It’s going to be a tough year at Camden Yards.
With three days to go before Opening Day, I predict that the once-mighty Baltimore Orioles ? whom I love and have loved since they won the World Series in 1966 ? will lose 100 or more games before the year is out.
At least it will be more interesting than finishing in fourth place again.
And again. And again.
When I was in grade school, the Earl Weaver Orioles, owned by the extraordinarily competent Hoffberger family of National Beer fame, were in the World Series four out of six years.
Such plenitude makes me sorry for the kid out in Birdland who will follow the team this year with an eye on the box scores, an ear to the radio and a glove on his or her hand.
(I am reminded, correctly, to say her because of the fusillade of guff I get from Susan Benay Berger ? who grew up in walking distance of Memorial Stadium and was a Junior Oriole ? when I sing the old Birds’ theme song: “It’s a father and son having fun together!”)
Want to know how obsessed a youngster can get with baseball? Witness the case of the traitor Patrick Radoci.
Radoci, who owned the Good Love bar in Canton before moving to California a few years ago, bled Oriole orange in his youth. Back when players stayed with one team for more than a year at a time, it wasn’t unusual for names in the lineup to be listed in the phone book.
With a passion that might have been better applied to homework, young Radoci went down the 40-man roster ? giants walked the Earth back then, the Robinsons Frank and Brooks, Boog Powell and Dave McNally and the golden glove of Mark “The Blade” Belanger ? and found this name in the white pages: Bamberger, George.
Bamberger was the Orioles? pitching coach from 1968 to 1977. Under him, the Birds had a starting rotation of four 20-game winners in the pennant year of 1971: McNally, Jim Palmer, Mike Cuellar and Pat Dobson. It hasn’t happened since.
(The team sets different records these days, like allowing 30 runs in a loss against Texas last Aug. 22. Try wearing your orange floppy hat with the cartoon Bird to Dodger Stadium after that gem hits the scoreboard.)
Radoci dialed the number and found himself talking to none other than . . . MRS. GEORGE BAMBERGER!
Sympathetic, Wilma Bamberger told Radoci that George wasn’t home. “Can I help you?” she asked. All of 11 years old, Radoci begins asking her about the team’s chances and could she relay a few tips to her husband.
They had a nice chat, but that wasn’t enough for the kid. He kept calling, every week or so, to dissect games he thought could have been won if only this or that had been different. In time, Mrs. Bamberger suggested it would be best if he didn’t call anymore.
How does young Patrick repay the team of his never-to-be-gotten-back childhood for such patience and compassion? The little brat gets too big for his britches and becomes a Yankee fan.
You read that right. The precocious kid who spent a summer making time with the pitching coach’s wife decides that he can’t take another losing season ? can’t stand being surrounded at home games by contemptuous fans from Boston and New York ? and switches allegiance to the hated pinstripes.
Would you want a guy like that marrying your daughter? Working for you? Cleaning your toilet?
Speaking of death, a funeral products company called Eternal Image in Farmington Hills, Mich., markets urns embossed with logos of major league baseball teams.
While owner Clint Mytych said that more than 1,000 Yankee urns have been sold, only a dozen or so with the ornithologically correct black-and-orange fowl have flown out the door.
Forget the ball yard, we can’t even beat the Bombers in the graveyard.
Before I tune in to WBAL radio via the Internet to spend the next six months in anger and tears and the false hopes of a 12-year-old in a soon-to-be 50-year-old body, I’ll end with this.
Is it too much to ask the suits at 333 West Camden St. to have the name Baltimore put back on the team’s away jerseys?
To paraphrase my mother: “Talking to you guys is like talking to the warehouse wall.”
