Matthew Taylor: Hoping to fulfill parade promise to my son

Baseball is the World Series and a championship team! Celebration and parades, confetti in the streets. And maybe, just maybe, this year that team is your team. Because in baseball, anything is possible. I promised my son a parade. We've read the book "Baseball Is ..." several times ever since my father purchased it as a gift for his grandson. That grandson has always loved the section quoted above, which begins on a page illustrated with players in a pileup, the word "Champs!" on the scoreboard, and - here's the important part for my boy - fireworks in the night sky. Several weeks ago, after I read those final words, I closed the book and told my son, "If the Orioles win the World Series, we'll go to the parade." The division was still very much in question, yet the team's second-half play had me believing that indeed "anything is possible." It was a sense of possibility that had gone missing for me for all too long. I repeated my parade pledge to my favorite little baseball fan after reading "Baseball Is ..." on the eve of the division series. So it was on Thursday that, after I returned home from work, inhaled the scent of the homemade Maryland crab soup my wife was making, and changed into the Orioles gear she had laid out on the bed for me, I went into the TV room and heard my son say, "We're going to go to a parade if the Orioles win." I smiled and explained that there wouldn't be any parades just yet. Here's where things get tricky. First, my son is too young to understand that the O's must win 11 games, not just one, to warrant a parade. Next, and decidedly more complicated for his young mind, is the possibility that they'll fall short of this goal. In his imagination, the ball always flies over the fence when the Orioles are batting. It did just that in the bottom of the first inning thanks to Nelson Cruz, leading us to jump up and down in front of the television together. The difficult lessons can wait for another day. If you turn back the book several pages, you'll find these lines: "Oh, the bright happiness of cheering a team on, of sitting side by side, of standing hand in hand with those who share with you their own special love for this team, for that player, who recall their own memories of other innings, way back when ..." My father has said several times over the years that he's happy he ditched work to attend the 1983 World Series parade in Baltimore because, "You never know when it will happen again." Should there be celebration and parades and confetti in the Baltimore streets later this month, I'll be there with my boy. I promise. 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.