It’s April 18, 1996, and with 17 hits and their ace on the mound, you would have thought that the O’s would have made quick work of the Red Sox. But you would be wrong. 

The lowly Red Sox snapped their seven-game losing streak, racking up 14 hits of their own and a 10-7 victory to avoid the sweep.

“There were a couple of innings where things mounted up for them and it was just their day,” Orioles ace Mike Mussina said after taking his first loss of the season. “Unfortunately, we just gave up more runs than we could make up.” Mussina gave up a season-high six runs over six innings.

Reliever Jesse Orosco, who had only pitched four times so far this year, didn’t provide much relief. He gave up four runs in two innings of work.

“He’s a little rusty,” said manager Davey Johnson. “Jesse needed a little work. We’d have preferred it was a little better quality.” He’ll be back out there soon enough.

Brady Anderson had four hits including his fourth home run. And Mike Devereaux also added four hits in the loss. Mike Stanley had three hits and a home run, and reigning AL MVP Mo Vaughn also added a homer for the bad guys.

In the Sun, Ken Rosenthal penned a tongue-in-cheek “sky is falling” column. “How do you spell C-R-I-S-I-S? This is no way to win 130 games. The ace was terrible. The defense was brutal… Two losses in five days? SIT DOWN CAL? Like addicts in need of a fix, let’s fall off the wagon, go back to our old ways and rip up the entire stinkin’ team.” (Baltimore Sun, p. 1D, April 19, 1996)

Maybe Kenny should have waited another day, because tomorrow he may not be joking…

Here’s the box score with the not so lovely totals.

Brady and Raffy get their brick on.

The Brady-O-Meter returns as his sideburns keep growing!

Baltimore Orioles (11-3) at Texas Rangers (10-4), 8:35 p.m. ET

Starting Pitchers
BAL – LHP Kent Mercker, 1-0, 5.91 ERA
TEX – RHP Roger Pavlik, 3-0, 2.84 ERA

Just before the first anniversary of the Oklahoma City Bombing (it’s tomorrow), the Senate passed a $1 billion anti-terrorism measure that would “make it easier to track and punish terrorists and hasten executions of convicts on death row.” (Baltimore Sun, p. 1A, April 15, 1996)

The bill doesn’t go as far as President Clinton’s administration wanted, with expanded wiretap authority and mandatory use of “taggants” to track explosives among the provisions stripped out. The surveillance state of Clinton’s dreams would obviously come later (and then some) following 9/11, but for now he is denied because Conservatives — joined by the left flank of the Democrats — were worried about giving so much authority to the feds.

Anyway, the vote was 91-8 in the Senate. Something tells me that these enhanced anti-terrorism measures won’t be focused much on right-wing extremists like the ones who actually bombed the building in Oklahoma City.

Timothy McVeigh would be convicted of the bombing in June 1997 and executed in 2001. He was a man ahead of his time. If he lived today, he and the Michigan Militia would be among the groups that are aligned in support of their president.

Welcome to a recurring segment where I find fun things in today’s (in 1996) Baltimore Sun!

90s suits. So much fabric. So much style.