Last night, a gaggle of 18- to 20-year-olds decided to drive to Camden Yards, rip a statue dedicated to Cal Ripken off its base, throw it into a pickup truck, and drive off into the night. (The statue is just a hollow aluminum No. 8, so it’s not as impressive as it might have sounded at first.)

This story closely mirrors the plot of an edutainment computer game. “The evil Dr. Wizard has stolen all the numbers in town! Help us track him down by solving this series of long division problems!” Luckily, no FUN-damental mathematics were necessary, as the unruly kids had the cops called on them later in the night. When the police arrived, the monument was sitting there in the truck. It’s still unclear, though, why they would bother to steal it. A few possibilities:

- They were members of a massive anti-number 8 conspiracy. There is a contingent out there that can’t stand the number 8 and know than the number 9 is way better. They chose this exact date to strike — 9/9/09.

- They were framed. This is Baltimore, after all. It’s clear that Bubbles and Johnny took the aluminum statue off its hinges, chucked it into a grocery cart, and made a beeline to the metal man.

- They were Braves fans, and planned on flipping it over on its side. This would have made it a tribute to Atlanta’s Omar Infante. Infante? Infinity? Oh, nevermind.

- They were from a rival high school. The Orioles, what with their lackluster hitting and woeful pitching, are beaten every year by their cross-town rivals, Valley High. Some pranksters from Valley, clad in varsity jackets, stole it and drove down the road while snickering and trading high-fives.

No, it’s not a surprisingly fun ESPN.com gimmick. It’s just another night at Camden Yards:

What’s happening here? Allow the YouTube description — via Jamie and Hot Clicks* — to explain:

A drunken fan takes a bet from his friends that he can run across the field during the 9th inning of an Orioles game, touch the Southwest sign, and run back and touch his friends hand for $1,000!

Usually it’s my bloggerly duty to decry the dummies that go run out on the field for attention, but I can’t be mad at this guy. He took on the sort of quest that men of less testicular fortitude would never attempt. Sure, he faltered in the end. Sure, instead of making $1,000, he’ll probably be shelling out that much in lawyer fees and court costs and punitive fines. But he tried, gosh darn it. He tried.

Keep reaching for that Southwest sign, you shirtless drunk bastard. God bless you.

*(Be honest: Jamie and the Hot Clicks would be a better-than-average indie band name.)

Spring Training tends to drag on. I understand its length can help a coaching staff better decide who should fill what holes in the field, and who should be sent down to the minors or cut for good. I also understand practice is never a bad thing.

But when we start stretching over 30 games in the spring, it’s time to close up shop and head home already, right? Time for these games to actually mean something? That’s what I would assume the Orioles radio announcing crew thought over the weekend. Because after a game against the Mets hit a rain delay, they never came back when the game resumed, and according to the NY Post (via AA), they told their bosses the game was canceled.

Perhaps they just wanted to go home and nap. One can hardly blame them. Or maybe that wasn’t the case at all, because after this news broke, the boys took to explaining.

To ALL Orioles Fans…..Fred And I had nothing to do with the decision to discontinue the broadcast on Sunday March 29th. It was completely out of our hands … On Sunday,….we filled for about 40 minutes and then we were told to discontinue the broadcast and simply sign off. The engineer left, the equipment went with him. Fred And I did NOT make that decision……we are not in a position to make that decision.

Whatever, I still like the nap explanation better.

Yesterday, the Cubs traded Felix Pie to the Orioles for Garrett Olson and a minor-league pitching prospect. With the move, this effectively marks a second, all-the-talent-in-the-world center fielder that never quite panned out from the Cubs’ farm system — the first being Corey Patterson. (Though, I suppose, Patterson did enjoy one great season with the Cubs, and, unlike Pie, actually played in the majors for a few years before his tenure ended.)

Cubs fans are no doubt left a bit bummed by this, because when you have a guy that’s supposed to be The Next Big Thing and he doesn’t hit expectations, and then he’s all of sudden gone, it leaves a bit of a sour taste in the mouth.

But was Pie really ever given much of a chance this year? He suffered a um, twisted testicle in spring training, but still won the starting spot Opening Day in center field. Then all of a sudden Reed Johnson starting making redonkulous catches in center, and then Jim Edmonds came along, and it was pretty much curtains for the guy as far as this season was concerned as he struggled at the plate from the outset.

Clearly, the Cubs saw something in him that was uncorrectable, felt he was never going to quite blossom, or realized his trade value was high, so they dealt him yesterday. (Or perhaps it’s still a ploy to get Jake Peavy. Jeebus.)  In the Trib today, Jim Hendry indicated Pie wasn’t able to shorten his swing enough for their liking.

Pie is still pretty young, (23) so perhaps the Orioles will give him a full season to get his swing in check, a chance the Cubs never gave him.

Every kid around my age (or a little older) who collected baseball cards has a story about the first time they saw Billy Ripken’s “F–K Face” baseball card. (Tom Fornelli of FanHouse shared his earlier today.) I remember my next-door neighbor  — who was about seven years my elder — handing me the card and asking me to “Find something wrong with it.”

I looked at that thing for like two minutes. I couldn’t find anything wrong with it. I was dumb in first grade. My neighbor pointed it out to me, and yup: There it was … “F–K Face.” (Aside, if blogs existed in the late 80s/early 90s, Billy Ripken’s Fleer card would have totally been the top story on Ballhype the day it was discovered.)

Apparently, there’s been varying stories about what exactly went down, with Ripken stating it was a prank his teammates pulled on him. But no more is Billy Ripken hiding behind lies. He’s here to set the record straight once and for all. CNBC’s Darren Rovell has the scoop:

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I realize that the majority of posts I’ve made in my relatively brief blogging career have relied on outrageous fiction as a crutch.  My next post is going to be about a dragon who can speak English and flies around fighting crime in New York City.  But for now, I’ll stick with the facts, and assure you that everything that follows here is completely true.

I spent part of my childhood in Woodstock, Georgia, a suburb of Atlanta.  My parents made me join the Cub Scouts, and it was there that I met some kid named Nick Markakis.

Nick loved to talk.  All the time.  The kid would not shut up.  Most of our conversations were dominated by his love of “G-LOC: Air Battle,” a Sega Genesis game.  Was it worthy of his hype?  Hard to say, because he would never let me play the damned game.  He would sit there in front of the television, answering my requests to play with dissertations on how realistic the game was.  Since, you know, ten-year-olds are authorities on modern air warfare.

His dad worked at the Lockheed facility in nearby Marietta.  I only remember this because he uttered the sentence, “my dad works at Lockheed,” no less than 750 times.  His mom often helped out with den activities, and was a very nice person.  I was invited to his birthday party at Whitewater, a nearby water park.  We packed into their car, and for the next half-hour, Nick interrupted all my attempts at conversation with anecdotes about how his dad worked at Lockheed.  At one point, his mother turned to the back seat, looked at me, and said, “sorry.”  Nick didn’t seem to notice.  His dad worked at Lockheed.

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