I Miss the Orioles

There’s not a lot of news with the Baltimore Orioles these days regarding anything but sadness or the success of their highly touted AL East brothers.  Cal Ripken has been gone for a while now; that hotshot young roster is way overdue to break through; and life in baseball’s overwhelmingly most dominant division is just one orange and black bucket of shit after another.

I have one jarring, invasive Orioles memory left, and I go to it so much, I should probably seek out a therapist (In fact, I think I ended with it last week).

I’d start with “It was the 1996 postseason,” but then you would instantly know what I was talking about.  Orioles-Yankees, Yankee Stadium.  Derek Jeter swats a fly ball to right and Tony Tarasco, inches from the wall, gets under it, prepared to make the routine catch.  But he doesn’t, because some little Yankees asshole sticks his glove out and catches the ball, which in professional baseball of course means that it was a home run and the Yankees win.

The Yankees did go onto win, but not until after a wave of shock-related deaths swept across the Mid-Atlantic as O’s fans the world over dropped where they stood.  Tarasco’s face is what I have stuck in my head.  He was the representative of everyone wearing an O’s jersey at the time, but from their living rooms and bar stools, were not within close enough proximity to the umpire for him to hear their frothy, rabid arguments.

And they were right, too, was the best part.  There was no question.  It was a ridiculous call made by someone who was clearly checking his watch or thinking how much a bag of popcorn cost during a critical play.  But the kid, Jeffrey Maier, was touted as a Yankees legend, going on Letterman (is that even a prize?) and getting a key to the city from Rudy Giuliani.

It was like the Yankees knew they had gotten away with a cheap move, acknowledged it, and rubbed it in everybody’s faces by shining the world’s biggest spotlight on it.

But what has stuck with me, a guy who’s never really been a true Orioles fan, is Tony Tarasco’s face.   In that instant, he went from a well-traveled professional outfielder making a routine play to the angriest man in the galaxy–in the time it took a brainless 12-year-old turd to redefine “fan interference.”

And with the intensity of a solar flare in his eyes and spittle soaring out of his mouth, Tarasco clawed desperately at the sides of the hole that home run had put the Orioles in, and along with the rest of the team, flailed helplessly downward.  They lost the game.  They lost the series.  They never came back.

Now, its 2010, and Adam Jones is being stopped at the Canadian border because customs couldn’t seem to distinguish between him and Pacman Jones.  The O’s haven’t seen daylight in over a decade.  Tony Tarasco is the hitting coach for Hagerstown Suns.  They recently fired their manager.

The post-1996 Orioles couldn’t run with what they had, so eventually, they became builders.  We have seen a variety of eras pass without anything but marginal success out of Baltimore.  “They’re building to something,” was the reason.  “Just give them a year.”

And it wasn’t like that was a lie.  The Orioles had, on paper, one of the most spectacular young outfields in baseball.  They had Brian Roberts.  They’re pitching prospects were apparent phenoms in Chris Tillman and Brian Matusz.  A typical exchange with an Orioles fan:

“Man, the Orioles suck.”

“They’re young.  The good times are on the way.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right.”

Its like living in the same town as a demented mad scientist.  For years and years, everyone avoids his castle on the far side of town.  Crows are always circling it.  Weird-shaped packages are always being dropped off.  Nobody takes his ideas about reanimating the dead seriously at town hall meetings.

Finally, one day, everybody has had enough of the explosions and apocalyptic machinery and storm the place, only to find out that this crazed inventor, this lunatic who has had nothing but the time and inclination to create at the very least somewhat interesting material, has been sitting in a recliner, watching the same three episodes of “Scare Tactics” for the last 14 years.

There are empty bags of chips everywhere.  It smells like compost.  Somewhere, probably trapped under something heavy, a cat is howling.

So where are the Orioles?

Well, that’s part of the problem.  The Orioles are one of the biggest bullet points for realignment because even if they managed to put together a winning season they may not necessarily be in contention for a playoff spot.  Massive payrolls in New York and Boston, as well as a terrifying Rays squad and a even for-some-reason-still-operating-without-Roy-Halladay Blue Jays make a return from the brink in the AL East next to impossible.  Its like trying to win a marathon against four Mach 5’s, while a fifth one attempts to drag you backwards the entire time.

The last manager to have a winning record–and win AL Manager of the Year, by the way–quit because of a shitty relationship with owner Peter Angelos.  Angelos is also the man who, when approached by Cal Ripken about getting him some sort of position with the club, was denied, because if there was some sort of success garnered by this move, Angelos didn’t want Ripken getting all the credit.  Which makes sense.  I mean, who wouldn’t want credit for the Orioles right now?  And if they did turn it around, why the hell would you want somebody so far detached from baseball in Baltimore like Cal Ripken getting the all face time?  [UPDATE: Angelos claims Ripken never came to him.]

Or, you could just take the “baseball logic” route and assume their collapse is due to witchcraft.

My dad has been a lifelong Orioles fan.  One year for his birthday, we took him to see an O’s-Yanks game at Camden Yards and, thankfully, the Orioles somehow stormed their division rivals with 12 runs and never looked back.  Amdist the oddly-timed massacre, he told me about how the overflow of Yankees fans coming down to Baltimore for the game would never have been accepted in Memorial Stadium.

He says that in Memorial Stadium, O’s fans would drag any Yankee supporters behind the bleachers and punch them until some of the more important body parts ceased to function properly.

Maybe that’s how you get the Orioles back: with force.  If the team can’t win, maybe the fans can, and take back what’s their’s in a cloud of fists and a decade and a half of dreading April.  But, that’s coming from a guy living in Philly, and that’s pretty much how you order a sandwich here, so maybe I’m not the right guy to ask.