BALTIMORE — You could sense something was changing the last time the Yankees visited this harbor town, when it seemed the baseball-starved populace was first allowing itself to believe.
That first night, a Thursday, they unveiled a statue of Cal Ripken in the center field picnic area at Camden Yards, so it was understandable why the place was covered in orange and black, Orioles colors, rather than what typically has been a regional office for Yankees fans.
Surely the timing wasn’t done by accident. The Orioles have become accustomed to September games with zero relevance attached to them. Slowly, and the quickly, this had become a Ravens town, a football town, the erstwhile Browns winning a Super Bowl in January 2001 and playing a black-and-blue style that appealed to the locals. Even their deep-purple uniforms look like a bruise.
The Orioles? It has been 15 years since they hosted a playoff game, since they were ousted by the Indians in the 1997 ALCS. When nostalgia’s in play, everyone always wants to talk about 1996 and Jeffrey Maier and the Yankees. But ’97 is when the Orioles won 98 games, easily outlasted the Yankees in the East and had the best team in the American League.
Those Orioles were managed by Davey Johnson, and so they had the signature flair we see now in the upstart Nationals, which we in New York remember as a patented feature of the ’86 Mets. A few years ago, in a private moment at the Olympics, when he believed his days as a big-league manager were over, Johnson sighed as he recalled those ’97 O’s.
“We had such a tough team in ’97,” he said. “The fans were rabid, and they filled the park every night. We were better than the Indians. And I know in my heart we were better than the Marlins, who by rights the Indians should’ve beaten, too. Who knows how things might’ve gone if …”
The Orioles lost those four games of the ALCS by a total of four runs, and a two-hit gem from Mike Mussina in Game 6 — the last postseason game at Camden until today — was wasted when Tony Fernandez hit an 11th-inning home run off Armando Benitez (no, Mets fans, you don’t corner the market on Benitez angst). Johnson didn’t return the next year. Neither he nor the O’s came anywhere near the postseason again until now.
And Baltimore started dying as a baseball town, all those sellouts a memory, the park taken over by Yankees and Red Sox fans 18 times a year. You don’t have to be charmed by this if you are a Yankees fan, but if you are a sports fan it has to nourish you even a little to see a proud old sports town find its legs again. It’s why the various renaissances of the Packers are so welcome, and the Knicks, and it’s why people who couldn’t name three Pirates were pulling for them to at least finish over .500 again.
Sports are parochial and personal, and for that it’s hard for us ever to care about any team that isn’t right within our view finder. Still, it’s harder to avoid the energy when a good sports town — especially a smaller one, like Baltimore — gets re-engaged. Scoff if you will at all those empty seats, but take a look at Yankees highlights from the late ’80s and early ’90s. Look at the Stadium’s lonely upper decks. The Bronx had to get re-engaged at one point, too.
And remember when it did? That’s what Baltimore feels like now. Good for them. Here’s hoping Fenwick, Shrevie, Boogie and the rest of the crew at the Fell’s Point Diner are having a hell of a time talking baseball (between debates about Sinatra vs. Mathis) over their plate of fries and gravy.
Whack Back at Vac
Peter Corvisiero: The Jets’ best option is the quarterback who has not been given a fair shot to play, Greg McElroy. He’s smart, accurate, a proven leader and a winner at all levels of his football playing career … including destroying Tim Tebow in the 2009 SEC championship game. He reminds me of Chad Pennington.
Vac: Hand it to the Jets. They have reinvented the old football axiom; now, the most popular guy in town is the third-string quarterback, not the second.
@tuckisles: Any truth to the rumor the Redskins will shut Robert Griffin III down after 400 pass attempts to save his arm?
@MikeVacc: The Strasburg Decision: The gift that keeps on giving.
Jim Burns: Keith Hernandez shaved his moustache for a great cause — Alzheimer’s — but doesn’t this put him out of the running to take over as “Blackstache,” the villain in Broadway’s “Peter and the Star Catcher?” ’Stache is the nascent Captain Hook … and old Keith has always been a bit of a swashbuckler, no?
Vac: He’s also a noted Civil War buff, so I hope he appreciates the fact that he looks as naked, stache-free, as early Lincoln did without his beard.
Wayne Vanyo: Is it true that before he became a doctor, Henry Jay Heimlich was a caddy for the U.S. Ryder Cup? Who knew that by watching a team choke up close and personal it would help in the creation of his famous Maneuver?
Vac: “Henry Jay Heimlich” actually sounds like the kind of guy who would terrify a Bubba Watson or a Steve Stricker in a Sunday singles match.
Vac’s Whacks
I Wonder if more coaches and managers were as truthful and honest as Tom Coughlin was when he second-guessed himself after last week’s Eagles loss, if that might help them be as successful as Coughlin. In a copycat league, a copycat world, that’s not a terrible thing to copy.
* I could listen to Carl Banks talk football all day.
* Damian Lewis is so outstanding playing Nicholas Brody on “Homeland” that sometimes I feel compelled to pop in a DVD of “Band of Brothers” — any episode, any scene he’s in as Maj. Winters — just to remember how good he is as a good guy, too. And if you have Netflix, check out “Life,” too, whose run was criminally short — and also co-starred the magnificent Sarah Shahi.
* I think Donald Fehr is pretty damn good at what he does, and I happen to be on his side in this NHL dispute. But do you suppose it bothers him, even a little, that his lasting legacy is bound to be fans from two different North American sports instantly getting chills racing up and down their spines whenever his face appears on television or in a newspaper?