It’s May 19, 1996, and where would the Orioles be without Roberto Alomar? The do-it-all second baseman smashed a three-run homer in the bottom of the sixth to help the Birds win 8-7 over the Mariners and get ace Mike Mussina off the hook after one of the worst starts of his career. 

With the two hits, Alomar is now hitting .384 and is seemingly unstoppable.

“He’s my All-American at another level,” said O’s manager Davey Johnson, nonsensically. (Baltimore Sun, p. 6C, May 20, 1996)

Outfielder Mark Smith and first baseman Rafael Palmeiro also homered for the Birds, and second baseman Manny Alexander chipped in a pair of hits. 

The Orioles needed all the offense they could get, because Mussina was terrible. He gave up seven runs on 13 hits in six innings. And he gave up four home runs: two to Jay Buhner, and one each to Dan Wilson and Edgar Martinez. Buhner’s home runs give him eight at Camden Yards, tying him with Albert Belle for the visiting player record.

Buster Olney in the Sun recorded this interaction. 

“Can you give me a shutout inning?” Johnson asked Mussina.

Mussina replied: “I’ve been trying that for the last five.”

It was the first homer in the first start of the season for Smith, who was the O’s first round pick (9th overall) way back in 1991. He’s been in the minor leagues for most of six years now. “No one wants to be a career minor-leaguer,” he said. “I feel I can play at this level.” (Baltimore Sun, p. 6C, May 20, 1996)

With B.J. Surhoff sidelined for a few weeks, Bobby Bonilla has moved to third base and Smith has a chance to get some at bats in the major leagues, finally.

Here is the box score with the lovely totals. 

One of the reasons Smith played is that Brady Anderson is still out of the lineup as he recovers from his strained quad. “He was not running well [Friday] night,” Johnson said of Anderson. “He wants to play. It’s not like he’s wanting out of there. I can’t take a chance on pulling it.”

In other injury news, reliever Armando Benitez, who has been rehabbing a sore elbow, had a setback today and will now visit famed orthopedic surgeon Dr. James Andrews to see what’s wrong. It sounds like he could be seeing a lengthy absence.

Mark Smith, Raffy Palmeiro, and Robbie Alomar all get bricks. That’s 61 now for the Bashin’ Birds and they are on pace to break the record. The mighty Mariners are way ahead, with 74 homers already. Can the O’s catch both them and history?

Angels (20-22) vs. Orioles (23-18), 7:35 p.m.

Starting Pitchers
CAL – RHP Jason Grimsley (2-3, 4.40 ERA)
BAL – LHP David Wells (2-3, 4.24 ERA)

It has been 16 years since, as the Sun puts it, “Congress declared war on toxic waste dumps.” And how’s that going? “The federal government has managed to clean up less than a third of the nation’s most badly contaminated real estate.”

Maryland holds the distinction for having the first Superfund site. Hooray. And it currently has a dozen active sites at military bases, old factories, and landfills. Nationally, it has taken an average of 10 years and $30 million to clean up each Superfund site. If only we had known there were consequences to dumping whatever we want into the ground!

Even though the Superfund law is slow and expensive, it has been hard to fix it because the people who want to maximize death and suffering — insurance industry, manufacturers, big business, etc. — are up in arms about who should have to pay for cleaning up the shit they probably caused.

The impetus of the original Superfund bill was Love Canal, where 700 people had to be evacuated from the community in Niagara Falls, N.Y., after it was found out their whole neighborhood was built on a chemical waste dump.

If you want to know more, here’s an episode of 21 Jump Street from 1991 that tackles the topic of toxic waste.

As of this spring in 2026, there are 1,340 active Superfund sites in the U.S. 

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

Hey, these folks from Philip Morris bought a full-page ad in the Sun. They made their talking points look kind of like a cigarette. You think we should hear ‘em out?