Back in July, at a Senate confirmation hearing for Sonia Sotomayor, Sen. Ben Cardin of Maryland invited the judge to be his guest at an Orioles game. Sotomayor, a Bronx native and big Yankees fan, responded by revealing that she had already been to the Yards--presumably to root for her pinstriped heroes from New York.

As a federal appeals judge, Sotomayor was briefly famous for ending a baseball strike in 1995 (ruling in favor of the players and against the owners). That was the year Cal Ripken became immortal as the Iron Man, and Cardin thanked Sotomayor, on behalf of Orioles fans, for making it possible for him to set his record.

Last night, Cardin made good on the offer to Sotomayor, who became the first Latina Supreme Court justice to sit in a skybox at Camden Yards (the Maryland Stadium Authority's box, for those keeping score at home). As the Democratic senator had promised, it wasn't a night when the Yankees were in town, so Sotomayor was free to root for the home team.

Not that it made much difference. The O's,eight games under .500 on the mid-July day that Cardin extended the invite, went down to defeat again. They're now 26 games below .500, the second worst record in the American League, and are enduring their twelfth straight losing season under the ownership, it must be noted, of a personal injury lawyer.

Justice Sotomayor, meantime, boasts a still spotless record on the bench where she now sits. She's 0-0 in court decisions, having heard arguments in only one case, which has yet to be decided.