It’s about time Baltimore got back to being about the baseball.
Move over Ravens, time to share the tree branch. The Charm City’s isn’t just button hooks and goal line stands, this town’s got baseball in it’s blood once again.
Save the Old Bay for the crab cakes and potato chips, this fall season’s going to be all about Orioles baseball as the Birds make their second trip to the postseason in three years. And so what if this is the first time since 1997 that the team has won the AL East, Fort McHenry wasn’t built in a day and to all those fans who stood patiently by as the team floundered like the fish in Baltimore Harbor, congrats to you because without your loyalty and passion throughout those lean years Camden Yards would have felt even more like a graveyard, haunted by Orioles legends from the past like Ripken, Murray and the Robinsons.
To the national media still hesitant to sing the Orioles praises due to the roster’s apparent flaws like a starting rotation without a star or an injury/suspension riddled lineup missing all-stars Machado, Wieters and Davis, those fireworks exploding in the sky above the Warehouse may not be bombs bursting in the air but if Francis Scott Key were around today it’s hard to imagine that tucked between some line or stanza of our National Anthem wouldn’t be some reference to the Birds because while the Stars and Stripes still fly prominently next to Boog’s BBQ so too does the orange pennant nesting comfortable a top the AL East.
So let’s move the conversation beyond ‘The Wire’ already. With all due respect to David Simon the only corners that Orioles fans care about this fall are occupied by guys with the last name Pearce and Paredes. Yes, the Inner Harbor is still a great place to take the family, but when’s the last time you saw a bottle nose dolphin at the National Aquarium take back a home run like Adam Jones? Or the canons on the USS Constellation fire a strike like Chris Tillman and Kevin Gausman?
To all you young ones out there that never heard of the Oriole Way, whose grandparents call them ‘Hon’ and still yammer on about the good old days of Memorial Stadium, buckle up because moments like this can be taken for granted. Appreciate this team and opportunity and make sure your family brings you back to the yard. Because Baltimore was built for baseball.