Warm thoughts of baseball can help on a snow day in Baltimore

If you live in the Baltimore area, you were out of practice shoveling snow. Not anymore. What a pleasure to get some reps in after the snow overnight Monday into Tuesday. I had almost forgotten how no fun that is.

It does make one say at least once during the shoveling, probably in their head to themselves, “I can’t wait for warm weather and baseball.”

You don’t need to shovel rain or heat.

If seeing something white that wasn’t a baseball made you think even for a second about the 2023 Orioles season, you probably had some warm and nice thoughts at least.

Some have asked me my favorite moment of last year and there is not one really. It’s a blur of good memories and fun times, covering a team that proved it was very good and kept answering every challenge. Until the very end.

But that’s another matter for another day. For me a great memory of the season, on a day the Orioles lost, was seeing the passion from the fans leading up to the first pitch of Game 1 of the American League Division Series. The fans were loud, and they did all they could to help the Orioles in the first two games at Oriole Park versus Texas. To see it like that in Baltimore again was special. The fans deserved that. Here’s hoping there are a lot more days to be passionate at home games in October with wins to come as well next time.

As it relates to the great year of 101 wins and an AL East title, many of the great plays and hits run together in my mind. But two series in September do kind of stand out.

On Sept. 14 and 15, Tampa Bay came to Baltimore and won the first two games of a four-game series. With their 7-1 win in Game 2 of the series they tied the Orioles for first place in the division although Baltimore was percentage points ahead at 91-56 to the Rays’ 92-57.

But the next night the Orioles won 8-0 behind Grayson Rodriguez and then that Sunday they won the crazy 5-4 game in 11 innings. A few moments before their walk-off win, a loss by Texas, completed while the O's batted in the ninth, allowed Baltimore to clinch its first playoff berth since the 2016 season. It produced the first of two big clubhouse celebrations by the team last year. Texas ironically would also be the team to deny a third celebration later.

So that series for me was memorable for how the O’s rebounded in games three and four. A week later they did about the same thing. Playing a four-game series at Cleveland they lost the first two games, and the Game 2 loss was via a walk-off by 9-8. They were reeling and on that next day, Tampa Bay posted a win before the O’s took the field. Should they lose that game their AL East lead would be just a ½-game.

But they hung on to beat Cleveland 2-1 as John Means pitched one-hit ball over 7 1/3 innings. The next day they won again to split the series. Two huge four-game splits a week apart. The Orioles had a chance to blow it, but they did not.

Ironically, starting pitching would let them down in the playoffs. But in two of the biggest regular-season games last September, the starters showed the way to huge wins.

Remembering that beats shoveling snow every day of the week and twice on Sunday.

Memory lane trip: To look back and better remember, here is the story written in this space on the day the O's beat the Rays and clinched a playoff berth. And here is a story the day after the O's completed their four-game split in Cleveland.

New academy officially opens: Tuesday was yet another big day for the Orioles' international efforts. One day after unveiling their latest international signing class, they unveiled their brand new, state-of the-art academy in the Dominican Republic.

O's exec Mike Elias said: “This is the most important achievement our group has made in these five years.

“This isn’t just about excelling in baseball. This is going to change the lives of many young men here in this country.

“I think that this academy and the Orioles presence in the Dominican Republic is a good statement that it is impossible to excel in the major leagues without an excellent program in this country."

Added Koby Perez, the club's vice president of international scouting and operations: "I’m flattered by all the compliments we’ve been getting from the other clubs. It’s like, ‘OK, now it’s 30 teams,’ and we feel like with the building of this academy, it makes us that much stronger.

“There’re times when, all things being equal, the kid will choose the better academy. I think we won’t lose players over that now.”

Click here for more on the opening of the academy in the DR.