Orange You Glad You Got Tickets?

Last Friday, through good fortune and the generosity of my cousin, I scored free tickets to Game Two of the American League Divisional Series at Oriole Park at Camden Yards.  It was a day nearly forty years in the making; this was the first Orioles playoff game I had ever attended.  To say it was the greatest game I have ever seen in person would be a gross understatement.  I was having a blast win or lose, but the dramatic way in which the Orioles delivered their fans a victory made the day that much sweeter.  Camden Yards has long been one of my "happy places", yet I learned that she shines even brighter in the postseason.  Many wonderful things about the ballpark are amplified by the playoffs.  So much orange - shirts, jerseys, and rally towels furiously waving.  Impossibly green grass.  Ice cold batting practice beers before noon.  The most enthusiastic National Anthem "O" I have ever heard.  Baseball stadiums, when full and loud, are communities unto themselves, an intoxicating blend of nostalgia and civic pride.  That feeling was never more evident than during the eighth inning Friday afternoon.

The prelude to the eighth inning was pretty good, the game score notwithstanding.  Nick Markakis opened the scoring with a two-run homer that allowed us to cheer twice, once when it went out and once again when the homer was confirmed by replay review.  The Tigers battered Orioles starter Wei-Yin Chen, but Kevin Gausman relieved and held the humming Tigers offense in check.  Two defensive gems kept the game close.  Ryan Flaherty channeled his inner Brooks Robinson making a diving stab of a Miguel Cabrera grounder, starting a 5-4-3 double play aided by Johnathan Schoop's smooth pivot at second base.  Schoop later showed off his arm again when he took Adam Jones' relay throw and gunned down Cabrera at home keeping the Tigers' lead at 6-3.  That was a huge run saved, helping make the eighth inning rally possible.  As I said, the first 7 1/2 innings were just prelude.  It was the bottom of the eighth that cemented why I love baseball.

Entering the bottom of the eighth, the Orioles trailed 6-3.  The fans, boisterous all afternoon and buoyed by a season full of late-inning rallies, remained faithful.  Perhaps a bit more pensive than earlier, but no less faithful.  Grown men donned rally caps and rearranged their seats to change the luck.  Fans cheered and chanted, driven not by a Jumbotron ridiculously imploring them to "Make Some Noise", but by pure joy and a determination to play a part in the game's outcome.  When Tiger relief pitcher Joba Chamberlain, looking more mascot than major leaguer with his caveman beard and burly physique, took the mound to start the eighth the crowd went wild.  Chamberlain had been part of the Tiger bullpen meltdown in Game One.  We hoped for more of the same in Game Two.  In a bold move that I am still not sure if I love or hate, Joba answered our mocking cheers with a sarcastic doff of his cap.  His smugness would not last long, however.  With one out, Chamberlain plunked Adam Jones and the rally was alive.

Baseball's detractors lament that games take too long, that the game bogs down as each pitch is delayed by batters adjusting their batting gloves or pitchers stepping off the mound to gather themselves.  I say it is within these delays that the game's beauty resides.  Not burdened by a countdown clock, the game can breathe.  These precious moments between pitches allow suspense to build.  The game stills but the crowd does not.  On this Friday afternoon,  the buildup to each pitch had the fans clapping and yelling.  Baseball is such a game of failure that these hopeful cheers are not usually rewarded.  Frenzied anticipation is often doused by a strikeout or rally-killing double play. In Game Two, though, the Orioles answered with line-drive base hits.

After at-bats by Nelson Cruz and Steve Pearce, each a mini-drama unfolding within the larger narrative, resulted in two singles and a run, Chamberlain was yanked.  With the Orioles now down only two runs, the fans waved towels and screamed during the the warmup throws of reliever Joakim Soria.  It's the buildup, you see.  After J.J. Hardy coaxed a walk to load the bases, Delmon Young came to the plate.  Perhaps Mr. Young doesn't enjoy suspense and anticipation as much as I do because he drilled Soria's first pitch into left field.  When the ball landed in fair territory Camden Yards erupted.  When J.J. Hardy eluded the catcher's tag, sliding home with the go-ahead run, the roar somehow got louder.  I have been to a lot of games and concerts - NFL games, NBA games, NHL playoff games - and with the exception of forty stock cars blowing past at 180 mph, I have never been ANYWHERE as loud as Camden Yards when Hardy crossed the plate.

The aforementioned grown men wept as they stared blissfully at their rally caps.  The upper deck literally shook with joy.  High fives were slapped with folks that were strangers just innings earlier.  Unbelievably, a baby near us slept through the chaos, rocked to sleep by a little Orioles Magic and a team that won't quit.  No one sat down as Zach Britton blew away the Tigers in the top of the ninth to secure the win.  No one wanted to leave the bleachers, to end the shared experience.  Postseason baseball, timeless and sometimes epic, was finally something I had experienced in person.