Playing for Today
On falling in love with Orioles baseball, living in the present, and the Savannah Bananas.
I grew up an Orioles fan in the sense that my dad is an Orioles fan and we’d occasionally go to games together, but it was always his passion more than mine. I grew to love baseball on my own in two stages. The first was a singular moment on July 24, 2016. The Orioles were playing Cleveland on one of the hottest days of the year. My dad was wearing cheap sunglasses, and while we waited for the gates to open, sucking on ice chips from plastic cups, the sunglasses spontaneously popped off his head and broke. (This was not the first time this happened to my large-headed dad, and yet it was still belly-busting funny.) We got in early, and it was the first time I got to really wander around Legends Park and get to know Camden Yards.
We had seats high up in the upper deck behind home plate, and I have to admit, I was not paying a lot of attention to the game. It was the summer of Pokémon Go, and, while I’m not a gamer, I did get swept up in this fad, and I was far more interested in what I could catch in the city than in watching the Orioles lose. Then, in the ninth inning, Nolan Reimold came in as a pinch hitter and hit a two-run homer to walk off the game. It was glorious. Oh, how your luck can change in an instant. Maybe baseball wasn’t so boring after all.
Throughout my 20’s, I’d get tickets for me and my dad to see the Orioles for his birthday and Father’s Day. I always had a lot of fun at the ballpark but didn’t get into following the team until 2023. That’s when the second stage started, and a number of factors drew me in. We had young, promising players like Adley Rutschman and Gunnar Hendersonz, whose cameraderie was fun to watch. The pitch clock didn’t hurt, nor did the fact that we were good for once.
Most of all, there was a new game and a fresh start every day. Baseball’s rollercoaster helped me put personal disappointment into perspective and gave me something to anticipate. One thing I’ve learned about myself is that when I’m feeling low, I can always count on live entertainment in whatever form to cheer me up. I find comfort in staying present and living in the now. So, I started listening to games on the radio. They were hard to follow at first, but I loved the picture that Geoff Arnold painted for me, and with time I understood more and more. I could be a baseball person.
I brought my dad to the Yard for a rare, late-season home game after Brooks Robinson’s death, a weird, eerie game imbued with both reference for a legend and a palpable hungover feeling after the team clinched the regular season title the night before. I watched the World Series with strangers at a hotel bar on a work trip. I met Orioles players at the preseason caravan. My dad and I went to more games together, including a thrilling win over the Phillies on Father’s Day 2024. With my new special interest, we had so much to discuss together.
As with all new interests, though, it’s hard to jump right into the conversation. I watched people online talk about WAR and things they read on a site called Baseball Savant. I didn’t have much to add other than that certain Orioles were “vibes guys.” Ryan Mountcastle? Don’t know his WAR, but he’s a vibes guy. But I didn’t need sabermetrics to know that the Orioles were not living up to their potential. After another first-round playoff loss; a disappointing offseason; and a devastating start to the 2025 season, I felt like my fandom was tested. Next, came a never-ending train of injuries, an embarrassingly lopsided Easter Sunday game, the firing of manager Brandon Hyde, and a trade deadline that prompted goodbyes to many of my favorite players. it was getting harder and harder to love the Orioles.
So, when a new connection invited me to a Savannah Bananas game, I saw a welcome opportunity to feel less sad about baseball. If you’re not familiar with the Bananas, they’re a stunt team, like the Harlem Globetrotters of baseball. They rotate among three equally goofy opponents: the Party Animals, the Firefighters, and the Texas Tailgaters. They went viral that summer because a player did a failed backflip on CNN. They’re what some people are calling “normie culture.” This would be fun for science!
The game was at 7 pm, but little did I know that the festivities began at 2 pm. 2?! I love to get to the ballpark early, walk around with a beer and a pretzel, and watch the team warm up, but 2 pm? What could they possibly be doing that early? We compromised by arriving at 4 pm, in time to peruse the Banana Plaza, which featured a long but efficient line for merch, including Savannah Bananas creator Jesse Cole”s book, “Fans First.” “The Savannah Bananas should not exist,” proclaimed the back of the book. Yet, somehow, the Bananas are “The Greatest Show in Baseball,” according to ESPN. “Packed with behind-the-peel stories, hard-earned lessons, and a few other surprises, ‘Fans First’ teaches you how to stand out in your marketplace, drive explosive growth, and inspire fanatical loyalty.” I started mentally drafting a reflective LinkedIn post.
Eutaw Street was mobbed, and I quickly saw why—the team began to enter the stadium, flanked by a slew of eager fans. One, with long, blonde hair, walked in on stilts. The ballpark was packed with people who, to me, seemed like they’d never been to a baseball game before. They were all wearing Savannah Bananas merch. I couldn’t decide if this was just as bad as wearing a band’s t-shirt to their concert or no different than wearing a team shirt to a game. We sat in the upper deck between first base and right field, coincidentally, next to the president of Baltimore’s Society for American Baseball Research chapter, whom I’d met a month ago at a talk about a new Earl Weaver book. I felt a bit surprised, since I thought the baseball “heads” hated the Bananas, but he was there for a second night, excited about Adam Jones’ appearance the night prior.
While I had an open mind about the Bananas, they still managed to surprise me. The first surprise was how many of their between-innings gimmicks involved putting things down one’s pants. The game started out with a player standing in our section and competing with a teammate across the way for how many bananas he could throw down the pants of another teammate who stood in the outfield. Another game challenged two audience members to run the bases, sticking two crabs down their pants at every base. In another game, three couples competed in what I can only describe as a kiss-off; in a fourth, two men ran a dizzy bat race that culminated in embracing their wives. Were the Bananas as family-friendly as they proclaimed?
The other part was just how non-baseball the whole event seemed. I was expecting baseball with a few backflips. Some dances between innings. Baseball, but a bit goofy. No, the Bananas didn’t even keep score like a traditional baseball team; instead, whichever team won the inning scored one point. The scoring was especially confusing since we couldn’t see the auxiliary scoreboard, and the main video board was dedicated to highlighting each player’s Instagram and TikTok handle. On top of that, the clock never stopped running, and music never stopped. I mean, it never stopped—30-second clips of popular songs played one after another.
But it felt kind of fun to let go of late-season worries for a night. While getting concessions, I heard that one of the special guests was up next. It was none other than switch-hitting catcher Matt Wieters. I raced to the top of the section behind home plate to take it all in. I didn’t expect to feel so emotional to see one of the key players from my youth getting a hit off the Firefighters. Nick Markakis made an appearance later to roaring applause. The sun hitting the warehouse, a beer in my hand, birds flying across the Baltimore skyline—I felt so happy living in the moment, reminded of how much I love Baltimore baseball. To cap things off, the Bananas scored a walk-off to win it all.
A month later, I found myself back at Camden Yards to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Cal Ripken Jr.’s 2131 game and also my dad’s birthday. On a rainy night, we trudged to the warehouse to see a “special exhibit” that turned out to be Cal’s uniform from that night next to a copy of The Baltimore Sun (not worth the trudge). The scoreboard featured retro-style graphics that reminded me of going to games as a kid. After a pregame ceremony, Cal got into a red convertible and rode, waving, around the field.
As Yoshinobu Yamamoto pitched a shutout and the annoying Dodgers fans around us cheered, I sat stewing in my sticky poncho. I was so sick of waxing poetic about the glory days. I wished we had a team doing things worth celebrating today. Plus, I still believe that one game was postponed because Cal Ripken beat up Kevin Costner for hooking up with his wife. And should I even be celebrating the streak as someone who purportedly values rest? At least we were witnessing a no-hitter! That was something, right?
Then, on the last out of the game, Jackson Holliday hit a home run, and a flurry of events catapulted us to the lead, thanks to Emmanuel Rivera’s two-run single. The air was electric! We walked into the night in a celebratory mood, greeted by the buoyant drums of the Baltimore Twilighters.
2026 was going to be different. Fly different, the Orioles marketing team said. (Shouldn’t it be “fly differently?”) We had hope in the form of Pete Alonso, who came over from the Mets and worked extra hard to seem like he cared about Baltimore the city; in Samuel Basallo, the exciting young catcher who signed a big extension toward the end of 2025; in Shane Baz, the mysterious new pitcher with the Stuff+ and the deadpan stare; and of course in our old guys, who were back, healthy and better than ever. New manager Craig Albernaz won everyone over with his cute daughter at a preseason press conference. It was “Liftoff!” from here.
But this team has strayed from the fundamentals—the Oriole Way—with sloppy defense, stagnant hitting, a promised power hitter that only walked. Albernaz’s lineups have left me scratching my head a lot. I miss Geoff Arnold, whose contract wasn’t renewed after the 2025 season. I’m sick of the MASN commentators repeating how the team can’t get all the pieces working right at the same time. The halfhearted team celebration says it all. The American League is a tight race this year, though, so I kept hopeful. We entered the trade deadline 2.5 games back from a Wild Card slot.
The 2026 deadline was tough. We said goodbye to Dean Kremer and Taylor Ward—losses that were somewhat expected and made sense to me. We lost Tyler Wells, a calm and reliable bullpen arm, to Tampa for some reason. And, most gutting of all, we said goodbye to beloved top prospect Adley Rutschman, headed to the Red Sox, which really hurts. The fanbase is reeling.
Adley was the center of the “young core” we heard so much about. He got many comparisons to Matt Wieters, another switch-hitting catcher. He even famously switched sides during the Home Run Derby in 2023. He’s so beloved—he just did one of those “Meet the Birds” events at Jimmy’s Seafood the other night, which I really wish I’d known about, and signed a ball for someone’s nephew who was named after him. (“To Adley From Adley”.) He’s funny, stylish, charismatic, tight with other players. Every other week, I see someone share that video of him making his MLB debut, looking in awe and gratitude around Oriole Park as he took the field. We thought he’d be here forever.
I understand sources are saying Rutschman didn’t want to sign an extension, and it seems like Red Sox fans are upset about what we got for him (some prospects and a .186 catcher who cheated on his wife?) so it must make some sense on paper. But, as we all know, what makes sense on paper doesn’t always make sense in real life. It hurts to see the face of a franchise go to a division rival, as The Baltimore Banner’s Jon Meoli said so well in a recent column. It hurts to see Adley’s teammates tearing up, recounting how their best friend got the call while they were at the theater to see “Spider-Man.”
And it hurts to feel like the Orioles as an organization are never living in the moment. They’re busy basking in nostalgia or projecting success onto 19-year-old prospects when our division rivals are planning for today. We celebrate the 1989 “Why Not?” team, but who’s to say this team can’t be “Why Not?” 2.0? It’s hard to support the organization in that environment, especially when this season is all that’s guaranteed, with a potential lockout on the horizon. Maybe that’s why they’re making these decisions, but it still hurts.
Perhaps someday, I’ll see Adley again at Camden Yards—walking into the batter’s box to deafening applause as sunset rays hit the warehouse, taking it all in with a smile as he returns to play Banana Ball. “That’s my favorite player,” I’ll tell my future kids, sporting their banana yellow. And you bet I’ll be cheering loud.
Loved this piece Emily!
I'm from New Jersey, but I visited Oriole Park and can say that it was truly a magical experience! <3