The Heart of Charm City

by Andy Hoglund

At the start of 2012 season, I wrote about my disheartening decade-and-a-half wait for the Orioles to become an interesting team again. Well, true to form, the sock’s in my mouth – they are. Not only that, they are completely exceeding expectations, with a current record of 59-51, right in the middle of a true Wild Card race. And they’re doing it with a payroll under $85 million.

Not that their surprising success is winning them any praise in the sports media. Baseball Prospectus Playoff Odds, which looks at a team’s schedule and their run differential, gives Baltimore just a 5.7 percent chance at making the playoffs. ESPN puts them at an equally infuriating 14.6 percent. And most egregiously, Jon Sheperd at the Orioles blog Camden Depot, is still predicting them to only win 78 games this season. That’s only 19 more victories in the next two months of baseball!



Of course. After all, the Pirates are the favored underdog narrative this year and the Orioles are in a division dominated by other franchises. The Red Sox, and their collapse, are the major story, and if they need to discuss a young team of upstarts, they have the Tampa Bay Rays. Who can blame the naysayers, anyhow – in many ways the Orioles are performing exactly as predicted. Except they’re winning.



Last March, the Bleacher Report ranked them dead last in their starting pitching power ranking, pointing to the fact they were the only rotation in baseball without a distinguishable “ace.” The same holds true now – only the majority of last March’s original rotation has either been released, demoted, or placed on the disabled list. Yet these no names and never weres continue to surprise. Last week, the Orioles rotation and bullpen combined for 28 consecutive scoreless innings.



On paper, all is not well. They are 23rd in the league in batting average at .244. They are 26th in on-base percentage. Additionally, despite the head-turning bottom lines from their (non) pitching staff, they are 27th in quality starts and 19th in ERA. And, as every disciple of Bill Simmons likes to point out, they have a -54 run differential. That means they’ve given up 54 more runs than they’ve scored. There’s a term of art for teams with these sort of numbers, consistently getting outscored in games. They’re called "losers."



It really is a Major League (NSFW - Language) underdog story. What is particularly hilarious is how the Orioles' continued success mystifies the baseball talking heads and smarmy columnists. Take a look at the headlines Orioles fans (not to mention the team) are subjected to on a daily basis:



Sports Illustrated: Why the Orioles’ postseason dream is all but impossible



MASN: With lackluster run differential, how are the Orioles still in the hunt?



ESPN: Extra! Let's talk about the Orioles



To be sure, these articles make valid statistical arguments and, if the Orioles make the playoffs with a run differential at -54, they certainly will have done something historically impressive. But when did baseball get to be so much about the cold calculations from number-crunchers and their know-it-all TV counterparts anyway? Isn’t this the sport that lured Terrence Mann out of retirement and convinced Ray Kinsella to jeopardize his family’s well-being by driving them into bankruptcy? Not the way ESPN covers it.



The final legacy of sabermetrics may not be lower payrolls, or playoff runs after all – it’s jabberwocky. When I go into bars now, I’m always amazed with the level of shit not just coming out of sports analysts’ mouths, but from average fans. So many ludicrous statistics and stale arguments on a player’s “value” and a team’s "true" worth. Since when did sports fans focus their passions on this trend of phantom percentages and odds instead of the character or spirit of their local team, using numbers to pontificate as if they spend their waking hours devouring stat lines like Bill James?



Ironically, it’s when I whine about baseball blowhards that I feel even more curmudgeonly about the game. So what better way to elucidate my point then with the upcoming baseball movie Trouble with the Curve (coming out September 21), starring our favorite octogenarian himself, Clint Eastwood.



Now in his seventh decade of appearing onscreen, Eastwood was recently described by an associate of mine as essentially “a dick, who no longer cares what other people think.” Sounds about right. That also means that when a man of his persuasion decides to appear on screen, it’s worth taking note.



Trouble with the Curve has been described as a sentimental sports film in the vein of The Blind Side, a baseball movie pitching itself as the anti-Moneyball. It’s this comparison that I find the most appealing.



“You don’t know anything about the game. The computer can’t tell if a kid’s got instincts,” Eastwood growls during one moment in the trailer. It is a very Eastwood thing to say. We get what he means – he’s talking about heart. The Baltimore Orioles, and their miraculous season, seem to have been founded on a similar premise. How else can we justify a team competing without a starting rotation, an offensively-challenged batting line-up, and a -54 run differential?



President Obama said that Eastwood's films are "essays in individuality, hard truths and the essence of what it means to be American.” Stories like the Baltimore Orioles, under-appreciated underdogs literally fighting against the odds, embody this kind of truth as they remind us of what it means to be a true sports fan: to rally against all the bombast, over-analysis, and loud culture of cheap sports worship. There’s something to be said about appreciating the grace and heroics of what’s seemingly designed to fail, defying conventional thinking and rational thought and reinstalling optimism in the cynics. It’s what we sometimes call faith.

Image courtesy of Gavin St. Ours

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