The Orioles have been bad for weeks. But plenty of clubs have struggled for years — or decades.
As gloom hovers over Charm City, with its Orioles struggling, there is only one quick (and easily disposable in better times) solution for Oriole fans. Find perspective.
Such as, it could be worse. You could be an Angels fan.
Yes, that is the American League West's Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, a team that isn't even certain which city it belongs to. Also, a team that plays essentially in the same market as the always contending and ever-beloved Dodgers.
As of this writing, the Angels are 62-90, in last place in the AL West, and 4 1/2 games behind the division's next-worst team, the Oakland Athletics. The A's will soon play their last game in the creaky and quirky Oakland Coliseum , before heading to Sacramento for a couple of seasons while awaiting the construction of their own new Taj Mahal-like stadium on the Strip in Las Vegas. They played at home in front of tiny crowds this season, mostly those afflicted with nostalgia. Yet the A's have hope and a future. The Angels appear to have neither.
That may be harsh. It also is real, considering that, since 2014, four of the AL's Most Valuable Player awards have gone to Angels players, Mike Trout twice and Shohei Ohtani twice. And the last Angels appearance in the playoffs, a quick in and out, was 2014.
Trout, a few years ago the consensus best player in baseball and now more like the most injured player in the game, has a $426.5 million contract that takes him through 2031. As for Ohtani, after six years with the Angels, he was enticed before this season to go about 20 miles up the 5 Freeway to play for the Dodgers. That enticement included a 10-year, $700 million contract. Not exactly pulling teeth.
I spent 25 years as a sports editor and 10 as a sports columnist in the Los Angeles area, before moving to Parkville. I watched the Angels rise to World Series champs under Manager Mike Scioscia in 2002, hang on for several more postseason spots under Scioscia through '09 and then squeak in for one last try in 2014. In that one, they lost three straight to the Kansas City Royals and went home, never to return again (at least to this date).
Trout had one hit in those playoffs, a home run. He has zero at-bats in the playoffs since. Scioscia fulfilled his long contract, then left after the 2018 season, saying he will not manage again. And he hasn't.
The gremlins that encircle this team apparently taught Scioscia a lesson. Whatever ghosts hang out in Anaheim, or whatever is in the water, continue to haunt the baseball team, to the point where it has become an afterthought in Major League Baseball. The big local newspaper, The Los Angeles Times, doesn't even send a reporter to Angels games. Not even the home games.
So ponder all that, O's fans. You have a team that, while struggling recently, will certainly be in the postseason and may even be the AL East champs. You have a great rivalry with the hated Yankees that may, if it continues for a few years, surpass in venom the Red Sox-Yankees mutual hatred. You have media that shows up and is invested.
What great fun.
The Orioles have two boomers in Anthony Santander and Gunnar Henderson, plus arguably the best catching and hitting catcher in baseball in Adley Rutschman. Corbin Burnes is the sort of pitcher who can change the momentum of any series with a single start. The players seem to like each other and play for each other. You fans certainly love them.
So relax. No need for weeping and gnashing of teeth. No need to wince when an Oriole strikes out and slams his bat in frustration. That means it really matters to the players, for the sake of the team. If one of the Angels slams a bat after a strikeout, it is a different kind of frustration. It is the frustration of messing up personal statistics. They have nothing else to play for now. Haven't for years.
As the pendulum of late-season frustration plays out these last few games, when normal fan emotion demands perfection every time out, take a breath and repeat to yourself: ...
' FAN.
It will work wonders.
