The Orioles dropped Game 1 of the ALDS, but Baltimore fans came from near and far to show that the 2023 MLB playoffs are for the birds

BALTIMORE — In just two years, the Orioles climbed their way out of the abyss to earn the top seed in the American League this postseason, leaving even their most passionate partisans wondering just how they had pulled off such a resounding turnaround.

Their young core of homegrown players — catcher Adley Rutschman, shortstop Gunnar Henderson, ace righty Grayson Rodriguez, among others — has a lot to do with it. The steady hand of manager Brandon Hyde is another factor.

But one fan in attendance for Game 1 of the American League Division Series between the Orioles and Texas Rangers — the first postseason game in Baltimore in nearly a decade and 40 years since the team’s most recent World Series — proposed another possible explanation: Jesus is on their side.

Matt Gardner, a long-haired, bearded man, showed up to Oriole Park at Camden Yards cloaked in a white robe with a fake Bible, labeled “The Good Book,” nestled under his arm. He wore a multi-colored Orioles fedora and an unbuttoned black Rafael Palmeiro jersey as a jacket. His friend of more than 30 years, John Didomenico, was dressed in the same Where’s Waldo costume he wore the last time he was here for an O’s postseason game, in 2014.

Baltimore Orioles fans at Camden Yards

“It just seems like destiny,” Gardner said as he walked with Didomenico to their seats in the second row in section 12 down the right field line. “It’s our time.”

But not even the coming of Jesus’s O’s-attired doppelgänger could save Baltimore on Saturday. The Rangers scored twice in the fourth inning, added another run in the sixth and held on to win, 3–2.

Even in defeat, it was a day of celebration at Camden Yards. Rockstar Joan Jett, an Orioles fan, performed the National Anthem and franchise icon Adam Jones threw out the first pitch. When most of the 46,450 fans in attendance erupted after Rangers second baseman Marcus Semien popped righthander Kyle Bradish’s first pitch out of play, it was hard to imagine that anyone had ever hit a more important foul ball. Two pitches later, when Semien tipped a slider into Rutchsman’s mitt for strike three, nearly every fan in the row directly below the pressbox smacked high fives with the person next to them.

“It was really loud early in the game,” Hyde said. “That was a special environment for our guys to play in.”

This atmosphere was the result of a fan base that has experienced so much losing in recent years. From 2017-2021, the Orioles lost 202 more games than they won. Last year, they made a surprising push for the final wild-card berth before falling three games short. They finished 83–79, their first winning record since 2016, which was also the last time they made the playoffs. That year, they were eliminated by the Blue Jays in the AL Wild Card game.

Despite their unexpected surge in the second half of last season, there was no guarantee that the O’s would make the playoffs this year. And with the team’s current lease to play at Camden Yards set to expire on Dec. 31, fans were left to wonder if they would ever play another postseason game in Baltimore.

John Angelos, the franchise’s chairman and CEO, has a house in Nashville, and last year his brother Louis alleged in a lawsuit against John and their mother, Georgia, that John was planning to move the team there. The family settled the case in February, and in late September, the Orioles announced that they had agreed to a deal with the State of Maryland, Governor Wes Moore and the Maryland Stadium Authority that would allow the team to play at Camden Yards for another 30 years. Later, the governor’s office clarified that the parties had reached a memorandum of understanding — meaning that the framework of a deal had been reached but some details still needed to be worked out. The announcement came on the night they clinched the AL East title and the No. 1 seed with their 100th win of the season.

All the disappointment of the last seven years and the uncertainty about the franchise’s future made Saturday an even bigger occasion than a typical postseason game. John Makowski, 46, grew up an Orioles fan in Maryland. He lives in San Diego now, but he wasn’t going to let that stop him from seeing the O’s in the playoffs with two of his closest friends, Greg Hausner and Ryan Farr. Makowski hopped on a red eye flight to Baltimore, caught a few hours of sleep at a hotel and then went to the game.

“I flew in from California for 26 hours to be here,” he said. “We thought the O’s could get to 90 wins and maybe get a wild card. But we didn’t expect this.”

Baltimore Orioles fans at Camden Yards

Not many did. The Orioles built their roster around young major leaguers and highly rated prospects. Their talent was undeniable, but it was tough to gauge how quickly they would adapt to the big leagues. For the most part, it didn’t take them long at all.

The youth movement also gave the Orioles an identity. Early in the season, they started celebrating their extra-base hits with water-specific rituals. They would pretend to turn on a faucet whenever they hit a double, and the players in the dugout would respond by spitting out water as if they were sprinklers. After home runs, the player who went yard would chug water from a giant funnel called the homer hose.

This inspired a section in the left-field seats, next to the bullpen, known as The Bird Bath. Whenever an Orioles player hits a double, triple or home run, fans in the section are showered with water by a team employee, Mr. Splash. The first one came in the fourth inning on Saturday, when Ryan Mountcastle ripped an RBI double to left field.

The Bird Bath and the surrounding sections featured an eclectic group of fans. One fan leaned on the railing overlooking the Texas bullpen, and after the Rangers scored their first run, he shouted at them, “You’re gonna need more than one to beat the O’s in Baltimore!” When the next batter drove in another run, he yelled, “You’re gonna need more than two to beat the O’s in Baltimore!” In that sense, he was right. The Rangers needed three to win.

Around the same time, an older man walked up behind a woman who was sitting in The Bird Bath with her husband and two kids. She was wearing a Mark Trumbo shirt with the No. 45 on the back, but her hair was covering up the last two letters in Trumbo. The man said to her, “That’s the best jersey I’ve seen here!” She turned around to thank him, and as she did, her hair moved, revealing the BO.

“Oh, that’s not — I thought it said Trump,” the man said.

“No,” she responded with a trace of irritation.

“Well, Trumbo is cool too,” he said.

There were times when the emotions of the moment — and likely the booze — got the best of people. Security kicked out a quartet of college-aged men who were vaping and cursing at Rangers pitchers in the bullpen after they had been warned to stop. During an eighth-inning pitching change a man wearing nothing but small underwear rushed the field before he was tackled by security guards, handcuffed and taken away.

A few security guards also said that earlier in the game they found a kid up in a tree in the standing section in center field. The parents were nowhere in sight.

As all of this was going on, the Orioles kept getting men on base. They were losing, but it felt like they would find a way to come back and win. The ballpark was rocking and the Rangers’ relievers were erratic: Josh Sborz threw seven straight balls to start off the seventh, and eight of Aroldis Chapman’s first nine pitches were out of the zone. Baltimore grounded into two double plays and had runners on in every inning except the second and third.

The air finally came out of the crowd in the ninth inning — the Baltimore Drop — when Henderson was caught trying to steal second for the first out. All that remained of the raucous environment was a few half-hearted Baltimore cheers and applause from the Rangers’ friends and family section.

It was not the result the Orioles had wanted, but the fact that there was any result at all indicates just how far the organization has come from where it was two years ago.

“It’s been a complete turnaround,” said left fielder Austin Hays. “I know it’s been a long time coming.”

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The Baltimore Orioles’ Raucous Fans Turn Camden Yards Electric