For the Birds #6

The Orioles have won four in a row, the longest streak of the year, and I am beginning to see progress. They pounded the Blue Jays today, 15-0 behind a great performance by the oft-erratic Daniel Cabrera. Kevin Millar, silent with the bat for most of the year, sprang to life today with five RBIs, much to the chagrin of Red Sox fans who are reeling from three straight losses to the Yankees and need a positive force like he can be. I remember the first Blue Jay season and their early years with likes of Bob Bailor, Ron Fairly, Rico Carty and John Mayberry. They caused me great pain in 1989, when the Orioles cobbled together a cinderella season under the slogan, "Why Not?" and lost the Division lead in the last week to the Jays, loaded with Roberto Alomar and Joe Carter. The Orioles had a pitcher that year named Dave Johnson, a journeyman minor-leaguer who drove a truck in the off-season, and he handcuffed the Jays for seven innings during the second game of the season-ending series, inducing pop-up after pop-up, until the Jays pulled away and clinched the division. I was in New York city that day, and ran into a Jays fan for the first time. I asked him if he clapped throughout the game like they did in Montreal and he didn't appreciate it. I also learned while living in New York that the Northern Jay can be quite aggressive, as one regularly appeared in the tree outside my window each spring to terrorize the sparrows. I hate the Skydome with its retractable roof and resent the fact that it was the venue where Alomar, in an Oriole uniform, spat upon an umpire. I consider no amount of runs sufficient in defeating them.