The Orioles game at the end of the world
The Orioles game at the end of the world
By Michael Kelly IV
Whenever I think of the city of Baltimore, my next thought is always of the apocalypse. I didn’t plan it to be this way, and I really wish it wasn’t the case, but we don’t get to pick and choose which stimuli pair with our reactive thoughts. One day, our brain simply associates a subject with a reaction, and that’s the end of it.
Of course, those reactions can be unlearned with time, but in the case of Baltimore and the ever-looming end of the world, the two are irrevocably inseparable for me, and they have been since I was nine years old.
Shortly after the thoughts of doomsday subside, my mind turns to baseball. Specifically, one summer game between the Orioles and the Detroit Tigers. July 19, 2008. Feel free to look up the box score, but keep in mind: as is always the case with baseball, the box score never tells the full story.
It was in the backseat of my family minivan on a road trip from New York to Baltimore that I first came to the realization I was mortal. It wasn’t through a single, proprietary dawning that I was going to die, but rather, that the world was going to end, and there was nothing I could do to stop it.
On the radio that evening, talk of the 2012 Mayan Apocalypse was beginning to circulate, likely to fill time on a slow news night. The story revolved around New York’s doomsday preachers of the subway, who were slowly starting to change their message, rooting their impromptu sermons around the end of the Mesoamerican calendar. As we left New York and made our way south, the radio signal began to crackle and fade, but my nine-year-old ears still picked up certain words.
Repent.
The End is Near.
Nostradamus.
December 21, 2012.
The Mayans.
All of these terms were brand new to me, and by nature, I was a question-filled kid. Unfortunately for my parents and the 300-mile stretch of road before us, answers were thin.
“What happens when we die?” is how I broke the silence somewhere in Delaware.
Both of my parents whipped their heads around the car seats, taking their eyes off the road and almost answering the question in real-time.
They looked at each other, then back to the open interstate, staring in silence and thinking of how to go about navigating the second-most uncomfortable conversation a parent could have with their children.
“What could’ve possibly brought you to ask that?” my mother retorted.
“The Mayans,” I said. “They’re coming in a few years, right? That’s what the radio said. I just want to be sure of what happens when the world ends.”
It was at that moment my father turned the radio off.
“I doubt they’re coming, bud,” he said. “But if they do, we’ll be ready for them.”
I believed my father when he said my family would be “ready” for the cataclysm, regardless of how few details I knew of it. I took him at his word and trusted him with my life. Although I was old enough to know of my own mortality, I was still young enough to believe my father was invincible.
My parents have lived through it all—Helter Skelter, Y2K, countless threats of the Rapture—so they knew this Mayan phenomenon would probably blow over before it even came to fruition. But, whenever an event like that gets mainstream coverage, it’s hard not to give it credence, even if you’ve survived prophecies of Armageddon dozens of times. They did their best to calm me down; to turn my attention back to our family getaway to an Orioles game rather than the end times, but my mind was already preoccupied. It was far too late to focus on any of the good in the world—especially baseball—when I knew it would all be lost to time before I even had the chance to turn 15.
To make matters worse, the Orioles got off to an apocalyptic start that night, giving up six runs in the first inning. Before the majority of fans had even found their seats, the Birds were in a deep hole. I hadn’t even had the proper time to enjoy a customary first inning hot dog. Instead, my mind raced back to thoughts of existentialism and my surefire mortality.
What if the Mayans are ahead of schedule?
Could this be the last hot dog I ever eat?
Am I going to die watching the Orioles get absolutely rinsed by the Tigers in a meaningless regular season game?
Speaking with The Reaper can be an impossible task, especially when you’re only nine years old, and every thought racing through your head can only be answered with time and wisdom—two things that every boy who’s yet to finish the fifth grade is relatively short on. There is an inescapable feeling attached to never-pleasant mortal awakenings that causes you to feel like you’re speaking to your conscience and being spoken to at the same time. When Death comes knocking, your inner monologue is hijacked, and your thoughts are not your own. The world has more to say to you than you have to say to it.
“Hey bud, you doing alright?” my dad asked me after the top of the first. His question cut through the voices in my mind like a knife.
“Yeah I’m great, just happy to be at a game,” I said, lying, but too scared to speak with my parents about what was really racing through my head.
Look at that runner standing on second base. What a shame he won’t be there forever.
Wow, what an incredible home run. Too bad it means nothing in the lens of the extermination of the universe.
I wonder who will win the 2012 World Series. It sucks that they won’t even be able to raise a banner.
It wasn’t until the third inning that the Orioles roared back, eventually taking a 9-7 lead; a score that would hold until the sixth when the most mid-2000s combination of names—Curtis Granderson, Placido Polanco, Gary Sheffield, Magglio Ordonez, Miguel Cabrera, and Matt Joyce—gained retribution, claiming a 10-9 lead for Detroit and allowing the still-young but just-as-timeless Fernando Rodney to hold it in long relief.
I wonder how many people in this stadium are also thinking about their death, I thought to myself. There were 31,525 people in the building. Surely at least one besides me was worried about their expiration date. Maybe not the apocalypse, specifically, but at least their own death, right?
My brain couldn’t begin to comprehend such a massive turning point. Admittedly, it still can’t. And even when I start to think I’ve rounded the corner on one massive life event, the world throws me another curveball.
Remember that nasty thing you said 13 years ago?
What the hell made you think you’d be worthy of love?
You know the universe is going to get ripped into a black hole in one billion years, right? What’s your plan for that?
What’s hardest is when these realizations come in the dead of winter, and there’s no baseball to soften the blow. Instead, you’re forced to wade through the 4 p.m. sunset and hope the NBA can fill the void on a weeknight, and the NFL can do its due diligence on a Sunday afternoon. They never do.
In the 9th, it was Ramon Hernandez—most famous for his walk-off squeeze bunt in game one of the 2003 ALDS—who tied the game one last time with a solo home run. One inning later, Luke Scott sent a homer into the stratosphere. For a moment, my mind was clear. There was only baseball, and there was only Luke Scott; who in all likelihood, would live forever.
The Orioles have only come back from a six-run deficit 50 times in their history. For reference, the team has played over 19,000 games since its inception in 1901. July 19, 2008, against the Tigers remains the only game since 1948 in which the Orioles gave up six runs in the first inning and recorded a victory.
The Tigers and Orioles both walked away from the midseason contest with identical records of 48-49. Neither team would sniff the postseason, as they both finished the year in last place in their respective divisions, but for a fleeting night, there was equilibrium in the baseball world, and by extension, the universe. As powerful as Mayan prophecies may have been, they had no jurisdiction in Camden Yards.
Like almost every human, I think of my own mortality more as I get older. I’ve admittedly thought of it extensively in recent months, especially as my family’s team, the Mets, made a run to the National League Championship Series last season.
I think of my parents and their Mets’ fandom, and how many more shots at seeing a World Series title they might have in their lifetime. I think of the Orioles fans who witnessed one of the greatest regular season comebacks in franchise history alongside me that night. I think about the ones who survived the Mayan Apocalypse, but still passed on without seeing their team win it all. My heart breaks for fans of the 18 MLB franchises who haven’t won a World Series since that night 2008. It shatters for fans of the five teams who have never won at all.
But even without the feeling of peak elation of a championship, baseball can still provide comfort to the mind in times of disquiet. When Luke Scott parked an 0-1 pitch onto Eutaw Street, giving the Orioles an extremely meaningful win in a seemingly meaningless game, all was okay in the city of Baltimore. All was likely okay in Chichén Itzá and the surrounding remnants of the Mayan Empire, where the people there had used up 5,122 of their 5,126 allotted years. Today, they’re miraculously on year 5,139.
Because as sure as Luke Scott would round the bases and touch home, the sun would rise on Dec. 22, 2012—the day after the end of all things. And we’d all be there to see it.
“The Orioles game at the end of the world” was the winner of the Jackie Mitchell Creative Nonfiction Prize.
Michael Kelly IV is a lifelong baseball fan and writer from New York who has published nearly 3,000 articles in his career. His hometown Mets have broken his heart more times than he can count, but that’s okay. Life would be so much more heartbreaking without the annual promise of another chance at a World Series.
Elliot Lin is a college student who spends their free time musing about sports and how they shape or reflect identity. You can find their other baseball-related illustrations here, on Twitter, Tumblr, and Instagram.
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