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Beeracuda

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    This is my favorite Oriole team ever

    in Orioles Talk

    Posted

    35 minutes ago, SteveA said:

    It's such a subjective thing because not only is it about the team, it is about you and when you first became a fan and where you were in your life at the particular time and so many other factors.

    1977 was special to me because I was 13 - that perfect age where baseball can still be the most important thing in your life - and this new evil force called free agency had stripped the Orioles of guys like Bobby Grich and Wayne Garland and Reggie Jackson and we weren't supposed to be able to compete with the big evil Yankees and Red Sox but we had a whole bunch of rookies and guys from the big 1976 trade and we DID compete and stayed in it until the last weekend.

    In 1979 I got caught up in the fever of Oriole Magic and listened to WFBR every waking hour as that youthful top 40 radio station had taken over from grownup stodgy WBAL talk/news radio and set the Chuck Thompson highlights  as inserts to rock songs like BTO's You Ain't Seen Nothin Yet and played them over and over and we had the best record in baseball and made it to the World Series.

    1982 was the first year I and all my friends had drivers licenses and instead of going to a small handful of games a year  with my Dad, I went to 20+ games with my friends and we staged an incredible finish that lasted until the last day of the season.  I remember the friends and the good times and the great games (I somehow managed to see 6 Oriole Grand slams in person, some teams dont but that many in a year).

    1989 was my first year as a season ticket holder (13 game plan) and I was fresh out of college and still youbg enough to go out 3 or 4 nights a week and stay out late and still go to work every day and function on my job.  I want to 45 games total that year, never come close to that since.   And it was such an incredible unexpected joy of a season, until it ended that Saturday in Toronto and about 5 minutes after we were eliminated I got a phone call telling me my favorite aunt's long battle with lung cancer had finally ended.

    As great as this season is, I don't think it will ever match those years.  For me.   I don't have a circle of friends that want to go to games very much anymore, and my age and arthritic knees also prevent me from going to that many games.  I've been to five this year and will make a couple more.  I still care but I'm too knowledgeable about the game now to have the unbridled enthusiasm that I once did.  I watch most games on the big screen in my living room and the losses still hurt and the wins still are great, but not to the level they once did.   I don't think I will ever be able to live and die with the team like I did when I was younger.  I have too much understanding of how the sausage is made.  I understand too well the random factors in baseball and the business of the game to ever worship the players the way I did when I was young or to believe that there is something special about the guys who don the orange and black.

    That said, this year and the surprising early arrival of the Orioles as contenders is a hell of a lot of fun, but I personally will never be able to enjoy it at the level I did when I was in my teens or even early 20s.

    But I can certainly understand how for someone at a different point in their life this season would be the greatest ever, just like those other ones were for me.

    Sir, I could've written that same thing, verbatim, to describe most of how I feel about the O's.  We are the exact same age, so we've experienced the O's highs and lows at the same points in our lives.  My highlight would've been the end of the 82 season, with the heartbreaking final game loss to Milwaukee, straight through the championship 83 season, ending with greeting the team in the Memorial Stadium parking lot late at night after their return from Philadelphia.  What a drunken party that was!  

    The next 9 games are going to be a challenge

    in Orioles Talk

    Posted

    2 hours ago, Baltimorecuse said:

    Those bottom teams all have at least one pitcher who can shut you down.  Detroit sweeping us is still painful.  We're 1-3 with Oakland.  Nothing is certain so you play them one at a time, and count your money when it's over.

    I looked at the August schedule and thought 500 would be great and we went, I believe, 629.  

    I hope the team gets some decent turnouts for the homestand.  They deserve it.  

     

    They absolutely deserve fans in the stands.  They've been one of the best teams in baseball since July 3rd, going 34-17 during that stretch.  And we haven't only been playing bottom feeders either.  Success against Toronto, Tampa, Houston, and Cleveland HAS to make the league stand up and take notice.  Even in games we lose, we're rarely ever out of the game.  While I'd be remiss in not mentioning the lack of consistent hitting recently, our pitching has been so good that we're always set up late in games to string a few hits together for a walk-off victory.  They're a fun team to watch, and you can tell the players truly like each other and are excited to play together.  I'd MUCH rather watch and root for a team like this than grumble every time a high priced veteran strikes out or pops out when we need him to produce the most.

    Can't wait to see how this season plays out!  Even if we don't make the playoffs, I consider this season to be a huge success and makes me excited for the future of this team over the next few years!

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