The fans in Baltimore cheered Hideo Nomo as he got closer and closer to his no-hitter Wednesday night, which is about what you'd expect when fans of a bad team get a chance to see something extraordinary.

It may, however, have crossed some sort of line when Camden crowd -- admittedly, a fair number of Boston fans were there, too -- booed Brady Anderson when he took a pitch for a ball to lead off the ninth. The message: We've got to watch the O's sorry act all year, so pop up already, would you?

This brings up an interesting question, or at least as interesting a question as you're likely to find anywhere else in this patch of ether. (Wait, one other question first: Is Nomo the worst pitcher to throw two no-hitters?)

The interesting question is this: Do different cities react differently to bad teams? Not just bad teams, but screechingly bad teams?

Such as, for instance and as an example -- the Golden State Warriors.

The Warriors have lost 24 of 26 games, putting themselves in better draft position (oh, no, not intentionally, because far be it for me to insinuate ...) with each passing atrocity.

The Warriors are getting the full Bay Area treatment as part of their reward. They are being ignored. This is how it is done out here -- you are terrible, we are not interested. And this is an all-consuming lack of interest. Nobody is talking about firing the coach, or firing the GM, or cutting any of the untalented talent.

This is an unscientific study, but:

In Boston, people would scream about it but secretly enjoy it.

In Chicago, they would blame somebody named Jerry and then talk about the '85 Bears.

In Los Angeles, they would decide that losing is campy; several down-on-their-luck movie stars would start hanging out courtside for attention.

In New York, the media would call for the GM's head, the coach's head, the best player's head and the trainer's head. They would also suggest that something untoward was happening between high-ranking members of the front office and the ball boys.

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Next year, if all goes well, somebody will be caught leaving a duffel filled with cash on the doorstep of a prep phenom from Boise: Another step up for women's basketball -- riots on the Purdue campus after the loss to Notre Dame.

And, at the risk of getting too far ahead of ourselves: It's never too early to dream of point-shaving.

What he seems to be saying, and rightly so, is that public displays of religion are becoming just another form of showmanship in professional sports: In an upcoming issue of New York magazine, Jeff Van Gundy says, 1) the Knicks' preacher gets too much access to the locker room (the office, in other words) and; 2) the postgame, on-court prayer sessions between teams is a bad look for the league.

And so, in summation: No spot in the Bush White House for VG.

For the voice of reason, we turn to ... Nick Van Exel?: In discussing his unhappiness/tardiness/uncaptainness in relation to his enormous salary, Van Exel said, "Just because I've got money in my pocket, that doesn't mean I'm always happy, or I don't get frustrated, or I don't get down."

What Nick gives us -- unwittingly, we assume -- is the great conundrum of the modern sports fan: He gets angry when he perceives athletes are playing only for the money, but when athletes voice their unhappiness with playing on losing teams, he wonders how they can manage to be miserable when they make so much money.

Because everybody knows in these days of choices and competition, there's a good chance somebody's making that decision between Warriors-Grizzlies and a dog getting a new hip on Animal Planet: Television promos for upcoming Warrior games on the local now center on one unassailable truth -- "Warrior basketball, the definition of NBA action in the Bay Area."

He used to work in Atlanta, where they made you sit through John Rocker's Western Civ class after games like this: Only in Colorado could the starting pitcher (Denny Neagle) in a 13-9 game be hailed as a paragon of triumph and vindication.

It has all the charming, feel-good elements of a corporate-driven, post-apocalyptic Sunday night movie: Wang Zhizhi, playing his first game in the NBA, hits the shot for the chalupas.

And to think: It wasn't that long ago that we'd get all teary-eyed over the slugger promising the little boy in the hospital a home run.

A trade that looks makes Don Nelson look better every day: Juwan Howard, playing well.

This week's cute couple: Charles Oakley and Tyrone Hill.

What Rod Strickland wants to know: Does Oakley do bail bonds?

Just as you start to convince yourself this is the year the Yankees can be had: Yankees 1, Royals 0, Mussina 7 2/3 shutout innings.

And finally, amid the Rasheed Wallace stuff, the Croce the Poorer stuff, the Shawn Kemp stuff, the Van Exel stuff, the Oakley loan sharking stuff -- good news for the NBA: Olden Polynice hasn't impersonated a police officer for at least a month.

Tim Keown is a senior writer for ESPN The Magazine. E-mail tim.keown@espnmag.com.