Alex Rychwalski | Odds and ends

Jun. 27—Part 12 of my writing a column every day until I become institutionalized series is a little different today.

Instead of getting on a soapbox and spouting off opinions nobody asked for ("Sir, this is a Wendy's"), we've got some quick hitters on the menu.

The All-Area baseball team, 2022 Baltimore Orioles World Series tickets, Tony Siragusa and clarity. What could go wrong?

All-Area Baseball Team Out This Week

The All-Area baseball team will be released this week, beginning with the Area Champion on Wednesday, which is awarded to the team that finished No. 1 in the final Area Top 5.

A reminder, the Player of the Year and All-Area teams are selected entirely by a nomination and voting process done by the area's head coaches. We do not have a vote.

Here's our involvement: I request nominations, send out the ballot, tally the votes and write the stories. This season, all 12 area coaches submitted nominations and all 12 returned ballots.

I won't spoil who won, but the Area Player of the Year was decided by just one vote.

The area poll is comprised by a panel of area sportswriters. In addition to me, Jeff Landes and Kyle Bennett of the Times-News, Chapin Jewell of the Mineral News-Tribune, Nick Carroll of the Hampshire Review and Trevor King of the Garrett County Republican have a vote.

The All-Area softball team was initially intended to be released first, but as of the time of writing this column, only six of the area's 12 head coaches have returned ballots.

Are the Orioles... good?

No, but they're fun again.

It's early, and Baltimore will likely still lose 90 games, but this team feels a lot like the 2011 team.

Those O's played spoiler on the last day of the season, defeating the Boston Red Sox in comeback fashion, and with a 12-inning Rays win over the Yankees, Boston failed to make the postseason. The Red Sox had a legendary collapse down the stretch, losing 20 of 27 games.

Those Orioles still weren't very good at 69-93; however, they were scrappy, and every game at Camden Yards felt like a dogfight after the All-Star break. It was a sign of things to come — Baltimore would make the playoffs three of the next five years.

The 2022 Orioles aren't the same team that lost at least 108 games in each of the last three full seasons. They aren't atrocious, they don't give up and they seem to actually want to be in Baltimore.

Before dropping Game 3 of its series with the White Sox on Sunday, Baltimore was on its first four-game winning streak in nearly two years. The Orioles (34-40 overall) have a 13-10 record in June.

Baltimore will secure manager Brandon Hyde's first winning month since taking over four years ago with one win in the club's next three games.

"We come to the field every day, and we think we're a really good team," Trey Mancini said. "We don't think about the rebuild or what expectations were for us before the year. We come to the ballpark and expect to play well and expect to win."

It's a welcome change.

Rest easy Goose

I'm too young to have watched Tony Siragusa play live, but I've seen plenty of his rollicking personality on NFL Films and from the first iteration of Hard Knocks, which featured the defending Super Bowl-winning Baltimore Ravens.

Siragusa, who died last week at the age of 55, was an integral part of the 2000 Ravens team, anchoring a defense that allowed the fewest points over a 16-game season in NFL history.

Football fans will remember how those Ravens went a five-game stretch during the regular season without scoring a point, and yet their defense carried them to a 2-3 record over those contests.

Kicker Matt Stover scored all 49 points during that string of offensive futility.

In an act of protest (and to generate publicity for his bar), a fan named Jim Boyer of Overlea in Baltimore County spent two weeks on the roof of his tavern, refusing to come down until the Ravens scored a touchdown.

He spent 15 days in the cold with nothing but a tent, a lawn chair, a jug of water and gas lanterns.

"That poor guy is up there, huh?" Siragusa said to the Washington Times. "If he gets hungry, tell him to give me a call, and maybe I'll stop by and bring him a pizza or something. Hopefully, he'll get down this week."

Goose didn't have to bring him a pizza after all. The Ravens ended their touchdown drought that week with a 27-7 win over the Bengals, and Baltimore wouldn't lose again, winning 11 consecutive games en route to the Super Bowl XXXV title.

Weekend column not about summer teams

I feel compelled to clarify something to avoid speculation.

My column titled "I can't believe this needs to be said" that ran on Saturday, June 25 — in which I lambasted parents who accuse our department of bias against their children — was not related to any of the athletes presently being covered this summer.

I don't want anyone to think that Phil Carr or Scott Stevenson of the Garrett County and Fort Cumberland legion teams sent me hate mail. Additionally, the parents from those teams have been lovely (so far).

The column was not about one person. However, the inspiration for writing it over the weekend came from an email I received in response to my column titled, "No cheering in the press box."

A parent claimed I don't "cheer" for their child enough, and that I "cheer" for other athletes more.

I think they missed the point.

Alex Rychwalski is a sports reporter at the Cumberland Times-News. Follow him on Twitter @arychwal.