Mike Bianucci, a former star for W.T. Woodson in Fairfax, has been signed by the Texas Rangers.

Bianucci and Westfield’s Brandon Snyder were the two most dominant sluggers in local prep baseball in the 2005 season.

Snyder opted to go pro right out of high school, signing a seven-figure deal with the Baltimore Orioles. Injuries have kept Snyder from living up to billing so far; he’s still with the O’s single-A affiliate in Frederick this season.

Bianucci opted for the college life, and has starred at Auburn the past three springs. He’s also lived the amateur player’s dream of playing in the much mythologized Cape Cod League each summer.

I went to my first Cape Cod League game on Saturday. Having followed him since high school, I was excited about seeing Bianucci play outfield for the Cotuit Kettleers. As of the weekend, he was tied for second in the league in RBIs and home runs.

Turns out he’d accepted an offer from the Rangers and left town a few hours before the first pitch.

As Snyder could tell him, there’s no turning back now.

The two best teams in the AL East will battle for the top spot tonight; improbably, one of those teams is named the Baltimore Orioles. The other? Let’s just say Canadians aren’t confining their reign of terror to soccer games. According to a Toronto Star article from last Thursday, a series of “scraps in the stands” have caused Toronto Blue Jays management to consider ending its $2 Tuesdays promotion at the Rogers Centre. “This is not some Saturday night bar,” team President and CEO Paul Godfrey told the Star, adding that the Jays will discontinue alcohol sales in the cheap seats and may scrap the promotion altogether.

Canadian sports fans, when will you learn to behave?

Photo by Larry Coor

Yesterday, Rep. Tom Davis was among the lawmakers demanding further investigation of Miguel Tejada.

Davis et al want to know if Tejada lied when he said he didn’t use performance enhancing drugs. Pretty soon, they’re going to get a chance to entrap Roger Clemens.

Well, if Congress has decided that the sports world is where the government’s investigative powers are most needed, and is so eager to turn its hearings into episodes of “Moment of Truth,”, and is really intent on clearing up questions about who’s using what performance enhancers, well, why stop with Tejada and Clemens?

Why stop with baseball?

Why not go after the Biggest Kahuna of all the alleged drug cheats: Lance Armstrong?

Unlike Tejada, Armstrong has represented America and been named to various White House panels.

By the evidentiary standard used in the Mitchell Report — where, basically, if one hanger on says you’re guilty, you’re guilty — Armstrong looks a helluva lot guiltier than Clemens.

So let’s really get this show going. Bring in Lance Armstrong and put him under oath.

Or, better yet, stop the circus…

Let us break from mourning the loss of Hilda Mason with this completely unnecessary posting about the Orioles…

Unlike everyone else I know, I have not ditched the O’s for the new hometown team. But, shit, if the Orioles aren’t just the most hateable sports franchise around. Over the weekend, it decided to become the first team out of the dugout to hate on the Mitchell Report. The New York Times, reports it here.

Sure the Mitchell Report describes the Orioles as a juice factory (and still no playoff run!). But the O’s have no business critiquing the methodology of the report. Why not refute the allegations one by one?

The Mitchell Report is out. To assist with the crushing of your fandom, City Desk has searched the 400-plus-page document for all Nats and Orioles players past and present named in the report. NB: The page numbers refer to the PDF numbering, not the numbers actually printed on the pages.

• former Orioles outfielder David Segui, p.198
• former Orioles outfielder Larry Bigbie, p.200
• former Nats pitcher Mike Stanton, p.205
• Orioles second baseman Brian Roberts, p.206
• former Orioles outfielder Jack Cust, p.207
• former Orioles catcher Tim Laker, p.207
• former Orioles pitcher Jason Grimsley, p.225
• former Orioles catcher Gregg Zaun, p.227
• former Orioles pitcher Todd Williams, p.242
• former Orioles pitcher Kent Mercker, p.246
• former Nats outfielder Jose Guillen, p.249
• former Oriole shortstop Miguel Tejada, p.249
• former Orioles infielder Jerry Hairston Jr., p.255
• Nats catcher Paul Lo Duca, p.256
• former Orioles pitcher Kevin Brown, p.262
• former Nats catcher Gary Bennett Jr., p.273
• former Orioles utility man Howie Clark, p.276
• Nats outfielder Nook Logan, p.277
• Orioles outfielder Jay Gibbons, p.295
• former Orioles pitcher Darren Holmes, p.299
• former Orioles outfielder Gary Matthews Jr., p.300

Most of the Orioles were named by former Mets clubhouse employee Kirk Radomski. The biggies, obviously are Roberts, Tejada (no surprise there, Mr. B12), Guillen, Logan, and Gibbons. Personally heartbreaking for this hardball fan is to see Bigbie’s name, who grew up in the same Indiana town as he did. (He did cooperate with investigators, so kudos for that, Larry.)

For years, the day laborers who clean up Camden Yards after Orioles games had been asking for a pay raise. They wanted a be paid the so-called living wage. Yesterday, they got what they were asking for: The Maryland Stadium Authority, a state agency that operates Camden Yards, voted to pay the cleaners $11.30 an hour beginning next season.

The United Workers Association, the Baltimore organization, pressed O’s owner Peter Angelos and state and local officials to get the wage hike. They thought they’d secured the desired raise in 2004, when Angelos told UWA officials that he’d use his own money to make up the difference between what the company with the cleaning contract paid the workers—an average of less than $7 an hour—and the living wage.

When Angelos didn’t follow through on that pledge, the workers and their advocates tried various tactics to force the issue. They tried pre-game picketing outside the stadium where they clean. They chased Angelos around town at the 2006 All-Star Game in Pittsburgh. They held a candlelight vigil on stadium grounds. No luck. Then, earlier this summer, the workers and their advocates declared they would go on a hunger strike beginning this week. That announcement brought out some haters.

But, just as the laborer crowd was going to stop eating, things started going their way. Governor Martin O’Malley said over the weekend that he was in favor of a living wage for the cleanup crews. Frederick W. Puddester, chairman of the Maryland Stadium Authority, said he thought the workers should get the same living wage that contract workers at other state facilities receive. The MSA board acted on the chair’s words on Thursday, approving the wage increase by a 5-2 vote.

Eat up, folks.