It’s June 27, 1996, and these Orioles are starting to have an undeniable scent of fraudulence. With a 3-2 loss to the Yankees, the Birds have now lost three in a row and are a dismal 9-22 against teams with winning records. That’s not a great look for a team that fancies itself a contender.

“Basically, that’s been the story of our season,” O’s manager Davey Johnson said to the Sun’s Buster Olney. (Baltimore Sun, p. 

Yankees lefty Kenny Rogers stifled the O’s for 7⅔ innings. After giving up two runs in the first two innings, Orioles starter Scott Erickson battled through eight innings, but his team just couldn’t come back. Since the Yankees didn’t need to bat in the ninth, it marked Erickson’s third straight complete game.

The game was a tough task from the start for Baltimore, after playing late the previous night in Texas, the team didn’t get to their hotel in New York until after 6 a.m. But as the Sun’s Ken Rosenthal noted in a scathing column, that’s just the latest excuse for “Peter Angelos’ $48 million lemon.”

The team is now 5.5 games out of first place, and with three more in the Bronx, they could be almost completely out of it by the end of the weekend.

Mike Devereaux was a lone highlight with three hits. He scored both of the O’s runs.

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

Before the game, Cal Ripken and Roberto Alomar held a news conference urging people not to panic. “This team really hasn’t got up and running yet,” Cal said. “We feel thankful to be where we are, considering how we’ve played. Hopefully you develop a relationship with teammates during the year. When people aren’t living up to what they're supposed to, a leader is somebody who pulls them aside. It’s something [the media] will never know about.” (Baltimore Sun, p. 5D, June 28, 1996)

“When somebody is struggling, you don’t want to point the finger at them,” Alomar said. “We’re a family. We’re trying to help each other privately. To win — to go all the way — we have to remain a family.”

As Rosenthal reported, a downtrodden Rafael Palmeiro told a different story. “Something is missing with this team,” he said. “I don’t know what it is, but something is missing.” (Baltimore Sun, p. 5D, June 28, 1996)

It’s a long season of hills and valleys, but it definitely seems like this team is in a rut.

No bricks today.

Orioles (40-35) at Yankees (46-30) 7:35 p.m.
BAL – LHP Rick Krivda (2-3, 4.04 ERA)
NYY – RHP Dwight Gooden (7-4, 4.21 ERA)

In a 7-1 decision, the Supreme Court ruled that women can go to Virginia Military Institute, which had been a dudes-only training ground for literal Confederates and neo-Confederates for 157 years. And now a woman could be the next Stonewall Jackson.

The ruling, which says that a state college or public school cannot be reserved for just one sex, comes seven years after an anonymous woman tried to enroll at the school but was denied. It is seen as a career-defining triumph for Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The former women’s rights lawyer wrote the decision. If this court has a ruling with 7 on one side, you know who the other two are. Antonin Scalia was the only dissenter, and Clarence Thomas — famous for his, um, ethics and always conscious of conflicts of interest — recused himself from the case because his son, Jamal, attends VMI.

Attorney General Janet Reno applauded the ruling, saying that the court “overwhelmingly has given life to the promise in the Constitution that all of us deserve an equal shot at educational opportunity.”

“We’re no longer VMI,” said VMI cadet Nick Latsios. “Now we’re just any old school.”

Sis Warner, the wife of a VMI alumnus and mother of another, was despondent. “Once you introduce women, they [the boys] will not have that bonding experience,” she said. During the six-year court fight, Warner sold bumper stickers that said “Save the Males.”

The ruling is a big deal, but there really isn’t a place in a non-fascist society for a place like VMI and one day maybe we can live to see the day it shutters. But for now, anyone can be a “citizen-soldier” at a place known for sexism, racism, and the systemic abuse of cadets.

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

Ollie Days are here again!