As part of his campaign to bring baseball back to DC, Mayor Williams announced yesterday that he will not attend another Orioles game. Not that Angelos was ever in his corner, this will further piss him off!

Williams said that he is not (wink wink) suggesting other DC residents to join the boycott (wink wink).

I'm totally down with an Os boycott, but my thing is I never actually pay for Os tickets - I always get them free through work, and they're always season tickets that have already been paid for. So I'm technically not helping the Os by going. I guess I could boycott concessions while I'm there, which would have an added benefit: I could use the money I save to buy a Porsche.

I went to one of the Sox/O's game last week, and it looks to me like people are already boycotting the O's. For a team that added three all stars, they're not drawing a crowd.

And William, I'm free whenever those tickets drop in your lap. (wink, wink, as Bucky would say)

The only thing that would bring me up to Camden Yards is when the Yankees are in town. I do have tickets to one of the Yankees/O's games there later this season. But, for the most part, I have just been trying to go to The Bronx instead of Baltimore.

The three hour drive after work to get to see the last half of a game has brought me to a traffic imposed boycott I guess.

I personally no longer care what they do with baseball here in northern VA. I'm sick of hearing about it and seeing signs in yards every 3 months or so. Some of my friends were adamant about getting a stadium in Arlington, but even the most frenzied are losing steam at this point.

I think you're like a lot of DC-area baseball fans -- more partial to other teams than they are of the Os.

I too make the trek up to B'more only when the Brewers are playing. But now that they're in the NL -- it doesn't happen much (not this year).

So heading up there to see the Os play, say, the White Sox or the Tigers -- no. Unless, like Wm'65, I end up with free tickets!

[that being said, we are planning an overnight in B'more sometime soon -- mainly to see the Cone Sister's art, and to dine at my (and Mencken's) favorite restaurant - Marconi's - where they've been pouring fine rye manhattans since the end of prohibition! -- and will probably end up going to a game and soak in some rays]

I don't particularly care what Williams or the misguided minions who are operating on some lark thinking that baseball will respond to their ass kissing by granting them the priviledge of a major league franchise do. They're not going to get a major league franchise. I think the words out of Peter Angelos's mouth will either be something like "over my dead body" or "see you in court."

I don't think D.C. necessarily DESERVES a baseball team and I don't think cowtowing to Major League Baseball when the city has a MYRIAD of other problems is the correct answer.

About the only thing that could make me change my mind is if Congress started holding hearings about eliminating baseball's antitrust exemptions (which I think is long overdue to begin with) and tells baseball that the only way they can get out of it is to grant D.C. a baseball team. Then if MLB still sends the Expos to Portland, Ore., Congress should just go ahead and vote for the repeal.

Then again, for truth in advertising's sake, I'm a D.C. area ORIOLES fan. I'd be unlikely to switch my support to a Washington D.C. franchise and Hell would freeze over before I root for a team in Virginia.