Enjoying a reputation as a "son" of baseball, expectations always have been high in the game for Andy MacPhail.

Just the name alone tells you about the pedigree.

Dad was former American League president Lee MacPhail and one-time Orioles and Yankees executive. Granddad was Larry MacPhail, another baseball legend and contemporary of Branch Rickey. (Larry MacPhail and Lee MacPhail are the only father-and-son members of baseball's Hall of Fame.) Uncle was William MacPhail, a former president of CBS Sports and CNN Sports.

Just sitting at the feet of his dad, granddad and uncle, the wunderkind Andy MacPhail probably has absorbed more about baseball and administering the game than anybody else can hope. In fact, many believe that his remarkable orientation will land him someday in the commissioner's chair.

Today, MacPhail, 57, is president of baseball operations for the lowly Baltimore Orioles, and Orioles fans have to be wondering where exactly is the genius they've been promised. In short, where is the turnaround? Heck, where is the hint of the turnaround?

The baseball gods wouldn't have allowed it, but when you see the paltry ratings of last week's All-Star Game, maybe they should have let the "phenom" play.

Unless you have been hiding out since June 8, 2010, when he made his big-league debut for the Washington Nationals, you know the phenom is none other than Stephen Strasburg.

Quick, name another rookie in the decade or so before Strasburg to make such a monumental splash on the game. You can't and would need to go back into the 1990s and Alex Rodriguez and Ken Griffey Jr. and before that to the 1980s to find Gooden and Strawberry.

Simply, no player, veteran or rookie, is sparking up the pastime right now as Strasburg.

He comes to your town and you want a ticket. You invitingly want to catch his act on television. You are now checking the Nationals boxscores regularly for his games.

But Strasburg in the All-Star Game, debated in major-league ball yards in the days leading up to the July 13 contest in Anaheim, was a no go. After all, everyone against it reasoned, a rookie hurler with just a handful of starts for a last-place team didn't deserve the honor.

LeBron James was right.

Yes, the whole nine yards - leaving the house that Dan Gilbert built, joining D-Wade in South Beach, milking "The Decision," letting the spurned suitors know at 9:01, support from Jesse Jackson.

In the grand scheme of things, indeed, LeBron was right -- even if in some haunting esoteric sense -- because of the tragedy that is John Crowder.

And, digging deeper back into the day, he was also right because of Benji Wilson and countless others.

For you doubters out there, it is hardly a stretch to draw such comparisons.

John Crowder was a 6-foot-8, 215-pound, 17-year-old Baltimore baller -- shot and killed in the early a.m. hours after July 4 in a challenging, grizzled city neighborhood.

LeBron spent the week following the Fourth finalizing his decision, while Crowder, whose funeral service was yesterday, was in the morgue.

Could there be joy eventually in Mudville?

Mudville is baseball's version of Baltimore in 2010, seemingly always on the short end of the stick, like in the 1888 immortal Ernest Thayer baseball poem, "Casey at the Bat." Like the mighty Casey, the cocky star slugger of the Mudville nine, the Orioles in 2010 have been sending their fans home unhappy, too.

Going into this week's All-Star break no team is having such a stinker of a season as that of the Orioles - the worst record in the majors at 29-59. How bad? Their lone All-Star representative is a utility infielder, Ty Wigginton. The winningest pitcher on their staff is second-year reliever David Hernandez with four victories. Their No. 1 and No. 2 starters, Kevin Millwood and Jeremy Guthrie, are a combined 5-18. Their No. 3 starter, "phenom" Brian Matusz, has been marginalized to 3-9 at the halfway point.

Mudville never got its joy after the big-chested Casey struck out.

But could things finally be looking up this season for the Orioles? The All-Star break brought with it a rare, four-game road sweep of the AL West-leading Texas Rangers, including the Saturday night massacre of just acquired lefty Cliff Lee.

For Baltimore's beloved Orioles, could there be a more miserable baseball year?

When they lost their first 21 games out of the box in 1988, at least Cal, the anchor, was still playing shortstop.

But for forlorn Orioles fans in 2010, the time has come to turn the page on the negativity swarming the city and understand the essence of baseball.

On Sunday, interim manager Juan Samuel won his first game as a big-league skipper, 4-3 in 11 innings over the hated Red Sox, breaking a season high 10-game loss skein. With the Yankees coming to Oriole Park at Camden Yards tonight, Bird lovers can only hope that Samuel's newfound focus on fundamentals will catch the Bronx Bombers napping.

The year 2010 has been so rough on the 16-41 Birds - the worst record in all of major league baseball - that the specter of Cal Ripken dished up the dominant Orioles storyline so far this season.

Washington pro basketball fans naturally have been buzzing this week over Lady Luck's bestowing the hard luck Wizards franchise with the No. 1 pick in the 2010 NBA draft June 24.

The Wizards hit pay dirt Tuesday night - unexpectedly winning the 2010 Draft Lottery and possibly dashing the New Jersey Nets' expectations of a LeBron James-John Wall-Jay-Z trifecta. With ping-pong balls a-bouncing, the Wizards only had a 10.3 percent chance of getting the top choice, but they lucked out.

But in Washington they are debating Evan Turner.

Evan Turner over John Wall with the first pick?

How does the old adage go? "Never look a gift horse in the mouth."

The Wizards have to take the 6-4 Wall, the one-and-done spectacular Kentucky point guard.

Come Memorial Day weekend, the lacrosse world will descend on Baltimore for the finals of the NCAA Division I Men's Lacrosse Championships at M&T Bank Stadium.

Imagine if the Virginia men's team, the tournament's No. 1 seed, is the one celebrating May 31 in the middle of the field and hoisting the championship trophy.

First round games start May 15 and May 16, with 14-1 Virginia hosting Mount St. Mary's Saturday evening.

Maryland-based columnist Kevin Blackistone broached a few days ago that the Cavaliers -- in light of jailed teammate George Huguely's murder arrest May 3 in the death of Yeardley Love of Virginia's women's lacrosse team -- should shut down its program for the remainder of the season, much less compete for a championship.

Here, here.

Indeed, the Virginia men's team should do the honorable thing and shut it down. What if they get to Baltimore -- Love's hometown?

Baltimore's Josh Selby - a 6-3 dynamo, big-scoring point guard - is having the time of his life.

The Lake Clifton High School athlete is enjoying the ride as one of the most coveted college basketball recruits in America. Some of the most elite of programs -- Kansas, Kentucky, Connecticut, Arizona - want Selby desperately and see the Parade All-American as a lynchpin for a Final Four run.

Selby buffed more luster on his star at the March 31 McDonald's All-American game in Columbus, OH, winning the slam dunk contest and scoring 13 points in the game on 6 of 7 shooting. Averaging 32 points, seven rebounds, seven assists for his Lakers team during his senior high school season, Selby's talents are so immense, scouts are saying, that he could be one of the next to be "one and done" - going straight to the NBA after a year in college.

Selby is one of a handful of premier recruits - notably with Florida's Brandon Knight and New York's Doron Lamb -- who have been surveying the college landscape as major-talent undecideds. Selby is supposed to announce his choice April 17 at the Jordan Brand Classic in New York. Ever understanding of his premier position, Selby even played an April Fools joke through his Twitter account, grabbing the attention of college basketball prognosticators by announcing that he would reveal his commitment in an hour. Then came the sike.

What Selby is most of all is a symbol for the place big-time basketball occupies in urban families and communities. Just like well-to-do and often lucky fathers and grandfathers in the business world are able to pass down their wealth to set up new generations in the family, you look at the road a Josh Selby is traveling and those same kind of opportunities appear to be emerging - just based on athletic prowess rather than privilege.

The one-year anniversary of the death of Marvin "The Human Eraser" Webster comes in a few days.

Marvin was a great son of the city Baltimore. Marvin was a 7-foot-1-inch shot-blocking wizard and pro with the Denver Nuggets, Seattle SuperSonics, New York Knicks and Milwaukee Bucks. He was a proud alumnus of Baltimore's remarkable Morgan State University, one of the nation's Historically Black Colleges and Universities.

You grew up in Baltimore dreaming about basketball in the 1970s, and Marvin was one of the standard bearers. You watched him at Edmondson High and then Morgan. The son of a Baltimore preacher, Marvin was a rare gentle giant given the opportunity to reap the fruits of the game.

Marvin tragically was found dead on April 4, 2009, in his Tulsa, OK, hotel room. Nothing suspicious, Tulsa police said. After years of suffering through liver ailments - only to be matched by a series of inconceivable personal tragedies -- coronary artery disease had caught up with him. He was 56.

This is a story about the great Marvin Webster. His story deserves to be known. But it is also a story about redemption - and about why in life we ought to leverage once-in-a-lifetime moments no matter how fleeting and spontaneous. The redemption in this story is not for Marvin, but for me.

Greivis "The General" Vasquez, Maryland's brash, 6-6 do-everything point guard, has been called a lot of things on his visits to Tobacco Road and throughout the highly charged ACC.

Now they'll have to add Player of the Year and All-American.

Vasquez is polishing his basketball resume much in the way he plays - as a showman. He took the coveted honor March 9 as ACC Player of the Year, leading the Terps to a 23-7 record season's record so far for a share of the conference regular season title with Duke at 13-3 and a Top 20 national ranking.

Getting 39 of 53 votes, he is the first Maryland player since Juan Dixon in 2002 to be so honored. His coattails also meant that his coach, Gary Williams, would be named ACC Coach of The Year and teammate center Jordan Williams would get a spot on the All-Rookie team.

Averaging 19.6 points, 6.3 assists and 4.6 rebounds a game this season, after leading the Terps in all three categories the year before as a junior, Vasquez takes a place alongside James Anderson (Oklahoma State), Scottie Reynolds (Villanova), Evan Turner (Ohio State) and John Wall (Kentucky) as Sporting News magazine first-team All-Americans.