s first visit since being traded away nearly a year ago—he homered, a 455-footer to centerfield, the longest of any of the 100 he’s now launched into the stands here. “Was it?” he said in the visitor’s clubhouse afterward, when told of the record distance. “I guess it’s good to be back in Baltimore, hitting in this park.”

How do you put words to it? A heartbreaking homecoming might be appropriate. None of the announced 21,644 in attendance, most of whom gave Machado—the closest thing the Orioles have had to a Hall-of-Famer in two decades—a standing-ovation before his first at-bat, wanted to see him ever acknowledge the crowd wearing No. 13 in a road gray uniform. (At least he’s not a Yankee.)

And nobody knows how last year’s trade deadline move—engineered, we were told, because the O’s weren’t able to afford the type of monster contract that Machado eventually signed in free agency ($300 million for 10 years)—will look in hindsight. But, for now, none of the prospects the O’s received from the Los Angeles Dodgers in exchange for Machado, the former franchise cornerstone—a four-time All-Star, two-time Gold Glove winner at third base who will turn 27 next week—are in the majors.

Before the game, occasionally flashing a smile, Machado entertained reporters with a trip down memory lane—saying names like Adam, Schoop, Markakis, Davis, Hardy, and Buck, and recalling the excitement of the Orioles’ 2014 playoff run. He explained the “weird” nervousness he was feeling being back where it all happened.

“It’s just different,” he said, speaking in the same room behind home plate where he was introduced to the media nine years ago as an 18-year-old shortstop. “It was always coming into that same clubhouse, walking into that same door, parking in that same parking spot, taking the same route to the baseball field every day. It was just all different today.”

And he talked briefly about his frustration with how things ended with the Orioles, being kept “out of the loop,” he said, as the trade with the Dodgers was finalized by the previous front office regime before the All-Star Game break last July.

“I didn’t make the choice. It was made for me,” he said. “When you’re here for so long in a place you call home, you see the same faces every day, the same people, it grows on you. To leave like that halfway through the year kind of sucks.”

He later signed a few autographs down the third-base line, but not many. Then, shortly after 7 p.m. on a steamy 88-degree night, he stepped toward home plate, waving to the fans, some still wearing his old orange-and-black jersey, as they cheered for nearly 40 seconds and a video montage on the centerfield scoreboard showed highlights of Machado’s seven-year O’s career. He touched his right hand to the bill of his navy blue Padres batting helmet to say thanks.

It didn’t quite match the theatrics and adoration of Adam Jones’ sendoff, but “it was awesome,” Machado said. “The fans, like always, didn’t disappoint. I’ve seen it for many, many years, how they’ve gone above and beyond for us, and they did it today. The whole experience playing here brings back a lot of good memories. It’s special and something I’ll never forget.”

The O’s stadium staff even played video of The Play—Delmon’s Young bases-clearing double against the Tigers in the 2014 playoffs—as the Padres took the field for the sixth inning, and Machado put his arm around San Diego star rookie shortstop Fernando Tatis Jr., and pointed to the scene, like he were saying “This is what it could be like.”

Nostalgia, though, eventually met reality. In the third inning, Machado smacked his massive home run on the first pitch he saw from O’s starter Jimmy Yacabonis. And in the bottom of the third, Machado came the closest he did to flashing signs of that Brooks Robinson-like defensive brilliance, tagging out an audacious Dwight Smith Jr. when he overran third base following a hit down the right field line. Machado added an RBI single in the fourth, finishing 2-for-4 at the plate.

His skills, of course, nor his sometimes boorish behavior were never questioned. The business of baseball ultimately sent him away, an unfortunate truth in a modern-day professional sports era where money is usually valued more than loyalty, and change is a constant.

Case in point: As Machado exited his pre-game press conference, exasperated by the 15 minutes it took and the expected queries, he asked a Padres public relations staffer, “Do I even have time to get in the cage?”

Yes, he did. In fact, he had to wait. At almost that very moment, a 21-year-old kid by the name of Adley Rutschman, a switch-hitting catcher picked No. 1 overall by the Orioles in the MLB Draft three weeks ago, was on display in a special batting practice session organized by the team as part of his introduction to Baltimore.

The coveted prospect, wide-eyed and widely considered the Orioles best since Machado, took his first smooth swings. And on the third soft-toss pitch he saw, Rutschman sent that tiny white ball onto Eutaw Street, as if to say as one narrative was ending, another was beginning.

If Adley Rutschman is as wise and humble as his grandfather (“When are we going crabbing?” the old man asked his 21-year-old grandson after the Orioles drafted him with the coveted No. 1 overall draft pick on Monday night), we’re in for some good times for the next decade or so. If all goes according to plan.

On first impression, speaking as the main attraction at a press conference in a land far, far away in Corvallis, Oregon, where Rutschman made a name for himself playing at Oregon State University, the kid sure sounds mature beyond his time spent living, and three years attending college.

That’s good news when his fresh, rosy-cheeked face is the new image of the Orioles rebuild.

“I always pride myself on how I carry myself every day, the things that I can control,” he said. “My grandfather likes to say, ‘Control the controllables.’” We’ve heard a sports psychologist or two say the same exact thing as grandpa, who is Ad Rutschman, 86, a legendary football coach back home in Oregon.

“That’s exactly what you need to do as a baseball player,” said Rutschman (pronounced Rutch-man). “There’s so many things that are out of our control. For me, I play hard every day. I’m going to give my best effort. Maybe I’m not doing it offensively one day, but that doesn’t mean I still can’t help the team win defensively. That’s how I view it.”

Get to know the name, and the person, O’s fans. Yes, help is on the way. “It’s a true honor to be selected No. 1 overall,” he said. “It’s one of those things you dream about.”

Even with skipping his senior year of college (he’s been drafted as a junior), Rutschman might not take the field at Camden Yards for a couple years. That’s the expectation even for a guy who has a ton of baseball potential, a 6-foot-2, 215-pound switch-hitting catcher who is a front-runner to be named college baseball’s top player after hitting .411 this season. He’ll start somewhere in the Orioles minor league system.

But, who knows? With how practically everyone is talking about him, he might arrive at the major leagues sooner. In addition to the seemingly uncanny composure, he sure has the skills and the pedigree. His father, Randy, was a college catcher and is now is considered one of the foremost youth teachers of the position in the Pacific Northwest. Rutschman feels like a baseball purebred.

“The perfect prospect,” former MLB general manager Steve Phillips said of him this week, one of the highest compliments of many good things said. Baseball America, the leading scouting publication of the sport, has called him the best prospect since Bryce Harper.

Rutschman is the type—chosen with the 1-1, as baseball insiders like to say, first pick of the first round of a draft in which more than 1,000 other players were selected this week—who could one day be a household name around these parts, much like Manny Machado or Adam Jones. Depending on who you ask, he could develop into a better player than either of them.

He’s proven his wares in college and improved over time, helped by a summer stint in the Cape Cod league (Think Freddie Prinze Jr. in Summer Catch) after a freshman year in which he hit .234. The next season, in 2018, Rutschman batted .408 and helped the Beavers to a College World Series title, as the series’ most outstanding player with 17 hits. They called him “Clutchman.” Then he starred for Team USA last summer, where he hit with a pro-style wood bat, compared to the metal ones they use in college.

To give you an idea of his athleticism, he was even a kicker on the Oregon State football team as a freshman, and set the Oregon state record with a 63-yard field goal in a high school game. Can we schedule a friendly competition with Justin Tucker right now, please? Rutschman may end up playing some first base for the Orioles, too. The only knock on him is his speed.

Just last week, while he played again in the NCAA tournament, the opposing team, leading by three runs, decided to walk him with the bases loaded and allow a score, instead of taking the risk of Rutschman belting a hit or home run and scoring more. That’s an absolutely unheard of thing to see your opponent do, an ultimate sign of respect. “It is pretty surreal,” he said.

And, aside from his skills on the field, he seems like someone who would be great to take home to mom and dad. His Instagram page appears to show a well-rounded, respectable guy doing regular things, like quoting lines from Chevy Chase’s Christmas Vacation. In a nice coincidence, he won’t even need to get familiar with new colors, as Oregon State wore orange and black.

“Adley is a future fixture for this organization,” new Orioles general manager Mike Elias said. “The amount of work that’s goes into what he’s done and becoming the number-one pick is not something that’s ordinary. I met Adley this winter and was immediately struck by him and impressed by his maturity and leadership. We’re very excited about what this is going to do for our future.”

Rutschman is the first pick made by Elias, who likely will have another No. 1 overall pick to work with next season, based on the way this year’s going. The ability to pick the best prospects from across the baseball landscape is a key part of the Birds’ plan, and what made this leadership regime successful in previous stops like Houston, which won a World Series, and St. Louis, which did too. This is the business of winning, after all.

Which brings us back to grandpa, who had a bit of advice for the kid who may sound mature beyond his time, but who still can’t hold a stick to 66 more years of experience. “The first thing you do is bury the first million bucks in the backyard,” was the message for when he signs a lucrative contract.

Before all that, though, Rutschman has got finals at Oregon State to finish next week. “I’ve still got some school to do,” he said. “That’s going to be rough.” Then we’ll be happy to give him a warm welcome to Baltimore.

Mercy! The Orioles have given up so many home runs this season—105 and counting—that even the typically ebullient Gary Thorne, who is supposed to tell us what’s going on, was left speechless the other night.

“I . . . I don’t know,” the play-by-play voice of the Orioles on MASN said live on the air Wednesday when the Yankees’ Gleyber Torres hit another out of Camden Yards—his ninth homer against the O’s this season. Then Thorne delivered a demoralized, monotone version of his signature call, “Goodbye! Home run!” He’d seen enough.

Then it happened again. Two innings later, when Torres hit another dinger off reliever Gabriel Ynoa, Thorne’s reaction was correctly identified below as “dies inside.” It was Harry Doyle-esque.

So it goes for the Orioles, and even the 70-year-old, Emmy Award-winning Thorne, a 33-year baseball broadcast veteran who, as good broadcasters do, has endeared himself to much of the fanbase in 13 seasons working O’s telecasts.

We were afraid something like this might happen, in the first full season of a much-ballyhooed, publicly-stated franchise rebuild.

The O’s not only seem to be Torres favorite team to hit against (he only has two home runs against any other this year), but everyone’s.

On Monday, in the first of a four-game homestand against the division-leading Yankees (again?!), starting pitcher David Hess — who has allowed a major-league worst 17 home runs alone — gave up the team’s 100th, as the O’s pitching staff became the quickest in major league baseball history to achieve the undesirable feat.

It’s still May, there’s four months to go in the season, and the O’s unfortunately are on pace to obliterate an infamous low-water single-season record of 258 home runs allowed by the Cincinnati Reds in 2016.

To hear first-year manager Brandon Hyde describe the situation, some of it might be avoidable.

“There’s definitely a pitching plan [and] it’s definitely not throw the ball in the middle part of the plate, and we just continue to do it,” he said the other night. “That’s inexcusable at this level.”

But some of it may not. When a team decides to overhaul the roster from top to bottom and plan for the future while sacrificing the present, without a bonafide ace, and sends pitchers to and from the minors as if day-trading stocks, this is what happens. It’s hard. Even Gary gets exhausted.

Other than players and coaches, there are few people associated with a professional baseball team who see more pitches, hits, and outs than its local television play-by-play announcer.

And in our case, we’re blessed to have Thorne, a former lawyer—in his younger years, he was assistant district attorney in his native Maine—who has called national games and many sports in addition to baseball for the last five decades. (As a kid, I remember hearing him do hockey games on ESPN and locally for the New Jersey Devils.)

He and analyst and Hall-of-Fame pitcher Jim Palmer are one of the best local broadcast teams in any pro sport. In fact, right now Thorne is teaching a remote class on broadcasting for Arizona State’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication.

It’s a craft, and dedicated fans here know Thorne’s quirks, character, ties, and sometimes irreverent commentary. Some might even know his drink preferences: a glass of GTS cabernet sauvignon, or a finger of bourbon over a single ice cube. And his favorite book: The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway.

“I read it at least once a year because it’s such a concise, yet total picture of human life; battling the elements, winning, and then suffering the loss and surviving both,” he told fans earlier this year.

In addition to his signature in-game phrases like “mercy,” following a notable play, Thorne signs off a broadcast by bidding us “adieu, adieu,” for a win, or just one “adieu” for a loss.

About a third of the way into the season, so far the O’s have a baseball-worst 15 wins and 35 losses, a last-place status many observers expected. But how it’s happening is nonetheless painful. The home runs? We knew it was possible, but it hurts to see so many balls flying into the hunter green seats at Camden Yards, off the bats of the other team.

Thorne, as good voices do, spoke for a lot of the fans.

It took seven years of determination, three different surgeries, and a journey littered with doubt, but Branden Kline, hometown baseball hero, finally made it to the majors two weeks ago. The often smiling, freckle-faced, Frederick native was called up from the minors on April 20 as the Orioles’ 26th man—they needed extra pitching help—for a day-night home doubleheader against the Minnesota Twins. And he threw two innings, one perfect, and one not, when he allowed two solo home runs in the nightcap, his big league debut.

While watching from the crowd, Kline’s mother, Linda, spoke in an emotional in-game interview with MASN about her son’s long road to this moment—from the “nosebleed” seats in the upper left-field deck at Camden Yards, where he sat as a boy with her, to throwing from the pitcher’s mound, now the center of attention, while wearing a black and orange Baltimore uniform with No. 52 and the family name on his back.

Kline, now 27, the Orioles second-round draft pick in 2012 (almost a generation ago in baseball terms) spoke earnestly in the locker room that day about his at times painful, and now cathartic tale. There was the constant stream of surgeries: in 2013, to repair a broken right fibula; in 2015, a Tommy John procedure to replace his right elbow ligament, and a platelet-rich plasma injection too; and in 2017 two more arthroscopic procedures on his throwing elbow.

He shared how he cried for probably 30 minutes after Gary Kendall, the manager of the Orioles’ Triple-A team in Norfolk, Virginia, told him last month the Orioles were calling him up. And how he got emotional again when sharing the news—finally good news!—with his wife, Sarah, and their 1-year-old daughter. (And he shared this amazing heartfelt Instagram post about the entire thing.)

It was storybook stuff. A local boy, a graduate from Thomas Johnson High School in Frederick, makes the roster of a pro team he grew up watching, and after much adversity. But the big-league stay was temporary. Kline was sent back to the minors after his debut, not even long enough to make a weekend of all the fun.

Fortunately for him, in this nascent stage of the Orioles’ rebuilding project, it didn’t take long for a recall. That happened seven days later, and in even shorter time, Kline was back on mound Wednesday night in Chicago, in another doubleheader.

This time he earned his first major league win in relief, by way of being the O’s pitcher of record when they went ahead 5-4 in the eighth inning on an RBI hits from outfielder Dwight Smith Jr. and second baseman Jonathan Villar.

Kline was great in the performance, throwing a 96 miles-per-hour fastball, allowing just one hit in two innings, and helping the O’s end a four-game losing streak.

In one of the replies to this tweet, a middle-school teacher from back home told Kline he was sharing his story with students as inspiration “that hard work and perseverance can help people achieve their dreams.” To which Kline responded, “Thank you Mr. Schill. Trying my best to set a good example.”

Kline’s story is, really, what this O’s season is all about. The Birds’ record is what it is: 11-21, which is probably better than a lot of prognosticators anticipated. The playoff hopes are what they are: slim to none. The roster makeup is what it is, too: a mostly young in baseball years patchwork group, with some out-of-place parts like Chris Davis (who, by the way, has hit .300 since busting his historic hitless slump on April 13), all playing under a first-year manager.

But the guy who grew up 45 minutes from Baltimore, and even pitched for the Orioles minor league in affiliate in Frederick last year during his first healthy season in four years, could care less about the circumstances. Same goes for the 20 or so friends and family that showed up to his big league debut, and the many more that are tracking every move of his tale.

“I’ve been through a lot,” Kline said prior to the season at Orioles FanFest. “A lot of ups, a lot of downs, but that’s life. It’s not really about what you’re going through. It’s how you respond.”

Give him credit. Chris Davis, the once proud slugger and now overpaid fallen hero, stood at his locker after the Orioles’ home opener and answered the inevitable questions.

Of course the media, the conduit to the fans, wanted to know what the player formerly known as Crush thought about the fact that a good number of the announced 44,000-plus in attendance at Camden Yards booed him—loud, uncomfortably, and repeatedly—during the O’s 8-4 loss to the hated Yankees. The foul sounds started in pregame introductions, as Davis trotted down the traditional orange carpet from centerfield to a mix of cheers and boos. And the jeers intensified after each of his three strikeouts in the first, fourth, and sixth innings.

Then things reached a pointed crescendo in the bottom of the eighth inning. Little-known utility infielder Hanser Alberto, playing in his fourth game in an O’s uniform, pinch hit for Davis, the 33-year-old former MVP candidate who’s in his ninth season here. A thunderous, positive roar erupted from those still watching.

“I mean, it’s not something that I was really expecting,” Davis said afterward, with a throng of cameras and reporters surrounding him. “At the same time, I heard it a lot last year, and rightfully so. I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again, I understand the frustration. Nobody’s more frustrated than I am.”

How has it come to this? Well, it’s been a few seasons in the making, and the unravel has been fascinating.

Davis led the majors in home runs in 2013, when he finished third in American League MVP voting. He was the home run king again in 2015, albeit while also leading the league in strikeouts.

Three years later, last season, he recorded one of the worst hitting seasons in baseball history, hitting a career-worst .168, and he’s now a bad 0-for-17 with 11 strikeouts to start 2019. At times, he seems as far away from hitting a baseball as one could imagine.

This is not what anyone wants to see from someone in the middle of a seven-year, $161 million contract to do exactly that. And, in the past, some, like the O’s beloved Hall-of-Fame broadcaster Jim Palmer, have questioned his desire to put in the work to change.

But, man, the public shaming of Davis yesterday was tough to watch and hear. For boos to rain down on the guy the way they did after every at-bat of the home opener, with still 150-plus games to go this season? I’ve never been one to say that a paying fan can’t voice frustration with any player or vent anger for whatever reason occasionally, but it certainly doesn’t do anyone on the field any good. It seems almost like a more New York or Philadelphia thing to do.

Davis has been relatively open about his struggles at the plate—last year he talked with MASN’s Roch Kubatko about hitting into shifts, trying to bunt, his apparent 20/10 vision, and whether his ADHD diagnosis and treatment has anything to do with his hitting problems. He addressed the problems again at FanFest in January, and he seems to genuinely want to turn things around. You can only guess what thoughts are racing in his head as he tries to square the bat on a ball headed his way at 90-plus miles per hour, much less while he’s surrounded by a cacophony of anti-support.

“It’s very easy to shame or boo people from an outside perspective,” the Orioles young leader, Trey Mancini, said after Thursday’s game, shortly after he patted Davis on the back with encouragement after his media session. “But you never really know until you go through it. . . . [Chris] is in there every day working on things. He’s a professional. Look at the back of his baseball card and what he’s done in his career. He’s an incredible hitter and still is. I still believe that.”

“To feel that in front of your home fans, I mean, I can’t even imagine,” said yesterday’s starting pitcher Alex Cobb. “I get all sides of it. Chris works really hard. He’s a great guy. He’s one of the better teammates that I’ve had in my time in the big leagues, and I know he cares so much. I do feel for him. [But] I understand the fans’ frustration as well.”

Sure, had O’s ownership not given Davis the monster contract in January 2016 after he led the majors with 47 home runs, he’d probably have been traded long ago with Manny, Britton, and the rest of the Buck Showalter-era stars. Had he performed a bit better the last few years, maybe the O’s would have won more games. But it’s hard to pin all the faults of a team on one player, though Davis even alluded to the idea that he was a buzzkill on Thursday. “Especially a day like today,” Davis said, “the kind of game that we were having. Really had them on their heels the whole game and it was a frustrating day for me personally and the team collectively.”

The Orioles went ahead early on the second pitch of the game via a Jonathan Villar home run to right field, then scored two more runs on a bases-loaded balk and a wild pitch from Yankees’ starting pitcher James Paxton in the top of the first inning, which ended with Davis striking out swinging. The O’s eventually led the Yankees 4-2 behind a strong start from Cobb, before reliever Mike Wright threw a two-out, two-strike pitch to the Yankees’ Glayber Torres, who crushed it for a three-run home run. Luke Voit hit another three-run homer in the ninth for the final margin.

The Baby Birds are now 4-3 on the young season, good for second place in the A.L. East standings, and they play the second in a three-game series with the Yankees on Saturday night.

Perhaps the reception Davis got is more a signal that many fans have embraced the Orioles rebuild plans, and want the beleaguered slugger out of the way. That’s ultimately a good sign for new general manager Mike Elias and company. If things keep going like this, the O’s could conceivably just cut Davis, but, considering the contractual commitment involved, it’s in the team’s best interest to get the most from the player they can, to see if the new analytics-minded regime can do anything to revive his career.

As Davis even said at his locker, wearing a gray T-shirt that read “Courage” on the front in red block letters, “I’m going to be here for the foreseeable future.” He’s got four years left on his deal and you’ll hear his name long after that, since Davis is due to receive New York Mets/Bobby Bonilla-like deferred annual payments until the year 2037. (He’ll be 51 years old by then.)

“I’m going to continue to play him, and I’m going to continue to support him and find the right match-ups for him,” first-year manager Brandon Hyde said, and he was also surprised the response to Davis’ strikeouts. “I haven’t been around here, so I wasn’t aware of fan reaction. I’m not really concerned about it. I’m going to support the guys on the club. It is what it is. I’m going to continue to stay positive with him.” Hyde also correctly pointed out the hitting woes haven’t seemed to affect Davis’ defense at first base.

But Davis certainly understood what the fans were getting across.

“I don’t think anybody’s feeling sorry for me right now,” he said. “I think people are ready to see me turn it around, and I’m ready to turn it around.”

Last year was last year. This season marks the beginning of a new era of Orioles baseball, one defined by exciting young players and a front office on the analytical vanguard. Though expectations may be tempered, excitement still abounds for the Orioles’ April 4 home opener against the notorious New York Yankees. And while nothing quite compares to sitting in the outfield bleachers, nursing a drink from the newly minted Flying Dog Taphouse in Camden Yards, and thanking God for making you a country boy, these food and drink specials are the next best thing.

101 Baltimore
The battle between Baltimore and New York will not solely be contained to the baseball field. This Fed Hill hangout is staging a hot dog faceoff between iconic New York hot doggery Nathan’s Famous Hotdogs, which you might recognize as the fourth best food option at any given Six Flags or highway rest stop, and our very own Polock Johnny’s. Wash down all of the eats with $5 Union drafts and $15 buckets of Boh. Before you know it, it’ll be time for another dog. 1118 S Charles St. #101, 443-682-9480

Banditos
Mere blocks from the iconic B&O Warehouse, this lively Mexican cantina is the perfect place to root, root, root for the home team. The beer will be cheap and plenty ($5 32oz big beers, $15 buckets of Natty Boh), and nothing pairs better with a triumphant victory—or is more palliative to a post-loss broken heart—than a plate of tacos. 1118 S Charles St., 443-835-1517

BMore Around Town
Dying to drink in a parking lot? If so, you’re in luck. Tailgating pros BMore Around Town are hosting a traditional tailgate in the Camden Yards lot, with an open bar, boozy snowballs, an open buffet, and freshly shucked oysters. Tickets range from $50 to $125. 152 W Ostend St., 443-865-5935

Don’t Know Tavern
This neighborhood sports bar is known to get pretty lively for O’s games. Sip on their drink specials ($5 22 oz. Miller Lite Drafts, $ 15 Miller Lite or Coors Light Buckets, $3 Blue Moons), grab a barstool next to one of the regulars, and admire the majesty of a well-framed pitch, a quickly-turned double play, and the other minor beauties of America’s past-time. 1453 Light St., 410-539-0231

Flying Dog Pregame at the Hilton Baltimore
An annual staple, this pre-game celebration will prove that the best part of waking up is a full beer in your cup. Organized by Flying Dog Brewery, the festivities begin at 10 a.m., when you can get an early start by sampling an array of the area’s finest craft beers with hundreds of new friends. 401 W Pratt St., 443-573-8700

Gameday Firehouse
While the bar’s proprietors may be firefighters by day, this Pigtown bar-cum-firehouse is aflame with O’s pride. Baltimore’s bravest will be serving up $5 Absolut Vodka crushes, $3 16-oz. domestic cans, and $2 Budweiser and Bud Light drafts. To wit, a power hour will be held from 10 a.m.-11 a.m.—let’s hope Chris Davis can learn a thing or two. 1202 Ridgely St., 410-234-0734

Jimmy’s Seafood
Although this Dundalk institution is more known for their Ravens events, their opening day bash is equally impressive, boasting an open bar, a full buffet, and three hours of live music. Tickets start at $25 for kids and go up to $180 for a full VIP experience. 6526 Holabird Ave., 410-633-4040

Max’s Taphouse
This Fells Point drinking hole’s party is the most fun you can with orange and black clothes on. More than 15 specialty beers will be on tap, complemented by a menu of ballpark favorites. Be warned, the pregame will quickly transition to the post-game, as the revelry is an all-day affair. If you can withstand the full day, even Cal Ripken, Jr. would be impressed. 737 S Broadway, 410-675-6297

Nando’s
Don’t chicken out on Baltimore’s unofficial holiday. Instead, head to this downtown temple of poultry, order a $3 foamer, and go to town on 24 wings, a towering plate of fries, or hummus, covered in their world-renowned Peri-Peri sauce. 421 West Baltimore St., 443-681 3675

Pep Rally in the Plaza
From noon to 2 p.m., Downtown Partnership will turn Center Plaza into the capital of Birdland, replete with lawn games, food trucks, and free beer courtesy of iHeartRadio while supplies last (don’t fret, this will be supplemented by another bar with wine and beer, since the free beer will invariably be drank dry). 120 W Fayette St., 410-244-1030

Pickles Pub
Surprisingly this is one of two places that you can drink during a 6 a.m. breakfast buffet on Thursday. Spitting distance from the Brooks Robinson statue, Pickles will feature free food until 8 a.m., and $3 Deep Eddy cocktails and Orange Crushes until 9 a.m. 520 Washington Blvd., 410-752-1784

Red Star
Located in the shadow of the Homewood Campus in Charles Village, this recently opened bistro presents a more mellow option, away from the hoi polloi. You’re an adult, after all, and drinking before the sun comes up would require months of preparation to steel your body for battle. Instead, swill $3 pints of Guinness Blonde and $5 orange and grapefruit crushes in relative tranquility. 3224 St Paul St., 443-948-5539

Sliders
For the 27th consecutive year, Baltimoreans will rouse themselves from the warm embrace of sleep and make the pre-dawn pilgrimage to 771 feet away from Camden Yards to start the day off right. Drink specials (be sure to try the new Fancy Clancy Pilsner!) will be served at all 10 of the bars on location. Food is free from 6 a.m. to 8 a.m. and ante-meridiem drink specials abound. 504 Washington Blvd., 410-547-8891

Wayward Smokehouse
Barbecue, baseball, and beer are the holy trinity of spring. Luckily, this Federal Hill hotspot has all three in spades. Come join the Orioles faithful for $5 Miller Light and Coors Lights pounders, $5 Union Craft Brewing drafts, and $6 specialty Oriole bombs. 1117 S Charles St., 410-223-2269

The first impression of this Orioles season was the stunned silence from the crowd at Yankee Stadium during player introductions of our dear visiting team. So many new names, they didn’t know who anyone was. Or maybe it was simply apathy. Only Chris Davis’ name and likeness elicited a few boos.

At the same time, first-year manager Brandon Hyde felt a little bit differently, as he stood on the third-base line and started to soak in the reality of the situation. It’s the start of, well, everything new compared to last year’s edition of the Orioles. Most of the players; there were seven new starters, and 11 of the 25 in uniform made their first Opening Day roster. All of the coaches. The general approach to baseball. The expectations. “When they say your name,” during introductions, Hyde said afterward, “that kind of hits you a little bit.”

It was an appropriate welcome to the Orioles’ 2019 baseball season, and came ahead of an expected result: A loss, 7-2, in New York to the talent-laden Yankees, one of this year’s World Series favorites, as usual.

The Baby Birds, meanwhile, at the start of an ambitious rebuild plan under the leadership of a new data-driven front office regime, are the longest of long shots to win the title (it sounds silly even to write that phrase, “win the title”). Odds are as big as 2,000-to-1 at last check of the Las Vegas sports books. A few free-wheeling, or desperate, souls have placed that wild bet.

Back here in reality, here’s three big takeaways from the O’s season-opener:

Say it with us, the theme for 2019! “We’re trying to elevate the talent level of the organization.”

The mantra for this season is not exactly something you’d print and put on the back of a t-shirt for a Little League team, much less a Major League one. But is it the truth. New Orioles general manager Mike Elias said the words once again, during a second-inning appearance in the MASN broadcast booth.

Translation: This year is not about winning. This season is about the next three or four seasons as much as it is 2019.

This can be a hard concept for a fan to accept the day after the first game of a six-month, 162-game schedule. But Elias and the O’s leadership have and will continue to preach patience in their long-term vision for sustained success, of building a strong minor league system, developing players, making a hard run at international scouting, and hitting on draft picks (hopefully high ones).

We still think Adam Jones was worth having around—he hit a home run yesterday, by the way, for Arizona—but “we don’t want to be a one-year wonder,” Elias says (and poof, images of the 2014 Orioles, and Nelson Cruz belting 40 home runs then leaving in free agency that offseason, come to mind). That’s a blueprint that’s worked in his previous stops in Houston and St. Louis, both teams that won World Series championships while he and numbers wizard, O’s assistant GM Sig Mejdal worked there.

Time will tell exactly how hard the games are to watch this season. Given the “talent level of the organization” relative to the rest of pro baseball right now, after the dismantling of last year’s core amid a historically bad year, there might be 100-plus losses again.

Thursday’s start, which included a 428-foot three-run homer in the bottom of the first inning by Luke Voit, one of the cartoonish mammoth Yankees (sunflower seeds, much?), off the bearded Andrew Cashner, was not a great sign. But as best you can manage, keep the long term in mind.

The Bright Spots

There were a few.

Trey Mancini, three years removed from being a rookie and now the grizzled veteran of this team, looked like it. In the lineup as designated hitter and batting fourth, he went 3-for-4, scored the Orioles first run and knocked in their second.

Third baseman Rio Ruiz, a 24-year-old, drove home Mancini for that first score in the top of the fourth inning and in the bottom half made a nice defensive play, stopping a line drive.

Shortstop Richie Martin, who last season played 118 games in the minors for the Oakland A’s affiliate in Midland, Texas, and was one of two O’s making his major league debut, helped turn a double play. Reliever David Hess was effective.

The highlight of the day was probably Joey Rickard’s diving catch in right field. Overall, the O’s defense looked pretty good.

Chris Davis, um . . .

He picked up where he left off. The strikeouts continue. Three of them. Already.

Davis batted seventh in the O’s order, a move Hyde made for a reason, and was pinch hit for in the ninth inning. “I’m going to try to do everything I can to take pressure off him,” the manager said of the guy with $92 million and four years left on his contract, coming off one of the all-time worst hitting seasons in baseball history. (Right. No pressure.)

Davis’ story is fascinating. One day we’ll really find out how Crush’s stroke and confidence completely unraveled, but for now, he’s a representative part of what might be the real O’s theme for 2019: Hope.

Davis is our primary emotional connection on the current roster to recent glory days. (Remember, Jimmy’s Seafood offered Davis, his children, and grandchildren free crab cakes for life for a reason.) We hope he can find some kind of respectable form to stave off the internet memes and comments that began instantly upon his first strikeout yesterday.

And, for the next six months, we hope the O’s do the best they can, give us some fun and enough reasons to watch, while we believe in the promise of a better future.

You know when certain genius ideas come along and you wonder, “How did nobody think of this sooner?” Well brewing a beer for the king of all Orioles beer sales is definitely one of those ideas.

Clancy Haskett, or Fancy Clancy as he’s lovingly called, has been a Baltimore Orioles vendor for the past 45 years—starting out selling sodas at Memorial Stadium when he was just 15. Now he’s best known for slinging suds in his first-base section and has befriended a lot of his customers.

One of them is Art Major, who’s been a partial-season ticket holder for the past decade and makes the trip up from Winchester, Virginia, to Camden Yards nearly 30 times a season. He also happens to own Escutcheon Brewing.

“Clancy isn’t just your beer vendor, he’s also your friend,” Major says. “Sliders is my favorite place in the world and we were all there one night when I thought why don’t we brew a beer for him. I can make it, they can sell it, and Clancy can be on it. Who wouldn’t want to drink that?”

Haskett, who often frequents Sliders Bar & Grille since co-owner Mark Sheubrooks is an old classmate of his from Lansdowne High School, remembers it a little differently.

“I was saying, ‘Man, nobody is gonna buy my beer,’” he says with a laugh. “People know me on the first-base side, but I don’t know how many people care about me beyond that point. But when we brought the idea to Mark and [his daughter] Rachel, they were like, ‘Hell yes, let’s try it.’”

For the past year, Major has been tinkering with the recipe, as well as working with Miami-based design firm the Alison Group on the perfect tap handle.

“I had a very, very specific idea of what I wanted the tap handles to look like,” Major says. “I wanted Clancy with his beer tray, sleeveless shirt, his arms bulging out. We gave him a little more muscle.” (Haskett says he’s very appreciative and should probably “hit the gym a little extra” before the season starts.)

As for the beer style, Major knew he wanted to play off what is most commonly drank at sports games, the American pilsner, and felt that something more crafty like an IPA just wouldn’t work as well. Haskett agreed.

“Nowadays, the IPA types of beer are real popular and I sell a lot of those,” he says. “But the best is when you get that beer right in the middle—not too heavy, not too light. I tasted this one a couple of weeks ago and it’s a really good beer.”

Fancy Clancy Pilsner will be released at a party on March 30 at Slider’s during the Orioles away game against the Yankees. Of course, you can also try it down at Escutcheon Brewing.

“This is going to be something pretty epic,” says Slider’s owner Rachel. “Clancy is so popular, so kind, and obviously has a great work ethic. He’s just the kind of character that loves to brand himself.”

With that in mind, Haskett has big plans for the Fancy Clancy Pilsner. He’d like to see it end up in cans at the stadium, a real full-circle moment for the long-time vendor.

“As you get older, you think about what you’ve done in the past,” Haskett says. “After 45 years, this makes you feel appreciated—people are really giving me a little respect. If this beer takes off, hey look out.”

Excuse us for feeling like the Ravens and Orioles are colluding on some master plan to make us learn as many new names and storylines as possible before they begin their 2019 seasons. It’s hard to keep up with all the changes.

This week alone: Terrell Suggs gone, to Arizona (here he is in Cardinal red—weird); Eric Weddle signed with a team in Los Angeles; C.J. Mosley, he of the cathartic playoff-berth sealing interception and a four-time Pro Bowler, is now the richest inside linebacker in the NFL, with the New York Jets; Joe Flacco was officially traded to Denver; and outside linebacker Za’Darius Smith said he’s headed to Green Bay. There’s no telling how many hours the Ravens’ social media staff spent posting nostalgic thank you tributes to the departed.

Meanwhile, former Orioles captain Adam Jones signed with the Arizona Diamondbacks (are there good crabs in the southwest or something?)—he got a video tribute, too—and first-year O’s manager Brandon Hyde named Alex Cobb the team’s Opening Day starter.

And we haven’t even talked about the big additions to town: safety Earl Thomas and running back Mark Ingram, whom the Ravens signed at the start of the NFL’s free agency period and whom the team will introduce at a press conference in Owings Mills on Friday morning.

It’s always difficult to say goodbye to familiar and respected sports heroes—which we’ve done a lot of the last few months (see Buck Showalter, Flacco, and Jones). But change also creates opportunities, and fresh starts. Two-plus months into this year, that’s the story of Baltimore’s biggest teams. The question now is what comes of the all the new?

Well, for starters, the Ravens’ addition of Thomas, who has been widely regarded as one of the league’s best safeties but missed most of last season with a broken leg, seems fitting for a franchise that will see Ed Reed inducted to the Hall of Fame this August at that position. Thomas was the leader of the Seattle Seahawks’ legendary “Legion of Boom” a few years ago.

A pairing with fellow safety Tony Jefferson has already led a few observers to create equal parts patriotic and funny “Thomas Jefferson” references to the twosome.

The continued changing-of-the-quarterback guard will get the most attention, though. The Ravens thanked Flacco for the memories after the trade was made official, and he in turn thanked them.

At around the same time, second-year quarterback Lamar Jackson, who has been handed the keys to the offense, posted to his Instagram account a self-recorded video of him driving 105 miles per hour on a highway, apparently without wearing a seatbelt.

The video ended up on TMZ, and Jackson apologized for the “bad decision,” and said he “will set a better example going forward.” Jackson is 22 years old, and we’ve praised him before for his authenticity, but clearly has some growing up to do.

He deleted the troublesome video from his account, but left public his thoughts on all the free agency moves, which also don’t seem to sit right.

The only thing that would have made this week more interesting is if former Steelers running back Le’Veon Bell chose to sign with the Ravens instead of the Jets, which he was reportedly close to doing.

We’re also close to the O’s first game of the year, now less than two weeks away against the Yankees in New York. Cobb, who was 5-15 with a 4.90 earned run average in 28 starts for the Orioles last season, is now apparently the O’s best pitcher.

That might not sound promising, but we’ll take our chances with something new.

Opening Day is 20 days away, and—has anyone noticed?—Adam Jones is still a free agent. Yes, the beloved former pie-throwing, gum-chewing, sweet-swinging Orioles captain remains without a baseball home—and his actual home, the Lutherville estate he bought from Cal Ripken, Jr. about a year ago and renovated over the last several months, is on the market for $4 million, too.

It’s a long shot, but now more than ever the idea is worth discussing. Is a Jones-Orioles reunion at all possible?

A piece of required O’s fan reading might inform the chances. One of the more fascinating parts of Ben Reiter’s book Astroball, which chronicles how the O’s current front-office leadership regime of Mike Elias and Sig Mejdal helped turn the Houston Astros from rags (three straight 100-loss seasons) to riches (100 wins and a World Series title four years later in 2017), is the case of a veteran player and potential future Hall of Famer, Carlos Beltran. He’s a guy not unlike Jones in stature and reverence.

Beltran was older in baseball years, 39, when the Astros signed him to a one-year, $16-million deal ahead of the 2017 season. And though he didn’t get a hit in the World Series, he provided the organization’s younger players with invaluable guidance and expertise, and the team probably wouldn’t have a won a championship without him. The Puerto Rico native helped bridge the cultural gaps in the clubhouse between English and Spanish-speaking players. He shared tips he picked up while watching hitters’ video, not just of himself but of teammates and opposing pitchers. And, in general, he was a sounding board and a trusted source, for anything.

The circumstances of the current O’s are different. We’re not talking championship hopes this year; in fact, quite the opposite. The Astros were already on the upswing in their rebuild when they signed Beltran. The O’s are just starting theirs. But at the same time, Jones, at 33, is six years younger than Beltran was.

The salient point is about the valuable presence a respected and likeable veteran player can provide—even if it’s admittedly difficult to quantify in the data-driven, video-capture era the O’s are now practicing. Indeed, Reiter penned in Astroball about what Mejdal, the former NASA engineer turned baseball analytics guru, thought of the Astros signing Beltran: “Not only did Sig have zero predictive information related to chemistry, but he didn’t even know what he might try to predict it.”

Here’s a recent piece of evidence that might fit a predictive chemistry model, if applied to the question of if bringing back Jones is worth it. Like the rest of us, he watched as his former teammate, Manny Machado, signed a lucrative contract—with Jones’ hometown San Diego Padres, of all teams—then not long after in an interview delivered a few words that could be interpreted as bad-mouthing the O’s. “The Orioles drafted me. I did a lot for that community, I did a lot for the state, and they didn’t show me a little bit of love,” Machado said. “It is what it is.”

We really can’t imagine Jones saying anything resembling those comments, or starting a debate as to what he really thinks about Baltimore. We know what he thinks. His wife, Audie, is from here. He played 11 years here and didn’t want to leave (see, vetoing the Phillies trade last July). He was back to host a charity event a few weeks after the O’s 2018 season ended. And those actions represented just a few reasons why so many fans want to see @SimplyAJ10 back in an O’s uniform.

In late January at the Orioles’ annual FanFest, Elias, the new general manager, fielded more questions from fans about Jones than any other topic during public question-and-answer sessions. At times, like after the third, or the fourth, you could infer Elias would rather talk about something else. He didn’t rule out a possible reunion with Jones, but didn’t exactly sound like he was dying to make it happen either.

He said the O’s would monitor the free-agent market, that Jones was always welcome with the organization, and it was nice to hear great things about him. But he also mentioned giving young players time to grow and get major league experience, a more than reasonable argument. And, since then, spring training in Sarasota has revealed that Cedric Mullins, D.J. Stewart, and Austin Hays are in good position to start in the outfield this year and prospect Yusniel Díaz, the prize return in the Machado trade to the Los Angeles Dodgers last year, is on the radar, too. They’ve been team-building in Florida.

But there’s room in the clubhouse and on the field for a guy as appreciated as Jones. First off, he can still play. Maybe he wouldn’t play every day, but when he does, he would show how it’s done. And, heck, Trey Mancini did his best impression of the old captain at the start of spring training when he ordered platters of Popeyes chicken for all after the team’s first game. Could you imagine what it would be like if Jones was actually on the team?

If the losses pile up fast this season, which is possible, per the Vegas odds-makers, Jones’ presence alone would give us something to root for, and a reason to show up for a steamy game in the middle of the summer. Because the good memories still linger and sports heroes like him don’t come around all the time.

And, most relevant and practical, the free-agent market that Elias spoke of six weeks ago has broken in the O’s favor. Jones’ former teammate, Steve Pearce, the reigning World Series MVP, recently said he’s surprised Jones is still available. There’s three weeks left until the O’s open the season March 28 at Yankee Stadium before a nationally televised audience, and Jones wants to be on a roster by then.

It’s hard to know exactly what AJ’s asking price is, but if it’s not much more than the $4 million he’s asking for his own house, the O’s front office should again run the algorithms in their “Nerd Cave” (that’s a label the Astros analytics department was known by) and consider taking a hard look at bringing back the sentimental favorite this year.

Because who cares if Jones already had his emotional sendoff last September at Camden Yards? We could do that again. There’s time and space for this second act.

On Thursday, Baltimore—and baseball as a whole—lost a legend as Frank Robinson passed away at the age of 83 at his Los Angeles home after a long battle with cancer. Not only did Robinson fulfill more roles than any other person in the history of the Orioles organization, but the former manager, player, and front-office executive was multi-faceted when it came to his character.

Maybe it’s presumptuous to think that Robinson, as a player, had any deep-rooted reason to position himself as head of the Orioles’ silly kangaroo court. He wore a white mop atop his own hair and levied playful small-dollar fines against teammates for things like base-running mistakes, talking to opponents, or anything else deemed an infraction. But it’s hard not to imagine that the light-hearted foolishness, with Robinson banging a baseball bat as a gavel, didn’t provide some sense of escape from the serious judgement he faced outside the refuge of the clubhouse.

This was a man who, when he was traded at age of 30 to an implicitly segregated Baltimore in 1966, couldn’t find a place to live because he was black. His wife phoned him in Florida during spring training to say she was about ready to move with their two children to California, where they had family, since many landlords refused to rent them a space.

The Robinsons ultimately settled in Ashburton, then a racially mixed, upper-middle-class neighborhood in the northwest part of the city, but only after Orioles owner Jerold Hoffberger asked members of his public relations staff to help the family find housing. Even still, certain shops, bars, and restaurants refused their entry.

As a boy, Robinson grew up in Oakland, California, the son of a single mother who raised 10 kids, and he found a sanctuary in sports. And as a teenager in the 1950s, he learned first-hand what it meant to be a black man in the South when he played in the minor leagues as a 17-year-old, hard-hitting outfielder in the Cincinnati Reds system.

As an adult, he was gruff, ferociously competitive, no-nonsense, and often hard to get to know. “I’m not sunny,” Robinson once told Washington Post writer Barry Svrluga. “I’m a quiet, kind of withdrawn person. I don’t mix easily with people.”

Yet, in Memorial Stadium, Robinson was both the court jester and king of the diamond.

Ten months after he settled in Baltimore and after several seasons in which the club got close to capturing an American League pennant, Robinson—an intimidating right-handed presence at the plate—famously got the Orioles over the postseason hump and led them to their first World Series championship.

“He made us all better,” fellow Hall of Famer Jim Palmer said Thursday night, and Robinson won the Triple Crown while doing it, leading Major League Baseball in batting average, runs batted in, and home runs.

The 1966 season was his greatest year, one of the best individual seasons in baseball history, and one that quickly cemented his legacy as a Baltimore sports giant and hero— even before the Orioles captured three more American League pennants and the 1970 World Series in his six seasons here.

But Robinson’s proudest accomplishment happened in 1975, nine years later, when he broke ground as the first black man to walk a lineup card to home plate, as the Cleveland Indians’ player-manager.

Just as the Dodgers’ Jackie Robinson broke baseball’s color barrier for players in 1947, Frank Robinson, unrelated but forever linked, did the same for minority managers that followed. But he was a reticent pioneer. Being the first African-American manager “was nothing compared to what Jackie did or what he went through, but it was important because I was the first and that meant the door’s open,” Robinson said in 2016.

He piled up accomplishments decade after decade. Robinson was the only player to win MVP in both leagues, with the O’s in ’66 and Reds in ’61, he was a 14-time All-Star and, when he retired in 1976, was fourth on the all-time home run list with 586, only behind Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, and Babe Ruth.

This Miller Lite beer commercial featuring the Brothers Robinson from 1980 is especially memorable too:

Robinson later managed the Orioles for four seasons, one of four teams he managed over parts of 21 years. He replaced Cal Ripken, Sr. as O’s manager in 1988 after an 0-6 start, lost his first 15 games and the team finished 54-107. The next season the O’s went 87-75 and Robinson was AL Manager of the Year.

As the Angelos family recognized, Robinson is the only person in O’s history to serve as a player, coach, manager, and front office executive. He also worked in MLB’s offices. And despite playing only six of his 21 seasons for the Orioles, and having statues of his likeness and jersey No. 20 retired in three different towns, he went into the Hall of Fame with an O’s cap in his first year of eligibility in 1982.

“The only regret I have about my relationships in Baltimore is that my playing career was too short there,” Robinson said during his induction speech, “but the love affair still goes on.”

Once he found a place to live, Robinson embraced Baltimore as his second home. Having a street named after him following the 1966 World Series win didn’t hurt. But most of all, as Robinson told The Sun in 2016, he hoped that his play and presence—we have to think the mop-headed kangaroo court judgeship included—helped change the racial biases in the city that he encountered upon arrival.

“I hope it did,” said Robinson, who is survived by his wife, Barbara, and daughter, Nichelle. “That was always on my mind.”

For all the many mentions and questions about analytics, player development, and the Orioles’ new data-driven era on Saturday afternoon at the Baltimore Convention Center, there was one moment that stuck out. And it was when recently hired Orioles assistant general manager Sig Mejdal, a former NASA engineer turned baseball front-office pioneer, took to the stage in front of hundreds of fans as part of a question-and-answer session titled, “Using Analytics Across Baseball Ops.”

For 35 minutes at the team’s annual preseason FanFest, the 53-year-old Mejdal (pronounced my-dell) sat on a brown wooden stool, the same one from which his boss and longtime co-worker, the O’s GM Mike Elias had earlier described the broad, long-term vision for the organization’s rebuild. Now Mejdal was in the spotlight, wearing a gray suit with a bright orange tie and black shoes, and he articulated details of what the presence of this new Ivy League and computer science-trained leadership regime means here and now—how blending numbers-based facts and analysis with the human nature of America’s pastime can work.

And Mejdal described the approach as only a true believer in the scientific method and the power of technology could do. He’s a guy who worked as a blackjack dealer in college, graduated with a bachelor’s degree in aeronautical and mechanical engineering, and earned two master’s degrees—one in mathematical modeling and another in human-factors engineering (whatever that is). As he spoke, the day felt more like a Big Data business conference than a celebration and promotion of spring training kicking off in a few weeks.

“A lot of things that were just below the human’s ability to sense have now been revealed,” Mejdal said, as he detailed how it’s possible to use high-resolution video and radar to record things like velocity, location, and spin rate of a baseball thrown by a pitcher. “What you see as an exceptional slider, or a wonderful fastball, can be quantified. Instead of saying, ‘He just has good stuff,’ we’re able to describe the stuff to three decimal points and begin to see the specific idiosyncratic behaviors of the different hitters, and how they succeed or struggle against pitches that aren’t just called ‘a slider,’ but instead a pitch of 83 miles per hour with 18 inches of horizontal movement, and 1.5 inches of depth.”

Got all that? Mejdal said it without a pause. He’s been doing this sort of quantitative analysis, and finding data-driven ways to give teams an edge, almost as long as anybody in professional baseball, save for the early 2000s staff of the Oakland Athletics, who were featured in the book and movie Moneyball. That tale inspired Mejdal to consider his current career path and ultimately quit his job engineering for astronauts.

As was written in the 2005 book Fantasyland by Sam Walker, in which Mejdal was featured, he once worked in a windowless office on an U.S. Air Force base in California called the Blue Cube, a communications nerve center from which all satellite transmissions are routed and a security clearance is needed for entry.

That was 15 years ago, long before the numbers guys became fashionable hires in baseball, if not no-brainers to small-market owners like John and Louis Angelos looking to build sustainable winners. At the time, Mejdal, who grew up in San Jose the son of a career Army officer, and his wife, a nurse from Colombia, worked a hotel lobby in New Orleans during MLB’s winter meetings. He handed out packets of information to general managers about why teams should hire him. On the laptop in his backpack, he carried with him data of every player who wore a uniform since the Korean War, and promised he could provide previously unrealized truths with his analysis and ideas. He didn’t mention he hadn’t played baseball since Little League.

Mejdal landed with the St. Louis Cardinals 18 months later, a hire that not only gave him a dream job but also his first professional baseball lesson: “Even if it doesn’t seem broke, you fix it.”

“The owner of the Cardinals, at a time when they were winning 100 games, at a time when they weren’t persons like myself in baseball, brought in Jeff Luhnow [as general manager],” an MBA from Northwestern who hadn’t played baseball since high school. He hired Mejdal, and Elias, a former Yale pitcher, as a 24-year-old scout. Along with implementing an international scouting operation (just like the O’s are currently trying to do), they were key in developing several players on a team that won 2011 World Series.

“From day one of our incoming draft classes, they were taught and shown how we’re going to fix them,” Mejdal said. “Human factors are involved, there’s a sensitivity to it, but the underlying goal is to fix everything we can, because we have a good idea the opposition is trying to do that too.”

In seven years in St. Louis, Mejdal was credited with developing an analytics model that helped the team draft more future major leaguers than any other organization during that span. In 2012, he followed Luhnow to the Houston Astros, where Mejdal became the inventively named Director of Decision Sciences. There, as the right-hand man to Elias, Mejdal was instrumental in the development on the Astros farm system and turnaround from three straight seasons of at least 106 losses to a World Series championship in 2017.

Next stop on the success train? Hopefully Baltimore, where Elias took over leadership of O’s personnel two months ago, and brought the guts, ideas, and ethos of those previous stat-driven revolutions with him.

“Over the years, as we add some things to our draft and scouting process, as we bring in a lot of the analytics that Sig and I have really developed together for the draft, across two different organizations, the depth in our system will benefit greatly,” Elias said Saturday. “You’ll see the product of that the next couple years.”

That’s right, this may take a while. Elias and new manager Brandon Hyde are preaching patience. But in the immediate was Saturday’s stage scene, where Mejdal, sitting next to recently hired director of international scouting Koby Perez, fielded questions from the most dedicated fans on a variety of topics. And they gave insightful, honest answers and lessons that could be applied to a business or classroom as much as they will be to the Orioles clubhouse.

A few current and past players, like pitcher Paul Fry and Hall of Famer Jim Palmer, were even listening on Mejdal. He spoke about everything from how to start learning about analytics (go to baseball-reference.com—that’s what we use, too) to advice for college students interested in the field (you can’t go wrong with a computer science education), to the nuances of gathering, analyzing, and sharing usable statistical information to players and coaches.

On how the O’s analytics department is developing, Mejdal said:
“When we came here seven weeks ago, the analytics department consisted of zero analysts. I don’t know what the ideal number is but I’m pretty confident it’s not zero.”

On whose responsibility it is that players or coaches use the information provided to them:
“It’s the analyst’s responsibility to ensure that whoever the customer is—whether it’s the coach, the scouting director, the GM, the director of international, or a player—that they understand what the insight is and that you’ve done all you can to present it and to them. You’re asking them to change and that doesn’t just come with a printout from the computer saying, ‘Here, go change.’”

On what information analysts can provide to a player:
“We can provide a general behavior. ‘This is generally where you struggle. This is generally where the pitcher is going to throw at this point.’ It’s a model. It falls short of what’s going to happen in real life. But it’s still going to be useful.”

On how to keep the Orioles ahead of the analytics curve:
“We’re going to fill our department with the most skilled and innovative analysts and developers we can find, and we’re going to create a culture where a big chunk of their time is directed at, ‘What is the next big thing?’ Is it going to be computer vision, some artificial intelligence, something less sexy than that? We’re going to do our best to position ourselves to be better than any other club out there.”

On if the Orioles will have a better season than last year’s franchise-worst 47-115 record:
“I’m not going to make that prediction sitting up here in front of all of you, but what I can tell you is there in an amazing amount of young talent not just at the major league level, but throughout the system, and the future of the Orioles is right in front of you.”

It’s a new era, indeed. Could you imagine former manager Buck Showalter or GM Dan Duquette discussing artificial intelligence? At FanFest over the last several years, all they did was talk about playoffs. But for all the seemingly programmatic talk about customers, models, and data sets from the new leadership, there’s also a very interesting, human part of Mejdal’s story that blends the traditional and new-age ways of approaching team-building.

Two summers ago, Mejdal spent the season as an assistant coach for one of the Astros’ minor league teams, the Tri-City ValleyCats of the New York-Penn League, based in Troy, New York. The idea was to interact with minor league players in the flesh, to see what they really needed, and how best to turn office concepts into baseball field realities. It was similar what Mejdal did in his previous life in engineering.

“We could go to lunch and come up with wonderful ideas about how to help the minor leagues, but we’re ignorant to a large degree of really what it’s like,” he said. “There’s no better way to see what it’s like than be in a bus and bad hotels for 82 days.”

And so he did, road-tripping to games against teams like the Vermont Lake Monsters, Lowell Spinners, and Aberdeen IronBirds. He learned things about the game he hadn’t realized before, like how little one-on-one time players and coaches experience during the season. Then last year he roved among other minor league teams, doing the same. The New York Times chronicled the story, and accompanying photos showed Mejdal—wearing jersey No. 21, in honor of his college blackjack dealer career—in the dugout and on the field, where he coached first base.

“It was bizarre, but it was wonderful,” Mejdal said, “and a great learning experience.”

That’s a statement that carries extra weight when spoken by a former rocket scientist. If Mejdal can still learn, so can we.

Mike Mussina, now 50 years old with gray in his goatee, was just finishing coaching a practice of his son’s high school basketball team Tuesday night in Montoursville, Pennsylvania, when his phone rang. The voice on the other end delivered the good news. In Mussina’s sixth year on the Baseball Hall of Fame ballot, the former Orioles and Yankees pitcher was finally chosen to be enshrined among the game’s greats in Cooperstown.

Once he shrugged off the bit of surprise, left the gym, and texted his wife and oldest son at college to let them know, Mussina soon spoke by phone to commentators on the MLB Network about the honor and how he earned it, via a remarkably consistent career marked by at least 15 wins in 11 0f his 18 pro seasons, which looks even better in hindsight given the performance-enhancing drugs era he pitched in.

“Moose,” as crowds often bellowed in praise, played his first 10 years with the O’s, making the All-Star game five times and winning 147 games before he chose to sign as a free agent in 2000 with the team in pinstripes. Mussina played his final eight seasons in New York, winning another 123 games, yet never captured the elusive championship he sought, though he did reach the World Series in 2001 and 2003 and won 20 games in his final year before retiring in 2008.

All this background begs a relatively innocuous, some might say even silly, question. But given our allegiances and the history at hand, it’s rather timely and important: Which logo will Mussina, or more precisely, his bronze bust likeness, wear on his cap when he is enshrined in the Hall of Fame Museum this August in upstate New York?

There can only be one. None is an option, too. Either way, the Hall of Fame’s crack research staff tries to decide where the player “made his most indelible mark,” Baseball Hall of Fame president Jeff Idelson has said. Importantly, officials also get input from the subject himself, but to hear Mussina speak about it, they won’t get much help from him. He’s torn, and open to suggestions.

“Both places were huge factors in my career,” he told reporters in New York on Wednesday. “[You have] the place you start, the team that drafts you, brings you to the major leagues, and gives you an opportunity, and an organization like the New York Yankees, it’s a tough decision. I’m going to need some guidance, some help—opinions, options, whatever they are—to ultimately make that decision.”

If you ask us, it’s a pretty clear case. We want a big O’s logo or an Oriole bird on his hat, no questions asked.

The Yankees have had plenty of extravagantly paid, glitzy stars, but Mussina will be the first Baltimore pitcher to go into the HOF since Jim Palmer in 1990. He was homegrown talent, twice drafted by the Orioles (first out of high school and then out of Stanford) and grew into the team’s best pitcher of the last 30 years. A right-hander with precision control who got by at times with a knuckle curveball, he always seemed to finish his throwing motion in exactly the same position—that damn right leg landing in the identical spot off the mound.

His 15 strikeouts against Cleveland in one game of the 1997 American League Championship Series are legendary. That came after he famously out-dueled Randy Johnson at Camden Yards in the series-clincher the round before. And, for crying out loud, Mussina was the winning pitcher the night Cal Ripken, Jr. broke Lou Gehrig’s consecutive-games-played streak.

He won more games as an Oriole than a Yankee, made more All-Star teams, threw 456 more innings, and had a slightly better earned run average while wearing No. 35 in an orange and white uniform. Do we need more?

It’d be case closed if Mussina finished his career here. But that didn’t happen. Still, we can forgive him for bolting to the Yankees after Orioles management skimped on a hefty long-term contract extension for the team’s ace after the spectacular 1997 season in which the O’s led the AL East from start to finish. Three years later, when Mussina, then 32, was the most sought-after free-agent in baseball, the Yankees and manager Joe Torre courted him in the days after they won the 2000 World Series, and outbid the O’s by one year and almost $30 million while promising deep postseason runs. That’s a hard deal to turn down.

But now it’s time for Mussina to be remembered for where he started. The Orioles already inducted him to the team’s Hall of Fame in 2012. It would feel just plain weird if Mussina’s cap bears an interlocking NY in the most beloved Hall of all, yet his number is retired at Camden Yards, as it should, or a statue of his windup joins the six other larger-then-life guys beyond centerfield, as it could.

Reading between the lines, “I almost split my career down the middle between the two organizations,” Mussina said, he might be angling for the no-logo option. That’d be better than the other alternative. But Moose, if you see this, Baltimore wants the hat.