Baltimore Baseball--Experience Oriole Tragic.

 “…And it’s just another little bit of history repeating.”

Who knew the Propellerheads were Orioles fans? The band released this song in 1997—the last time, as most of you know, the Baltimore Orioles produced a winning season. It’s been stuck in my head since two nights ago, when the O’s lost after four-and-a-half hours of futility.  Then, last night, they delivered the sequel, prompting me to develop a proposal for the Orioles’ front office to make “History Repeating” the team’s fight song.

Of course we dropped two extra-inning games. At home. To the Yankees. Again. The Orioles have been the Murphy’s Law of baseball for over a decade, now. Within the context of a single game or over the course of an entire season, anything that can go wrong does. Every time we see flashes of brilliance from one player or in one phase of the game, another player, a different phase flames out.

Let's look at last year, for example. We marveled at Matt Wieters’s inhuman, .500+ batting average with runners in scoring position over the first half of the season; we actually caught glimpses of Orioles coverage on ESPN after Adam Jones made highlight-reel catches seemingly every week; and we finally saw a homegrown prospect deliver on his potential as Zach Britton breezed through his first 10 starts, mowing down Yankees and Red Sox lineups like they were county rec teams.

Amidst all of that excitement, though, we watched in horror as Showalter continued calling on Kevin Gregg to close (and, in retaliation, Gregg continued blowing saves); we spent four months trying to decide if we loved or hated Mark Reynolds, who proved that if you hit just enough home runs, you can distract everyone from your historic error and strikeout numbers; and we pitied a clearly defeated Vladimir Guerrero, whose batting average finally dipped below his weight.

This is Baltimore baseball. Over the past two decades (a period that accounts for the majority of my life), Orioles fans have looked on as the franchise reached brilliant but fleeting peaks and stumbled through vast, dark valleys. We lower our expectations more each year; we’re dedicated to the “how could it possibly get any worse?” mantra. We never stop hoping because we desperately want to love our team again.

So, here come the 2012 Baltimore Orioles, six games into a new season and already feeling like “a little bit of history repeating.” 

Still, we’ll watch, we’ll go to a few games, making sure to enjoy those small moments of excitement following the most inconsequential of victories. And, in October, we’ll scorn the MLB Postseason commercials that keep interrupting the Ravens game.

On the other hand, who knows? Maybe this is the year…