It’s March 27, 1996, and the O’s beat the Mets, 8-3, in one of their final tune-ups of the spring. Ace pitcher Mike Mussina, in his last start before Opening Day, pitched 7 strong innings. With the final roster cuts looming (every team has to get down to 25 players), there’s one name — synonymous with baseball in Baltimore — you would never think to see so close to the cut line: Ripken. But this is not that Ripken, because the younger brother of the Prodigal Son has returned to Birdland.

Billy Ripken was born in December of 1964, just over four years after his brother, Cal. Just like his brother’s, Billy’s childhood was spent immersed in baseball — summers spent at the minor league fields where his dad played. The Orioles drafted Billy straight out of Aberdeen High School in the 11th round in 1982, the same year his brother won Rookie of the Year.

It couldn’t have been easy for Billy growing up in the shadow of Cal — literally, Cal is 6’5” and Billy isn’t small, but he’s 6’1” and looks much smaller standing side by side. But it is very important to note that Billy grew up to be a legitimate Major League baseball player, and he had to grind his way every step of the way to get there.

Billy spent five years slowly rising the minor league ranks, building a reputation as a solid fielder but light hitter. By 1987 he was playing quite well at Triple-A Rochester. On July 11 of that year, he finally got the call, and he made history. When he played his first game at Memorial Stadium, he and Cal became the first ever set of brothers to play together for a team managed by their father. It was a magical moment for what became known as “The First Family of Baseball.”

The fun times were short-lived. Because the 1988 Orioles were historically bad. Cal Sr. was fired 6 games into a record-setting 0-21 start. The team went 54-107. Billy was a regular that year, and it didn’t go great. He was solid defensively, but the bat really let him down. He hit just .207 with an OPS+ of just 48, meaning he was 52% below league average.

But he was back in 1989, and as part of the super fun “Why not?” team that almost completed the unthinkable and made the playoffs, Billy was… pretty OK! And then, in 1990, he was actually…good! He hit .291, piled on 28 doubles, and raised his OPS+ all the way to 107. He was an above average major league hitter!

In 1989, Billy appeared on a baseball card with “Fuck Face” clearly written on the end of his bat. If there was one thing that Billy may have surpassed his brother at, it’s clubhouse shenanigans, and this was his — allegedly unintentional — opus. It’s a long, sordid story, but sportswriter Jeff Pearlman says it best: “Everyone knew about the Fuck Face card. And when I say everyone, I mean — EVERYONE. You did not have to be a baseball card collector. If you were a sports fan. You knew about Fuck Face. And you wanted Fuck Face with a passion.” Here’s Pearlman’s fun breakdown, including a conspiracy theory that Fleer released the card on purpose to create a stir:

That 1990 season would be the high point of his career, and after a couple more middling seasons, the O’s released him at the end of 1992. But to his credit, Billy has stayed in pro ball. But by 1995, he spent most of his time back in the minors, playing well for Cleveland’s Triple-A team in Buffalo. That Cleveland team would go to the World Series, so their roster was too good for him to crack. With his possibly nearing an end, two days before Christmas in 1995 he signed back with his hometown team.

He has impressed so far in camp. He’s hitting .371 with eight doubles. It seems likely he will earn a spot on the Opening Day roster. He returned as a guest last fall for the game when Cal broke the record, but now it looks like he will be his brother’s teammate again.

“I really found out these past three years what it’s like to play at home — because I didn’t,” Billy said. “If last year [in Buffalo] can get me a few more years in the big leagues, then everything was worth it.” (Baltimore Sun, p. 11C, March 28, 1996)

Unlike his brother, whose natural abilities are otherworldly, Billy has had to fight and claw to carve out a major league career that’s nearing a decade. He’s impressed coaches and teammates this spring. If he makes the team, he’ll be a reserve utility buy and he won’t play much. But after a year in minor league clubhouses, he’s just happy to be back home.

In this section I will break kayfabe for a bit to give thoughts on last night’s/yesterday’s O’s game in 2026.

One thing I have always appreciated about the O’s is that they usually win on Opening Day. In fact, with yesterday’s 2-1 win over the Twins, they have won 20 of the last 26 openers, a pretty impressive feat considering in that time period the team has only won around 45% of its games.

Fewer than half of the 2026 Orioles’ Opening Day roster (11 of 26) were even born yet when the 1996 team took the field for their first game. But yesterday’s game kind of felt like going back in time. Starter Trevor Rogers pitched 7 innings, a rare feat in today’s game. The trend of starters pitching fewer innings had been evolving through the history of the game, but today the average start is 5 innings or so.

The O’s scored on a sacrifice fly and a ground ball single. Usually you’d like to score more than two runs. In the last 10 years, teams scoring 2 runs have won only 23% of the time. That number jumps to over 50% when you score 4 runs. But I’ll take it! Baseball is back and the Birds are in the win column!

The #1 song in America this week is once again Celine Dion’s “Because You Loved Me.” Spoiler alert, it was #1 for six weeks. Since we talked about it last week, we’ll look at some other charts. The top R&B song was by someone who should stay on the down low, so nobody has to know that. So let’s look at the Alternative charts, where the top song was “Ironic” by Alanis Morissette. A fun little ditty that ironically uses a lot of examples of irony that are not ironic.

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

Today in “How did we end up here?” we have Oliver North, best known for illegally selling weapons to Iran to fund death squads in Nicaragua, reprising his guest role on “JAG,” NBC’s show about military cops. Instead of being in prison, North ran unsuccessfully for Senate in Virginia in 1994 and now he is dabbling in acting. What could go wrong when there are no consequences for anything?