As if I needed another reason to like Orioles President of Baseball Operations Andy MacPhail, I got a musical one the other night.

Taking advantage of the rain delay Tuesday night (gotta love those ninth-inning interruptions), I tracked MacPhail in the hallway outside the press dining room. He was looking at the frames photos of Orioles who have appeared on covers of magazines such as Sports Illustrated.

We spent about five minutes talking about t ...

It's been fun to see some energy injected into Camden Yards the past few weeks. But with new found energy comes responsibility -- and I'm talking to the folks who cheer on their favorite Orioles in a most annoying way.

Specifically, the Luke Scott fan who sits in front of the press box. Now I've always been of the belief that you pays your money and you speaks your piece. What sense would it be for a journalist to argue against freedom of speech or expression.

West Coast road trips by the Orioles are a bad-news, good-news proposition.

The bad news is that you often don't  get to find out the game's result until the next morning (c'mon, fess up -- you fall asleep before the game is over because you're a responsible adult who has to be to work in the morning).

The good news is that listening on the radio as sleep overtakes me brings back vivid memories of my youth, when I'd sneak a handh ...

A week into baseball season, and the  Orioles' hot start has been tempered by something our local daily newspaper has done. Yes, The Sun has bastardized the baseball boxscore.

Go ahead, check it out in the morning paper. Oh, it looks like the same recap you've become accustomed to seeing. But dig a little deeper and you'll find some disturbing trends -- all in the name of saving precious space and making things fit nicely.

For now, we'll ...

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- Not so long ago, the entrance to the players' parking lot at Fort Lauderdale Stadium was crammed with people at 7:30 a.m., when players started arriving for a day's work at the Baltimore Orioles' spring camp.

Now, on a good day, you'll see -- at best -- a handful of people, clutching looseleaf binders fill with baseball cards or other items in search of autographs. And when did getting autographs become the exclusive domain of middle-aged whi ...

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- One of the nicest parts of Orioles spring training is watching the interaction between players and their families. In the more relaxed setting of Fort Lauderdale Stadium, players and their girlfriends, wives, kids and relatives interact a lot more openly than at Camden Yards, where they are held in a special waiting area until players are ready and dressed after a game.

Before Sunday's 11-3 rout of the Washington Nationals was done, third bas ...

While I've always been proud to be an alumni of UMBC, that pride has come with a caveat: explaining the acronym to people staring blankly, not quite sure how a school with "University of Maryland" in its name is not affiliated with its big brother in College Park. (Of course, it once was -- when I graduated in 1982, I received a diploma from Maryland, since the Catonsville campus was still considered a satellite site.)

But today, sitting in Champps American ...

Spending the weekend in Hershey, Pa., watching one of the American Hockey League's stellar franchises. If you've got the opportunity to get up to Giant Center for a game, by all means do it! It's a wonderful venue and the action on the ice is pretty good, too.

Last night's game, of course, was not one of the Bears' better performances. They stormed to a 3-0 lead in the first period, then allowed the Philadelphia Phantoms to reel off five unanswered goals. No killer i ...

As we deal with chilly temperatures, forecasts of wintry mixes and wonder whether Home Depot will still have shovels and salt, I offer these warm thoughts:

The four most wonderful words in the English language: Pitchers and catchers report.

The three most wonderful words in the English language: Full squad workout.

The two most wonderful words in the English language: Play ball!

News flash ...

Tony Kornheister -- yes, the ESPN chatmaster, himself -- is sitting in the RAC Arena at UMBC right this very minute. If you catch this afternoon's Binghamton-UMBC game on MASN, you'll probably see him. Five seats in from the aisle, right behind the bench.

This isn't really news. Kornheiser is a regular whenever the Bearcats visit UMBC. He's a Binghamton alum, and this is one of the closest visits of his alma mater to his D.C. base o ...

The reason most people aren't buying the drivel that Roger Clemens is selling isn't because he's gotten bad public relations advice or because the most dominant pitcher of my generation has seemingly said all the wrong things at all the wrong times (for the record, both are true).

The reason people don't believe Clemens' vehement denials that -- despite what his former trainer has told federal authorities and Major League Baseball fact-finder George Mitchell -- that ...

One of the nicest things about covering college basketball is those arenas where you get to sit right on the court. Sadly, some programs have moved the media into the end zones (or worse vantage points). But when you're courtside -- as I was at Loyola for the Greyhounds' 69-67 loss to Fairfield on Friday night --  you get up close and personal with coaches and players. In most arenas, reporters are seated on the sideline opposite the benches; at Rietz Arena, you're between the ...

In the results-oriented world that is the modern-day NFL,  Brian Billick's deficiencies as an offensive guru finally caught up with him. That's why Steve Bisciotti reconsidered and reversed his decision to keep Billick, turning New Year's Eve into a frenzy of speculation following the coach's firing.

Only time will tell if it was a good move. Should the Ravens merely accept someone else's recycled castoff, it's a step in the wrong direction. The move was mad ...

So, let me see if I've got this straight ...

UMBC beats American in men's basketball.

American beats Maryland.

Therefore, by the commutative theory of relativity -- or some such nonsense, learned in third grade and long since banished to the far reaches of my cluttered brain -- UMBC can not only hang with its bigger brother from College Park, but thoroughly thump its shell.

Still not convinced? Look at this ...

In the wake of the Mitchell report on steroid use in Major League Baseball, I thought it might be appropriate to consider the public relations spin that has been in process since the document's Thursday release.

Between stints in newspapers and publishing, I spent 10 years as a media relations executive, public relations writer and interviewing coach in the health care and higher education arenas. For that reason, I look a little differently at the aftermath ...