Calling the Pen
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June 27, 2020 at 7:00 am
Calling the Pen: Remembering the 1890s’ Orioles, Baltimore’s first champs
Most baseball fans who live in Baltimore know about the great Orioles teams who won six pennants and three Worlds Series between 1966 and 1983, including three pennants in a row from 1969-1971. However, many Baltimoreans may not realize that more than 70 years before the St. Louis Browns moved to Baltimore...
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May 23, 2020 at 7:00 am
Calling the Pen: One fan’s Top 10 Oriole memories
While there may not have been many memorable moments over the past few seasons for Orioles fans, there certainly have been many since they arrived in Baltimore in 1954. During the Covid-19 quarantine, this longtime Orioles fan has searched his memory bank to come up with his Top 10 memories while peering...
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May 16, 2020 at 7:00 am
Calling the Pen: Thanks for the memories, and a wish for more
I can’t write. I know I can’t write. But my wife and son keep telling me that I should, and we all know how objective a spouse and the children can be. So, I am writing just to prove a point: I can’t write. Although deep inside, I think I can, but...
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May 9, 2020 at 7:00 am
Calling the Pen: Baseball’s a friend that never leaves you
On the ninth day of the fifth month of the year, we still wait. Call it the longest rain delay ever. That’s a great inside joke I have with BaltimoreBaseball.com’s Rich Dubroff. Rich keeps score of everything, including rain delays, and this has trended toward a delightful Twitter joke for two. There...
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May 2, 2020 at 7:00 am
Calling the Pen: There’s no crying in baseball, but it’s OK to miss it
There was something about the last game of a baseball season that troubled me. One-hundred-and-sixty-one games had been played, but number 162 had a finality to it that triggered a certain sadness. I sometimes would watch the replay later that night to hold on to it for just a little longer. The...
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April 25, 2020 at 7:00 am
Calling the Pen: An Oriole fan still waiting to see his first World Series
I was born in 1983 at Union Memorial Hospital, just down 33rd Street from Memorial Stadium. Bittersweet, born an Oriole fan and unable to rejoice in what remains to this day our organization’s last World Series championship. On the bright side, the city had Cal Ripken Jr., real-life Iron Man. I can...
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April 18, 2020 at 7:00 am
Calling the Pen: A fan’s thank you to Mark Reynolds
I moved to Chicago in July 2010, a New York kid who grew up with the dynasty Yankees and loved every minute. Though few would label the Bronx Bombers anywhere near the word underdog, I remember when the team won its first title in 18 years. The Yankees did so in 1996,...
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April 11, 2020 at 7:00 am
Calling the Pen: When it felt good to be the visiting team
The team we would be competing against played only home games. It seemed to give the players an advantage, but it was not a topic for debate. The softball team for the Baltimore City Detention Center didn’t travel. An inmate had written to the manager of our team, Dick Irwin, asking if...
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April 4, 2020 at 7:00 am
Calling the Pen: Enduring life, and death, one step at a time
When my sister Colleen turned 5, my mom wasn’t home for her birthday. She was in the hospital having our baby sister Val, who had the temerity to be born on Colleen’s birthday, April 4th. It was bad enough that Mom wasn’t there for Colleen’s birthday, but from now on she’d have...
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March 14, 2020 at 7:00 am
Calling the Pen: Mancini reminds us that we need each other
When I first started working part time at the Baltimore News American, I got a ride home one evening from a summer intern whose car was about as old as I was, 18. The brakes might have been just as old. As we crested the Jones Falls Expressway from downtown, traffic was...
