End of an Era Bob's Backstop for July 26, 2005

"Grandpa, Billy says you were there for the Great Orioles Massacre of 2005. Were you really?"

"Yep, I sure was. Remember it like it was yestidday."

"Will you tell me about it?"

"Well sure, if you'll just shut off those consarned Dungeon and Dragon holodecks for a little while, I'll tell ya."

"Okay, Grandpa, okay. I've slain three dragons and cut off the head of George the Terrible three times today already. I'm pretty bored with it. I'd really like to hear about the massacre. I've viewed stories about it on the telescreen, but I can't imagine what it was like to be there."

"Well, sonny, it's nice to know that you're a-figgerin' out that simulation isn't everythin'. Lessee...

'It was a really hot night, 96 degrees at game time. It was sorta like a giant outdoor sauna. Still, there was nearly thirty thousand fans there to greet their heroes. Rafael Palmeiro was making his first appearance before the home crowd since he'd registered 3000 hits to go along with his 500 home runs."

"Rafael Palmeiro? Who's he?"

"He was a pretty darn good ballplayer, sonny. Made the Hall of Fame."

"I don't remember many of the players from then, Grandpa. Only the best of the best, I guess, like all those Yankees - Jason Giambi, Derek Jeter, Adam Loewen."

"Well, trust me, sonny, Raffy was as good as they came. And the fans were all revved up for him. They gave him a standing ovation that put goose pimples on your arms. Three of 'em during the game. Javy Lopez was just back from the disabled list. He got a standing ovation, too."

"But Grandpa, I thought you said this was the beginning of the massacre. This doesn't sound bad at all."

"No, it wasn't. But the game that night showed everything that had gone wrong with the Orioles. Texas has come into the park cold. They'd lost six in a row, their pitchers were struggling, they had lost nine in a row at Camden Yards. The Red Sox were still within striking distance for the Orioles, even though the Orioles were coming back from a 1-5 road trip. The fans were excited, there was a buzz in the air. But the Orioles took care of that in the first couple of innings.

"The starting pitcher was wild, but he wasn't allowing a lot of runs. But the Orioles were doing the same thing they did on the trip. Their overrated offense dinked and danked, but didn't score any runs. The pitcher forgot to cover first on a double play ball and allowed a run. This was his second offense of the season, and two others pitchers had done it at other times, too. Their star shortstop even looked like he was out of magic. He failed at the plate time after time, and didn't back up a throw to second base that ended up allowing an insurance run. The team just looked flat, dead.

"The fans cheered and cheered, applauded when the Red Sox were locked in a struggle with the Devil Rays. But in the end, it just didn't matter."

"The Vegas Devil Rays?"

"Yes, except they were playing in Tampa then."

"Tampa? We had teams in Mexico?"

"It wasn't...well, let's move on, shall we? Geography is for another day...

"The buzz went around the park that Phil Nevin had turned down a deal that would have brought him to Camden Yards in exchange for pitcher Sidney Ponson. The game finally ended before about twenty of of the original thirty thousand, as Miguel Tejada hit into a double play. It was a pretty fitting ending."

"So what was the massacre?"

"Well, that was just the end for Mazzilli. The owner, Peter Angelos, saw a flat, uninspired, sloppy ballclub playing out there with the pennant race just waiting, ready to be joined. But the Orioles simply refused to join the party. He saw Sidney Ponson still on the club, he saw Larry Bigbie still on the club. He saw a team that had resources of both cash and players unable to bring him a decent deal to the table to improve the club that would actually go through.

"And he thought. He thought of the embarrassment of the team releasing one of their few solid bullpen performers the week before because of a pending deal that fell through. He thought of Steve Kline refusing to report to Bowie. He thought of the punching bag that had been Steve Reed. He was face to face again with Jason Grimsley, the so-so pitcher the front office had picked up a season ago for a promising kid pitcher...someone this same front office had traded for less than a year earlier. He though of Sidney Ponson, the pitcher they had signed to a three-year deal that they were now trying to give away for another team's problem contract...and they couldn't even do that. The other team's player had refused the trade...it seemed that they made a deal for a player that had Baltimore on his "do not trade me there" list."

"Why would they do that, Grandpa? If he said he wouldn't want to play there, why would you try to trade for him?"

"I don't know, sonny. I don't know. Neither did a lot of other people. They hired a farm director with solid credentials, the farm had a good year, and then they fired him. They watched as their hand-picked, "blow us away" manager proceeded to under whelm.

"But it was really all right there in this game. The team was home. A good crowd. Playing a struggling team with a starting pitcher who had been bombed by the Yankees in his last start. A team they had owned at Camden Yards. They were in the race.

"And then...after throwing the ball around all night, not covering for each other, with no clutch hitting, they had another loss under their belts...and Peter Angelos decided to clean house. At the end of the year, they were all gone, all fired. Beattie, Flanagan, Mazzilli. Was it just bad luck? Bad karma? Who knows?

"The bottom line was, though, that they had a chance to steer the ship in a season where the Red Sox took the division while  only winning 89 games...and the Orioles still weren't even in the race in September. The front office not only didn't make a deal, they embarrassed the fans. The team played unsound, uninspired baseball, and that gets blamed, right or wrong, on the manager. And the front office had picked the manager, and overall made a lot more moves that didn't pan out then those that did. So at the end, they blew up the office, and started again. It was a tough time to be an Orioles fan."

"Did you keep going to games, Grandpa?"

"Well, sure I did, sonny. Baseball was a lot like life then. You took the bad with the good, you recognized your shortcomings, and you dealt with them as best you could. It was still a glorious game. The grass, the confrontation between pitcher and hitter, the strategy, enjoying the people around you, being awash in the murmur of the crowd...all great stuff."

The old man shook his head. "That didn't make it any easier to take. It was a disappointment, but we all moved on. We had high hopes for those guys. We hoped they'd turn things around. But it just wasn't to be, in that long-ago summer of 2005..."