The Orioles finished second to the Yankees in the American League East this year, but Baltimore remains well ahead of New York City when it comes to political corruption.

The Big Apple’s mayor has been indicted?

Pfft.

Been there, done that — twice.

And that’s just the rotting tip of the iceberg lettuce.

I’ll see your indicted mayor and raise you a tax-cheating police commissioner and a perjurious chief prosecutor.

Of course, we must concede that New York City had a mafia that Baltimore never had — too many rats here, not enough omerta, according to the FBI — and the Big Apple suffers periodic blights of financial crimes that have global consequences. Plus, New York gave us the felon Donald Trump.

We can’t compete with all that.

However, in terms of corruption, the Big Apple has nothing on the Queen City of the Patapsco Drainage Basin. And while New York state has three times the population of Maryland, we have, pound for pound, a richer history of extortion, bribery and fraud.

New York produced Trump.

Maryland produced Spiro T. Agnew.

He was Baltimore County executive, Maryland governor and an alliteration-afflicted Vice President of the United States during the Nixon era. Agnew took cash kickbacks on government contracts while holding all three of those offices.

But he didn’t get away with it.

In October 1973, he pleaded nolo contendere (no contest) to tax evasion in what was then the federal courthouse (now one of two city courthouses) on Calvert Street. He then resigned the vice-presidency and went to dinner in Little Italy. (I don’t know what he ate, but I’ll bet he didn’t pay for it.)

Still, Agnew’s big fall was eclipsed by what happened the following year.

Before I go there, one thing: After the indictment of New York City Mayor Eric Adams, I heard a talking head on cable refer to the current scandal as marking “the golden age of political corruption.”

Nonsense. The golden age of political corruption occurred between Towson and the White House 50 years ago.

By the summer of 1974, Richard Nixon and his gang had been under investigation for the Watergate break-in for nearly two years. Nixon’s impeachment appeared imminent, so he resigned the presidency in August.

Meanwhile, that same year in Maryland, a federal grand jury indicted Dale Anderson, Agnew’s successor as county executive, on corruption charges.

Then Joe Alton, the Anne Arundel County executive, went down on corruption charges.

In Towson, Sam Green, the Baltimore County State’s Attorney, went on trial on corruption charges.

It was a corruption trifecta.

Plus, there was a federal investigation underway of former Maryland Gov. Marvin Mandel, and he ended up under indictment with some of his cronies the following year.

There were more indictments of politicians before and after 1974. A reporter for the Washington Post figured out that, from 1969 until 1977, there was only one brief period (about five months in 1975) when no corruption charges were pending against a Maryland politician.

Since those days, there’s been a long line of politicians who left office after being found guilty of various charges, and among them were two Baltimore mayors.

So, with the Adams scandal, New York is just catching up to us.

I mentioned this the other night during a talk at a dinner of the American Board of Trial Advocates at Caves Valley Golf Club. I asked questions I’ve raised in this space before: Why does political corruption keep happening? Doesn’t anyone learn anything? Why do relatively intelligent people who have reached a decent and stable level of success and comfort still decide to break the law?

None of the attorneys responded because they assumed, correctly, that my questions were rhetorical. Plus, most of them were deep into dessert at that point (It was a lovely apple crisp with ice cream).

Don’t take this as naivete. I am fully aware that greed is a powerful motivator. But, in this hyper-information age, I don’t understand people — again, I mean the relatively intelligent ones — who weigh the risk versus reward and decide to chance the consequences.

In the old days, paper trails often led to indictments. Now the evidence is digital and, it seems, permanently available to investigators.

And so, I wonder what’s up with the otherwise savvy politician or corporate executive who decides to take bribes or engage in fraud.

It strikes me as self-destructive, a slow form of career suicide.

Or maybe it’s hubris. Maybe it’s entitlement. Or maybe the journalist David Plotz nailed it when he pointed to what he described as widespread shamelessness. “Social opprobrium is much more powerful than laws most of the time,” Plotz said. “[The reason] we don’t do things is not because there’s a law against it, but because we’d be embarrassed or ashamed.”

But, if shamelessness reigns, then what?

Fifty years ago, during that “golden age” of corruption in Maryland, the pols who got caught spent minimal time in prison. (Agnew spent no time behind bars.) Supposedly, the loss of position and power — the public shaming — was part of the punishment. Defense attorneys have argued that point and I’ve heard a judge say he considered the “fall from grace” of a politician facing prison.

But, if we have a “shame deficit disorder,” then maybe judges need to stop factoring that into their sentencing calculations and take a harsher view toward breaches of the public trust. Otherwise, the corrupt we shall always have with us.