It’s September 26, 1996, and rookie Rocky Coppinger pitched the best game of his career, taking a shutout into the ninth and helping the O’s win 4-1 in Toronto and move ever closer to clinching the AL wild card.

“That’s an outstanding performance by a rookie pitcher,” said O’s manager Davey Johnson. “That’s as good as it gets.” (Baltimore Sun, p. 5E, September 27, 1996)

Coppinger’s final line was one run on five hits over 8⅓ innings for the 10th win of his career. Jesse Orosco and Armando Benitez combined to get the final two outs.

Brady Anderson and Cal Ripken supplied the offense for the O’s. Cal hit a three-run homer and Brady had three hits, including his 48th homer of the season. It was also Brady’s 11th leadoff homer of the season, tying Bobby Bonds’s major league record.

But all eyes were on the scoreboard to check on what the Mariners were doing. Well, they have lost four out of five and are now 2.5 games back with only three to play for the O’s and four to play for the M’s. The magic number for Baltimore to clinch the playoffs sits at 2. Any combination of O’s wins and Mariners losses that equals 2 will send the Birds to the playoffs for the first time in 13 years.

“I know what the magic number is, but I’m not going to get too excited about it,” Johnson said. “I probably won’t get excited about it until we’re a couple of outs away, and when we are, I’ll probably go into atrial fib [which hospitalized him earlier this season].”

Brady was a bit less dramatic. “Making the playoffs would mean a lot, especially considering how far this team has come in the last six weeks,” he said.

It certainly has been a rollercoaster, but it looks like the O’s will achieve their primary goal from the start of the season. Surely there won’t be anything dramatic that happens in the season’s final days in Toronto. 

I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.

Here is the box score with the lovely totals.

Brady and Cal team up for a couple more bricks.

48 for our guy! Can he actually get to 50???

Orioles (87-72) at Blue Jays (72-87), 7:35 p.m.

Starting Pitchers
BAL – RHP Scott Erickson (13-11, 5.05 ERA)
TOR – RHP Paul Quantrill (5-14, 5.48 ERA)

Israeli soldiers opened fire on Palestinians in the West Bank yesterday, killing three police officers and a protester. Ann LoLordo of the Sun reports that as many as 300 Palestinian demonstrators were wounded. Seven Israeli soldiers were also injured in what the paper calls “the most violent clash of the 3-year-old peace process.”

(It is worth noting that shortly after Benjamin Netanyahu’s election in May, the Sun replaced their Israel-Palestine correspondent, Doug Struck, with LoLordo. Struck did not mince words about Netanyahu and indicated he was a right-wing candidate. LoLordo’s coverage is not quite as…strident. Anyway, back to the story.)

“This is an eruption that has been long in the making,” said Hanan Ashrawi, an official of the Palestinian authority.

Israeli soldiers and Palestinian police traded gunfire when a march of Palestinian students ended with them throwing stones at an Israeli checkpoint in Ramallah.

“This is an escalation by the Israeli government against our people who are protesting against a breach of the peace agreements,” said Palestinian President Yasser Arafat.

If you will recall, antagonism to the peace process was a central part of Netanyahu’s campaign. The Israelis naturally said they were fired upon first, but reports from the ground — and 30 years of hindsight — perhaps paint a different picture.

“There were hundreds and hundreds of bullets around us,” said Dr. Mustafa Bargouthi, a Palestinian physician who was on the street. “I can tell you, I saw death. I transferred two cases of high-velocity bullets. I didn’t see a single case where the Israelis were threatened.”

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

Now you can smell like Mike.