A literary essay...

**BaltimoreTerp** · 02-23-2011 06:54 PM

I'm taking a class on Literary Essays this semester. As part of this class, as one may imagine, I actually have to write some of these things.

One of the ones I turned in today was based on the Orioles, so I thought I might throw it up here to see what kind of response it gets. Please feel free to comment if you would like. If I get enough of a response I might put others up from time to time as well. And if I get enough of a NEGATIVE response I might do it anyway just to annoy people

***

October Sunday

63-98. Going into today, the Orioles are 63-98. That means no matter the outcome on the last day of the baseball season, they cannot lose a hundred.

I walk into the ballpark close to game time. It is a Sunday, the final Sunday that will truly matter for six months. That is a strange thing for a football fan to say, being the first weekend in October--the football season has barely begun--but I am and will always be a baseball fan first.

That is why I am here in the first place (first place, almost ironic, since the Orioles are dead last). Today is the day the Ravens play the Patriots, in New England, with the full attention of the sports fans of Baltimore. My decision was questioned by many people I know, wondering how I could pass up that great game for...the Orioles?

Besides, it is 70 degrees and sunny on this Sunday. Not a cloud in the sky. Perfect weather. Baseball weather. Football is meant to be enjoyed most when it is too cold, too wet, too windy, too snowy, too muddy. Baseball is about perfection. It isn’t even played in poor weather, and any delay due to the rain is compounded by the extra time to bring the field back to perfect condition.

I sit in the bleachers. Of course, they aren’t true bleachers. The word brings to mind old wooden boards literally bleached by exposure to the sun on those clear days, and by the wind and rain and ice during their months ignored in the off-season. The Orioles have a modern ballpark, so the bleachers are seats like any other. They are still exposed, however, and by the end of the game my Irish complexion will end up as red as any summer afternoon.

Like I would wear sunscreen in October.

The game itself isn’t notable. A fan favorite is playing his final game for the team, only due to contracts and the business of the sport it can’t be officially declared such. When his season ends in the fifth inning and he is replaced, I do give him an extra little ovation.

The game does become a showcase for how technology has become almost unimpressive in society. I can see that I am not the only one checking my phone for the football scores, most likely paying closest attention to the Ravens. There almost as much of a buzz in the stands for the events happening five hundred miles away as there is for the events fifty feet in front of our faces. But it is good to see that even in the face of sporting failure, others were willing to make the same choice as I.

The game ends in a win, but it doesn’t matter. I already knew that the Orioles couldn’t lose a hundred. I walk to my car feeling depressed over the end of a season, so that I barely notice when my phone tells me that the Ravens lose on a dropped touchdown pass. Receiving the information over the phone makes me oddly detached from it. Which is a good thing, because seeing such a horror live would leave me depressed for a week.

That itself may be why I love baseball so much. No matter the outcome of a game, no matter how poorly the season is going, no matter how little it may seem to matter, there is another game the next day. Except for the last game of the season.

But at least they didn’t lose a hundred.

**TGO** · 02-28-2011 10:10 PM

Nitpicky: I think the dropped pass was for a first down, not a TD, wasn't it? You're talking about Clayton?

**GMU Orioles Fan** · 02-28-2011 10:11 PM

I like it. I like your point about there always being a next day. You're right in a sport like football. The loss stays with you all week but in baseball there's pretty much always a game the next day.