Matthew Taylor: Savoring the main course, and maybe O's just desserts

What is the proper recompense that Orioles fans deserve for enduring 14 consecutive seasons of losing baseball? The honest answer is nothing. If you're a longtime sports fan, you know the hard truth is that the game doesn't owe us as fans anything. The joys are few, the frustrations many. Nevertheless, I cling to my sometimes naive belief that loyalty will be rewarded in time.

It wasn't so long ago, during a period when the sufferings were plentiful and often substantial (think 30-3), that my request became modest. My ask of the baseball gods - they weren't exactly prayers; let's call them whisperings - was simple: winning baseball, a .500 record or slightly better. Oh sure, I dreamed of much more, but the results most nights provided a shock of cold water well before the days of the ice bucket challenge.

So here we are in 2014, enjoying a third straight season of winning baseball. That hasn't happened in Baltimore in 20-plus years, from 1992 through the strike-shortened 1994 season, to be specific. Three full seasons of winning baseball in a row? That hasn't happened since 1985, when the O's finished off their fourth consecutive winning season, including 98 wins and a World Series in 1983.

OK, now I've written that phrase, so let's talk about it. World Series. If you weren't thinking about it as a possibility for the hometown nine even just a month or so ago, surely you must be now. The O's have the second-best record in baseball. They've won nine of 11. Their division lead is approaching double digits. The postseason is a given. The division isn't guaranteed, but it's sure close to it. That leaves the mind to wander, rather than worry, as we and our team grind through the month of September. My thinking turns to bigger prizes, and, yes, even the biggest prize.

A .500 record? Playoffs? They've become appetizers. I want the main course, and I'd absolutely like to look at the dessert menu. Let's feast on this baseball bounty!

Perhaps I've gotten greedy. However, I'm a fan of Orioles history. I know what this team accomplished in its glory days. Fans of an earlier era can remember 13 consecutive seasons of winning baseball, from 1968 through 1980. That included five seasons of 100 or more wins, six playoff appearances in the pre-wild card era, and four World Series appearances.

Those fans didn't dream of the World Series; they had been there plenty. What they wanted was World Series wins, with the team having lost three out of the four times they got there during that period. Even the blessed are sometimes still cursed.

There's something instructive about that period in Orioles history. Those were great players, great teams, and great seasons. However, for many fans that lived through the wins and the losses in particular, they're remembered for the way they finished. Great movies with disappointing endings. The hero didn't get the girl.

I'm going to take the lesson of that time period in Orioles history and apply it to my current day experience. I desperately want the Orioles to win the World Series. I'll be disappointed if they don't. Nevertheless, I am relishing this season (Go Relish!) and I will continue to do so regardless of how it ends.

This second-half run has been perhaps the most enjoyable time I've had as an Orioles fan. I won't allow the 2014 season to be defined by what happens in the oftentimes quirky days of October. Unless, of course, these heroes do indeed get the girl in the end.

Matthew Taylor blogs about the Orioles at Roar from 34. Follow him on Twitter: @RoarFrom34. His ruminations about the Birds appear as part of MASNsports.com's season-long initiative of welcoming guest bloggers to our site. All opinions expressed are those of the guest bloggers, who are not employed by MASNsports.com but are just as passionate about their baseball as our roster of writers.