Mazzilli, veteran stars bring new attitude to Orioles - MLB - CBSSports.com Live Scores, Stats, Schedules

Miller's camping trip

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- Close your eyes, listen to the talk and you can almost see ... Earl Weaver?

Uh, no. Not quite. The guy with the half-eaten sandwich in his left hand and his right arm wrapped around the star shortstop, that's not Weaver. It's new manager Lee Mazzilli. It's near lunchtime here in the Baltimore Orioles spring clubhouse, and he's whispering something into Miguel Tejada's ear.


Fresh off plenty of World Series experience with the Yankees, Lee Mazzilli has a lot to teach Jay Gibbons and friends. (AP)

They walk a few steps. They stop. Mazzilli finishes his thought. They laugh, and the manager playfully slaps the new franchise player on the cheek. They part.

It is just a very small moment before one of the Orioles' major investments plays his first Grapefruit League game in black and orange. But it speaks volumes about why Mazzilli is here, where the Orioles think they are headed and why their most difficult opponent this season in the American League East isn't the Yankees or Boston.

No, their most difficult opponent is the Oriole Way ... rediscovering it, embracing it and then, as the campaign slogans sometimes go, staying the course with it.

"He communicates," co-general manager Mike Flanagan said of Mazzilli. "His attention to detail, the players know right where they stand.

"He makes the rounds."

No, Mazzilli isn't Weaver. But then again, he isn't Ray Miller or Mike Hargrove, either. When the Orioles awoke from their temporary coma under owner Peter Angelos, cleaned house by brushing Syd Thrift out of the GM office and installed the Odd Couple GM duo of Flanagan and Jim Beattie, it essentially was an admission that an organization that once was a model for others was in need of much more than just a little touchup and a little paint.

There are no guarantees that all roads in Camden Yards will lead back to the good old days of grace and skill in Baltimore.

But the Orioles appear to have at least a vague map in their glove box again.

"I wouldn't be doing this if I didn't think so," Flanagan said. "It's the kind of job that's never done. It's an ongoing process.

"The minute you're content is the minute you start to lose ground."

Aside from the fact the hulking Yankees and Red Sox reside in their division, the Orioles still have miles to go before they chirp. Their pitching remains suspect. Their farm system, left to rot far too long, isn't exactly overflowing with major-league-ready prospects. And how Mazzilli manages with an inherited coaching staff -- he wasn't allowed to hire a single coach -- bears watching.

But Mazzilli is a different guy, a new guy at this level, and maybe he really can pull this off.

"It is a different feel this spring," starter Sidney Ponson said -- and he's not just referring to the fact that he has been knighted in his native Aruba since last spring's camp.

Said Flanagan: "It's a lot noisier this spring. There's a lot more energy. There's a lot of competition in this room, and it's very visible."

Of course, what was supposed to have been the main attraction was shut down nearly before it began when Jerry Hairston broke a finger, sidelining him from four to six weeks. The injury came in the first inning of Baltimore's first Grapefruit League game. It essentially hands second base, which was to be one of the more intriguing position battles in the majors this spring, to Brian Roberts.

Still, Tejada, catcher Javy Lopez and first baseman Rafael Palmeiro are here, not only giving the Orioles visions of a better lineup but giving younger players such as Hairston, Roberts and Melvin Mora veterans to watch and emulate. Toss in B.J. Surhoff and Mark McLemore, who is expected to win a utility job, and there is plenty for the younger players to watch.

"It definitely rubs off," Mazzilli said.

Before the Orioles' spring opener the other day, Roberts glanced over at pitcher B.J. Ryan and shook his head.

"Man, this is going to be weird watching this team run on the field," Roberts told Ryan.

"It doesn't look like an Orioles' team," he said later. "It's great. When those guys run on the field every day, you have a great chance to win."

Roberts isn't the only one who has noticed it isn't just the same old rule of thumb for the O's this spring.

"It's a different feel because they brought in playoff guys," Mora said. "That makes the Baltimore Orioles smell playoffs. Everything in the clubhouse here looks like playoffs."

Well, not everything. After Ponson, the rotation currently stacks up as Rodrigo Lopez, Omar Daal and (choose two) Matt Riley, Kurt Ainsworth or long-shot Eric DuBose. Figure on Riley and Ainsworth.

But Tejada, the 2002 AL MVP; Lopez, who crashed 43 home runs and collected 129 RBI for Atlanta last year; and Palmeiro, who has 528 career home runs; we'll give that to Mora.

"It's amazing, because they know how to play baseball," he continued. "They play to win, and to get to the playoffs."

And Mazzilli?

"He's the kind of guy who's got playoff blood," Mora said of the former Yankees hitting coach. "That's what I'm looking for. I'm looking for a guy like that.

"People talk about being .500 and that's it. I'm not a kind of guy who wants just .500. I'm not a kind of guy who likes to lose."

The Orioles, who haven't sniffed the playoffs since 1997, are doing what they can to change things. Flanagan and Beattie have restructured how their farm system operates, from international scouting to the draft to the way scouting reports are filed.

"A lot of it is the wiring, stuff that you don't see," Flanagan said. "I don't know how difficult it is, but it takes a lot of time."

As for the stuff you do see, new talents such as Tejada and Lopez, well, let's just say Mazzilli already has a few more weapons that Hargrove, the last manager, never had.

Which is making him smile often this spring, whether he has an arm wrapped around Tejada or whether he's filling out the lineup card.

"Are you kidding me?" Mazzilli said. "We've got an MVP hitting third, a Hall of Famer hitting fourth and one of the best-hitting catchers in baseball hitting fifth. That's one of the best middle parts of the lineup in the game."

Now, about that pitching ...