Quinn Smith, Baby Bird

My son Quinn Porter Smith was born at 7:42pm on October 6, 2006. He came three weeks early and narrowly avoided a trip to the I.C.U. From the moment he arrived on this earth, the Yankees began a free fall from the playoffs. With Quinn and Christina at the hospital, I watched Kenny Rogers mow down the Yanks with a wicked curve ball that night in Detroit and saw the Bombers lose again the next day, exiting the playoffs. I will do everything I can to bring my son into the Oriole family, short of baptising him at Camden Yards--and that's not out of the question.

Save Sunny's Surplus

I met a nice woman this week who recently quit her job as a buyer for Sunny's Surplus. I had no idea it was a Maryland operation. I spent many afternoons in the store on Harford road in Baltimore with my grandfather searching for the one item I was allowed to buy back in the late sixties. The gas masks, the cap guns, the grenades like miniature iron pineapples, the compasses and canteens, the helmets and the camouflage, the bayonets, the machetes, the gold .50 caliber dummy ammo that I grasped as a baton, the bolt-action wooden rifles from WWII, the myriad patches and decals, and the shining Marine's sword up by the check out counter. I spent hours there imagining what it was must be like to be in Vietnam. The Sun reported B-52 bombings every day above the fold and during baseball season kept a small box reserved for the Oriole scores below it. Sunny's is going through tough times these days. Walmart carries a similar inventory. War is a different ballgame.