Orioles Magic

I don't know how many folks follow baseball anymore. It seems to be less and less relevant every year to the average American. And that's fine. As many of you know, I grew up in the middle of Ohio in a little town of right around a million people called Columbus. I was a die hard Cincinnati Reds fan as a result. I would sit and listen to the games on the radio just about every night when I was a kid. I'd pick up 700 WLW out of the Queen City and hear my man Marty Brennaman and the old lefthander Hamilton Joe Nuxhall call the games. This was back before every game was on TV. Way before that. When I moved to North Carolina in 1997 it became much more difficult to follow the Reds on a daily basis. But I kept up as best I could through 15 seasons with no postseason appearances. Then 2 years ago the Reds finally broke through and won the NL Central. They then proceeded to get no hit by Roy Halladay and then swept right out of the playoffs in the 3 games. It was certainly anti-climactic, to say the least. And a little depressing. Well, here we are again. The Reds are back in the postseason. They play a best of 5 series with the Giants beginning tomorrow evening in San Francisco. I'm not getting my hopes up too high. We'll see what happens. At least they have a chance. After going so long with no hope, the Reds have resurrected themselves like a phoenix rising from Arizona, to quote Frank Costanza.

I bring all that up in this context, the Baltimore Orioles are back in the playoffs for the first time in 15 years. I had the opportunity to live in the Baltimore area off and on for about 33 months from January 2007 to October 2009. I got to know many die hard O's fans during that time. Many of them are friends of mine. You can scroll through posts on this blog and find a number of pictures taken across the street from Camden Yards at Sliders. The pictures generally involve Geilfuss making an ass of himself or Andy sporting his Jesus Hates The Yankees t-shirt. Those were always fun times. I went to a number of games during my time in the Charm City. We'd sit in the seats just beyond the left field wall. Of note is the fact that the O's lost only 1 game of all those I attended (I'm sure that's a fluke considering how bad they were, but it's a true fluke nonetheless). The sense I got sitting amongst O's fans on those nights was that they were desperate to pull for a winner. I often thought "these people love the O's." And over time, I wanted so badly for those long suffering Baltimore fans to have something positive to get behind, something to feel good about, something to be excited about all summer and into autumn. And this year it's finally happened. I've spent many an evening the past 5 months or so at some awful bar watching the O's on one TV and the Reds on another. I always request that Cincinnati be on the TV to the right, because if there's one thing we know it's that Ohio is way more to the right politically than many of the loony lefties in Maryland. Bartenders have occasionally asked me why it's important to have the Reds on a TV to the right and the O's on one to the left. I never explain. They'd think I was nuts. Anyway, as I've watched the Orioles this season, I've been amazed at how well they play in 1 run games. They won them over and over. Timely hits from sometimes the most unlikely of heroes has been commonplace. Hell, Baltimore has won 16 straight extra inning games. Amazing. Orioles Magic.

Tonight the O's draw the Texas Rangers in a one game sudden death "playoff." On paper the Rangers have virtually every edge. I won't bore anyone with the specifics of why that is. But the game won't be played on paper. I like the O's chances. A lot. Let me tell you why. Now, I don't believe for a second in karma or what goes around comes around bullshit. That's all hippie nonsense. But I do remember a ballgame in August of 2007. It was a Tuesday night. The O's were playing the 1st of a doubleheader against, you guessed it, the Texas Rangers. I was out at some Italian restaurant in Linthicum Heights with my buddy and colleague Paul Katula. As we sat down we noticed the TV in the corner of the bar had the O's game on. They were losing badly. I think it was like 11 to 3. Over the next 90 minutes the Rangers kept scoring and scoring and scoring. It ended up 30 to 3. One of the worst ass kickings in the history of the known world. Later that night I was at a trivia game in that same area and ran into Andy (we had yet to join forces in the dark world of pointless trivia competitions at that point). I remember asking him, "Did you see that shit?" He said something like, "Horrifying." We moved on to other chit chat at that point. But, I think there's an important lesson to be learned from that brief exchange Andy & I had over 5 years. And that's this - horrifying can be undone. And it can be undone tonight. All I'll say to close is this - I am betting the O's. I will be pulling as hard for a baseball team as I've ever pulled not named the Cincinnati Reds. Orioles Magic.

And if it doesn't happen? Remember, next season is only 6 months away...