Teams across baseball loaded up on pitching and the final day before the non-waiver deadline didn't disappoint with big-name players going everywhere. Here's a breakdown: * Oakland: The Athletics added lefty John Lester to a rotation that already has Jeff Samardzija, Jason Hammel, Scott Kazmir and Sonny Gray and this should help them correct a trend: Since 2000, they've been to the postseason seven times, but have advanced past the first round just once. A platoon of Jonny Gomes and Sam...

A few days after Ken Singleton arrived for his first Orioles spring training in 1975, manager Earl Weaver called him into his office and told him that was going to lead off. In 1973 for the Expos, Singleton had 23 home runs and 103 RBIs, but Weaver also knew that Singleton led the National League with a .425 on-base percentage, which put Weaver ahead of his time for appreciating that statistic. "On-base percentage was not thought of like it is today,'' Singleton says. "I led the league on...

Cal Ripken, baseball's Ironman who played in a record 2,632 consecutive games, played in 3,001 games in 21 seasons for his hometown Orioles. He had 3,184 hits, 431 home runs and 1,695 RBIs. He was a 19-time All-Star as well as an American League Rookie of the Year with two AL MVPs and two All-Star Game MVPs. He won a World Series in 1983 and averaged .336 in six postseason series for the Orioles. He was elected to Cooperstown in 2007. Q: How closely do you follow the Orioles? A: "I do...

Bill Ripken will never forget the advice his dad, Cal Ripken Sr., gave him the day he signed with the Orioles. The year was 1982 and Bill had just graduated from high school. They were sitting at a table at home in Aberdeen, Md., when Orioles scout Jim Gilbert gave Bill a contract worth $20,000. As usual, dad's advice was direct. "I said, 'Do I have to read the contract?' '' Bill says. "Dad said, 'No, but what it says is that if they ask you to do something, you better do it.' That...

Now that the American League has won the All-Star Game 5-3 and claimed home-field advantage in the World Series, is it too much to speculate that the Orioles will be hosting the Nationals in Game 1 at Camden Yards come October? It is a possibility, given both teams are in an excellent position to win division titles. The AL East has been falling apart daily, and that leaves the Orioles as the best team in the division. They have the deepest pitching, the potential for the biggest improvement...

As the All-Star Game approaches, here's everything you wanted to know, in chronological order, about the game's history in Minnesota, Washington, D.C., and Baltimore: * The 1937 All-Star Game was in Washington's Griffith Stadium, now the site of Howard University Hospital. Franklin Roosevelt threw out the first pitch, becoming the first president to do so at an All-Star Game. The American League won 8-3 as Lou Gehrig hit a home run with Joe DiMaggio on base. Another Yankee, Lefty Gomez,...

When Jim Gentile was traded from the Los Angeles Dodgers to the Orioles before the 1960 season, he came with a money-back guarantee. Yes, that's correct - a money-back guarantee. The Orioles gave the Dodgers two players and $50,000 for Gentile, and if the Orioles weren't happy with the deal, they could return him after 30 days and get $25,000 back. Apparently, no questions asked. Gentile, who had impressive power numbers as a minor league first baseman, didn't hit in his first Orioles...

As a high school senior growing up in California, Doug DeCinces had dreams of playing Major League Baseball. Then he had a chat with an Orioles scout. "The scout (Al Kubski) told me that I can't run and that I throw like a girl," DeCinces says. "I was shocked, said, 'OK.' I was disappointed. He was a gruff old scout. But I think he wanted to see if I had what it takes to improve. There was no coddling back then." In 1970, when the Orioles drafted and signed DeCinces, he joked with...

As a free agent after the 1978 season, pitcher Steve Stone chose the Orioles over other teams because he liked their chances to make the World Series. He was right. In his only Fall Classic, Stone pitched two innings in the Orioles' 1979 loss to the Pittsburgh Pirates. His 1980 season, though, was one for the ages in Orioles history: Stone won 25 games and the American League Cy Young Award. He is the last Orioles pitcher to win the award, joining Mike Cuellar, Jim Palmer (three times) and...

Back on Aug. 5, 1999, after the Cardinals' Mark McGwire hit his 500th career home run, reporters gathered around Tony Gwynn's locker in the San Diego Padres clubhouse in Busch Stadium. They wondered how Gwynn was feeling after coming up a hit short of 3,000 for his career. That night, as 45,106 fans watched, Gwynn and McGwire had a chance to become the first players in baseball history to reach a major milestone in the same game. "It would have been fun, but tonight was Mark McGwire's...

Memorial Stadium, the horseshoe-shaped ballpark on 33rd Street, is gone, but a plaque at the site marking home plate keeps memories alive. One day, Boog Powell stood at the plaque and went back in time. "Jim Palmer and I went over there and stood at home plate,'' Powell says. "We were standing in the middle of nowhere and put myself right back to the old ballpark. I could envision the left field wall, right field, everything. I could hear the fans. I felt the intensity and the atmosphere....

As third baseman Ryan Zimmerman's move to left field becomes the big story at Nationals Park, the team's outfield coach, Tony Tarasco, says the toughest outfield to play in the National League are in San Francisco and Chicago's Wrigley Field. "Both cities are windy, and that's what makes their the ballpark outfields so tough to play,'' Tarasco says. After the Phillies' series in D.C., Zimmerman, who hasn't played since April 12 because of a thumb injury, will get his chance to play...

Two months into the season, here are answers to your most-often asked questions for your Memorial Day weekend reading: Q: Are the Blue Jays for real in the American League East? A: Yes, especially in a division where every team has flaws for the first time in who knows how many years? There is no question the Blue Jays have enough hitting. They lead the AL in home runs and are in the top five in run production. The question is the pitching: R.A. Dickey and Mark Buehrle are fine, but can a...

Whitey Herzog is a Hall of Famer because of his managing career with the St. Louis Cardinals, but the former major leaguer known as "The White Rat" had a Baltimore connection to his career. Herzog, who managed the Cardinals to two National League pennants and the 1982 World Series title, was a left-handed-hitting outfielder who couldn't hit a curveball. Herzog played eight big league seasons, including 212 games for the Orioles in 1961 and 1962. Herzog hit .280 with 12 home runs during his...

Shortstop Ron Hansen hit 22 home runs for the Orioles' first winning team in 1960, but if they had gone to the World Series, he wasn't sure that he could have played. That's because his military job begin a few days after the season ended. "I guess I would have missed the World Series," Hansen says. "I didn't think much it (during the season's final days), but not playing would have been a possibility. We didn't make the World Series, so there's nothing to worry about." The 1962...

The first impressions of expanded replay are that it will be overall inconsequential. In most cases, a manager's challenge will either be denied by the replay command center in New York or will have little outcome on the game. But there are exceptions. Nobody knows better than Giants manager Bruce Bochy, who in one game used his challenge early only to see a blown call cost his team a run later in the game, when he was out of challenges. After the Mets' Juan Lagares was called out trying...

As a free agent following the 1991 season, pitcher Rick Sutcliffe had no intention of playing in the American League in 1992. He figured he'd sign with St. Louis so he could be close to home and stay in the more familiar National League. Johnny Oates, the Orioles' manager at the time, had other ideas. He brought Sutcliffe to Camden Yards on a cold December day and sold him on becoming an Oriole. "He told me I was going to make Orioles history by throwing the first pitch in Camden Yards,"...

VIERA, Fla. - Notes from Nationals camp and other teams that train in Florida: * Nats outfielder Denard Span said that part of the reason he hit well in the final weeks of last season was because he stopped taking on-field batting practice before games, focusing on hitting from the tee and in the cage. "When I was on the field, my swing got long," Span said. This spring, he'll return to BP on the field and then adjust as needed. * The Tigers put out a release saying that Max Scherzer, the...

VIERA, Fla. - The replay of Reds pitcher Aroldis Chapman getting hit in the face with a line drive was shown on the Nationals' clubhouse TVs several times Thursday. Each time, players reacted in stunned silence. Some looked away. Others closed their eyes. But each realized the accident could happen in any game. Chapman, the Reds' closer, was hit in the face with a drive by Kansas City's Salvador Perez in the Cactus League on Wednesday night. Chapman was carried off on a stretcher. The game...

This week's biggest debate is whether or not a new one-year experimental rule will eliminate collisions at the plate and make the game safer for catchers. But there's probably not going to be much of a change. The prediction here is that any change is not going to be drastic. The biggest change will be for the runners. The new rule penalizes any runner that barrels around third base with the macho attitude that they have to knock the opposing catcher into the next ZIP code to score a...