"He gave us a lot. Management wasn’t willing to give back. I hope he makes the Hall of Fame, which I think he deserves. I hope we see Mike Mussina donning an Orioles cap and jersey at least one more time. I hope he comes back to Camden Yards someday and gets the ovation he so richly deserves from this team’s fans.

Enjoy your retirement, Mike."

In short…word.

I hope he comes back to Camden Yards someday and gets the ovation he so richly deserves from this team’s fans.

That would be quite interesting, but I just don’t see it happening. It would be extremely weird and awkward if he asked to be put in as a Yankee, ended up going in as an Oriole, and then had to return to Baltimore for all the nostalgic events. Mussina would initially get quite a few of boos at OPACY, and I can’t see him ever being a presence like Cal/Brooks/Palmer have been. It would be strange to say the least.

I hope he comes back to Camden Yards someday and gets the ovation he so richly deserves from this team’s fans.

I hope he throws the first pitch on opening day next season.

He was the best pitcher to come up for the O’s during my lifetime. In his days with the team a Mussina start was like holiday coming every 5 days during the regular season. I loved watching the guy pitch.

But then he left..and that was that. For me it’s not about the players. It’s about the team. The players will leave. They come and go, as Mussina painfully demonstrated. The team is what’s constant.

Now you give me a player that loves the team as much as I do, like Cal or Brooks or Palmer or BJ Surhoff, or even Eddie, who went away but we know where his heart was, and that is something special. That is a player I can celebrate. But not Mussina. Sure we had some good times…like me and my ex-gf did. But now it’s over and I’m not getting hung up on it. The team is like a marriage however. It’s forever, and those special players who are in on that get my undying respect.

I never cared about Mussina and the Yankees. I guess that by that point in time, I didn’t take any of the sports allegiance stuff seriously. Plus, Angelos was then, and remains a baseball dolt. The guy went to work for someone who would pay more. I’d work for a rival company in similar circumstances.

I just hope that if he goes into the HOF, he at least wears a blank hat. Even if for some reason it is an O’s cap, I can’t see Baltimore fans making the trek to Cooperstown for Mussina.

I hate to burst all of your bubbles. But if he enters the Hall of Fame, I find it very unlikely he’d do so as an Oriole. He bears no affection for the team, owner or city and loved playing in New York. I mean stranger things have happened, but don’t get your hopes up.

I too root for the team. To the point that I will wish success to and root for a player I might otherwise have disliked when he wore a different uniform. But, at least in my opinion, rooting just for the team name on the jersey without getting caught up in the person filling that jersey is a one-dimensional approach.

The players are no more robots than Jonny Pops. They are not pieces of printed cardboard, or lines of print in a box score. They are people earning a living and providing us with enjoyment at the same time. It is natural to admire them, whether it be for the level of accomplishment in their profession, the quality of their character or just something in them that speaks to us as a person. Having reached that point of admiration, there is no logical reason to abandon it without the player doing something low enough to invalidate what created the sense of admiration in the first place. Going to another team hardly reaches that level. At least not in the last 20 years or so, when players switching teams has become the norm.

‘cause I didn’t want him to think I was stupid"— then I really liked the guy.