The Backbreaker
It was Sept 24th, 2022, and the Orioles were, like every day around that time, fighting for their playoff lives. And on this particular Saturday, they were in the middle of a four game tilt with the presumptive one seed in the AL, the Houston Astros. They’d already capably demonstrated their new-in-22 mettle by winning the first two games of the series—including Mancini's uber-emotional return game—to remain just a handful of games out of the final WC spot. There was still the slimmest of chances, and in a season of destiny, sometimes a sliver of hope is all you need.
And as this wildly entertaining back-and-forth game was wrapping up, it looked like the O’s were firmly in command, that another ten-game win streak was in play, and that our unlikely joyride was far from over. That this ragtag bunch of youngsters and castoffs was going to go full Disney and actually end up in the dance.
With a two run lead going into the 9th, they just needed to close the door.
But then ‘it’ happened.
After a stunning and spectacular season for Bautista, where he not only ascended into the closer role but excelled there as well, the Astros cut through The Mountain like a coked up John Henry. And subsequently, after a year of endlessly battling back, the birds finally got battled back on, losing 11-10.
That excruciating 9th inning was the proverbial brick wall, the metaphorical cliff. The WWE-level backbreaker whose devastating reverberations would be felt for days.
Because while that loss to the Astros was not technically the final nail in the coffin, it did set into motion the slow demise of the birds’ season. As it, unsurprisingly to any sports fan who's team suffers a heartbreaking late-season loss, knocked the O’s into a tailspin they couldn’t pull themselves out of. Losing the next day, and following up the Houston split with a lackluster Boston series, as well.
At some point during that Red Sox series, my myriad O’s-centric text chains with friends and family, those that had been causing my phone to vibrate incessantly throughout the season, that all summer I gleefully pounced on like Michael Scott on an email from a Nigerian prince, slowed to a mere trickle. Once it was clear this was not yet a playoff team, when there was nothing pressing left to discuss, we watched in quietude rather than ping each other every 10 seconds.
Yeah, that was a weird week. The swirling emotions. No one officially announcing they were throwing in the towel, but the silence spoke volumes—everyone kind of tacitly making peace with waiting for '23. This was a less difficult transition for me than for some others in my orbit. I'd been resigned to 'just be competitive' long ago. I mean when the year started, I said 'not losing 100 games' would be my measure of success. And they blew that out of the fucking water.
As cruel as these matters tend to be, they finally seemed to right the ship that next Friday in New York, only to have any fragment of lingering hope dashed by a Seattle walk-off homer after we’d all gone to bed. We’d prolonged the fairy tale story as long as humanly possible, but reality finally caught up to us—even though we blissfully outran it for months. Sadly, Why Not: The Sequel would end the same way as the original.
Once the Mariners clinched, it was officially time to start looking towards the future. And, for the first time in too long, not the distant future but the immediate future. The season was effectively over…but so was the rebuild. And unless Elias is a compulsive liar and a sociopath, this offseason is going to be one of excitement and promise, not our recent history of bargain shopping and lottery tickets.
And so while we eased into our daydreams about top-of-market starting pitching, the season itself looked like it’d end with a water-logged, just-going-through-the-motions series against the hated Blue Jays. But the rain mercifully receded on Wednesday, and the sun shined on the final game. And even though they lost, like so much this year, the actual results on the field were secondary to what they signaled for the future. And what actually mattered, what I’ll always remember about that game is what happened after the last out.
Adoring fans, their love of this team thoroughly rekindled, giving a barely above .500 team a resounding and deserved ovation. Because they knew, like we all do, what a remarkable success this team was. That despite the final standings, this year truly was special. And, most importantly, that next year we'll be the ones breaking other teams’ backs.
If you liked this article, you may enjoy my personal Substack: The Bird City Courant