Spring Classic

In the sweltering heat on Saturday afternoon in Atlanta, during a ferociously contested game that stood 4-4 in the eighth inning, a pitching change afforded two All-Stars from different leagues a chance to chat at third base. Twenty-five-year-old Braves third baseman Chipper Jones, who had advanced to third after walking and now represented the go-ahead run, removed his batting helmet and asked 36-year-old Baltimore Orioles third baseman Cal Ripken, "So, how's it going at third?" Ripken, who has 160 fewer career starts at the position than Jones, another converted shortstop, replied, "Actually, it's going O.K, but I'm a little out of sync on fielding the hops." The two of them then spent a couple of minutes discussing the nuances of a third baseman's positioning on cutoff plays. That still life could stand as the official picture of the first weekend of interleague play. It embodied what the lords of baseball had in mind when they concocted this novelty to help clean up the toxic spill of the 1994-95 strike: two guys on a corner talking baseball.

The newness of interleague play created a buzz, especially in Atlanta, where the best team in the National League played the best team in the American League four months ahead of the traditional staging of such a matchup. Baseball pulled the wrappings off a possible World Series showdown like a kid in August tearing into a package marked DO NOT OPEN UNTIL CHRISTMAS.

"Baseball lucked out with this matchup," said one skeptical Oriole, who wondered if interleague play would have appeal beyond this never-before, gee-whiz fascination stage—or would turn out to be this year's macarena. Interleague play was set up, however, to showcase Ripken and other stars by sending them, like traveling Smithsonian exhibits, into new markets. That would explain why the Baltimore-Atlanta series sometimes felt as staged as the book signing Ripken arrived late to last Saturday, only moments after scoring the winning run in a 6-4 Orioles victory. The night before, he had been greeted with a standing ovation upon his first at bat, saluted with hundreds of flashbulbs popping on every pitch to him and honored with placards of affection (HEY CAL, THANKS read one).

If nothing else, interleague play settled an argument normally reserved for October, when Baltimore swept three games from the Braves. Shut out on two hits by Greg Maddux entering the sixth inning on Friday night, and trailing John Smoltz and Tom Glavine going into the seventh on each of the next two days, the Orioles nevertheless came away winners each time. In Sunday's 5-3 victory, backup catcher Lenny Webster had the decisive blow, a two-run, 10th-inning homer. Atlanta might have won the game in regulation had Baltimore not gotten a lucky bounce. A sure two-run double by Jones in the sixth inning slipped through the space between the outfield wall and the bullpen gate for a ground rule double that sent one runner back to third. "We got some breaks," Ripken said of the three games. "It was exciting. I had trouble sleeping at night just thinking about this series. That usually doesn't happen in the regular season."

"Right now they're the best team in baseball," Smoltz said after Baltimore's 6-4 win in 12 innings on Saturday. "They're playing better than we are. They do what it takes to get runners in, they pitch extremely well, they catch the ball and they play hard. We better start playing a little more like them."

Told of Smoltz's anointing of the Birds as baseball's top team, Orioles centerfielder Brady Anderson offered a one-word reply: "Cool!" Manager Davey Johnson said, "If we see them again in October, this puts us on an even playing field. They've been beating everybody for years." Except teams from the American League, against whom the Braves are 11-17 in the 1990s.

Nearly 40% through the season, Baltimore (45-19 at week's end) is beginning to develop the sheen of a team to be measured against posterity, not just the American League East, which the Orioles led by nine games over the New York Yankees through Sunday. In franchise history only the 1969 O's, who won 109 games, had a better record at this stage. These Birds could become the third American League team to hold first place every day of the season, joining the 1927 Yankees and the 1984 Detroit Tigers.

Baltimore is the only team this season that hasn't lost more than two games in a row. The Orioles succeeded, as they showed Atlanta, with reliable starting pitching, the best bullpen in baseball and just enough offense, though they are talking to other clubs, trying to find another bat, such as Geronimo Berroa of the Oakland Athletics.

"We definitely need another hitter," Johnson said on Friday, just hours after outfielder Eric Davis underwent surgery to remove one third of his colon, which contained a mass, the nature of which has not yet been determined. Baltimore expected Davis to be sidelined for at least eight weeks.

"Last year we had to come from behind to win a lot of games," Anderson said of a team that hit more home runs (257) than any other club in history. "This year our starting pitching and defense are keeping us close in just about every game. We don't often fall behind by a lot early."