Daily Thought for the Os

Word of the Day: insuperable \in-SOO-pur-uh-bul\, adjective:
Incapable of being passed over, surmounted, or overcome; insurmountable; as, “insuperable difficulties.”
Example: 1) While the Orioles have no trouble scoring in the early innings of a game, holding onto the lead has been an insuperable barrier to winning the game.
2) Until the Orioles figure out how to overcome the insuperable challenge of having a bullpen no better than if they pulled fans out of the stands to pitch, it may be decades before they have a winning season again.

Quote of the Day: “When everything seems to be going against you, remember that the airplane takes off against the wind, not with it.” - Henry Ford

Hmm…we’re sure pitching against the wind.

Yes, surprise, surprise, the Orioles lost again tonight. That’s nine straight. I joked that they would lose, but secretly, I allowed myself to hope that tonight was the night. Looking for another team to cheer for, I was asking a friend at work about his Dodgers. He forbid me from watching them.

There were several errors tonight, but one of the worst plays was Jay Payton assuming that Carl Crawford’s left field hit was foul, stopping mid-run to let the ball drop in. That could have been the third out instead of a man on base for Upton to drive in. In addition to our depressing bullpen, that kind of fielding has been a contributing factor to the Os losing season after season. It’s not just the errors and the bullpen, it’s the hustle for the even those plays that don’t seem important. They all are important and that’s what winning teams know.

I’m trying to not be too hard on the Os, but boy are they frustrating to watch. We have some great hitting, which leads you to a false sense of hope; the problem is that you can’t help but hope, even just a little, despite the lie you tell yourself that you don’t care and you’re keeping your expectations low. When they get two men on, a part of you can’t resist saying in an inaudible whisper, “They’re gonna do it!! They are!”

Though I’ve rarely had a chance to watch them since I moved away (this is the first season I’ve seen weekend games in 15 years), other seasons weren’t quite so bad because the Os stunk through and through. It’s Millar and Tejada’s hitting that does you in.

When I was 22, I moved to Tampa, and for the first time I figured out that I had a gift I always took for granted, that I grew up next to Memorial Stadium. It took me a while to realize that I marked time by baseball season. When the first April came, there was a huge hole in my life. It was the first time I ever missed an opening day, which I so looked forward to after a long winter. Opening day was the promise of better things, warm weather, summer, a trip to Ocean City, puzzles on the dining room table, Chuck Thompson on my radio, so many sounds outside my bedroom window, the Orioles cheers, the crack of a bat, the barely on the wrong side of foul pole “awww,” the horns honking that signified that fun was back, Wild Bill, and sitting in the stands whenever I felt like it.

In Tampa, there were no more people outside my house, no more streams of people walking up my street. Something was missing, but I didn’t figure out exactly what it was right away. I didn’t put my finger on it until the Bucs hosted a Superbowl. Then it dawned on me that all the people were missing. Those crowds surrounding my neighborhood for every home game made me feel a little like I was where the good stuff was happening. My loneliness wasn’t just missing family, friends, Baltimore, being in the middle of the political and intellectual heartbeat of the nation, I was also lonely for the throngs of strangers going to a place where I spent most of my time when I wasn’t within the four walls of my own house on Yolando Road.

In Cooperstown when I saw the residents sitting outside on their porches watching the crowds, I knew what they were feeling better than probably anyone else in that crowd of 75,000 people. I know the peaceful feeling of watching things happening around you, and simultaneously the excitement and energy of it all, the excitement of the preparation for it, and knowing that it’s always there when you want it. You might not be able to articulate it, but somewhere inside of you know how damned lucky you are that when you’re ready to be a part of the crowd, you don’t have to sit in traffic or park a car, you can just grab a cooler, or nothing at all, and walk a few minutes to be where all these people have made so much effort to get to. When I look back at the pictures I had the foresight to take of the stadium or see old video, it’s still a bit incomprehensible that the landmark that shaped my childhood is gone.

So yes, it’s indescribably frustrating to watch the Orioles, the last two weeks in particular. A part of me feels like I’m wasting my time every night watching the games, which incidentally, I would feel even if they were winning. It’s a lot of tv watching and I have so many books and magazines to catch up on. I should be outside exercising! At the same time, I know I might as well enjoy it while I can. Fall will come too soon and when it does, I will miss baseball just like I did every October until I adjusted to the Orioles not being outside my window and on my radio. Winter will settle in and I’ll get distracted with something else, but life will feel quieter, a little sadder, and a little less interesting. Come March, just like every March since I was five years old, I will get excited when I hear the first news of Spring Training. It will seem like the season can’t come fast enough and I can’t get enough news. As usual, I’ll mark my calendar with a reminder for Opening Day and I’ll fantasize about getting tickets and flying home. When that first Monday in April comes, in the past, I always found myself paying for MLB audio and resenting the MLB for making me pay for radio that I used to listen to for free over the Internet, but I can’t bear to miss out, so I pay anyway. But next year will be different, I hope. I will have MASN.

It’s true that the Orioles have driven me to the drink, but no matter, I love em anyway and I’ll watch them as long as MASN lets me. Even though I may never see another winning season, at least I get to see them, and since it’s all I got, I’ll take it.

This entry was posted on 30. August 2007 at 22:33 and is filed under 2007 Season. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.

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