Orioles Should Stop Early Trend Before It’s Too Late

Every spring, the Orioles try to measure up to the Yankees. And every year they end up getting measured for a coffin. Yes, if it’s May, then the Orioles are getting their annual pinstripe reality check. Except it usually turns out to be a reality checkmate.

“They are the measuring stick,” Orioles Manager Mike Hargrove said Thursday night as the Yankees came to town for four games.

“We are the measuring stick,” Yankees Manager Joe Torre said.

Well, that’s established.

So, what’s it like to get whupped by that measuring stick?

“Not good for your confidence,” Hargrove said.

“Not good for their confidence,” Torre said.

Is there an echo in here?

Actually, all of baseball has an echo problem. You yell, “The Yankees are the world champions.” And the words bounce back at you over and over. Three times in a row, four out of five years.

For the last five years, the story of the Orioles’ early-season meetings with the Yankees has, in effect, been the story of their season. Now, the Orioles face the Yankees seven times in 11 days. If they acquit themselves honorably, they might start believing their early 13-16 record can be maintained or even improved. If not ...

Which Orioles team will show up? The old, rich gang of underachievers who played their very worst in early-season meetings with the Yankees the last three springs? Or the youngsters who, hardly knowing what they were doing, stomped the living daylights out of the Yanks, 29-6, in last season’s final three regular season games?

“Ah, the ignorance of youth,” Hargrove said, smiling. “I think we’ll stand up (to the Yankees) and compete well.”

For the last three years, a succession of “mature” Oriole teams seldom surmounted its early-season nightmares. Burdened by the high expectations that come with high salaries, the Orioles’ Mission Impossible was to unseat the Yankees. However, their instructions from headquarters did not include the famous words “should you choose to accept it.”

In ‘98, the Oroles were swept in three-game series at Yankee Stadium in May and July. In ‘99, the Yankees won seven of the first eight meetings. Then, last year, the pattern culminated. The Yankees won seven of the first nine games, including a humiliating 19-1 drubbing during a three-game sweep at Camden Yards.

Just two days later, not at all by coincidence, Mike Bordick was traded and the demolition of The Orioles We Knew began. Within a week of the 19-1 loss, six veterans had been traded, and the groundwork was laid to allow Mike Mussina to go elsewhere.

“If you have a veteran ballclub and you don’t measure up well to the Yankees, then you have to look seriously at your whole card,” Hargrove said. In poker, that means you have to evaluate your hand honestly in light of what your opponent has showing.

“Bitter reality,” Hargrove said sardonically.

“In the spring, every team feels it’s a feather in their cap if they beat us,” Torre said. “The Twins are feeling good about themselves for winning two out of three from us.”

The Mariners not only swept three games from the Yankees last month, but then swept three from last year’s wild card, the A’s, too. “I like to think that’s the best the Mariners can play,” Torre said, “because I hate to think they can play better.”

As their string of championships has mounted, the Yankees have developed the eerie ability to cruise during the first half of seasons. “Last year we were around .500 for the first half,” said Torre, whose team entered last night 15-13. “I’m starting to think that (early in the season) it’s more important what the other teams (in your division) do than what you do. ... If we were in the AL West, we’d already be pretty far behind.”

Instead, the Yanks are only three games out of first place and, basically, have no worries, mate. In fact, the intense-but-never-tense focus that the Yankees achieve is a blissful baseball state. Even a performer as great as Mussina might learn something.

The ex-Oriole, questioned on how it felt to come to Camden Yards as a visitor, said, “It’ll be different pitching against the Yankees ... er, for the Yankees.” A nice little slip of the tongue.

“It’s a Yankee series so it’ll be a high-tension series without me being on the Yankee side,” Mussina added.

We reveal a lot by accident. It’s a “high-tension series” for whom, Mike? You’re a Yankee now. Remember, you don’t get ulcers any more. You give them. Maybe that’s why Moose was only 6-8 in his career against the Yankees but 141-73 against everybody else.

These sweet spring days likely won’t prove anything about the Yankees. “I judge by the quality of the effort,” Torre said. “We’ve developed an ‘inner conceit.’ When we think about the world title, we think, ‘It’s ours.’ Like a personal possession you don’t want to give up. We don’t tell people what we’ve accomplished. But we know we’re good. It’s a feeling I never want them to lose.”