In which I talk trash (mildly) with Jack Welch

How bad are my beloved Baltimore Orioles this year?

I know we're only 25 games into the Major League Baseball season, but the O's have a .280 winning percentage, which is the worst record in the American League, and bad enough that it probably can't reasonably be called a "winning" percentage.

To help put that in perspective, the team with the worst record in the National League, the Houston Astros, began the season by losing eight consecutive games (which is a winning percentage of roughly .000) and have now lost their last six games... and they are still doing better than the Orioles.

This has made me a little defensive about my Birds.

So on Friday, I took umbrage when I saw that Jack Welch, the former CEO of General Electric and (as his website notes) the man Fortune magazine called "Manager of the Century," was using his Twitter account to talk smack about his favorite team's upcoming games:

Unfortunately, I was pretty sure he was right: The Red Sox probably would do what they usually do when they come to Baltimore, and beat the tar out of the Orioles. But still, I made a mental note

And then, something magical, nay, miraculous happened.

Friday, the Orioles won, 5-4.

Saturday, they won again, 12-9, for their third win of the season against the Sox and sixth win overall. (Sort of a good news-bad news situation when you're a month into the baseball season and half of your wins have come against the Red Sox.)

And then, Sunday, the Birds completed the sweep, winning a 3-2 extra-inning thriller.

Which immediately reminded me of Jack Welch's tweet. So just for fun, I got on my BlackBerry and wrote:

I normally don't engage in trash-talk with corporate titans, but how often would I get a chance like this? (The last time the Orioles swept the Sox in Baltimore was 1998.) And, to my credit, I thought I showed great restraint in not pointing out that he spelled the word hapless with an extra s. Besides, what are the odds the great Jack Welch would even see my tweet?

Pretty good, as it turns out:

Thank you, Mr. Welch. And, may I just say, Orioles Magic! Feel it happen.