It’s August 18, 1996, and Scott Brosius and the A’s jumped all over O’s starter David Wells, scoring eight times in the first two innings and cruising to a 9-6 win.

The Oakland third baseman had four hits including a home run, and drove in four runs. Wells only recorded three outs, giving up seven runs in his worst start of the season.

It was a disappointing end to a five-game set in the East Bay, as the O’s won the first three in convincing fashion before dropping the final two. They remain two games back of the White Sox in the wild card race.

“We picked up plenty of ground on this trip,” said O’s manager Davey Johnson to the Sun’s Peter Schmuck. “But I don’t worry about that. I just worry about our games. I’m not into scoreboard watching. We’ve been playing awfully well, even though our road schedule has been horrendous. We’re going home now and I think we’re through the worst of it.” (Baltimore Sun, p. 1C, August 19, 1996)

Wells had been the team’s most reliable starter of late, but he just didn’t have it tonight. A’s catcher Terry Steinbach also took him deep in the first inning for his 30th homer. Big Mac McGwire homered off reliever Esteban Yan to extend the lead later.

“They did a great job to get me out there,” said Wells, who had been nursing a sore back the last few days. “Maybe [my back] was in the back of my mind and that kept me from following all the way through, but I don’t think that was the reason. You still have to go out and pitch. I was just [lousy]. I’ve been pitching great lately. I guess you’re entitled to a bad game once in a while.” (Baltimore Sun, p. 5C, August 19, 1996)

Brady Anderson drove in four runs for the Birds, and B.J. Surhoff hit his 20th homer of the season, but they were chasing from the start and couldn’t catch up.

More concerning than the loss was that red-hot catcher Chris Hoiles had to leave the game in the fourth inning with a strained groin muscle in his right leg. 

“I’m all right,” Hoiles said. “I just didn’t want it to get worse.” (Baltimore Sun, p. 5C, August 19, 1996)

Fingers crossed that Hoiles doesn’t miss too much time and that Wells can bounce back. After an off day, the Mariners are coming to Camden Yards. Seattle is just a half game behind the Birds in the wild card standings.

Here is the box score with the not-so-lovely totals.

B.J. adds a brick as the O’s near 200 dingers on the season.

Off day!

There’s an interesting story at the bottom of the front page under the headline “A revolution in laundry labeling.”

Thanks to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and what the Sun describes as “an obscure group called the Trilateral Labeling Committee” fabric care instructions on clothing tags will be replaced with symbols — “more than 30 combinations of squares, circles, triangles, dots, dashes and sashes.” The idea is that people will understand the symbols regardless of what language they speak.

“A lot of these are not intuitive — you have to spend a little effort,” said Constance Vecellio, a lawyer with the Federal Trade Commission. “It is a new language that people have to learn.”

“I’m too old for that,” said Walter Kolola, who came to the U.S. from Poland in 1951 and speaks four languages. He was shown the chart at the Fleet Street Laundromat in Fells Point, and was not interested in learning more.

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

Here are those new symbols for laundry labels. Hmmm, I’m not sure these caught on…