BEERGUY

Fans of the Baltimore Orioles, dejected followers of a team that has suffered through 13 straight losing seasons, finally have a reason to get excited about opening day down on Eutaw Street. They're about to welcome an old friend back to Camden Yards this season — and it's not Cal Ripken. They're finally getting Baltimore's signature beer on tap, National Bohemian, lovingly nicknamed Natty Boh:

The beer will be available throughout the ballpark at the April 4 home season opener, said Rachel Anne Warren, a retail sales specialist with Pabst Brewing Co. Warren said sales of the beer, once marketed under the slogan, "Brewed in the Land of Pleasant Living," had exceeded expectations after it was reintroduced on tap at the end of January.

Natty Boh in Baltimore is like Old Style in Chicago or Pabst Blue Ribbon in Brooklyn: Locally beloved despite having a boringly shallow taste profile. So O's fans are understandably excited for reasons other than the upcoming baseball season.

Alas, as

weinerThe NFL and the NBA aren't the only massive sports entities with expiring labor deals threatening the future of their sports. Nope, baseball also has a collective bargaining agreement that is due to turn into a pumpkin any day now and Michael Weiner, the head of the MLBPA, is already scrambling to get into position for the negotiations.

Okay, the CBA doesn't expire until December so what Weiner is doing now is more like getting his ducks in a row before the Elmer Fudds in ownership can begin to load their rifles. Weiner recently visited Steinbrenner Field in Tampa to chit-chat with the New York Yankees players, presumably not to ask Nick Swisher about the best ways to frost one's tips.

LoHud's Sam Borden was there to get Weiner's take on the upcoming labor talks:

Along those lines, Weiner said he was optimistic about reaching a new agreement with management before the CBA expires at the end of this year, but was quick to add he is ready for anything. "Just this week I've seen a general

Constitutionally protected free speech sometimes has a cost in the private world of baseball.

Sometimes it does not.

And somewhat surprisingly, whether or not you are punished for being outspoken may depend on what outfit you wear to work every day. Wear a pinstriped suit and sit in a boardroom and you might get in trouble for your critical words.

Wear a pinstriped uniform and sit in a dugout, though, and you'll have a better chance of getting away scot-free, no matter how politically charged your statements are.

When Boston Red Sox owner John Henry decided to criticize the competitive balance in baseball, he never expected his free speech would be nullified with a whopping half-a-million-dollar fine. Yet the billionaire says his pocketbook was made 500 Grover Clevelands lighter back in December 2009 when he chatted openly and brazenly with the Boston Globe about his ideas for fixing the controversial revenue-sharing system. He claimed that small-market teams take money from big-market

While pitchers and catchers and hitters and fielders are getting into the spring spirit in the Grapefruit and Cactus leagues, the hardworking folks in each MLB team's ticket offices are hard at work back at home. Some teams, like the Philadelphia Phillies and San Francisco Giants, are dealing with crowds of grabby fans, eager to snatch up passes to any game at all. The lesson? Pitching not only wins championships, it puts butts in seats.

Other teams, though, are working hard trying to convince folks that spending a few bucks on a weeknight game against the visiting Seattle Mariners is a worthwhile investment in fun. That's a tough sell.

So let's take a look at how six teams might perform at the box office in 2011. Some are making smart business moves for their fanbase, both in ticket prices and on-field talent.

Others, though, could face a long, hard summer.

We start in the desert, where the Arizona Diamondbacks season-ticket renewal rate has dried up: It's down by about 12 percent

Major League Baseball currently has no rule that forbids any player from having a Twitter account. What a shame, then, that new Toronto manager John Farrell not-so-indirectly suggested this week that his Blue Jays players stay off the microblogging platform, not because he's afraid fans will confuse the little blue Twitter bird with Ace, but rather because he claims social media can be dangerous for pro athletes in the public sphere:

"I think there's also some falseness to some of the accounts that might exist," Farrell said. "I'm not going to say it's identity theft, but there's certainly people that pose to be others that could be serving as an imposter-type vantage point that is out there. So they've got to be aware of all these things."

Farrell is off a little in his perception of the service. In fact, MLB and Twitter work hand-in-hand to verify that all of the player accounts out there are the real deal (well, almost all of them).

According to the list, there are about 120 active

'Duk note: The sad shuttering of Walkoff Walk last month turns out to be the Stew's gain. We're pleased to welcome Rob Iracane into the fold with his first appearance as a frequent contributor to BLS. Please follow him here and on Twitter (@iracane). Take it away, Rob ...

Everyone knows a Yankees fan. Drop into any bar, saloon or pub in the world and you'll find some guy shaking his head about his obnoxious friend with the Don Mattingly jersey and bloated sense of entitlement. Similarly, it seems that everybody knows somebody who either currently lives in or has previously lived in the great state of New Jersey. "You're from Jersey?" they ask. I nod, and they say "My Uncle Bill's college roommate was from Ho-Ho-Kus!" Was he now.

So it stands to reason that the most pigeonholed baseball fan is someone like me, the guy from Jersey who lives and breathes the New York Yankees. I am one of them, but in a way, I am not. The well-worn, navy blue T-shirt you see with the interlocking N-Y on