via cdn3.sbnation.com

While we all saw this coming for quite some time, does it make the pain any softer? Do the tears fall any more gently? Mark Reynolds was a different kind of player. The kind of player that just liked to swing. Sometimes, just a bit more than others ( Watch Mark strikeout 100 times in two minutes ), but does that make him a bad person?

I say definitively NO.

He was a man who loved the game, and we loved him. Sure, he wasn't the best third baseman, but could we have done a better job? Sure, the power wasn't really there at DH (or otherwise really) this season, but didn't he blast the you know what out of the Yankees? That's right, he did, you're damn right he did, mashing six taters against NY! (Not to mention blasting the O's into a tie for 1st place on Cal Ripken statue night)

But back to our more omnipresent reality.

Mark appeared at times to be an endless journeyman on the field, searching for his one and only true home, he appears to have found it at.....no wait is it really....could it really be..... yes.... YES....it's really here...it's First Base!

The man who we saw flop many a baseball at third base turned into a "Web-gem" worthy first baseman, I saw it with my own eyes or I wouldn't have believed it.

Mark Reynolds represents Orioles Magic at it's finest. A man who was questioned all year(s), but came through in certain special occasions that we will keep locked in our hearts forever.

We celebrate Mark's record of fastest player to 1,000 strikeouts, as well as the first player to record over 200 strikeouts in a season (2008).

We also celebrate Mark placing 20th in the 2009 NL MVP Vote, because damnit, that may be low, but it's 20 places better than the rest of us ever got!

Good luck in Cleveland Mark, we'll miss you good sir, thank you for representing Birdland to the fullest