Kid meets history

It is a summer of milestones here in America, from One Small Step For Man to murderous lost children in California. Fifty years since Neil Armstrong walked on the moon; 50 years since Charlie Manson unleashed savagery on two warm August nights in L.A. The yin and yang of the human experience, if you will.

And so why wouldn't baseball, which holds fast its milestones like few other endeavors, join in the milestoning?

Come out to southern California again, then, for a baseball game between the Los Angeles Angels and the sadsack Baltimore Orioles, once again the worst team in baseball by every measure. The O's are already 33 games out of first place in the AL East, with two months left in the season. They're 30 games south of .500. Yet last night they did something that hasn't been done in baseball in, yes, 50 years.

Or rather, a young man named Stevie Wilkerson did.

It's OK if you don't know who Stevie Wilkerson is. Hardly anyone does. He's an outfielder for the O's who, at 27, has played only 83 major-league games. He's played 424 games in the minors, where he began this season with the Norfolk Tides of the Triple A International League. So far this summer he's played 67 games for the O's, with two home runs, a triple and 10 RBI.

Oh, yeah: And one save, as of last night.

That's because the O's dragged out their game with the Angels for 16 innings, until the  Halos finally said, "OK, fine. You win." The final was 10-8, and due to the score and the lateness of the hour, Stevie Wilkerson wound up on the bump as a relief pitcher. In so doing, he became the first position player since 1969 to record a save.

Think about that. Half a century of baseball games, half a century of players leaving their footprints (or not) on the ancient game, and it's a kid from Roswell, Ga., who's spent most of his career in the bushes upon whom history chooses to land.

So like history, that. So like baseball.