Warning: This may well be my most convoluted Twofer Tuesday ever attempted here on the Buzzyblog so bear with me as I try to wend my way thru it.
Today Major League Baseball should be playing their mid-season All Star game out in LA at Dodger Stadium. However, as we all know that ain’t happening now due to the pandemic.
On the plus side of things however, I did see this very uplifting note from Neal Dyson on his FB page and it made me smile:
On the other side of the ledger, today also would have been my wedding anniversary were I still married to the first wife. (We tied the knot on this day in 1973.) And while I smile and feel good about my Orioles’ memories, this second July 14th-related flashback is little more hazy and whole lot less sunny for me.
Like the Orioles in their heyday, the ex and I had a pretty good run early on. The O’s managed to garner 3 championships. Me? I got 4 great kids from the time spent with her. The ex and I had some fun times together and the memories of those times are very pleasant.
However, in the all good-things-have-to-come-to-an-end category of life, the mid-90’s were rough on both the Orioles and my first marriage. As the baseball players went on strike in 95 and refused to play any more ball, me and the ex did a similar non-dance with her opting out of our “deal.” She moved out in July of that year and I found myself home alone thinking and asking just how much worse could things get. It was then that the ball players went on strike resulting in no more baseball being played for the rest of that season. At the time I recall accusing God of having a very cruel sense of irony raining down on the Ridge boy as in no wife AND no baseball? Come on dude, gimme a break here!
But then in 96 and 97 the Orioles bounced back some as they managed to make the playoffs at the end of both of those seasons. The ex and I were officially separated by then and ultimately divorced in 97. Ironically, it was that 96 playoff series against the Yankees where the young man reached over the fence and interfered on what the umps deemed to be a home run by Derek Jeter. It cost the Orioles that game and eventually that series which they lost 4-1. In the 97 American League Championship series, the underdog Indians clipped the O’s 4-2 with each Oriole loss by only one run. Following that demoralizing ending, the O’s have not been back to the playoffs since then. And today they rank as one of the worst teams in all of baseball.
Yet, as the O’s floundered and stunk throughout the 2000’s up to the present, I bounced back pretty good by finding a new team to root for. When the Nationals moved to D.C. in 2005 with the former Orioles leader Frank Robinson as their manager it was very easy for me to begin following and rooting for them. And after a couple rough seasons, the Nationals got better and eventually won everything last year. Likewise, on the home front, I managed to do pretty good too as I met and married this lady named Pam and we’ve been a winning team ever since.
Baseball and life. As metaphors go then they match up fairly well for me. Now if they would only start playing it again. Think I’ll call up my Grandson Shawn and see if he wants to throw the ball around some today.