Mink the Mutt: the Orioles’ Best Friend

“Ow-rowf!! Rowf!! Ow-rowf-rowf-rowf-rowf!!”

-- Imitation of dog, by Dan Mink, Section 8, Baltimore Memorial Stadium

“Therefore to this dog will I,

Tenderly, not scornfully, render praise and favor.”

-- Elizabeth Barrett Browning, to her dog Flush

The barking man-dog has seen good days and bleak days, days of steak and days of bone. He has barked disapprovingly. He has barked in exultation. Sometimes he has barked for nothing. He has disturbed umpires. He has made outfielders and third basemen giggle like Little Leaguers. The Baltimore Orioles can never question fan loyalty as long as Dan the Man Mink takes Dan the Dog Mink to every game, which he does. Indeed, Dan’s rowf-rowf is the classic sound of loyalty.

It’s the sound of hound and home. It tells Orioles they are back in Baltimore, the town that forgives and keeps faith. No matter what, they know their best friend is watching from about three rows up in Section 8, and he’s surrounded by a gallery of the devoted.

“How long have you been barking?” I ask.

“I don’t know for sure,” says Mink, who is 31 years old. He makes his living in construction equipment. His wife, Patti, is expecting a baby in November. Mink the Mutt never misses a game.

“Well, about how long?” I ask. “You don’t have to be exact.”

“I started a long time ago,” Mink says. He acts as if this is the first time he’s had to answer questions about his barking. “I used to do a lot of imitations. I was a deejay for a while. . . . “

So he just sort of fell into barking. But the thing is, Mink’s bark is so distinctive -- friends, the first time I heard it, I thought a Doberman had commandeered a box seat -- that he is probably well-known to players from every team in the league. All the Orioles know him, that’s for certain. Some of them even make eye contact when Mink calls their names.

Sunday, in the sixth inning against the Boston Red Sox, the Orioles scored two more runs, giving them the five-run lead that would stand for the rest of the game, split the series and keep the Birds in first place in the American League East division. As runs crossed the plate, Mink the Mutt let loose with a rowsing rowf-rowf.

Mink is actually a serious man-fan. He’s got a season ticket. He grew up with the Detroit Tigers but, since moving to Baltimore, his heart belongs almost completely to the Orioles.

There are still trace elements of Tiger loyalty in Mink’s blood. So, when the Orioles play the Tigers Monday night, Mink will be forced into temporary ambivalence. “It’s a trauma for me, when the Tigers are here,” he says sincerely. “I’ll probably just sit there and keep quiet.”

You know it’s serious when Mink the Mutt vows mumness. This looks like a real problem for him, a side effect of transplanting from one American League city to another.

But who says you can’t teach an old dog new tricks? His fading Detroit loyalties aside, Mink acts every bit the impassioned Oriole fan -- more than many who’ve lived in Baltimore all their lives.

It almost can’t be helped. The 1989 Orioles are irresistible. They’ve created many loyal mutts.

We are swiftly arriving at the point where Baltimoreans are going to forget just how lousy the Orioles were the last few years, thereby increasing the pressure for a pennant. The word “pennant” even came from Dave Johnson’s mouth the other day after he pitched the Orioles into the weekend split with Boston.

Amazing. The Orioles, who played their saddest season just a year ago, now have gone 118 games into 1989 and they are still in first place in the division. They just split four games with the second-place team, and the hero of the weekend, the pitcher who could become Baltimore’s August Surprise, is this skinny, modest guy named Dave Johnson, and he’s from a trailer park near Baltimore. Events rarely turn more glorious than that. It’s been a wonderful and weird summer, and aren’t we all lucky to see it?

“When the season began,” Mink the Mutt says, “I actually said this would be a .500 ballclub or better. Of course, very few people believed that. ... The people out here, all my gang, they are totally enthralled with what’s happening. The Orioles got their respect back. They play like a team again. When they win, it’s a team effort.”

“And what if they fold?”

“I’d still be totally satisfied.”

He’d still render praise with an Owf and a Rowf and a rowf, rowf, rowf.