For it's 1-2-3 strikes, you're out!

Q: Who are Sean Gilmartin, Drew Jackson, Richie Martin, and Branden Kline?

a) four guys your sister went out with in high school
b) four guys you went out with in high school
c) four attorneys who represented the guy who ran into your minivan that time on the parking lot at Burger King
d) four guys among the 60 vying for spots on the Baltimore Orioles 2019 roster

If you said d, you're onto me.

Gone from the Orioles roster are names like Manny Machado, Adam Jones, and Jonathan Schoop.  Machado was traded to the Dodgers amid great hoopla and did not exactly make them forget Pee Wee Reese (or Pee Wee Herman.) He recently signed for all the money in the world to play for the Padres, and will wear out his welcome in San Diego by mid-July, it says here. Adam Jones's contract expired, and as of this writing, he remains unsigned, and Schoop was sent to the Brewers in exchange for some prospects, had a horrible 2nd 1/2 of the season and wound up with the Twins.

It all boils down to this, as my third-grade teacher used to say. The Orioles can only get better, and this is the year that will start. Sales of scorecards will be brisk this year down at the park, because a rotating case of candidates, much like ABC's "The Bachelor," will be trotted out this season and given their chances to pitch, hit, field and run the bases like big leaguers.

The problem might be that some fans will look back 30 years.

In 1988, the Orioles had bottomed out almost as horribly as last season's team, starting off the year losing their first 21 games and becoming a worldwide symbol of futility. By the time Billy Ripken was seen clobbering himself on the melon with a Louisville Slugger, he had already seen his Dad, Cal Ripken Sr, get fired after the first six games, and there were three more losses to go on the way to a 54-107 record.

And last year the Orioles were even worse than that at 47-115, so hopes for a WHY NOT season like they had in 1989, when they challenged for the pennant all year long until caving at a best-forgotten weekend in Toronto, might be a bit out of place.  Sure, this year's team will feature all sort of spunky guys getting their first real chance to make the big time, rather than last year's sorry collection of worn out, phlegmatic non-hustlers, so let's just sit back, enjoy the games, and see what happens!

As I said for the whole time we went without a football team around here, having the worst team is a billion (bee-yun) times better than having no team. And it will be fun to see them get better!