It’s April 23, 1996, and on a cold night in Cleveland, not even O’s ace Mike Mussina could stop the team’s skid as the hosts blasted Moose for nine runs — seven scored with two outs — en route to a 9-8 victory. It was the Orioles’ sixth straight loss.

Temperatures hovered around 40 degrees at game time with an 18 mph wind coming off Lake Erie, wind chills dropped to the teens. “Felt like a football game more than a baseball game,” Mussina said. (Baltimore Sun, p. 6D, April 24, 1996)

Buster Olney started his game story in the Sun by noting that someone’s full ashtray was sitting near Mussina’s locker. “I’ve taken up smoking,” Moose said in deadpan gallows humor. (Baltimore Sun, p. 1D, April 24, 1996)

The O’s actually jumped out to a 3-0 lead in the fourth, thanks to a home run by Bobby Bonilla. But Mussina couldn’t get a shut down inning, giving up a three-run homer to Manny Ramirez as Cleveland quickly took a lead they would never relinquish. “I just made a bad pitch,” Mussina said of the one he threw to Ramirez. (Baltimore Sun, p. 6D, April 24, 1996)

We have also reached the “blaming the officiating” stage of cope during this losing streak. With two outs in the seventh and the score 6-4, O’s outfielder Tony Tarasco appeared to catch a line drive off the bat of Julio Franco, but umpire Tim Tschida said it bounced. A Carlos Baerga singled was then followed by a three-run homer by Albert Belle. “If he [Tschida] makes that out call, then we win,” Tarasco said, fanfictionally, before realizing that was probably not true. “I’m not pointing the finger at anyone. We just didn’t score enough.” (Baltimore Sun, p. 6D, April 24, 1996)

Scoring eight runs should probably be enough. But when things are bad, sometimes they stay bad.

Here’s the box score with the not so lovely totals. The O’s will try to avoid their seventh straight loss when they head to Kansas City tomorrow.

In other news, there’s a flip-flop on the pitching staff. Struggling starter Jimmy Haynes has officially been demoted to the bullpen, and Arthur Rhodes — who has been stellar out of the bullpen — will take his spot, at least for a little while. “I pretty much [knew] I was pitching bad,” said Haynes. “But I would’ve been all right with it if I had [been demoted to the minors]. I planned on going back to Rochester and kicking butt.” But Haynes isn’t going back to Rochester, yet.

For his part, Rhodes — who didn’t like moving from the rotation to the bullpen a year ago — is now worried about going back after finding such a nice rhythm in relief. “It’s going to be tough starting again,” he said. “I’ve been throwing the ball pretty well down there, and I’ve learned how to pitch out of the bullpen. But, I’ve got to go with the flow.” 

Speaking of the bullpen, and perhaps as a sign of the team’s recent slide, closer Randy Myers has gone 16 days now without a save opportunity. Yikes.

Bobby Bo makes it back to the wall.

Baltimore (11-8) at Kansas City (6-14), 8:05 p.m. ET

Starting Pitchers
BAL – LHP Kent Mercker, 1-1, 9.00 ERA
KC – LHP Chris Haney, 0-3, 3.91 ERA

Once again Celine Dion is topping the charts this week with “Because You Loved Me.” She really dominated this spring, ok? So let’s go back to the R&B choice where we have this great song, “You’re the One” by SWV.

U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher is in Damascus, Syria, for the second time in two days to discuss a cease-fire in Lebanon. As Christopher presented a plan to stop Israel’s bombardment to Syrian President Hafez el Assad, Israeli planes continued to bomb targets south of Beirut and Hezbollah responded by firing rockets into Israel.

The Sun noted that these attacks represented a “slackening of the war effort on both side, an indication that neither side wanted a major incident to disrupt the diplomatic efforts.”

An estimated 400,000 Lebanese have been displaced during the Israelis 12-day assault. Throughout the country, Lebanese were silent at noon to honor the 150-plus refugees — including many children — killed four days earlier when Israel shelled a protected U.N. encampment.

“I’m really miserable,” said 21-year-old Waissila Haidar, a law student in Beirut. “What was the guilt of these children who died? I am only happy that this miserable incident shows the true nature of Israel to the world.”

Naturally, Israel deflected blame for the civilian casualties. “The terrible tragedy of Qana [and] Lebanon’s suffering — all of it is the blame of the terrorist organizations, first and foremost Hezbollah,” said Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres. 

To this point, Christopher’s diplomatic efforts have failed, so the barrage will continue.

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

Senate Majority Leader — and Republican presidential frontrunner — Bob Dole has been blocking attempts to raise the federal minimum wage from $4.25 to $5.15 an hour. In this prescient comic, Dole shows his true plans, which would soon become a reality. Thirty years later, the current federal minimum wage is $7.25 and hasn’t changed since 2009. CEO salaries have gone up… more than that.