To Keep Things in Perspective

by Chanumas on May 14, 2007 9:51 AM EDT

Before I get into this, here's something that might cleanse our collective palates a bit. Here's Socrates, the puppy my wife and I adopted about a month ago:

<<a href="http://photobucket.com" target="_blank"> Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket >

Yes, yesterday hurt. A lot. It was yet another punch in the gut by a team that we love.

I personally didn't watch any of the game yesterday. We were on the road from my in-laws' place in Allentown, PA. I didn't even learn of what happened until about 11 PM.

But, and I know it's the coldest of comforts, just think about who we are here at Camdenchat. We've stuck with this team through some verrrrry rough times. Those rough times don't look like they're going to end in the near future, but we still come back for more.

We check this site every day. We watch all the games. We bitch about the idiocy of everyone from Angelos to Fluquette to Perlozzo to Mazzone to Tejada to Chris Ray....all the way down. It would have been easy just to say "Fuck this Team!", and then just concentrate our pursuits somewhere else. But we don't. That's just who we are. That's how we're wired. That's why we're fans.

One blown game isn't going to change that. One blown season, after nine blown seasons, isn't going to change that.

That's why, I think it'd be cathartic if we revisit past disappointments that the Orioles have provided us. I know, it seems like just rubbing salt in the wound, but it's a great thing to put what happened yesterday, what has been happening this season, what has happened for the last ten years, in perspective. It shows that like cockroaches, us Camdensteins cannot be killed.

Here's a poll I've put up with some low points in O's history, including one that occurred years before I, and probably most people here, was born.

So let's revisit, and hopefully laugh at our woeful team. A little bit of the gallows humor is great for the soul.

Poll

What's the biggest disappointment?

Benitez slider to Tony Fernandez in game six of the 1997 ALCS

6 votes

The great collapse of 2005

11 votes

4-32 to end the season (after reaching 500) in 2001

0 votes

Letting Mike Mussina get away

1 votes

Schilling, Harnisch, and Finley for Glenn Davis

4 votes

Losing to the "Miracle Mets" in 1969

2 votes

Peter Angelos buying the team

8 votes

Other (please specify)

1 votes

0-21 in 1988

0 votes

Jeffrey Maier in 1996

11 votes

44 votes | Poll has closed

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Comments

Blowing the 1989 season

on the last weekend against the Blue Jays. That hurt.

Then there was the last day of the 1982 season, handing the division to the Brewers.

And the gut punch of being up 3-1 against the Pirates in 1979. I still can't hear Sister Sledge without throwing up in my mouth a little.

Anyone know Davey Johnson's number?

by duck on May 14, 2007 10:18 AM EDT reply actions

re:

You rarely hear about the '82 sweep or weep series. It was a heartbreaker, especially after crushing the Brewers in the first three games. The fact that the O's cam back in '83 seems to have relagated that series to the memory dustbin.

CAN SAM!

by drj on May 14, 2007 10:31 AM EDT up reply actions

Sure...

that was a heartbreaker, but it was a great season anyway. Coming back like that showed real character, even if they fell one game short. I have great memories of that season. And '83 was great.

Is Perloser still this team's manager?

by rebop on May 14, 2007 12:48 PM EDT up reply actions

As of Monday, 5:41 p.m.

I'm afraid so - Sam Perlozzo is still the Orioles manager.

Anyone know Davey Johnson's number?

by duck on May 14, 2007 5:41 PM EDT up reply actions

i gotta go with

the slider Benitez threw after blowing 2 fastballs passed Fernandez. I had just moved out of my parents house and was living on my own for the first time. I had bought my televison earlier that day from Goodwill for $25 just so i could watch the game.
Man that was dissapointing.

0-21 sucked but my father had told me not to get my hopes up for the birds that season during ST so it became sort of a game for him and i as far as watching the futility goes.

I wasn't around for the '69 WS loss but that prolly would hove been a tough one.

The Maier Game was pretty pianful also.....wait a second Chanumas are you trying to get me more pissed off than i already am. Bring up all these bad memories. I had finally succeded in forgetting about all this crap and you make a poll out of it. What kind of sick puppy are you.

That it its time to start cutting things again.

Oh and fire Sammy P

President and Member of the Kevin Hickey Fan Club.

by BENNYBIRDMAN on May 14, 2007 10:29 AM EDT reply actions

I know it seems sick....

....but trust me, this is going to help.

We've been through a ton of shit from this team, as this poll would attest. But I'm trying to show that, despite all that....despite how much it hurts, we love this team.

We're a lot tougher than any blown 5-run lead in the 9th. or any lost season.

A play that will live in infamy.

by Chanumas on May 14, 2007 10:34 AM EDT up reply actions

I DON'T SEE THE PUPPY.

Where is he?

I voted for the 2005 Collapse. '88 and '89 were brutal, but I was young and innocent and healed quickly... '96 was horrible and maddening but gave me a decade of life-sustaining hatred of the Yankees.
2005? It was like falling head over heels in love, and he loves you back and you're planning your happily ever afters and it's all wonderful until things go quickly south. He dumps you, after which you find out over the span of a few months that he'd been cheating on you with your best friend, gave you the clap, ran a meth lab out of your basement, paid for tranny hookers on your credit card and killed your family pet.
And did steroids. Lots of them.

Yeah, that was a pretty rough summer.

Orioles Tragic, feel it happen!

by 2632 on May 14, 2007 10:37 AM EDT reply actions

You can't see Socrates?

Damn....I'm new to the whole online photosharing thing.....

Here's a link to the gallery on kodak easyshare....does that help?

http://www.kodakgallery.com/BrowsePhotos.jsp?UAUTOLOGIN_ID=34916950308&collid=34916950308.845616 009108.1179153587779&page=1

A play that will live in infamy.

by Chanumas on May 14, 2007 10:40 AM EDT up reply actions

Man....

....Kodak sucks.

I tried it now with photobucket. Any better?

A play that will live in infamy.

by Chanumas on May 14, 2007 11:13 AM EDT up reply actions

I see him now

and he's adorable.

Orioles Tragic, feel it happen!

by 2632 on May 14, 2007 11:16 AM EDT up reply actions

what she said.

HONK IF YOU HATE SAMMY P.

by BENNYBIRDMAN on May 14, 2007 10:41 AM EDT up reply actions

Honk Honk

And that's tough for a duck to do, you know.

Anyone know Davey Johnson's number?

by duck on May 14, 2007 10:43 AM EDT up reply actions

me too voted for that

Most of those other things, those are things that happen to every team. And things like that suck and you remember them forever, but it took a special Orioles brand of misery and incompetence to make that sort of collapse happen.

"If you know how to cheat, start now." ~Earl Weaver

by Stacey on May 14, 2007 11:19 AM EDT up reply actions

Yeah, that was a rough summer...

...I remember it all going downhill about the time that Roidy McMustache got his 3000th hit.

But we own that misery. It doesn't own us. Like fellow Titanic survivors, that brings us together. and none of that misery can take away those moments of pure joy in the first half of '05 when we saw the O's in first place.

I know, I may seem pretty insufferable in this thread...but I think this is what I need. It helps to put into place exactly why I'm an O's fan.

A play that will live in infamy.

by Chanumas on May 14, 2007 11:38 AM EDT up reply actions

This thread needs more puppies

Orioles Tragic, feel it happen!

by 2632 on May 14, 2007 11:45 AM EDT reply actions

Re:

Wow, he's really cute. Is he your dog?

by Chanumas on May 14, 2007 12:51 PM EDT up reply actions

I wish.

I can't have pets in my apt.

That adorable puppy was found in a google image search for "Theo Epstein", believe it or not.

Orioles Tragic, feel it happen!

by 2632 on May 14, 2007 12:56 PM EDT up reply actions

I wonder if that's his name?

"If you know how to cheat, start now." ~Earl Weaver

by Stacey on May 14, 2007 12:59 PM EDT up reply actions

we can't have dogs

So I have to have a cat. I have a contraband cat, actually. She doesn't really live here. When they come by to fix my sink, turlet or fridge (whatever sucks that week), I have to hide her in my bedroom with all her junk and hope she shuts up.

Avoid the clap. - Jimmy Dugan

by Scott Christ on May 14, 2007 5:55 PM EDT up reply actions

2K5

I voted collapse of 2005. It was just such a promising start; I haven't had a winning team since high school, and I've had to put up with my family shitting on MY Oriole teams and talking about how they grew up winners, etc. I finally thought I'd be able to tell them to STFU...sigh...and then it went to hell bad...

by NewOrioleWork on May 14, 2007 1:21 PM EDT reply actions

On another note...

...NO JINX, but Guthrie looked fucking awesome yesterday, versus a very tough lineup. Since we claimed this guy off waivers, do we have the rights to his contract for 6 years on a Major League level, same as if he had come out of our own system? I know we cannot send him down without exposing him to waivers again. But how long do we have the rights to him for as a waiver claim?

by Jonnypops on May 14, 2007 2:01 PM EDT reply actions

1979

Choking to the Pirates in '79.
I was crushed.

by Chico Salmon on May 14, 2007 3:26 PM EDT reply actions

jeff maier

oh god, thats mine. i feel like i own that tragedy.

again, living in north jersey means lots of yankees fans. i was in h.s. back then. i was also the only orioles fan in my school. lets just say i got into a few fights the next couple days. that day after though... man i wanted to skip school sooo bad. i remember not sleeping and just having this huge knot of painful crapiness in my stomach. and i went to school. i didnt even get into the door before the shit hit the fan.

thanks for bringing back the memory though.