For this Bird fan, Hope Springs Eternal

Every year around this time, baseball fans begin evaluating their team’s chances for the fast-approaching regular season, and –in turn- predicting their place in the standings, a post-season appearance, or, even a championship! Here in Baltimore, most fans are far more pessimistic than otherwise, and for good reason. That’s what 14 straight losing seasons does.

But this fan, for one, predicts that things will start to turn for the better in 2012, and that’s because pitching is the name of this game, and I am really starting to believe that this years’ Birds might be a whole lot better than anyone is anticipating. And because history, every once in a while, repeats itself.

Here’s what I’m getting to: in 1960, the team’s 7^th year in the league, our Orioles enjoyed their first-ever pennant chase. They went into mid-September challenging the Yankees for first place supremacy, and even swept three from New York here in Baltimore before folding down the stretch. They were able to make that run primarily on the good arms of a very young pitching staff, nicknamed the “Baby Birds.”

Guided by veterans like Skinny Brown and Hoyt Wilhelm, five young pitchers, Steve Barber, Chuck Estrada, Jack Fisher, Milt Pappas and Jerry Walker propelled Baltimore to 89 wins, a second place finish, and a league-low 3.54 ERA. Their average age…21!

Which brings me to my optimism over this year’s installment of Baltimore Orioles baseball. Over this past off-season, new GM Dan Duquette’s top priority was loading up with enough arms to give manager Buck Showalter some real competition for starting sports and relievers. From where I’m watching, the plan looks like it just might be working. Through Monday night’s 4-1 victory over Pittsburgh, Showalter’s hurlers have held the opposition to an ERA just under 3.00, the fourth lowest in MLB this spring!

Can this carry over into the regular season and all those games against American League East opponents? Certainly not, but I think this year’s pitching corps is markedly better than the 2011 group, and if pitching is the name of the game, then might we not be in for a pleasant surprise?

I think so. Just call me mister optimistic. Let’s revisit this in September and see if history, indeed, can repeat itself!

Mike Gibbons is the executive director for the Babe Ruth Birthplace Foundation, Inc.

Why I’m a Little Optimistic

This year is the 20^th anniversary of Oriole Park at Camden Yards.  It is hard to believe it has been twenty years.  Think back to all the hope and excitement we had back then.  The Birds were going to soar to new heights.  And they did…for a while.

By now you might be thinking this is going to be another piece about all the losing seasons…the empty seats at Oriole Park…or the lack of this and that in the clubhouse.  It isn’t.  The arm-chair managers have all said that more than we care to listen.

Instead, I’m a little optimistic about this upcoming season and it is not because we have a new GM or new acquisitions in the clubhouse.  I’m optimistic because we have seen this before.  I want to offer a little hope about what this season could be.  Hope, that is, if you are just a little superstitious.

At the end of the 1991 season the Orioles left Memorial Stadium.  The team went 67-95, scored only 686 runs and allowed 796.  They were 6^th in the A.L. East.  Fast forward twenty years.  The 2011 Orioles were 69-93, scored 708 runs and allowed 860.  The Birds were 5^th in the A.L. East.  On paper, the numbers were quite the same.

But the 1991 Orioles had some big names on their roster.  Cal Ripken, Chris Hoiles, Brady Anderson, David Segui, Mike Mussina…all were part of that losing team.  But they had potential. 

The following year the Orioles went 89-73.  They finished third in the A.L East and were only 7 games back of first place at the end of the season.  And that is the beauty of baseball.  The fortunes of any team can change from season to season.  Losers one year can be playoff contenders the next.  The lineup in 1992 hadn’t changed much in an off-season but the team certainly had.

I’m not looking at 2012 as another year of the same ol’- same ol’.  Instead, I’m looking for that same magic that took a losing team in 1991 and made it a winning team in 1992.  That Oriole Magic that might make this 20^th anniversary a real year to celebrate.

Shawn Herne is the Chief Curator for the Babe Ruth Birthplace Foundation, Inc.

Heroes

As a kid growing up in northern New York and southern Quebec in the 1970s and 1980s I was a Montreal Expos fan.  There weren’t a lot of us, but we still loved our team.  Gary Carter was my favorite.  He was “the Kid” and I thought he was amazing behind the plate.

During those years I also loved auto racing.  Formula One driver Ayrton Senna was my hero.  I couldn’t wait for my family’s annual trip to Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in Montreal to see the cars race.  Senna was “the Brilliant Brazilian.”  He was incredible behind the wheel of a car…faster than anybody else.  I was probably his biggest fan.

On May 1, 1994 Senna was killed at the San Marino Grand Prix.  The steering on his car broke and he hit the wall.  A piece of the suspension pierced his helmet.  As I stared at the television as the medical crews tried to save him I knew it was over.  My hero just died before my eyes.  A piece of my childhood was over.

It is odd the deep bonds we develop with our favorite athletes.  As kids we know everything about them, we dream of being like them, we hope to follow in their footsteps.  It is hero worship in its purest form.  We are crushed when they are traded, saddened when they retire, and mournful when they pass away.

In 1986, I felt that way about Gary Carter.  I couldn’t believe he was going to the Mets!  Not the Mets!  I was angry!  I was betrayed!  But he had a stellar career there and deserved to be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.  I was proud he went in as an Expo.

Today I’m a little sad…not just because another one of my childhood heroes is gone, but because a great man of only 57 years has left us.  His battle with cancer was probably more heroic than any of his accomplishments on the ball field. 

I never met him, personally, but he was still a part of my childhood.  He was a great player.  Thanks for the memories, Gary…and thanks for giving a kid in northern New York a hero to follow!

Shawn Herne is the Chief Curator for the Babe Ruth Birthplace Foundation, Inc.

The Year of the Bird

Now that the Ravens have been literally ‘kicked’ out of the playoffs, it is only natural that Baltimore’s sports attention shifts to baseball, with pitchers and catchers due to report to Sarasota in less than three weeks.

I don’t know about you, but I get pretty jazzed up over the start of spring training every year. It is a time when baseball fans everywhere get to think big and dream the improbable. In Baltimore, where we have suffered 14 consecutive losing seasons, we wonder if our young arms can rebound from a mostly disastrous 2011. We wonder about new GM Dan Duquette. We wonder if this might just be the Year of our Birds.

After listening to Buck Showalter and Brady Anderson at an event at Sports Legends Museum the other night, and then again to Scott McGregor at a stop on the Hot Stove baseball banquet over the weekend, I have reason to believe it just may be.

Brady, who was recently appointed as a special assistant to Mr. Duquette, has been working this off-season with a handful of players on conditioning and strength. He says the exercise has gone well, especially with Brian Matusz, who never recovered from an early season injury lat year and wound up going 1-9 with a 10.69 ERA! Brady thinks things will be different for the young left-hander this season, and I trust Brady.

I trust our manager, too. Buck Showalter knows the game, knows his team, and on top of that is a full-fledged history buff. He is more than aware of the proud tradition of Baltimore Orioles baseball, and seems hell bent on restoring that tradition. At Legends, Buck told us that while Dan Duquette may not have any blockbuster moves under his belt thus far, he has created better depth throughout the system, while at the same time acquiring enough arms to create a legitimate competition for the five starting rotation spots.

Finally, there was something Scott McGregor said at the Oldtimers Baseball banquet on Sunday that, quite frankly, I had forgotten about. Scott recalled that at the end of last season, mid-way through September, to be exact, the Orioles competition pretty much was all contenders, and we won four series and tied one!

So if we could consistently beat New York, Boston, Tampa Bay, Detroit and California, powerhouses all, as they were all vying for playoff berths, then why can’t we carry that over into 2012! And as much as we wanted Prince Fielder or some other big-time slugger right in the middle of our every day, we all know that it is pitching, pitching, pitching that will make or break this year’s Orioles.

My guess…this will be the Year of the Bird!

See you out there!

Mike Gibbons

Mike Gibbons is the executive director for the Babe Ruth Birthplace Foundation, Inc.

Painting the Town

We’ve painted the town purple.  We have Ravens caravans traveling the city.  The Marching Ravens Pep Band is playing the fight song.  Everyone is wearing purple.  The parties are planned.  We are ready for this weekend’s AFC Championship game.

Baltimore is definitely a football town.  We love our Ravens and support our team like no other city.  Is Boston flooded in blue light?  Is New York?  No.  We are loyal fans.  True, the Patriots’ fans are incredibly loyal.  So are the Giants’ fans.  But they don’t paint the town like we do.  Why?

I think that in cities like New York, Boston, San Francisco, even Pittsburgh, few people remember what it was like before football.  Their teams have always been there.  The first kick-off off the season is just assumed.  No one from these towns has experienced the emptiness of an autumn without the NFL. 

Marylanders know what it means to lose a team.  We know what it feels like to see a pro-football season open with no one to cheer for.  We know the empty feeling of being left out of the National Football League.

Football is an incredibly strong part of our community’s identity.  We are proud, we are loyal because we remember.  We are also grateful.  Grateful that we have a strong team.  Grateful that we have icons like Ray Lewis and Ed Reed to call our own.  Grateful that on any given Sunday from August to January we have someone to cheer for.  Ravens are OUR team.

Go Ravens!

To see Purple Pride photos from around the community, check out this page on the Raven's Official Website: http://photos.baltimoreravens.com/1495768382/ravens-purple-pride-fan-photos:most_voted

Shawn Herne is the Chief Curator for the Babe Ruth Birthplace Foundation, Inc.

Baltimore and NFL Playoff Games



30,000 Colts Fans at Friendship Airport (now BWI), welcoming the team home
after a championship victory in 1958



With our city totally juiced over this Sunday’s home playoff game, I thought it might be fun to take a look back at hour Baltimore teams have faired in NFL post-season play.  Let’s start with this fact: 2011 marks the 47^th year that Charm City has been in the NFL. The Colts tenure ran 31 seasons, from 1953-1983. The Ravens’ franchise, which kicked off in 1996, is now completing year number 16.

And of those 47 campaigns, you ask, how many merited post-season play? The answer: 18. Baltimore’s Colts went to the playoffs ten times: 1958, 1959, 1964, 1965, 1968, 1970, 1971, 1975, 1976 and 1977. For our Ravens, Sunday’s divisional game marks the eighth year the purple and black have made it to the playoffs: 2000, 2001, 2003, 2006, 2008, 2009, 2010 and this year.

Over the span of those 18 years Baltimore teams have played 28 games so far, winning 15 and losing 13. Among those wins, they have chalked up five league championships and two Lombardi Trophies.

Brian Billick’s squads went post-season four years and compiled a 5-3 playoff mark. John Harbaugh teams are now appearing in their fourth post-season, too, and are currently 4-3 in the playoffs. Don Shula and Ted Marchibroda each took three Colts’ teams to the post-season, with Weeb Ewbank and Don McCaffrey going twice.

With Sunday’s home game, Baltimore will have hosted 10 playoff games and been the visiting team 16 times. Three Super Bowl appearances were played at neutral sites.

But regardless of the team, coach, year or location, the one constant has been what playoff football means to the community. When the Colts won their first championship in 1958, 30,000 fans flooded Friendship Airport (now BWI-Thurgood Marshall) to welcome back the team from New York. Today, thousands of fans have flocked to enemy cities to root on their post-season Ravens.

And each and every citizen, football fans or not, seems to have a noticeable extra zip in their step. Playoff football does that…always has.

I say Ravens 24, Houston 6. Hope I’m right, because then we get to zip-zip-zip all over again next week!

See you out there,

Mike Gibbons

Mike Gibbons is the executive director for the Babe Ruth Birthplace Foundation, Inc.

Show Some Respect

I took a friend of mine to the Ravens’ Christmas Eve game against the Browns.  It was the first time in thirty years that he had attended a professional football game.  He was very impressed with the Ravens’ pre-game festivities and the level of passion shown by the Baltimore fans.  He was surprised, however, by the lukewarm reception given our quarterback during the player introductions.  He was right.  The crowd’s enthusiasm for Joe Flacco was just mediocre.  There was definitely a roar for other players.  Why not for Joe? 

Ray Lewis, Ed Reed and Terrell Suggs are institutions in this town.  For years they have been the face of the Baltimore Ravens and they have earned every second of respect and recognition they receive.  But even Ray Rice and Torrey Smith receive warmer welcomes than old Joe.  Has he not delivered?  Has he not surpassed all the previous Ravens’ QB records?  Hasn’t he led the Ravens to the playoffs every year since his debut?    

So what’s the problem?  Joe, in many ways, is the Pete Sampras of football.  He regularly gets the job done but otherwise is happy to keep his profile under the radar.  He doesn’t have a flashy intro dance like Ray Lewis.  He doesn’t have a trademark wrestler move like Aaron Rodgers.  He doesn’t scream and yell at the officials.  He doesn’t lash out at the media.  He doesn’t hang out with runway models or party with the Hollywood crowd.  He just quietly goes about his business.  He’s kind of boring.

Perhaps that’s the problem.  Joe is the victim of his own creation.  He doesn’t have a swagger.  He doesn’t talk trash.  He really doesn’t promote himself.  Facial hair aside, he’s just a regular guy.  Unitas didn’t talk trash, but he certainly walked with a swagger.  His cool demeanor came across as confidence.  He didn’t lead like a quarterback, he led like a general.

Baltimore likes drama…a little theatrics both on and off the field grab headlines.  We like fire and passion.  We like a little trash talk that is backed up on the field.  It is why we love Ray Lewis and Terrell Suggs.  They are fiery and passionate.  Joe’s a little too sedate…more like a librarian than a professional athlete. 

I think for Joe to rise to the level of respect of some of his teammates he is going to have to open up.  He needs to show some fire.  He needs to show confidence.  He needs to show the crowd that he has as much passion as we do.  He needs a swagger.  Perhaps then the crowd will go wild when he walks out of the tunnel.

Shawn Herne is the Chief Curator for the Babe Ruth Birthplace Foundation, Inc.