Fans of the Baltimore Orioles are celebrating today as their team leads the AL East for the third consecutive month. Baltimore, which has been an afterthought in the AL East for the past few seasons, turned it all around back in November when the standings were reset following division foe Boston's World Series victory. Since then they have held the tie-breaker and been atop the rankings, despite no games being played, because of their name being alphabetically better than the rest of the division.

American League East

"We are extremely proud of this team, and all it has accomplished over the past few months," said die-hard Orioles fan Gary Halbert. "Trading off our best hitter in Miguel Tejada, reducing payroll, getting a new manager with very little experience. This has been a great series of events, and I'm amazed we've been able to stay on top."

The success of the lower payroll Orioles over the Yankees and Red Sox has sent a message to other teams of the recipe for beating these titans. "We're thinking about changing the name of our city to Aaampa Bay," said Tampa Bay mayor Rich Gutierrez. "We feel this could really make us competitive in the offseason, when normally Baltimore dominates."

Controversy has arisen in Toronto, which is consistently at the bottom of the leaderboards during both the regular and offseason. They have actually passed a bill changing it's name to "!Toronto". Alpabeticists are unsure if this punctuation mark places them on the top or bottom of the standings. "We want a championship in !Toronto," said a member of their city council. "If you type our new name into a computer, it ranks it first. Therefore, we will emerge triumphant over the rest of the AL East."

"I'm going tonight to Camden Yards to watch the Orioles not play tonight," added Halbert. "It's gonna be a very tough non-game. With all the name changes going on, we're going to need to play well to have a chance to stay on top."