I attended the Orioles' home opener last season when Michael Gonzalez blew the lead in the ninth inning. What a buzz kill! But then again, I suppose the same can be said of the previous 12 years previous to 2010. Over time the Orioles would attempt to convince fans that they had made necessary upgrades in the offseason to be able to compete in the AL East. There was the year that they lost Rafael Palmeiro and B.J. Surhoff (via free agency and a trade respectively) and the big free agent aquisition that the Orioles got was Delino DeShields. There was the Albert Belle experiment, and later the return of Palmeiro and Surhoff. Ultimately over time, the Orioles would do just enough to keep the die-hards coming to the ballpark, but not enough to keep from ticking them off.
I'm not going to go through the upgrades that were made over the most recent offseason, because they don't even compare with some of those moves. However my point is that if there's any fanbase perhaps in sports that deserves this 4-0 start, it's the Oriole fans. For those of you reading this who have gone back year after year, paid for cheap seats only to give yourself a "complimentary upgrade," and watched as other teams took their aim at the Orioles, you're just like me. We've all suffered through these past 13 years together...NO MORE. One thing I can guarantee you is that the trends of the first four games will not continue. By that, I mean no team goes 162-0. There will be struggles this year, and even the best teams in history have moments during the season where they feel that everything is against them.
At the moment, the Orioles are in first place in the AL East. Whether or not that continues remains to be seen. I'm more excited with how they've played in these first four games in that they've shown a lot of swagger and poise. Does anyone think that someone would have stepped up and hit those two balls out of the ballpark last year as Brian Roberts did twice already this season? Those were clutch hits, and the Orioles as a team got zero clutch hitting in 2010. Last year it seemed that they were as tight on a nightly basis as one could possibly be in that they were afraid of screwing up. Now that doesn't seem to be an issue because it's unspoken that someone else will step up and fill in if someone makes a mistake.
I truly believe that Baltimore has some of the best baseball fans in the world. It's easy to say that they can't fill the ballpark and so forth, therefore the fans aren't that good. However there are few cities which have such a long tradition with baseball as Baltimore. The fans have a reputation around the league as very knowledgable about the game, and very hospitable. (Almost too hospitable when it comes to NY/Boston fans, but that's another story for another day!) My point is that Oriole fans deserve something about which to be able to stick out their chests. Things could turn south starting tomorrow, however the fact is that this team is just that...a team. Not a group of players trying to play baseball, but a team. And they're giving their fans something about which to be incredibly proud thus far in 2010. Incidentally, I've attended the home opener at Camden Yards only twice in my life; 2004, and then again last year (2010). The O's lost both times, so I decided to stay away this year, however I will make my debut at Camden Yards in 2011 on Saturday and Sunday this coming weekend.
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