Call it the "Battle of the Birds." In an ESPN Sportsnation contest this week, the O's upset the favored St. Louis Cardinals for the best uniform in baseball in a vote by the fans.

Set up in March Madness bracket fashion, the Orioles entered the contest seeded No. 13 — in the American League. (Some guy named Jim Caple, who seeded the American League teams, made a crack about our 1970s-style cap.)

St. Louis entered the contest ranked as the best-dressed team in the National League and overall, but out of nearly 150,000 votes cast, the Orioles garnered a landslide 59 percent of the total.

Maybe the best part, the Orioles knocked off the Yankees to win the AL title, again garnering a landslide 59 percent of the vote.

Frivolous perhaps, but after winning the best uniform title Monday, the O's ended their six-game losing streak and beat the Yanks for real last night on Nate McLouth's extra-inning homerun. Could be a sign, that's all we're saying...

UPDATED 5/17/13: Last year, I wrote a blog curating some of the best moments in televised Preakness history. While we all wait with baited breath to see if the locally owned Derby champ Orb can join the hallowed ranks of Secretariat and Native Dancer, we thought it would be fun to revisit the post. Feel free to leave your own favorite Preakness memories in the comments below! Please also note that two of the videos I posted last year (the Native Dancer and Seattle Slew ones, to be precise) have since had their embedding disabled. Both videos can still be watched on YouTube however and a link will take you there when you click on them. Sorry for the inconvenience. -Amy Mulvihill

I rode horses growing up, so the Triple Crown was a big deal to me. Generally indifferent to sporting events, the three-part series—the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness, and the Belmont Stakes—was my Superbowl, World Series, and Stanley Cup all rolled into one. My best friend and fellow horse nut lived across the street from me and, every year, we would gather around her TV or mine to watch the races. 

The Derby is generally considered the most prestigious of the three races, but the...

The Orioles, winners of seven of their last 10 games while taking recent road series against the Angels, Royals and Twins, return to Camden Yards tonight for an eight-game homestand.

First up, the San Diego Padres for two games. Then, division rival Tampa Bay for three weekend games.

And finally, the first-place New York Yankees — a game ahead of the O’s at the moment in the American League East — for three games early next week. Is it too soon to call a three-game match-up against the Yankees a big series? Sure. So what. If the O’s continue to play well against Padres and Rays, the Yankee series should make for some early season fun.

At the moment, however, the problem for Orioles isn’t the Yankees, but their own starting pitching. Lefty Wei-Yin Chen had to leave Sunday’s win over the Twins with a strained oblique. Overall, the starting rotation, while generally keeping the O’s in ballgames through five and six innings, isn’t going deep into ballgames.

So far, the O’s have ridden their strong bullpen and a resilient offense, led by Chris Davis, Adam Jones and 20-year-old Manny Machado for...

Baltimore City Public Schools CEO Andrés Alonso will be leaving at the end of the school year, officials confirmed today.

Alonso steps down after leading the city school system for six years. Chief of staff Tisha Edwards will serve as an interim CEO through the next school year while the Baltimore City School Board searches for a permanent successor, according to reporting Monday morning in The Washington Post.

Schools spokeswoman Edie House-Foster confirmed Alonso’s departure. School officials said Alonso is leaving to return to New Jersey, take care of his aging parents, and accept a professorship at Harvard University.