Continuing our award-baiting preview of the 2008 Major League Baseball season, Yard Work is proud to present Scott Templeton‘s report on the Baltimore Orioles. Formerly of the Baltimore Sun, Mr. Templeton is a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist currently contributing to the New Republic and the New York Times. We hope you enjoy his unique and enlightened perspective on our national pasttime.

While millions of Baltimorians suffer the cool winter chill coming off the scenic Chesapeake Bay waters, the Baltimore Orioles frolic underneath the shining sun and chirping gulls hovering benevolently over Fort Lauderdale Stadium. But as these grown men run and play catch atop a field that fuels the dreams of children all across America, a stormfront slowly gathers in the distance, threatening to tear this once promising combination of veteran experience and youthful exuberance asunder, collateral damage in baseball’s never-ending war against the league’s orange-feathered stepchildren.

Earlier in February, the move that people around the team feared would come finally came — staff anchor Erik Bedard, one of the best young hurlers in the American League, if not all of baseball, was traded to the Orioles’ long-time inter-divisional foe, the Seattle Mariners. And what did they get in return for this dominant southpaw, a coveted trade chit during this past off-season? Outfield prospect Adam Jones, 31-year-old reliever George Sherrill, and three minor league pitchers. This after making a quantity-not-quality trade involving embittered and embattled shortstop Miguel Tejada. And now there’s on-again, off-again discussions regarding shipping off second baseman and team leader Brian Roberts for pennies on the the dollar to a perennial World Series pretender, the Chicago Cubs. Shouldn’t a team with this sort of talent be getting more players, instead of getting rid of the players they have, some members of the Orioles asked themselves? It was enough to make the team’s veterans sick to their stomachs.

Aubrey Huff signed with the Orioles prior to last season, seeing an opportunity to be part of a movement towards the top of the AL East, a lopsided division lorded over by the teams with the two largest payrolls in all of baseball. “I was thinking, you can take your A-Rods and your Big Papis and stick them in your jock,” said Huff over a piping hot platter of cheese fries after the day’s workouts. “I’ll take my chances with the guys that Baltimore had — Kevin Millar, Rodrigo Lopez, Jeff Conine, Kris Benson. These guys were salt-of-the-earth ballplayers. Guys that fought in the trenches for their spots. You give me 25 of those sort of guys, and I’ll win more often than not. But these kids? What do they know about winning? They’re too busy busting a nut in some girl’s mouth to worry about winning. I got stories about that Markakis that’ll put a crease in your baklava, and if I wasn’t the stand-up guy that I am, I’d spill my guts right here and now. Stupid [expletive] kids.”

For the O’s last year, the “not” occured with an alarming regularity, a regularity that disappointed both players and players’ wives. While Kris Benson was a key pickup prior to the 2006 season — stolen from the New York Mets for a now-bittersweet song — it was Benson’s beautiful wife, Anna, that some people joked made the acquisition worthwhile. I spoke to Ms. Benson via cellphone, shortly before her husband was invited to the Phillies’ camp as a non-roster invitee. As usual, she pulled no punches, offering bitter truths in that alluring out-of-breath husky croon of hers, channeling Marlene Dietrich by way of Susan Sarandon in Bull Durham. “You know, I was so [expletive] happy when the New York Mess — oh, yeah, baby, that’s it — I was so happy when that [expletive] of a team gave us our freedom. I mean, [expletive], the Orioles were — oh GOD yes, right THERE — I mean they were pretty good once, right? Like, sometime after my great-great-grandma was born? And, yeah, I was looking forward to Kris giving me a tour under the bleachers, if you catch my — [expletive], did I say to take off the clips yet? Did I? That’s it. Get Mommy the mace. I said shut your mouth, gimp, and get Mommy the [expletive] mace!”

Disappointment was never an option for a team that bolstered their potent veteran core with off-season acquisitions that included the likes of Huff, Jaret Wright, Jay Payton, and Danys Baez. Sam Perlozzo, the respected skipper expected to build off the team’s 70-win campaign in 2006, was a casualty of the team’s misfortunes. He was let go after amassing a disappointing 29-40 record in the season’s first three months, epitomized by a heart-breaking loss to the Boston Red Sox on Mother’s Day. “I still can’t figure out how it happened,” Perlozzo says, sitting outside his modest Winnebago, taking sorrowful sips from a lukewarm can of Miller Lite. Up five runs to the eventual world champions with one out in the 9th inning, starting pitcher Jeremy Guthrie allowed Coco Crisp to reach base on his 91st pitch, thanks to an error by battery mate Ramon Hernandez. Sensing his young ace was running out of gas, Perlozzo pulled Guthrie, and the Red Sox struck for six runs.

“Almost every night,” Perlozzo said, “I wake up in a cold sweat, replaying the events of that game over and over, and I ask myself, is there anything I could have done to change the outcome of the game?” He pauses, wiping sweat from his upper lip and taking another swig from his beer. The can is nestled in a Toledo Mud Hens beer cozy. “I don’t know. I don’t think there’s anything I could’ve done. But, you know, given what happened with the Patriots and SpyGate, and given how the game turned out, I have to wonder if the Red Sox were taping us. Maybe baseball should look into that, instead of all this steroid business.”

Perlozzo’s interim replacement, bullpen coach Dave Trembley, saw the team right their wrongs momentarily and for a brief yet glorious stretch play ball above baseball’s Mendoza Line, the .500 mark. And then the stand-in became the leading man, and before the ink could even dry on the contract, the curtain came down hard on the O’s and their matinee idol. Only hours after reintroducing Trembley as the new official manager, the team celebrated on the field by losing to the hapless Texas Rangers 30-3. The last-place Rangers were the first team in 110 years of baseball to score that many runs. Slap hitting journeyman infielder Ramon Vazquez cranked two home runs, while unheralded rookie Jarrod Saltalamacchia blasted two of his own on his way to collecting seven RBIs. Four pitchers, including mercurial hot-headed phenom Daniel Cabrera, allowed at least six earned runs each. In previous years, such performances could be just chalked up to growing pains, necessary speed bumps on the road to future success. But now with Bedard gone to the rainy flannel confines of Seattle, it is up to Cabrera to finally take the wheel and become the staff’s ace and stopper. And he’ll have to do it without his beloved mentor, Leo Mazzone.

Mazzone, the highly-touted pitching coach for the Atlanta Braves, was brought in specifically to work with high-ceiling pitchers such as Cabrera, with the hopes that he would work the same magic he worked on such greats as Maddux, Smoltz, and Avery. Unfortunately, Mazzone’s frustrations with Cabrera, and the Orioles, were all too apparent to people that frequented his LiveJournal weblog, http://rockingroller.livejournal.com. In an entry dated September 8, 2007, with a mood of “perplexed,” and while listening to The Cure’s “Lovesong,” Mazzone typed the following:

This goshdarn kid, I have no idea how he even puts on his pants in the morning. Every dya I try to tell him, “strike one strike one strike one.” And every time he takes the mound its ball one ball two line drive up the gap five RBIs for jason tynre or some other hussling stringbean. And I try to tell him aagain and again strike one strike one. And he give s me those crazy eyes. The sort of eyes I got from that six-fingered nutbar that one time I took a swig out of his waterbottle by mistake (and like heck that was water). That “dont mess with me homles” look. its the same look I saw when that goshdarn coco crisp made him balck. Im happy that Pedroia didnt get too hurt by DC losing his goshdar n mind, but im really wondering what the hey Im doing in thsi place if I cant get anyone to listen to me. Im gonna call Bobby and talk about ity. I hope I dont cry like last time ;_; I hate sam SO MUCH right now. Were never gonna compete with the yankees and red sox, are we?

Unless things change in the near future, Baltimore’s chances of contending are indeed slim. In baseball’s eyes, Baltimore is one of the sport’s forgotten children, another casualty of war between the haves and have-nots. While the Red Sox and the New York Yankees foot bills that would bankrupt Bill Gates, the Orioles are forced to make due with a splintered fan-base (thanks to the popularity of Washington Nationals) and diminished returns on what was once the crown jewel of baseball parks. Combine that with the continued portrayal of Baltimore on TV and in the news as a city that’s home to more drug dealers per square inch than a hip-hop video shoot, and it’s a wonder that the team’s been able to be as competitive as they are. As it stands, the team is taking the field in 2008 looking to win 80 games for the first time since their AL East divisional title in 1997. And they’re going to attempt this feat without some of their most beloved superstars.

First baseman Kevin Millar’s contagious enthusiasm belies his 36 years on this Earth, but when it comes to shooting straight, he doesn’t pull punches. “You know, when they got rid of Tejada, I was like, well it’s about time. That guy, always running around, showing off his B-12 needles and what not. I don’t need that garbage in my face, get that out of here. That’s addition by subtraction. But Bedard? Come on, man, he’s like our only good pitcher? What the hell are we going to do now? I can’t hit three homers every game, and I sure as hell can’t throw straight. And now they’re talking about getting rid of Brian Roberts, too? I mean, sure, he juiced, but come on, who didn’t? That guy’s like our lead-off hitter! They better not ask me to lead off. I got a World Series ring, and I sure as [expletive] didn’t get it hitting leadoff. I got folks from all sorts of teams, teams that win a few games? They’re calling me, asking me if, hey, Kev, you wanna play for a winner again? You think my visit to Boston last year was just for kicks? Think again, broheems. Think again.”

One might think that such dissent and disinterest would be a worry for the team’s coaching staff or front office, or even their notorious owner, Peter Angelos. If they are worried, they’re aren’t telling the press. When approached for comment, the only thing this reporter received was an unofficial statement from an unidentified member from the front office. Here is the statement in its entirety: “Mr. Angelos — please do not dump full cups of coffee into your trash bin!! I tried this request with you before but you continue to ignore me and dump cold coffee into your trash bin!! It makes the bag wet and causes the bag to spill all over my new shoes!! Unless you are choosing to upgrade from the used WaWa bags you are making us use, Please do not do this again!!!” Only time will tell whether Angelos and the Orioles will learn their lesson.