When Baseball is More Than a Game

From time to time, we are reminded that baseball, like all sports, is more than just a game.  Sports can take a hold of person, fans and players alike, and rule their emotions.  We have all experienced, at some point, the pure, overwhelming joy of seeing your team win and the heavy, pressing sadness that comes after a hard loss.  Typically, these emotions are fleeting.  Over time, the feelings subside and you get back to the daily routine of simply being a fan.  

For some, however, the investment in one particular team is greater than even the most impassioned fan can understand.  Such appears to be be the case with Orioles pitching star and Cy Young winner Mike Flanagan.  The circumstances surrounding his suicide are surely more complicated than we know right now.  But the thought that it had anything at all to do with being “despondent over what he considered a false perception from a community he loved of his role in the team's prolonged failure” is heartbreaking.  Many of those close to the Orioles great, including ESPN’s Tim Kirkjian in a piece that made me laugh through the tears, agreed that Flanny seemed different in recent years--more subdued and introspective, less jokey.  He took responsibility, after years in the front office, broadcast booth, and as the O’s pitching coach, for the steady downward trajectory of the once-great Orioles franchise since the late 90s.

Sometimes it’s important, for all of us, to take a step back.  I would never say that baseball is just a game.  Or football.  Or any other sport.  They can all be so much more than that to those that truly love them.  The devastating loss of a man who gave so much to the game and cared so deeply about his team, whatever the cause, reminds me to take a step back and appreciate all the the game has given to me.  Remember that success, and failure, comes in cycles.  Remember to be grateful for being part of something larger and longer lasting than ourselves.  Yes, the Orioles are in a down time now.  But they won’t always be.  And it’s people like Adam Jones, who always walks down to take a look at Camden Yards after returning from a road trip, that keep the honor and tradition of a great franchise alive through those dark times, knowing that someday, someway, they will be back.

P.S.  Peter Angelos, get the hell out of there already.  It’s time.