The answer is, “Jim Beattie and Mike Flanagan.”

The question is, “Who are the dunderheads running the Baltimore Orioles?”

The word is these two co-general manager geniuses have been smitten by the bold idea of trading with the Cubs for Sammy Sosa. When this deal becomes official, it will go down as the worst acquisition of a formerly potent superstar since the Mets signed George Foster.

I’m not going to ask for an explanation for this one, because there is none. The Orioles are an afterthought in the AL East, where the Yankees and Red Sox rule. Baltimore finished below .500 last season, entirely because they didn’t have a pitcher who won more than 14 games and had just three pitchers who finished the season with double-digit victories.

So they set about chasing the Yanks and Sox by signing a slugger who is going downhill so fast Bode Miller couldn’t catch him? And who can become a free agent after just one season?

SOSA TO RETIRE?      Sosa rejects Nats' offer, likely will retire Commentary: Star ruined career, legacy Expert: Sosa's rise bring many questions Sosa leaves behind conflicting legacy Live vote: Should Sosa quit now? Career statistics Full baseball coverage

Where do these knuckleheads think they’re playing? This is the American League East, for pete’s sake, not the National League East. You need talent to win in the AL East. You’re trying to beat the Yankees and the Red Sox. What good is Sammy "Soso" going to do for you?

The man hit 64 home runs four years ago, 49 three years ago, 40 two years ago and 35 last season. His RBI totals for the same four years were 160, 108, 103 and 80.

His games played were 160, 150, 137, 126 — and last season he went on the disabled list when he threw out his back sneezing. He’s 35 years old and will be 36 in June. And Major League Baseball has just instituted a fairly strict steroid policy.

This isn’t to say that Sammy did steroids. The only thing we’re sure he did was put cork in his bat. But he’s gotten a bit smaller over the past year, and he’s gotten a lot more brittle, and his stats are sliding downhill. Even three years ago, you could have called him one of the premier players in baseball. Today, you can’t call him anything but a distorted reflection of what he once was.

And for some reason, Baltimore wants him.

If you’re an Orioles fan, the only advice I can give is to see if you can get a refund on your season tickets. Even if Sosa was the Sammy of four years ago, he wouldn’t get you into the playoffs. And as he is now, an over-the-hill, fragile wreck who doesn’t play the outfield very well, he’s got as much chance of pushing the Orioles into the playoffs as a ruptured mouse does of pushing an 18-wheeler up Pike’s Peak.

The only way to explain this is to assume that Baltimore needed someone to replace Albert Belle, the formerly great slugger they got from Cleveland, only to see him retire with a destroyed hip.

To describe this deal as dumb is an understatement on the same lines as calling the geology of Titan interesting. If the Orioles want to contend in the AL East, there’s just one way to do it: with pitching.

Pitching wins the AL East. It wins the division and it wins the wild card. And the Red Sox and Yankees not only have the pitching, but also the offense to back it up.

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