BALTIMORE.
Camden Yards will be no field of dreams this spring and summer.
For one thing, a brand-new and plug-ugly Hilton Hotel now towers over the fences in left and center field, destroying much of the view and ambience of this much admired ballpark.
For another, the Orioles appear destined to stink again. With a 6-2 loss to the renamed Tampa Bay Rays yesterday in the first game of their 55th season, the O’s embarked upon what surely will be an 11th consecutive losing season.
Actually, though, there is a welcome difference this time around. Andy MacPhail, the Orioles’ new president of baseball operations, finally has convinced imperious owner Peter Angelos — temporarily anyway — to sign off on rebuilding a great franchise gone bad. Hence expensive veterans like Miguel Tejada, Jay Gibbons and Erik Bedard are gone, replaced by a batch of “prospects” who might not even be household names in their own households.
King Peter should have made this obvious decision years ago because there is ample evidence Charm City’s long-suffering fans are sick of waiting. In each of the last two seasons, home attendance has been about 2.1 million, the lowest since Camden Yards opened in 1992, and the Opening Day turnout yesterday was about as dismal as the leaden skies.
According to the Orioles, 46,807 were on hand, but the club must have been counting ears and/or eyes instead of people. Unoccupied seats stared impassively at the proceedings in many areas, and the upper deck in straightaway left field was so empty you almost thought combat were being contested at the Rays’ usually deserted Tropicana Field.
This is an Orioles team not easy to love. Of its two most familiar members, second baseman Brian Roberts is likely to be dangled as trade bait and third baseman Melvin Mora appears about ready at 36 to hang up his spikes and stay home with the quintuplets.
Among those attired in black and orange uniforms yesterday was manager Dave Trembley, a man so little famed that his first name was listed as “Mike” this spring on the Orioles’ own Web site. Whatever he is called, there’s reason to suspect that by season’s end his nerves will be the same as his surname.
Of course, we should remember that another largely unknown first-year manager, Earl Weaver in 1968, won four pennants for the Orioles on his way to the Hall of Fame. Trembley, however, might be satisfied just to escape last place in the brutal American League East. But don’t count on it happening, because the improving Rays seem several levels ahead of Baltimore in their annual battle for fourth place.
The O’s genuflected toward their happier past during yesterday’s pregame ceremonies as Hank Peters tossed the ceremonial first pitch to Rick Dempsey, thereby reuniting the general manager and World Series MVP of the 1983 champions. (And why does that feel like it happened 125 years ago?)
This season’s Orioles slogan, “This Is Birdland,” could be appropriate if the club’s play serves as a veritable lullaby. The O’s also are promoting all kinds of electronic advances around the park that will “greatly enhance” the fan experience. Never mind the fireworks, hi-def Jumbotron and such — how about simply fielding a winning team?
Oops, sorry. That’s unrealistic, this year anyway.
For the present, 2007 disasters like a 30-3 mauling by the Texas Rangers on Aug. 22 and 92 other losses might not recede in memory as quickly as the Orioles would like. Yet look at the bright side. Nine times in 10 years, the O’s have finished fourth in their division, which is the sort of regularity usually offered only by laxative products.
This time, for a change, put them down for their first last-place finish since 1991, when the other George Bush was in the White House. And then, Orioles fans can only pray, it will be onward and upward.
Someday.
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